Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about insurrection chic. By that I mean this phenomenon of the Democrats in particular, and maybe the Left in general, it’s talking about ways of undermining the jurisdiction of our own federal government.

I don’t know what their model is. Is it Jefferson Davis, who ordered South Carolina State Troops to fire on the federal fort at Fort Sumter in 1861 that ushered in the Civil War? Or maybe it’s George Wallace, huh? Standing in the doorstep of the University of Alabama, saying, “We’re not going to, here in Alabama, obey state law on segregation and racial discrimination.”

Or maybe, did you ever see the movie “Seven Days in May” (1964) about an officer, General Scott? I think he was played by Burt Lancaster. And he said, basically, we’re going to nullify the presidential directives and not abide by a treaty of the federal government—try to, essentially, overthrow the government.

This is very ironic because the Left lectured us on insurrection, insurrection, insurrection, even though special counsel Jack Smith never charged President Donald Trump with insurrection. But what’s going on now is quite scary. And it’s not new.

In the first term, we had a number of four-star retired admirals and generals who violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It said even retired flag officers were subject to the statute that says you shall not disparage the president of the United States. Yet, they called him Mussolini. They said that he was analogous to the people at Auschwitz, he was a liar.

We had one officer who said, the sooner the better, Trump should be removed. We have elections for that. We don’t talk like that. We had two lieutenant colonels that said they bragged that the 101st Airborne would beat the Secret Service and force Donald Trump to get out of the White House. It’s pretty awful.

Now, lately, it’s getting very scary. We’ve had—the mayor of New York says that federal law essentially doesn’t exist in the city of New York. When he takes over, it’s international law. And that he will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under diplomatic protection, as a foreign dignitary visiting the U.N. What’s he going to do? Order the NYPD to stop the Secret Service that may be protecting Netanyahu when he arrives as a guest?

We had Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago say that he was not going to obey federal law. In fact, he was going to oppose it. That wasn’t just—I don’t know—theoretical because when Immigration and Customs Enforcement was trapped, a convoy of ICE agents were trapped, the Chicago area police force did not come to their aid, by explicit orders not to.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass said that city officials are conspiring, working to tip off illegal aliens against the efforts of the federal government, to stop them.

In California, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who had called the president of the United States the most vile creature in the world, the worst creature in the world, a vile creature, and who tore up the State of the Union address on national TV, she said that state law enforcement might arrest federal officials who were enforcing the immigration statutes. What? Would that be a shoot-out? Or what would that be? It’s getting very, very scary.

And then, most recently, we had a number of Democratic Congress people and senators say in a video that they were addressing soldiers, and they said, you have the right to disobey an order, if it’s unlawful. They never gave one example of any order, of any order, that Donald Trump or any member of the administration or any senior officer had issued anyone that was deemed illegal. What was the point of that? What was the point of telling 1.3 million soldiers that are now on active duty that you have the right to disobey a superior’s order?

Did they quote Article 90 and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice? No. It outlines specifically the very, very, very, very rare conditions under which a soldier can say, “What you ordered me is unlawful.” And you know what they are. They’re things like using violence in an improper way against another person or desertion. But there’s no example that they can give. None at all.

We have 600 jurisdictions in which blue cities and states say that the federal law no longer applies in their jurisdiction. That’s sort of neo-Confederate nullification that’s prompted the Civil War. And you know, when Jefferson Davis, when he ordered South Carolina troops to fire on Fort Sumter, all he was doing was saying that the federal government is at war with the state. That’s what our mayors are doing in these blue jurisdictions.

Do they believe that that is a principle that they would extend to everybody? No. If a county in Utah said, “We’re conservative, we don’t believe in the”—I don’t know—“the Endangered Species Act. We’re not gonna stop construction for a newt.” Would they say, “That’s fine, you can nullify federal law”? No, they wouldn’t.

If somebody in Montana said, “I don’t like federal gun registration, it just hampers the people in our county. It doesn’t apply here,” would the Left say, “Yes. That’s what we do with immigration. Congratulations”? No.

So, what’s going on? Why are they nullifying federal law? Why are they advising protesters in Portland how to avoid arrests by federal authorities?

Why are they telling people in all of these blue jurisdictions that they will appeal to a higher authority, the United Nations? Mayor Johnson says he’ll call in the U.N., the Commission on Human Rights. Is he going to abide by that commission that in the past has had members like, I don’t know, Communist China, North Korea, Iran?

Is that who he thinks have a higher authority than the Constitution? Does he understand the president of the United States was elected by a majority of the population who voted?

So, this is getting very, very scary. And why are they doing it? The Left has no power in the legislative, executive, or judicial branch of government. Their agenda is one that most people do not want. And they want to create as much Teslas. In the past, that has included firebombing Tesla dealerships. That has involved street protests that turned violent against ICE. That has involved social media celebrating assassins and violence.

And now it’s the nullification of federal laws that, in the Constitution, take precedent over local and state laws, when federal officers are trying to protect federal property, as they are now, and enforce federal statutes, as they are now. In other words, the Left is neo-Confederate and insurrectionary. And it should stop before we get into 1861, again.

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