The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: President Trump Is Undoing a Destructive Revolution 50 Years in the Making

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Today’s revolutionary movement to subvert America’s integral values has been 50 years in the making, and President Trump is the first true counter-revolutionary challenging the Left’s narrative.   Unlike the Bushes, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, Trump is signing legislation and implementing policies to end the revolution, from classrooms to the military to the border.   “He’s the first authentic counter-revolutionary since Andrew Jackson,” says Hanson.   Who would’ve thought America first policies could solve most of the country’s problems? Visit http://www.JoinADF.com/HANSON or text HANSON to 83848 and for a limited time your first gift to ADF will be DOUBLED by a special matching grant—while funds last. 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. Gregus believes in the art of living in choosing the pleasurable over the practical. It's why we craft our premium vodka in France using pure spring water from Jensack, and why you hear the celebratory pub of our quirk reminding us to make every Martini cocktail count. So, go on and make every moment. count because there's no better time than now. Greygoose make time wait.

Cip responsibly. Whether we realize it or not, we've been in a progressive revolutionary cycle for about 50 years. It was anti-American, it was anti-Western, and it glorified other modes of civilization, socialism, communism, anarchism. The Republican and conservative movement

had just tried to slow it down, and then came to Hong Kong. He was a true counter-revolutionary. He's trying to undo the entire half-century progressive project within four years. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for The Daily Signal. I'd like to speak today about revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. Whether we realize it or not, we've been in a progressive revolutionary cycle for about 50 years. And by that I mean there has been the effort of most of the Democratic Party and now the radical elements to accelerate that efforts as emblemized by the Democratic Socialists to take control of government, expand it, redistribute income so that many people in blue states especially are paying over 10% of their income in addition to 38% of their federal.

federal tax or two or three percent in Obamacare tax and other add-ons. And it's not very difficult to pay 50 percent of your income or more for the taxpayer who's salaried without much right-offs. And the welfare state, which has distributed over $20 trillion since this started under the Great Society, is getting bigger and bigger, at least until Donald Trump. And this progressive revolution doesn't believe in borders. It has led in, we have now 53 million people that were not born in the United States. And in California, it's over a quarter of the population.

It's all-time high and percentage-wise, 16% foreign-born. They don't have confidence that you, the people, will buy into the progressive project. And so they want to import a demographic that is poor and needy on the, idea that they will be constituents that will trade their votes for subsidies. And we saw that with the Somali community in Minnesota, and we've seen it with other communities here in California. And so the progressive project has given us a real revolution. We never imagined that there were going to be more than two genders or sexes. We never imagine that they would try to normalize biological men taking over women's sports or dressing.

among young teenage girls. We never imagined that. We never imagined that prosecutors would let out career felons who had committed violent acts the same day they were arrested. We didn't know we were going to empty the prisons because we felt that penal punishment was too mean. We never really felt that our only real democratic country and an ally in the Middle East Israel,

we would try to disassociate ourselves and we would try to romanize ourselves, romanticized terrorists like Hamas. But what I'm getting out, this was the progressive project. It was anti-American. It was anti-Western. And it glorified other modes of civilization, so to speak. Socialism, communism, anarchism.

And it was very critical of the very society who had enriched most Americans. And I say most, the middle class of America is the largest middle class in the world and the most affluent, and are poor or better off than most middle class and upper middle class in other places. It's important to remember that there has not been a counter-revolution. So what was the, Ronald Reagan was the first and really last Republican president that had an economic counter-revolution. It was quite successful.

He lowered the tax rate. He deregulated the economy, and by 1983-4, he was. was growing the economy at 7% GDP growth. And then, of course, that was watered down in subsequent years. But the two bushes, candidates like John McCain, Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, their agenda was to slow down, slow down the revolution, but not to try to overturn it. What do I mean by slow down? Kind of advise Hollywood that they didn't have to be so anti-American and have movies

that's talked about race, class, and gender ad nauseum, try to tell professional sports not to be weaponized, try to tell K through 12, calm it down a little bit. We don't need sex education in the first grade, and there's nothing wrong with a teacher occasionally giving a prayer that she inadvertently forgot that was illegal. Calm down. You don't need to send the FBI to school board meetings, that kind of thing. We don't need to take the knee at sports and ridicule the Star-Spangled Banner. So this revolution had infiltrated K-12, the corporate boardroom, the universities especially, the media, the foundations, popular culture.

