Bias and Balderdash: Accents, Gifts, Refugees and Islamofascism

Summary

The Victor Davis Hanson Show: Episode Summary

Title: Bias and Balderdash: Accents, Gifts, Refugees and Islamofascism
Host/Authors: Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler
Release Date: May 15, 2025

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1. Introduction and Episode Overview

The episode delves into a range of pressing topics including political biases, the intricacies of accent discrimination, international gifts to U.S. administrations, refugee policies, and the rising concerns around Islamo-fascism. Host Jack Fowler and Victor Davis Hanson engage in a candid conversation, enriched with personal anecdotes, historical references, and critical analysis of current events.

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2. John Fetterman and Democratic Party Dynamics

Discussion Highlights:

• John Fetterman's Health and Political Impact:
  Victor analyzes John Fetterman's political trajectory, addressing his health issues, including a severe stroke during the primaries, and how it influenced his standing within the Democratic Party. He compares Fetterman's cognitive decline favorably to Joe Biden’s condition during his race, emphasizing Fetterman's potential for recovery due to his youth.

  “An accurate diagnosis would be that he was in more severe cognitive decline than was Joe Biden during that race.” [03:40]

• Democratic Hypocrisy and Party Strategy:
  Victor criticizes the Democratic Party's strategy of supporting candidates until they become liabilities, likening it to Soviet-era tactics of labeling former allies as insane. He suggests that once Fetterman's views diverged from the party line, he became a target for primary challenges.

  “They mask it by saying they're the party of democracy. They're not. They're the party of the inside cabal.” [09:11]

• Polls and Voter Sentiment:
  Jack references polls showing Governor Josh Shapiro’s high approval among Democrats compared to Fetterman’s lower ratings, reinforcing the argument that the party is moving away from candidates who represent mainstream Democratic views.

  “Josh Shapiro, Governor, the Democrat Governor, I think 82% approval rating and I'm pretty sure Fetterman's is under 50%.” [08:00]

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3. Accent Bias and Institutional Discrimination

Discussion Highlights:

• Accent Bias Training at the University of Edinburgh:
  Jack brings up the University of Edinburgh’s initiative to combat accent bias, which Victor critiques by highlighting the deep-rooted class distinctions in British society based on accent.

  “British linguists are brilliant, they can listen to a person for one minute and tell you within a 50 mile radius where they were and probably within income level.” [16:31]

• Personal Experiences with Accent Discrimination:
  Victor shares his experiences with accent bias in the U.S., recounting an incident where a linguist accurately identified his Fresno County origins despite his efforts to mask his accent.

  “I said, 'I'm from Cowell College.' He said, 'It's not C A L.'” [17:43]

• Impact on Immigrant Communities:
  The conversation extends to how accent bias affects immigrants, particularly Indian and African communities in Britain, where adopting the Queen’s English is seen as essential for success.

  “They're sitting at the top of the little, the cone of the top of the pyramid, top capstone. And they're looking down at all of us and they're saying, see these stupid, ugly, dumb people, they think they should eat meat. That's for us. We need the protein, we need the taste we need.” [19:41]

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4. Qatar’s Gifted Air Force Plane to Donald Trump

Discussion Highlights:

• Details of the Gift:
  Jack discusses the controversial $400 million transfer of a new Air Force One from Qatar to Donald Trump, raising concerns about the Emoluments Clause and foreign influence.

  “The left is exaggerated. But you do not want to get a gift from a foreign government to the US Government.” [21:00]

• Strategic Implications:
  Victor explains Qatar’s strategic positioning in the Middle East, its alliance with Western powers, and how the gifted plane serves both U.S. military needs and diplomatic interests.

  “It's a billion dollar gift to the US Military.” [21:00]

• Potential Misuse and Legislative Concerns:
  The hosts debate the future of the plane post-presidency, discussing possible scenarios like transferring it to the Trump Foundation or repurposing it for government use, while highlighting the political backlash from the left.

  “Use it and then when it's no longer needed, give it to the President for his private use after he leaves office.” [21:00]

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5. Appliance Regulations and Freedom Day

Discussion Highlights:

• Trump’s Appliance Freedom Day:
  Jack introduces the topic of recent executive orders by Donald Trump aimed at deregulating household appliance standards, rolling back Biden-era energy efficiency measures.

