Why would any Democrat accept strategic advice from Victor Davis Hanson, a commentator whose political proclivities are no secret? His lionizing of The Cryptofascist in Chief has been unflagging and he in no wise wishes the left well. Perhaps his motive, should his favored result not materialize, is to mitigate the damage by pushing the Democratic ticket rightward. It’s political advice worthy of a Never Trumper, which Mr. Hanson is not. It’s also an absurdity. The Richmond Times-Dispatch didn’t print my response.
Victor Davis Hanson, “As in 1944, the Democratic Running Mate Seems Pivotal,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 1 May 2020, A15 (https://richmond.com/opinion/columnists/victor-davis-hanson-column-as-in-1944-democratic-running-mate-selection-seems-pivotal/article_d169b479-9ee6-594f-920e-3d591b694eef.html).
Victor Davis Hanson’s feigning of concern for the impact of Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick upon his electoral prospects conceals neither Hanson’s defective drawing of historical analogies nor his continuing demonization any politician a scintilla left of center. No rational Democrat should accept political counsel from an apologist for President Trump. A far better historical parallel for the current moment is not the 1944 election, when Henry Wallace gave way to Harry Truman as FDR’s running mate, but the 1932 election that brought Roosevelt to power.
Mired in the Great Depression, a disillusioned electorate faced a stark choice: A GOP candidate, whatever his virtues, who subscribed to an outmoded philosophy of governance providing the people no succor and who implied that putting on a happy face would somehow dissipate the crisis, versus an empathetic Roosevelt, who pledged to move the levers of power to alleviate misery.
Hanson, moreover, breeds confusion through misleading political labeling. He has long equated “social democracy” with “socialism” and “socialism” in turn with “communism,” despite their manifest differences. He now tosses “progressivism” into his nomenclature cauldron to concoct a verbal witches’ brew intended to frighten political naifs.
What concerns fuel Hanson’s historical and political misapprehensions? Has the coronavirus too tellingly stripped bare fissures in the American social compact and vindicated the progressive social critique? Is the so-called Overton window – the spectrum of acceptable political discourse – opening too widely to be readily slammed shut again? Might a progressive running mate prove the Democratic Party the big tent it purports itself to be and further endanger the president’s electoral fortunes? Could it be the that the voters will not recoil from a progressive but embrace one? Hanson’s motives aside, the anointing of a milquetoast centrist will serve neither the Democratic Party’s nor the nation’s interest at this juncture.
As the spring 2020 semester lurched toward its online denouement, it was difficult not to think about the world that year’s graduating class would be confronting. The coronavirus, despite Donald the Obfuscator’s assurances, was not going away, the economy was in freefall, and uncertainty reigned. The closest recent analogue to these students’ circumstance was the class of 2009, the group whose prospects had been buffeted by the Great Recession. The class of 2020 faced a highly contagious, deadly disease and a depression-level economic dislocation. Nothing like that had ever happened to me; however, my grandparents had endured the Great Depression and there was perhaps a lesson to be had from their – especially my grandfather’s – experience.
I wrote a brief essay. It’s the most personal item on the blog. It was too long for an editorial, so the question was where to send it or even whether to send it. I contacted the editor of The (Elizabethtown) News Enterprise and give him right of first refusal since the essay dealt with someone from the region. Radio silence ensued, so I withdrew it and sent it to Style Weekly. I should have gone there first. Style Weekly is Richmond’s alternative newspaper. It is a boon to the city that it survives online and especially in print when so many, like The Boston Phoenix and The Providence Phoenix, have folded. It’s been staple reading for me since The Better Half and I settled here.
“Lessons in Sacrifice,” Style Weekly, 20 May 2020, 11 (www.styleweekly.com/richmond/lessons-in-sacrifice/Content?oid=16027130).