But the Republican and conservative movement had just tried to slow it down. And then came Donald Trump. And he was not, he's surely not a revolutionary. We were in the middle of a revolution. but he was not a tremor either. He was a true counter-revolutionary. The first term, he was not familiar with Washington. He made appointments with people who did not agree with him,

not just they did not agree with his methodology, but they didn't agree with his counter-revolutionary agenda. But it was still in places working. And what was the result? The result was COVID and the COVID lockdown, and it was aborted. The second time he came around, he tried to, finish the counter-revolution. So he pretty much demolished the subsidies for green energy and re-emphasize oil and gas production, and we became the greatest producer of oil and gas in the

history of civilization. He sort of said, we're not going to regulate AI and robotics, eggs, cryptocurrency, genetic engineering, drone. We're not going to legislate them out of business. We're not going to have antitrust and complete investigations of all these people. We're going to promote it. We're going to promote these new innovations and new technologies, and lo and behold, we're ahead of the Chinese and almost all of them now. He didn't just say, I am worried about the military. It may be that DEI has discouraged a particular demographic that over generation after generation has provided the largest percentage of our combat units, namely white males. He did away with DEI. And what was the result? All of a sudden, we have met all of our recruitment figures.

He didn't just say, well, the border's been open. I know that we've let in 10 million people over four years. I know that 10,000 were coming a day under Biden. I understand that. So maybe I'll say no more catch and release. Or maybe you have to apply for refugee status in, say, Mexico before you come. No, no. He said, I'm going to finish the wall. I'm not going to let anybody stop me. This time there's going to be a wall. And we are going to deport people. We're going to deport a million people in my first year. And we're going to make. make sure a million other self-deport, and we're going to go after 500,000 with criminal records. He didn't just say, I am very worried about Latin America.

Under Obama and under Biden, we saw a wave of left-wing governments, and the Panama Canal is in danger. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves, really, in the Western hemisphere, if not the world, and they are exporting convicts and drugs to United States. He didn't just say that. He went down there and basically threatened Panama that we would take over the canal unless they honored our Panama Canal Treaty and expelled the Chinese from trying to control the entry

and exits of the canal. He said to Maduro, you better stop because you're exporting terror and communism and bullying your neighbors. He didn't, and he extradited him and ended that threat. And now as we look at Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, El Salvador, Dominican Republic.

I could go on. They're mostly center-right. So he staged a strong counter-revolution by reinforcing the Monroe Doctrine that had been rejected by the left. And he made South America and Central America now a free market for the most part society that's pro-American. With some notable exceptions, for example, in Nicaragua, a beleaguered. Daniel Ortega and a beleaguered castroite government in Cuba that are both now for the first time in years isolated In addition to that he made our allies stronger. He used unorthodox methods He was a proverbial

cow gunslinger who came in to help the townspeople who were ossified and couldn't deal with the robber barons or the cattle barons or the outlaws And then he cleaned up the town and then they got tired of him because of his methodology and rhetoric but nonetheless he said to our allies, we're not going to be a NATO unless you're real NATO members. You're not NATO members. You're not arming yourself. You're not abiding by your commitments. Same held true to Canada. And lo and behold, now we have much stronger allies and the alliance is stronger than ever. What am I getting at? Donald Trump is not a revolutionary. He's a counter-revolutionary. And what is he trying to do? He's trying to undo the entire half-suffer. century progressive project within four years. That's an impossible task. And yet he's trying to do it.

He's the first authentic counter-revolutionary since Andrew Jackson. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. Colorado is added again trying to silence free speech. A state law forces businesses to refer to some customers with inaccurate pronouns, even if using them, would violate the business owners, religious beliefs, or conscience. That's a violation of free speech. But as Colorado has proven, time and again, it has little concern for the First Amendment. Alliance defending freedom is challenging the law on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a sports apparel company, but a court recently ruled against them. With ADF's help, they've appealed, and they'll continue fighting to ensure Colorado doesn't get away with this attempt to skirt the first

Amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country, and for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled by a special matching grant, while funds last. Text Hanson, H-A-N-S-O-N to 83-848, or go to join ADF.com slash Hanson to have your gift doubled. 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 victorhansan.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.