Victor Davis Hanson, The Epoch Times May 18-24 OPINION...

[OU Chinaman]

..."Americans are now entering uncharted territory. They may witness things over the next 5 months that once would have seemed unimaginable.
Until the Ukrainian conflict, we had never witnessed a major land war inside Europe directly involving a nuclear power.
In desperation, Russia's impaired and unhinged leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin, now talks trash about the likelihood of nuclear war. A 79 year-old U.S. President Joe Biden bellows back that his war-losing nuclear adversary is a murderer, a war criminal, and a butcher who should be removed from power.
After a year of politicizing the U.S. military and its self-induced catastrophe in Afghanistan, America has LOST deterrence abroad. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are conniving on how best to exploit this rare window of global military opportunity
The traditional bedrocks of the American system--a stable economy, energy independence, vast surpluses of food, hallowed universities, a professional judiciary, law enforcement, and a credible criminal justice system--are dissolving.
Gas and diesel prices are hitting historic levels. Inflation is at a 40 year high. New cars and homes are unaffordable. The necessary remedy of high interest and tight money will be almost as bad as the disease of hyperinflation.
There is no southern border.
Expect more than 1 million foreign nationals to swarm into the United States THIS SUMMER without audit, COVID testing or vaccination. None will have any worry of consequence for breaking U.S. immigration law.

...

The American people reject the calamitous policies of 2021-2022. Yet the radical cadres surrounding a cognitively inert Biden still push them through by executive orders, bureaucratic directives, and deliberate cabinet nonperformance.
So as the public pushes back, expect at the ground level more doxxing, cancel culture, deplatforming, ministries of disinformation, swarming the private homes of officials they target for bullying, and LIKELY violent demonstrations in our streets this summer.
Meanwhile, left-wing elites will do their best to ignore Suprem Court decisions, ilegally cancel student loans, and LIKELY more COVID lockdowns. They will still dream of packing the Court, ending the filibuster, scrapping the Electoral College, adding more states, and flooding the November balloting with hundreds of millions more dollars of dark money from Silicon Valley.

When revolutionaries undermine the system, earn the antipathy of the people, and face looming disaster at the polls, it is then that they prove the most dangerous--AS WE SHALL SEE OVER THE NEXT FEW MONTHS.

(emphasis, underlining, capitalization are my own)

VDH is a brilliant commentator. I left out half of this great column. It's worth a read!

[claireokc]

I loved this interview mostly because of the down-to-Earth analysis that no one else seems to be bringing to the table. The particular idea is that Russia doesn't have to conquer Ukraine, it merely has to destroy it - all its infrastructure and then leave it to gradually be assimilated into Russia, and of course, it no longer becomes a threat and can't even get enough $$$ to rebuild its infrastructure.

This certainly has to go through the CCP like a hot knife through butter when dealing with Taiwan. I mean why go to the expense of conquering the island when all they really need to do is destroy the infrastructure so that the island can not function.