The Real-Life Epic of Donald Trump

Victor Davis Hanson has a new book out profiling the president, now undeniably a towering figure of history.

Terry Scambray | September 12, 2026

Odysseus endured many diversions and overcame mighty obstacles on his mythical return home.  Likewise, Donald Trump’s return from political exile has the makings of myth — except in Donald Trump’s case, the myth is true.

In The Counter Revolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement, Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, historian, and farmer, devotes his many gifts to explaining Donald Trump and his efforts to rescue America from the anti-constitutional, counter-productive nostrums of progressivism and the barbarous hand of Marxism.

As with Ronald Reagan, the media saw Trump as a political amateur — or to use a Trumpism, “fake news” portrayed him as such, one writer describing his famous ride down the escalator in Trump Tower as a slow descent into the “abyss of politics.”

However, as Hanson writes, and it’s worth quoting at length,

Trump had originally made his money by making things — and he was constantly battling to do it.  In the real estate jungle of Manhattan, that meant fighting year after year, with suspect politicos, self-interested community activists, passive-aggressive tabloid media, radical environmentalists, unyielding union bosses, unpredictable prosecutors and judges, ruthless business rivals, cutthroat regulators, and no-nonsense bankers. ...Advertisement if (window.publir_show_ads) { document.write(''); } He was known for having sued more people and companies and in turn being sued by them — 3,500 cases in federal and state courts, with 1,900 as plaintiff and 1,450 as defendant — than any other prominent Manhattan businessman.

Trump had originally made his money by making things — and he was constantly battling to do it.  In the real estate jungle of Manhattan, that meant fighting year after year, with suspect politicos, self-interested community activists, passive-aggressive tabloid media, radical environmentalists, unyielding union bosses, unpredictable prosecutors and judges, ruthless business rivals, cutthroat regulators, and no-nonsense bankers. ...

He was known for having sued more people and companies and in turn being sued by them — 3,500 cases in federal and state courts, with 1,900 as plaintiff and 1,450 as defendant — than any other prominent Manhattan businessman.

Though many see Trump as overbearingly narcissistic, his confidence signals his belief that, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”

“From........

© American Thinker