The Graveyard of Destructive Ideas: Victor Davis Hanson, By James Reed
Victor Davis Hanson, a prominent conservative historian, military scholar, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (as well as a distinguished fellow at the Center for American Greatness), published this opinion essay on February 24, 2026. It critiques what he sees as a recurring pattern of Left-leaning "destructive ideas" or bouts of "collective madness" that rapidly rise from elite origins to become institutionalised policy — only to eventually collapse under the weight of reality.
Core Thesis
Hanson argues that harmful progressive ideologies follow a predictable lifecycle:
1.They originate in elite academia as novel, grant-attracting theories framed as existential crises.
2.Media, celebrities, Hollywood, and institutions amplify them, demanding conformity ("follow the science," "trust the experts") while demonising dissenters as bigots, racists, or conspiracy theorists.
3.Liberal funding and activism manufacture apparent public support through protests and new "victim" classes.
4.Politicians and officials misread this as grassroots demand and codify the ideas into law and policy, often against majority opinion.
5.Once entrenched, they ignore contradictions and evidence.
6.Finally, "reality intrudes" via painful consequences (economic fallout, crime, data exposing falsehoods), leading to their rapid decline into the "graveyard of forgotten collective lunacies."
He notes that this process has accelerated in recent years — from fringe idea to enforced dogma in just a few years — but that public awakening through "pain, discomfort, poverty, and death" eventually halts it.
Key Examples of "Destructive Ideas" Now Heading to the Graveyard
Hanson highlights several ideas he claims dominated discourse and policy in recent years (particularly under the Biden administration) but began "shrivelling up" abruptly in 2025/2026 due to real-world failures:
Climate change extremism — Warnings of a doomed planet, calls to phase out fossil fuels, subsidise electric vehicles, shut nuclear plants, and build high-speed rail boondoggles. Contradictions include thriving polar bears, wet California years, China's ongoing coal expansion, and elite hypocrisy (e.g., private jets).
Transgender ideology and youth transitions — Reframing rare gender dysphoria as a widespread civil rights emergency requiring hormonal treatments, surgeries, preferred pronouns (e.g., "ze/hir"), gender-neutral facilities, drag shows in schools/libraries/military, and biological men in women's sports/locker rooms. He notes a shift from 1 in 10,000–30,000 cases historically to claims of 30% of youth considering transition.
Open borders and mass illegal immigration — Ignoring public opposition (e.g., 70% support for secure borders/deportations), portraying ICE as Gestapo-like, and downplaying crimes by illegal immigrants.
Defund the police / systemic racism narratives — Claims of police hunting minorities, dropping merit-based SATs as "racist," critical race theory in institutions, and releasing criminals in blue cities. Data allegedly shows no racial disparity in unarmed police shootings and exposes issues like BLM embezzlement.
COVID-era policies — Extreme lockdowns, mask mandates, suppression of lab-leak theories or vaccine scepticism, and gain-of-function research ties.
He suggests that by 2025, these "manias" collapsed as evidence mounted (e.g., vaccine side effects, border crime waves, economic pain from Green policies), leading to reversals like reinstating merit-based standards and border enforcement.
Tone and Perspective
The piece has a sharply conservative, somewhat satirical tone — bemused at elite "groupthink" and "lemmings' mad dash over the cliff," yet optimistic about the public's eventual rejection of these ideas through hard lessons. Hanson frames them as self-destructive Western follies, contrasting them with rational governance.
Broader Context and Development
The essay reflects a post-2024/2025 conservative narrative of vindication following political shifts (implied Trump-era corrections to Biden policies). It has quickly circulated in conservative circles, appearing on sites like RealClearPolitics, Free Republic, Lucianne, and X, often shared with excerpts emphasizing the 2025 "shrivelling." No major mainstream rebuttals appear yet, but it fits Hanson's longstanding critique of progressive overreach in culture, policy, and institutions. Hence this blog needs to note it.
In essence, Hanson portrays recent history as a cautionary tale: destructive ideas flourish when insulated from reality and dissent, but they inevitably fail — and the public pays the price until they do, and then even after.
https://amgreatness.com/2026/02/24/the-graveyard-of-destructive-ideas/