  “He issued a new executive order. He is from the Washington Free Beacon as part of the Department of Energy sweeping action unveiled Monday.” [55:27]

• Impact on Consumers:
  Victor shares personal anecdotes about the decline in appliance longevity and increased complexity due to government regulations, emphasizing the negative consumer impact.

  “But I live in California. So when I go on Amazon to order things about a quarter of my can't get, I can't get a gas, any gas engine will not I can't buy a chainsaw, I can't buy a blower.” [58:08]

• Market Solutions vs. Regulation:
  The discussion critiques the government's inability to let the market determine appliance standards, arguing that regulations have led to shorter product lifespans and increased costs.

  “They just can't let the market adjudicate.” [58:07]

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6. Rising Islamo-Fascism and Terrorism in Europe

Discussion Highlights:

• Increase in Terrorist Activities:
  Jack brings up the surge in terrorist attacks in Europe, attributing them to Islamo-fascist ideologies and criticizing the media for downplaying these threats.

  “Elon Musk on X posted the other day, he owns it. He can do whatever he wants. We're going to see widespread slaughter in Europe.” [59:30]

• Victor’s Perspective on Assimilation and Threats:
  Victor asserts that many immigrants from Islamic countries do not intend to assimilate into American society and could pose significant security threats if not properly vetted.

  “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. We have thousands of people who have come over here on visas.” [59:30]

• Policy Recommendations:
  He advocates for stricter immigration controls, emphasizing that entry into the U.S. should be viewed as a privilege rather than a right, and supports revoking visas for individuals who pose security risks.

  “It's a privilege to come to the United States. You don't have to.” [59:30]

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7. Listener Comments and Personal Anecdotes

Highlights:

• Homeschooling and Educational Impact:
  Listeners express appreciation for Victor’s educational content, with comments highlighting the value of his knowledge in homeschooling and personal growth.

  “I'm going to start working Professor Hanson's lectures into my homeschool classes. This man's knowledge is incredibly valuable.” [73:26]

• Personal Stories of Discrimination:
  Victor shares personal experiences of facing racial discrimination and prejudice, reflecting on his encounters with anti-indigenous sentiments and academic biases.

  “She thought just because I was a white person, that I was an interloper.” [49:35]

• Humorous and Heartwarming Feedback:
  A listener remarks on Victor’s approachable demeanor, noting how his voice and presence positively influence even the youngest members of their audience.

  “When she sees your face, she smiles and waves her arms. Lillian is a superb judge.” [75:10]

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8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode wraps up with Jack and Victor reflecting on the challenges faced by modern America, emphasizing the need for political and social reforms to address biases, regulate influences, and counteract emerging threats. They encourage listeners to engage critically with the topics discussed and remain vigilant against divisive ideologies.

“They have a lot of fat that they can cut. But they're going to lose this battle, and I don't want them to lose.” [75:15]

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “An accurate diagnosis would be that he was in more severe cognitive decline than was Joe Biden during that race.” – Victor Davis Hanson [03:40]

• “They mask it by saying they're the party of democracy. They're not. They're the party of the inside cabal.” – Victor Davis Hanson [09:11]

• “For discrimination purposes but border still Hadrian's Wall that they I guess so isn't.” – Victor Davis Hanson [16:08]

• “It's a billion dollar gift to the US Military.” – Victor Davis Hanson [21:00]

• “They just can't let the market adjudicate.” – Victor Davis Hanson [58:07]

• “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.” – Victor Davis Hanson [59:30]

• “I'm going to start working Professor Hanson's lectures into my homeschool classes. This man's knowledge is incredibly valuable.” – Listener [73:26]

• “She thought just because I was a white person, that I was an interloper.” – Victor Davis Hanson [49:35]

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the main discussions, personal insights, and critical viewpoints presented in the episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for both regular listeners and newcomers.

