In less than five minutes, conservative commentator and historian Victor Davis Hanson masterfully summarized the Left’s revolution to transform America and President Donald Trump’s counter-revolution, which he refers to as the “Trump Restoration,” aimed at returning the U.S. to normalcy. Elon Musk posted the brief—but potent—clip on X on Friday morning and it’s already received nearly 11 million views.
VDH opened his analysis by comparing the eight years under former President Barack Obama and “the four-year, more radical third term of Obama using or employing the waxen effigy of Joe Biden” to the French Revolution under the Robespierre brothers. He describes it as “a cultural, economic, political, social revolution.”
He recalled that Robespierre changed the days of the week, renamed landmarks, tore down statues, and went after the churches—then asked if that sounded familiar.
Speaking on the Left’s revolution, he said, “We invented a third gender and rammed it down people’s throats. We tore down statues. We said 1776 was no longer the foundational date. It was 1619. We changed the very mechanism of how we vote.” He cited the explosion in early and mail-in voting that began in 2020—a “radical change” that happened with “no discussion.”
He continued, “We destroyed girls sports” by allowing biological men to participate, noting that transgendered females have won over 600 medals. “We had drag shows among young children.”
“It was an effort to change the entire Constitution.” He recalled that Democrats tried to grant statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. to gain four new Democratic senators. They “proudly” spoke of packing the Supreme Court.
He added that Democrats sought to revive neo-Confederate nullification, a reference to the more than 600 Southern jurisdictions that declared federal law did not apply to them in the lead-up to the Civil War. Instead, they pledged to adhere solely to state laws.
VDH explained that the Democrats’ sharp left turn “was a revolutionary movement. Movies were different. Sports were different. Take a knee.”
“So, Donald Trump came in and it was not sufficient to say we’re going to stop the madness.” He needed to take drastic actions to rein in our nearly $37 trillion national debt, remove DEI from the military entirely, restore America’s loss of stature on the world stage after Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from Kabul, and stop appeasing China.
VDH made it clear that Trump has started a counter-revolution. He is reversing the enormous damage inflicted on the U.S. by the far-Left fringe of the Democratic Party, much of it over the past four years. To that end, DOGE is combing through the finances of our federal agencies to identify and eliminate waste, criminals are being held accountable for their actions, and people who entered the country illegally are being deported.
He concluded, “So, we’re in the midst of a counter-revolution. It’s not [a] revolution. You know what it is? It’s a return to normalcy. It’s a return to common sense. It’s only looks revolutionary to revolutionaries. But to the rest of the people, it is a counter-revolution to restore normalcy, and bring the country from the far-Left fringes back home again.”
As always, VDH nailed it.
Perhaps out of fear of sounding hyperbolic, many Americans downplay what we’ve lived through as a country over the past decade. Although the revolution began under Obama, the initial changes —such as filling the Department of Justice and other federal agencies with as many Leftists as possible— were nearly imperceptible to the average American. But, after Trump’s surprising victory in 2016, the gloves came off. Democrats no longer even tried to conceal their agenda. Obama’s stated objective on the 2008 campaign trail – the fundamental transformation of the U.S. – became increasingly clear.
By the time “the waxen effigy of Joe Biden” took office, Democrats began to move even faster toward their goal. By the end of his presidency, the majority of Americans understood that our nation had radically changed.
Now Trump faces the Herculean task of righting the ship. While some of his methods may appear draconian, desperate times call for desperate measures. And we need to trust him to “bring the country from the far-Left fringes back home again,” as VDH so brilliantly put it.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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