The Coup We Never Knew
Victor Davis Hanson Jan 05, 2023
Did someone or something seize control of the United States?
What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it?
Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress
secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an
executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside
in the United States as they pleased?
Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that
the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would
follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion
in debt is no big deal?
When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the
equivalent of dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America's
wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive
electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war
against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, and which votes of the people
declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?
Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court
justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect
their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of
Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John
Roberts, and Clarence Thomas - furious over a court decision on abortion? How
could these mobs so easily throng our justices' homes, with placards declaring
"Off with their d--s"?
Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth?
And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor
stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?
How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a
president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State
of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members
from serving on their assigned congressional committees?
When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign
of a candidate it disliked? Was it legal suddenly for one presidential
candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?
Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males
to compete in female sports? Did Congress enact such a law? Did the Supreme
Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms
with biological women? Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they
had championed?
When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their
freedom during a pandemic? In America can health officials simply cancel rental
contracts or declare loan payments in suspension? How could it become illegal
for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during quarantine but not so
for Walmart or Target?
Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would
not cast their ballots on Election Day? Was this revolutionary change the
subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of
dozens of state legislatures?
What happened to Election Night returns? Did the fact that
Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take
so much longer to tabulate the votes?
When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, and
assault is not a felony? How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods,
without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?
Was there ever a national debate about the terrifying flight from
Afghanistan? Who planned it and why?
What happened to the once-trusted FBI? Why almost overnight did
its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted
tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs? Did Congress pass a law that
our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie with impunity under oath?
Who redefined our military and with whose consent? Who proclaimed
that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could call his Chinese Communist
counterpart to warn him that America's president was supposedly unstable? Was
it always true that retired generals routinely labeled their commander-in-chief
as a near Nazi, a Mussolini, an adherent of the tools of Auschwitz?
Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could
discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race? How did it
become physically dangerous to speak the truth on campus? Whose idea was it to
reboot racial segregation and bias as "theme houses," "safe
spaces," and "diversity"? How did that happen in America?
How did a virus cancel the Constitution? Did the lockdowns rob us
of our sanity? Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?
We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no
longer recognize, and from a coup, we never knew.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for
American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, and the author of "The Second World Wars: How the
First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won," from Basic Books. You can reach
him by emailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
