Victor Davis Hanson: If You Think Trump Is a ‘King,’ Just Look in the Mirror

Oct 28, 2025

Victor Davis Hanson delves into the idea of political kingship by comparing Donald Trump's electoral wins to Joe Biden's unconventional rise as a nominee. He argues that insiders propped up Biden despite his initial campaign struggles, likening this to monarchic maneuvers. The discussion also touches on Trump's legal challenges, suggesting that the use of lawfare is a tactic akin to royal oppression. Hanson critiques the left's defiance of federal laws and claims that current leaders exhibit behaviors reminiscent of historical monarchs.

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INSIGHT

Election Versus Appointment

Victor Davis Hanson argues that Donald Trump is not a monarch because he ran for election three times and won twice, including the 2024 popular vote and swing states.
Hanson contrasts this with Joe Biden's 2020 nomination, which he says was engineered by insiders and run from the basement like a royal veneer.

INSIGHT

Lawfare Cuts Both Ways

Hanson claims monarchs use lawfare and targets political enemies through the judiciary.
He notes Trump did not pursue Hillary Clinton or Obama, yet faced 91 indictments across jurisdictions.

INSIGHT

Accusations Of State Coordination

Hanson alleges coordination between prosecutors and the Biden White House in prosecutions of Trump.
He accuses Biden-era officials of surveilling senators and manipulating media platforms to suppress stories.

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Who’s more of a “king”: Donald Trump, who ran for election three times, won the popular vote, the Electoral College, and all the swing states in 2024, or Joe Biden, who was appointed by Democratic Party elites in 2020 to be the nominee after losing the first three primaries and remained sequestered to his basement for the remainder of the campaign?
Monarchs conduct lawfare. For all his talk in 2016 about “locking her up,” President Donald Trump did not direct his administration to investigate Hillary Clinton, however, Trump “had 91 indictments filed by federal, local, and state prosecutors in cahoots,” points out Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

“Joe Biden, in 2020, had lost the first three caucuses or primaries. He was going nowhere. And then a group of insiders, politicos, donors, the media panicked because they knew that to nominate a Elizabeth Warren, a Pete Buttigieg, especially a Bernie Sanders, would destroy the Democratic ticket.

“So, they cooked up this idea that Joe Biden from Scranton—even though they knew he was already cognitively challenged—could be a veneer, a wax effigy. And then they did not allow him to campaign because we know what happens when he campaigns, as we saw in 2024.

“He sat in the basement under the pretext of COVID. He outsourced his campaign like a royal monarch to his underlings in the media. They got him elected. And then he, more or less, abdicated while on the job and let the hard Left, in this quid pro quo arrangement, run the country.”
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