Dr. Victor Davis Hanson joined the 2021 Western Conservative Summit to discuss American citizenship, how it is eroding, and what Americans can do to fight back.
The Left has been on a path towards dystopia, but in 2020, suddenly they were reified. Why was that? Our nation experienced the perfect storm. Four very significant and specific events lined up in the order we never expected they could, and now we find ourselves living in a strange land. The first event was the global pandemic. This was the first global pandemic in 102 years. Our generation had never experienced that before. The second event was a national quarantine. Every prior lockdown has been local or regional. This was also a first.
Our nation has also never experienced a self-induced recession. Usually, recessions are the result of printing too much money in exuberance, and a correction that went too far through policy that could end in depression. There has never been a time where everything was shut down, with small businesses suffering the most while large corporations stayed open. The result of that was the greatest equilibrium of a 12 month period in terms of income redistribution.
Fourth, it was an election year. Because of the pandemic, many people in purple states sued in the courts and made administrative bureaucratic fiats and edicts: they change the cut-off date for absentee dates to be mailed in, that early voting would begin anywhere from 20-40 days before the election, and also that improper signatures would not matter.
Perhaps we might have survived one of these things at one time, but all of these at once — with the final asterisk of 120 days of rioting, protests, and looting — our nation has never had a series of civil disobedience of that magnitude that resulted in $2 billion in damages, 25 people killed, and 14,000 people arrested and thus resulted in a climate of crisis.
While we are seeing signs of dystopia, we must fight for a renewal of citizenship. We need to support colleges that continue to teach the principles and practices of liberty. We must support policies that recognize the distinction between citizens and non-citizens and that bolster the middle class. And we need to defend the Constitution, our last great hope to ensure American continuity and security.
