On this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler examine how the Left put forth the “waxen effigy” of former President Joe Biden, then used the autopen to enact its radical policies. Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.  Jack Fowler: Well, Victor, since we’re talking about fake things, let’s talk about the autopen, which was used by Joe Biden in thousands of ways to free people, criminals, hardcore criminals, murderers, dirt bags, etc. We’ve heard a lot about this for the last year, and [President] Donald Trump put out a statement the other day and I’d like to get your comments on it. Here’s what he wrote on Truth Social: Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the auto pen, which was approximately 92% of them is hereby terminated and no further force or effect. The autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the president of the United States. The radical left lunatics, circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the presidency away from him. I’m hereby canceling all executive orders and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden because the people who operated the autopen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the autopen process, and if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Victor Davis Hanson: That raises a lot of issues. No. 1, I don’t know how you post facto, go back and undo things that he did. I mean, I don’t know why he pardoned Hunter Biden, [former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, I think [Dr. Anthony] Fauci. Are all of those invalid, and if so, who adjudicates that? What if they say, “No, he’s pardon me”? So, they’re all going to have to go through the courts. When Trump says things like “Sleepy Joe Biden” and all of this, people, they kind of roll their eyes and [think], “There goes Trump.” But actually, he’s responding to something that is quite egregious. We’ve never had it in American history. We came close with Woodrow Wilson and Edith Wilson covering up his stroke for over a year. But we never really had a president that at some point, I think, in the campaign of 2020, there were two decisions made. One, that the Democratic Party was going to lose, according to the polls, if they nominated an Elizabeth Warren, a Cory Booker, a Bernie Sanders, a Pete Buttigieg, etc. And two, given that Joe Biden was the only viable candidate, they were going to use him as a moderate veneer and sell him to the American people as a return to normalcy. That is, we would start remembering what Joe Biden said in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Remember when he talked about a jungle and crime, and his poor mother was endangered, and he was against illegal immigration. So, they passed that nonexistent Joe Biden as a waxen effigy. Then they used him, and they perpetrated the most radical agenda, I think more radical than the New Deal. They destroyed the border. They destroyed jurisprudence as we know it. They weaponized all the [Justice Department], the FBI, the CIA. They destroyed deterrence abroad. They sort of begged Iran to get back in the Iran deal. The Kabul pullout was the worst military disaster in the last 50 years. It empowered [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to go into [Ukraine]. I could go on. So, Trump has a point, and the question is, they knew he was incompetent, non compos mentis. He was not in control of his faculties. And then they had another agenda and that was to get particular green, DEI, ESG, radical initiatives into the Cabinet and the institutions that had no public support. And they put them on the desk, and they used the autopen and to the degree Joe Biden knew about it, and I don’t think he even did. There’s no way that he can ever under oath identify any of those things in detail. Just no way it’s going to happen. So, then the question is, are they going to call in the people who did it and what will they say? “Well, I talked to Biden.” Well, do you have documents? “No.” And then people will say “To what degree does Trump”—as do all presidents—“use the autopen?” And he’ll have to explain that he has done it on his direction, or he has an executive order, or he has a written chief of staff order, or somebody is in the room with him. I don’t know. But he’s got a good point is what I’m trying to say. And it sounds crazy, but what was really crazy is what they did. This was the biggest sham perpetrated on the American people in my lifetime. It makes Watergate look like a joke. They had somebody who completely was a zombie and didn’t know where he was or what he was saying, and they used him as a prop to initiate and advance a radical agenda that had it been explicit and open, and people knew what they were going to do about the border or crime or critical race, critical legal theory, or DEI, they would’ve never voted for it. They knew that and that’s why they kicked out all the other nominees. Like dominoes, they quit the primary of 2020. He hadn’t won Nevada, he hadn’t won New Hampshire, he hadn’t won Iowa. And Jim Clyburn and everybody said, “I will deliver the black vote in South Carolina. And we will win, and then we will get them all out. We’ll promise them various things. We’ll promise Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders a socialist agenda. We will promise Pete Buttigieg a cabinet post, etc.” And that’s where we are. And Trump, he’s got a right to be furious, and that he doesn’t speak about it in sober and judicious tones, a lot of people resent that. But compared to what actually happened, his description—as uncouth and crude as it can be—is absolutely spot on. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Victor Davis Hanson: The Autopen and the ‘Waxen Effigy’ President appeared first on The Daily Signal.