Transcript

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[Jack Fowler]

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Victor Davis Hanson Show. That's Victor taking a drink over there. I'm Jack Fowler. The host, Victor Davis Hansen is the Martin and Eli Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. The Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. We are recording on Tuesday, May 12, early in the morning for me and Cal in Connecticut. Imagine how early it is for Victor out there in sunny California. This episode will be up on May 14, Thursday, May 14. Victor, any number of things to get your take on John Fetterman who's in the bullseye for a lot of people, mostly the Democrat party. Now we have Columbia riots, we have the airplane from Qatar. We have whites from South Africa who are now non persons to the Episcopal Church in America which had a program to resettle people here in the US and you wrote a great piece, Victor, the decivilizing of America. That and other things will oh, appliance, Freedom Day, Donald Trump's executive order on appliances, all that. We'll get to the when we come back from these important messages. We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, I guess, I guess I'd like to start by getting your take on John Fetterman who is in the crosshairs of the Democrat Party. This kind of like a Joe Biden ish. Well, he really had these problems, you know, coming out after the fact. Let's tell the truth after the fact. Staffers who are now hanging him out to dry. He's a complicated character. Victim, Victor, maybe he's a victim also. What's your take on, on the recent news?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

There's two considerations. There's the actual health of him and then there's the hypocrisy which each side accuses the other, but the barometer of which side is accurate depends on the course of his illness. So when he was in the primaries and then in the. He was. He won. And then he had a stroke, a major stroke. So that was evident when he was debating Dr. Oz. He didn't really follow the questions. He did an interview where he was non compos mentis. I think an accurate diagnosis would be that he was in more severe cognitive decline than was Joe Biden during that race. But unlike Joe Biden, he had a potential for recovery because he was still young. And that was a stroke. It wasn't a permanent Alzheimer's dementia. So here was the reaction to that by the Democrats was, he's fine, he's all right. How dare you pick on the elder. You're picking on the handicap. And that was a very effective campaign trope, especially with Dr. Oz, who they said, you're a doctor, you should know better. So he won, squeaked by, you know, one or two points. I think it was three points. So then he started to improve, as everybody knew he would, and they were happy with him. He was their model for the swing state, man of the people, the way he looked, even though he was from a rich family. His dad was an insurance company person. He kind of floated around. He married a left wing, I think Brazilian or Latin American. They loved him. Then came October 7th, and he was not just outraged at Hamas, but he was fanatically pro Israel in the fashion that older Democrats had been, including Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, et cetera. And he even went on top of his house, remember Jack? And he waved flags and he shouted at protesters. So then he met with Donald Trump. He said that although he voted against Pete Hegseth, he could imagine voting for him, put that all together, and that was he was an apostate. So then the narrative changed from he made a fantastic recovery, which made a fantastic recovery, to he was demented and he should be removed. But it was obvious that the grounds for removal were not medical. They were unorthodox left wing views. The Republicans were pretty consistent. They said that when he was debilitated, he shouldn't be senator. And then even though he was left wing. Senator, let's say prior to October 7th, there were no Republicans that said he should be removed because he's demented. In other words, they said, well, he had a bad, a bad primary, excuse me, a bad election against Oz. And then he went in for depression, got treated, but then, you know, we just left him alone. He was just a typical Democrat. He seemed fine. He dressed eccentrically, but he was okay. So they were consistent. And now the Democrats, it's very, I think somebody wrote about that. It's very similar to what the Soviet Union did with Sarkov and others. They would say, you know, they said social nitsen. These people were. They're wonderful people, but they are completely insane now and they have to be hospitalized. That's what the Democratic left does. So they turned on him and they're going to primary him probably.

[Jack Fowler]

You remember the reporter from NBC, a woman, I don't remember her name, but she asked him about. She had the temerity to ask him about his, his health during the campaign and how the rest of the media just beat the crap out of her.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got really angry. And of course AOC hates his guts. The problem that Democrats have with him is you can make the argument that at least in a general election, he better reflects the views of the majority of Pennsylvanians. The $64,000 question is the. Does he reflect a majority view of the Democrats? So he will win a general election against. Unless it's a good Republican, but he will not win a primary if the Pennsylvania Democratic Party is loony. And I don't know if it is or not.

