(Daily Signal)—Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We’re about—getting close to 90 days and even coming up close, in a week, 10 days, to the first 100 days of the Trump administration and this counterrevolution that he’s waging.
I thought it might be wise just to see where we are as far as the political landscape and the dynamics of the progress of this counterrevolution. What is President Donald Trump trying to do? I think I would sum it up as flooding the zone. And that is, he’s going to try to propose and enact so many radical corrections or revolutions or reforms or recalibrations that his opposition doesn’t know where to start.
So, abroad, he is looking at the Iran deal and he got rid of it. He put sanctions. He’s got maximum pressure. And now, the Iranian economy is about defunct. And they want to negotiate about this nuclear weapon. I don’t think they’re going to negotiate it away, but we’ll see.
And then, he’s dealing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin and trying to get a ceasefire. He’s basically dealt with the Houthis.
On the domestic front, there is no more illegal immigration. He’s basically stopped it. Now, the task is what to do with the 12 million illegal aliens that came under former President Joe Biden. And what do you do with the 20 million-plus, maybe 30 million that were here already illegally but for a longer period of time?
At the same time, he’s had a blanket mandate that in every Cabinet they will eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion and, by association, things like transsexual, biological males competing in women’s sports.
Women—lowering the physical standards so women could compete and pass these very rigorous endurance physical tests so that they would be in combat units on an equal level. No problem that they can’t. But they have to have the same physical requirements as men.
I could go on, but you see what he is doing. He’s doing so many radical corrections in a way that a Romney or a McCain or the Bushes, even Ronald Reagan would not have dreamed of that he feels the opposition will say, “Well, what do we do? Should we reply here? Do we put our interest here? Should we do this?”
And so, what is the strategy that the Left is using? They’re flooding the zone, too. But they’re doing it not with counterproposals. They don’t say, “This is what’s wrong with closing the border and we wanna reopen it. This is what’s wrong with the Houthis policy. This is what’s wrong with the trade deficit. This is what’s wrong”—no specific proposal.
They’re just flooding it with hysteria, the Spartacus talk, late-night comedy trashing him, another person arrested saying that he wants to kill Donald Trump, keying Teslas, firebombing Tesla agencies, outrageous things from Hollywood stars, videos from Congress. All of a sudden—we didn’t even know who Rep. Jasmine Crockett was. She’s filled that void.
But what I’m saying is they want to be so rambunctious, so crazy, so 360 degrees unhinged that they’ll create an image or a malu—where everybody wants to get almost in a fetal position: “Please, please make it all go away. I don’t know what Trump is doing but it’s so disturbing. Everybody’s so angry.” That is their strategy.
Now, what is Trump’s counterstrategy? His counterstrategy is to actually get people on the other side of the aisle in Congress or in the country at large or in the popular culture and try to at least be friendly to them so then they can say, “I don’t agree with Trump but what he’s doing might be needed.”
So, we have Bill Maher going to Mar-a-Lago and actually saying very nice things about Donald Trump.
On the one hand, we have Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fighting with a bulwark of the Left at one time, fighting with left-wing people who were calling him all sorts of names and saying that he is illiberal.
We had Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. She was in the White House. Can you believe it? She was so embarrassed about a photo-op. She had to almost cover her face.
But you can see what Trump is doing. He’s trying to get people from all sides of the Democratic and liberal progressive movement and not compromise them, but get in the picture, so then the Left will say, “Well, how can we appeal to the public and get them all angry and frenzy and hysterical when some of our major celebrities, our political figures are in Mar-a-Lago?”
Who’s gonna win? We’ll see.
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