The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Democrats Can’t Defend Their Record, So They Want to Change the Rules

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Left-wing candidates across the country are refusing to run on their actual records because they know the American people reject their failed policies.  Instead of offering a positive agenda, they rely entirely on personal attacks against Donald Trump and a desperate scheme to rig the system, like court packing and redrawing congressional maps in states like Virginia, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com 👉Protect women’s sports from biological reality denial at JoinADF.com/HANSON or Text HANSON to 83848 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, where we provide intelligence for the intelligent. Now, without further ado, here's today's take. As an advocate of truth, you know that women shouldn't have to share locker rooms with men. Women shouldn't have to compete against male athletes. And they shouldn't be punished for speaking the truth. But across America, that's exactly what's happening. men are being allowed to compete in women's sports robbing girls of scholarships, medals, titles, and safety. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has heard two cases, West Virginia versus BPJ and Little v. Haycox.

That happened on January 13th that could decide the future of women's sports nationwide. This could be a watershed moment in the fight to protect biological reality and fairness. Alliance defending freedom needs your voice to take. visit join adf.com slash hanson or text hanson to 83848 to add your name to their declaration and side with truth and fairness that's join adf.com slash hanson or text hanson to 8348 what starts in women's sports spreads to schools medicine and parental rights this is our moment to push back stand with alliance defending freedom them today. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hansen for the Daily Signal. The midterm elections are about five months away, and we're having here in California

hotly contested governor's race, and of course everybody's heard about the mayor's race. They all have something in common if we examine them. There is no democratic agenda, there's no antithetical agenda to the Republicans. What I'm getting at is if you watch the debate. debates between Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass, and Councilman Rahman. None of them run on their records as incumbents. Karen Bass does not say, I solve the homeless problem, and here's how I did it. She's not saying, I've stopped crime, and here's how I did it. I have solved and rebuilt Pacific Palisades after the fire, and here's how I did it. And here's my new fire prevention plan.

here's my new water plan so we don't have empty, none of it. And when you see Councilman Rahmama, she doesn't either. She doesn't offer it. All it is is personal invective against Spencer Pratt. When you look at the governor's race in California, you have two Republicans in this jungle primary, Chad Bianco, the sheriff from Southern California, and Steve Hilton, Northern California entrepreneur who's running.

They're both conservative. But they're up against a whole array. of Democratic candidates. So if you look at what Javier Becerra says, Kathleen Porter says, Tom Steyer says, there's no agenda. They don't say, I want to continue Gavin Newsom's program. High-speed rail has been a great success. I know we've had some controversies, but I want to finish it, and I can come up with the $250 billion to do it. We should be proud that we have the most illegal aliens in the country. Gavin Newsom allotted $500 million to illegal alien medical care. I'd like to boost that and improve on it. We have a very sophisticated penal system.

I know crime is high, but when you treat criminals humanitarianly in a humane way, crime goes down. So when Governor Newsom, which I second, allowed iPads for people in prison, to use and maybe some of them abused them a little bit. That's a good idea and I'll build on it. And we have half the homeless people in the country because they like our weather and we're humane people. We've got to improve on that. We have the highest gas prices, but that means less pollution. And we have the highest taxes. That's share of the wealth. And we're going to tax accumulated wealth of billionaires. Why not? They compare it, pay their fair share. But they don't defend the record in any specificity.

None of them do. And none of them do in the Democratic Party on these congressional elections. They never say that we had a president. What happened? We had Joe Biden. And we had a very orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was a model operation. Or why do we need a border?

Joe Biden showed you that we could let in 10,000 people. a day, 10 million over four years. Nothing was wrong with that. We had a few criminals here and there, but it was a very humane policy, and we want to open that border, tear down that wall, and resume the Biden immigration policy. Now, as far as crime, why would we want to be punitive? Some people, you know, they commit violent crimes, but they have to come up with cash to get out of jail. We got rid of cash bail because society is guilty, not that. the criminal. We should understand that by now. And you know, before

Trump came in, we had DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. And what it was is that we took into account in a preferential manner, your race, superficial appearance, your ethnic background, your sexuality, your

gender, etc. And that was a wonderful thing because the country had been founded why white males, the founding fathers were all white males and 95% were white males and you know how bad the country is now so why don't we kind of reverse the process and let other people have preferences to make up for systemic bias and racism so we want more DEI that's our what's what we're going to do if you elect us now there's been a lot of attack on government doge etc but whatever you say about the fraud in minnesota

or the fraud in California or the fraud in Chicago, notice that a lot of the people who are allegedly committing it are people of color. So this is a right-wing racist campaign. But more importantly, even if it wasn't DEI, what is so wrong with taking government money from wealthy people, taxing it, and then spreading it around? Do we really care if somebody is on electric banking transfer

or food stamp card? And he has two or three of them? He's in need. He's not a billionaire like Ken Griffith. Here's what I'm getting at. They don't take the Biden record or the Obama record and defend it. They don't give specific antidotes to the Republicans so that they can win. So what do they do?

When you listen to these debates, you look at these congressional races, they say the following. Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. We are not Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a Nazi. No, he's a fascist. no, he's an Epstein molester, no, he's a pedophile, no, he's a rapist, no, he's a terrorist. That's about all they have, and to the degree they do get specific, they call people fascist and Nazis. Why did they do that?

They do that because they know the agenda was not popular with the American people. And so their agenda is not going to be defended, and they know that Donald Trump is a counter-revolutionary, he's doing things shaking up the United States that we haven't seen in 100 years, and that offends a lot of entrenched interest. And so they think by just saying Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, fascist, fascist Nazi, they can get that message across. More importantly, they do one other thing, one other thing in these elections. They talk about changing the system, not working within it when they're out of power.

When they lose power, the left, they say the system, not us, lost our power. So if we get back in power, we're going to start lawfare again, just like the five civil and criminal cases that went after Donald Trump. You know what else we're going to do? We're going to pack the court. We're going to get 15 justices to nullify the 169, since 1869 justice court. We're going to get rid of the electoral college through the National Voter Compact. We're going to let in Puerto Rico. We're going to let in D.C. as states, we're going to get four senators as well. We're going to get rid of the 200-year, 180 to 200-year Senate filibuster.

That's what they talk about. They talk about changing the system because within the system they're not successful. So we have not heard agendas that are positive that counter the Republican agenda. This is not the party of JFK or Bill Clinton. This is something very different. This is a revolutionary socialist agenda that wants to change fundamental. fundamentally the United States. It's what Barack Obama said he wanted to do, but he didn't yet have the power to do so. And now they want to reify that radical socialist agenda. And the only way they can do it is by demonizing other people and calling them names or changing the system.

Otherwise, they'd have to have a positive agenda, and that would be equivalent with defeat. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson, the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.