[Jack Fowler]

I think it is. Victor. I saw some poll just by happenstance. Josh Shapiro, Governor, the Democrat Governor, I think 82% approval rating and I'm pretty sure Fetterman's is under 50%. This is among. Among Democrats.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Y. So I think he's going to have. He'll be like. He's like Manchin, Joe Manchin. And he's like Sinema in Arizona. And once they cross that line, the Democratic Party sends out the word to its subordinates. So the media then stops giving them favorable coverage. The media stops giving them softball interviews. The big donor class is ordered not to give them any money. The state Republican caucuses are told not to endorse him. They find a primary candidate and they, they can get rid of them. That's what they do. Yeah. And that just as. Just like they created Joe Biden in 2020. They got rid of Sanders, they got rid of Warren, they got rid of Buttigieg, they coordinated him and then when he was no longer useful, they got rid of Biden. That's what they do.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They mask it by saying they're the party of democracy. They're not. They're the party of the inside cabal.

[Jack Fowler]

I don't see how the. We've talked about this, Victor. You've shared your thoughts. I just don't see at what point they make a U turn, where they hit bottom, where they stop radicalizing and say, this is not working.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They have to be beaten. Remember that after Watergate. So 68 was a very close election. Humphrey was a centrist. Another week, he probably would have. He was closing fast. He probably would have beat Nixon. But then Nixon had a spectacular first term economically and China. And so he. The reaction to the loss of Humphrey was a. This radical McGovern. He was saying, we're going to cut down carrier groups by half. We're going to give everybody a guaranteed income. We're going to slash the defense budget by a third. And that was the beginning of the. I guess you'd call them the neoconservative defection. That was when Norman Port Horowitz and those people started. They didn't really. I don't think they voted for McGovern. They weren't Reaganites yet. Carter was what finished them off. But my point is that party went really left wing. So then they got together and they decided they had to go back to the winning. The winning paradigm. And that was a Southern Democrat, Southern accented person like lbj, who was a liberal, but he's from the south. So people said he's not crazy. So then they went and nominated Jimmy Carter, who won. Then they went back to the failed paradigm. They nominated Mondale, who lost. They nominated the liberal Northeasterner or central Northerner, always will lose because he's a force multiplier of liberalism. And they nominated Mike Dukakis. He kind of ran a stealth campaign, too. He said, it's not about ideology, it's about competence. And he kind of talked like a technocrat. And he lost. Then they got smart and said, 92, we're going to go back to the LBJ Jimmy Carter paradigm. And they doubled down. They got two, two liberals who had Southern accents from the South, Tennessee and Arkansas, Clinton and Gore. And they won the popular. Excuse me, they won the popular vote. They didn't win a majority in either election because of the candidacy of Ross Perot, but they won in 92 and 96. Then they ran another Southerner and he won the Popular vote al Gore in 2000. And then they went back to the old paradigm, John Kerry, northern liberal. And they lost. So then they said, well we can't nominate Southerners anymore because their racist just to win. That's what Jasmine Crockett said the other day. They're going to nominate a bunch of white boys. So they got to get a new paradigm. And the new paradigm was Barack Obama. And then the Republicans helped them out because the Republicans said we're never going to play dirty or win ugly with Lee Atwater tactics. So we're a new party of Marcus of Queensbury rules. And John McCain, if I hear, remember that rally where he was introduced and John McCain is going to, that talk show host said he's going to beat Barack Hussein Obama. And then McCain said something to the effect I don't like that. I think he's Barack Obama. I understand what you're saying, but I'd rather not do it. And then Mitt Romney was, you know, Marcus of Queensbury park and then they lost. They lost, they lost. So that's what each party does. When the Republicans get a fine upstanding gentleman who is a rhino and has no strong conservative beliefs and they think they're going to capture independence. Whatever independence they capture, they lose the base. Eight or 10 million people stay home. And when the Democrats get a northern liberal, they're going to lose. Unless he's got some cachet or he's a rhetorician, black and a rhetorician like Obama. By the way, Obama left office very brilliantly. He was down, he was like 40% approval and then he just turned the show over to Hillary. And Trump played golf, smiled. And the more people didn't see him, the more they liked the idea of him, but they hated the reality of him. He lost a thousand local and state seats. Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

