VICTOR DAVIS HANSON – THE WORLD JANUARY 20, 2017
NATIONAL REVIEWTHE WORLD ON JANUARY 20, 2017by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON March 14, 2017@VDHANSONRed-blue tensions at home, mounting dangers abroad. MostAmericans are worried about our domestic crises. Obamaleft office after doubling the debt to $20 trillion. Near-zerointerest rates over eight years have impoverished an entiregeneration of seniors — and yet remain key to servicing thecosts of such reckless borrowing. Over the last eight years,GDP never grew at 3 percent annually, the first time we’veseen such low growth since the Hoover administration.
Obamacare spiked health-care premiums and deductibleswhile restricting access and reducing patient choices. Racialpolitics are at a nadir and make one nostalgic for theenvironment before 2009. Red-blue tensions are at an all-time high, and suddenly there is talk of 1860s-likeConfederate nullification of federal laws. It’s now the normfor prominent commentators to call for the murder, forcedremoval, or resignation of the current president. A NewYork Times columnist asked the IRS to commit a felony bysending him Trump’s tax returns, and then he boasts byproviding his own address. The Democratic party is nearlyruined, reduced to a shrill coastal party animated not by anagenda but by unhinged hatred of Donald Trump and a newreligion of race, class, and gender politics. Given all that, wesometimes forget the dire situation abroad — or ratherignore that our indecision and misdirection reflect internal chaos and looming fiscal crises. The ramifications ofsetting faux-redlines, the reset with Russia, and then thereset of reset, radical defense cuts, and nonstopcontextualization of and apology for past American behavior — all of which in part grew out of cultural warsat home or were connected to economic uncertainty — haveled to a volatile world. Here are the challenges Obama leftbehind: 1) The Obama radical reset with Putin, followed byabout-face hostility to Russia, followed by near hystericalcharges of collusion with the Trump campaign have maderelations with the world’s second-largest nuclear powermore dangerous than at any time since the height of the ColdWar. Russia has received signals that it would face noconsequences for its behavior, then that there might beconsequences in theory but not in fact, and finally that itwent from being a friend to an existential enemy withoutmuch pause in between. It will be both necessary and nearlyimpossible to normalize relations with Putin.PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE