Democrats Are Terrified Trump’s Policies Are Going to Work

Victor Davis Hanson – Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. There’s been a lot of media hysteria, some ambiguous and some negative polls. We have talked about that before, that they seem to be not so disinterested as we might imagine. It’s in line with previous prejudicial polls. But here’s the main course of action that we’re all looking at.

It’s 100 days and we’re right in the middle of everything. And yet, people are already talking about President Donald Trump as if he’s failed or there’s an obituary. Nothing could be further from the truth. Don’t listen to the libertarian right or the “Never Trump” right or the hard left. What’s happening is we’re watching the most dramatic counterrevolution in our history.

This is more fundamentally changing than even the Reagan revolution that rebooted the American economy and won the Cold War. And it’s even more—I don’t know—more fundamentally transformative than the Roosevelt first 100 days when he took the country hard left with the New Deal.

And what do I mean by that? Everything is in play and we have no idea how it’s gonna happen—it’s going to turn out or what will happen. But it could be what Donald Trump called “a golden age.”

Let’s look at foreign policy very quickly. Iran is not the Iran of 2015-16 when former President Barack Obama did the deal. It’s not even the Iran that we got out of the deal under Trump’s first administration. This is Iran that has no air defenses to speak of. Anytime the United States or Israel wants to penetrate the air shield of Iran, it can.

There is no Hezbollah as we knew it. There is no Hamas as we knew it. The Houthis have been completely neutered. We spent a billion dollars but Trump hit them with almost everything we’ve had. The Red Sea is opening up to navigation.

And so, my point is that if Donald Trump wants to cut a deal, it will be on terms that get rid of the nuclear program. And if they do not want to get rid of the nuclear program, they have no more surrogates. There’s no Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And these other terrorist appendages that I just said are defunct.

So he’ll either get a nuclear deal or he’ll either outsource to Israel or we will take out that nuclear threat that Iran may possess. So there’s going to be, one way or another, a solution to the Iran problem.

In Ukraine, we’re beyond give them whatever it takes, whatever it takes. The Joe Biden strategy of—it’s a non-strategy—just feed that Stalingrad carnage house.

From liberal to conservative have already outlined the parameters of a ceasefire and peace. A DMC. A commercial corridor. Institutionalized Crimea and Donbas in the possession of Russian President Vladimir Putin, unfortunately, which he took those two territories in 2014. No NATO membership for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but a lot of arms so that he can deter Putin and probably EU membership. If that piece is settled, Donald Trump will soar.

Former President Joe Biden allowed that war to break out because he did not arm Ukraine in an offensive way, in the way that Trump had. The Afghanistan pullout lost his deterrence. And then he had a non-strategy. And we had something worse than Stalingrad in World War II.

Back home, we are on a renaissance of foreign investment, $4 or $5 trillion. Our tech lords are building huge factories. All that’s gonna kick in very soon.

In addition to that, we’re on an energy renaissance. There is no prohibition about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or Keystone. Whatever we want to do, in terms of natural gas, nuclear, clean coal, oil production—it’s gonna happen. And it’s going to lower energy prices. And it’s gonna be very important for Europe. And that’s gonna change our strategic relationship when we start in full mode supplying them with liquid natural gas and maybe even oil.

When we look at the universities, there’s gonna be a fundamental change in the universities, whether they like it or not. There may be a tax on their endowment. There may be some conditions on student loans—this $1.6 trillion student loan program that’s in shambles. They’re gonna have to get rid of DEI and trying to avoid the Supreme Court decisions. They’ve taken so many billions of dollars and not told us about it from China. I could go on. But there’s gonna be fundamental reform of the university that’ll be positive.

And most importantly, and finally, there’s about five or six entities with whom we run the trade deficit that account in aggregate for about 90% of the $1.2 trillion that we are in deficit. And if Donald Trump gets a deal—and I think there’s a 50-50 chance in the next month he will—with the EU, with Canada, with Mexico, with the ASEAN or the Southeast Asian nations, with Germany, part of the EU, with South Korea—there’s not a lot of them.

And once one deal starts to unfold, the others will follow. And because the fundamental economic indicators of job growth, inflation, corporate profits, energy prices are sound, there’ll be a little bit of disruption as we reboot with these trade deals. But they’re going to do two things: They’re gonna bring in a lot of foreign investment of these countries that wanna avoid another trade war, and they’ll find it’s—I don’t know—useful. And there’s efficacy in putting plants in the United States. That’s already happening. And more importantly, we will not be sending out $1.2 trillion.

What am I getting at? All of the hysteria I think is prompted or fueled by—I’ll say it—I think it’s fueled by fear. I really think they have no alternative to addressing the debt, the budget deficit, the trade deficit. And there’s only one pathway.

And whether you like Donald Trump or not, or you think he’s crude, he is embracing policies that in bygone days both Democrats and Republicans saw was the solution. And the Democrats are terrified that it is not only the viable solution, but it’s gonna work.

SF Source Daily Signal May 2025