Victor Davis Hanson Just Got Big News From NYT Bestseller List

Victor Davis Hanson‘s new book, “The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement,” is debuting at No. 1 on The New York Times’ bestseller list.

The Times’ list, which has faced criticism for an anti-conservative bias, provides a snapshot of book sales data. “The Counterrevolution,” which Basic Books published Sept. 8, was already a top seller on Amazon, the world’s largest bookseller.

>>> DONATE NOW: Support Victor Davis Hanson’s Work and Receive a Copy of “The Counterrevolution”

Hanson is a senior contributor to the Daily Signal, providing commentary and analysis throughout the week in 10-minute videos on YouTube. He also hosts a long-form podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” four times per week.

“The Counterrevolution” follows several other successful books from Hanson, including recent titles such as “The Case for Trump,” “The End of Everything” and “The Dying Citizen.” The renowned historian, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has written more than two dozen books on topics ranging from ancient Greece to World War II.

Impetus for ‘The Counterrevolution’

Hanson spoke with me about his latest book, which argues that Trump’s years in the political and legal wilderness shaped the aggressive agenda of his second term. Watch or listen to the full interview on the Daily Signal’s new show, “Midterm Report.”

Hanson said he chose the title deliberately. A counterrevolution, he explained, is not an attempt to turn back the clock.

“It doesn’t mean that you’re a reactionary and you want to go back to a place before the revolution,” Hanson said. “It just means that you want to preserve the traditions, the protocols, the customs and the values.”

The revolution Trump is countering, Hanson argued, was a 60-year leftward march through the nation’s institutions, including the media, K-12 education, universities, corporate boardrooms, Hollywood, and foundations. He says that march accelerated under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Trump’s first term addressed only the symptoms, Hanson said, in part because he surrounded himself with advisers who didn’t share his agenda. After Trump left office in 2021, he and his allies regrouped.

“When nobody thought he existed politically anymore after Jan. 6, they created a different type of agenda: ‘We’re going to wage a full-scale counterrevolution if we ever get back,'” Hanson said.

That effort now ranges from deportations of illegal aliens to taxing university endowments to ending federal funding for NPR and PBS.

“It was a holistic 360, 24/7 effort to say they’re not in control. They have an agenda that nobody really likes,” Hanson said. “They only get power through institutional control or changing the demography or changing the ballot laws. So we’re going to address how they get that power and try to strip it away.”

From Rock Bottom to Comeback

The first part of “The Counterrevolution” chronicles how far Trump fell. He was banned from Facebook and Twitter, faced four criminal cases and a civil suit, and at one point trailed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 20 points in some Republican primary polls.

“I don’t know how he did it, because he was already in his 70s,” Hanson said. “No one had ever had more pressure.”

“Nobody that I can think of has had such vituperation,” he added.

Yet the attacks seemed to help more than hurt, Hanson said. He pointed to Trump’s mug shot, which he said resonated with voters, especially in minority communities, who felt they had been treated the same way.

Hanson credited Trump’s resilience, the failures of the Biden administration, and a weak Democrat opponent for the turnaround. He called then-Vice President Kamala Harris “the most inept Democratic candidate I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”

“Biden was bad, but if they had run Josh Shapiro or some centrist, Trump would have been in trouble,” Hanson said. “But she was a gift that kept on giving.”

Comparing Reagan and Trump

Hanson compared Trump with President Ronald Reagan, whom he noted was also reviled when he took office. Reagan broke with a Republican establishment that, in Hanson’s words, “wanted to lose nobly rather than to win ugly.” But Reagan relied on persuasion, and when he left office, the GOP establishment reverted to form.

“He didn’t form a party around him to continue that,” Hanson said.

Trump, by contrast, fused elements of the Tea Party and earlier populist movements into MAGA, with himself as its leader.

“I don’t think in our time we’ve ever seen anybody who is presumptuous enough to say, ‘I’m going to reverse 70 years of liberal drift, and I’m going to try to do it while waging a cultural war against all these institutions,'” Hanson said.

Trump’s Appeal

Hanson said Trump’s 2024 gains among Hispanic and Black voters, particularly men, came down to two things.

“What he did was he emphasized class and not race,” Hanson said. “And the other thing he did, he never apologized. He never took back anything.”

Hanson cited Trump’s support from 56% of Hispanic men and 24% of Black men.

“Donald Trump appealed to people on the basis of class and natural affinities rather than cooked-up racial solidarity,” he said.

With Trump off the ballot in November, Hanson doesn’t like Republicans’ odds of holding the House. He noted that the party in the White House historically loses ground in midterm elections.

“It’s a 70-30 proposition they’re going to lose the House,” he said. “I think it’s 50-50 on the Senate.”

He said Republicans can improve their odds by driving home the administration’s record and contrasting it with the Democrats’ leftward shift.

A MAGA Future

Looking ahead, Hanson is optimistic that Trump’s hold on the Republican Party will outlast his presidency, regardless of what happens in November.

“I don’t think you’re going to see the next person, a George H.W. Bush, following Reagan,” Hanson said. “It will be somebody that’s a MAGA adherent.”

Whether that successor is Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or an outsider like DeSantis, Hanson said, “the methodology is going to be Trumpian.”

He cautioned, however, that Republican leaders, including Vance, who leads early 2028 polling, will eventually have to confront antisemitism and extremism from some voices on the right.

“Nobody wants to talk about it because it’s difficult,” Hanson said. “But sometimes difficult choices define your character.”

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