So yeah, Republicans I think controlled more legislatures totally with governors than ever before. Thanks. Thanks to Barack. Hey Victor, I want to address your accent bias that you just, you shared before. But first I want to, I want to let our, our listeners and our viewers know, let's face, face it, our health care system is no longer serving the people it was designed to help. Appointments take weeks only to end in a rushed five minute consultation. Prescriptions are delayed, bureaucratic red tape gets in the way and treatment options are limited to what some agencies deems acceptable. It's inefficient, impersonal and increasingly trustworthy. Untrustworthy. Excuse me. That's why all family pharmacy is different. They believe in medical freedom. Your right to choose what Works best for your health alongside a doctor who respects that choice. No interference from government regulators or insurance companies. Ordering is simple and it's direct. Skip the waiting rooms and the long pharmacy lines. Just go online, place your order and your medications are shipped right to your door. They carry over 200 medications including trusted names like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mebendazole. I think I said it right again. Antibiotics and other essential treatments like that your family may need. You can also order emergency kits, customize your supply or buy in bulk to be fully prepared. Over 100,000Americans have already made the switch to All Family Pharmacy. Perhaps now is the time for you to do the same. Visit allfamilypharmacy.com Victor and use the code, the promotion code Victor10 that's V I C T O R the number one, the number zero to get 10% off your first order. That's allfamilypharmacy.com victor take back control of your health on your terms. And we thank the good people from All Family Pharmacy for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson Show. Victor, I dare to mention accent. I know there are a number of listeners or viewers of this show that have a thing about Bronx accents but you know, to quote Lady Gaga, I was born that way.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Way.

[Jack Fowler]

There's an article and we'll just go through this quickly because there are other big stories to get your take on. The University of Edinburgh, which is one the most woke institutions in the western world has begun training for accent bias training. Here's a piece from Unherd which is a great website so perhaps it comes as no surprise that this institution has become the first in the UK to introduce accent bias training for staff. According to Vice Principal Professor Colm Harmon, the university will embed Scottishness into the curriculum to counter a culture of snobbery and prejudice against students of from north of the border. End quote. I you know I don't know what is is not useful to the left.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

For discrimination purposes but border still Hadrian's Wall that they I guess so isn't.

[Jack Fowler]

It like you can walk over. Can you jump over it?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The thing about England, Great Britain, United Kingdom it is true that its class system is deeply embedded in one way you find out where a person's from and British linguists are brilliant if you have they can listen to a person for one minute and tell you within a 50 mile radius where they were and probably within income level.

[Jack Fowler]

Pygmalion, right?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh yeah, Pygmalion and all my Fair lady and cockney. I guess cockney is at the bottom. And that's why one of the reasons they hate Australians, not just because they were originally a penal colony, but because their accent evolved from the lower classes of England, unlike the Canadians, who were a different type of immigration pattern. There was a linguist when I got to UC Santa Cruz. He was a really good guy and he could spot he was an American linguist. And so I was only 18. I said, you can't tell where I'm from because I have no accent whatsoever. And so he asked me to say about 15 words. And he said, you're from Fresno County?

[Jack Fowler]

Serious?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Wow. I said, how do you know? And he said, it's a mixture of northern European immigrants that came from Scandinavia and England and Ireland, and they have a tinge of the Oklahoma diaspora that changed it. And so I said, how did you know that? He said, I was at C O W E L L College of UC Santa Cowell. And he said, say it. I said, I'm from Cowell College. He said, it's not C A L.

[Jack Fowler]

L. Yeah, one syllable, right?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. You said you one syllableized these. And he was very. But that's nothing compared to how Britain identifies people accent. And you know where you really see it are Indian immigrants into Britain and from Africa. And the degree to which they take instructions on the Queen's English and the accent of the London elite British, they feel that they have much more success in business and government everywhere by their accent. Yeah, it's not just class or race, it's the accent, really. And here in America, we just. All we do is kind of favor a flat, no accented anchor woman or man. But I guess you would say that in what we do is we. We are prejudiced against Southern accents. I feel people are prejudiced against them, especially the Oklahoma, Arkansas diaspora that came out for the free. You know, the land rush from the dispossessed white classes after the Civil War.

[Jack Fowler]

Appalachia also.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, yes, and Appalachia. And then the Mississippi, Louisiana, deep Georgia, Florida, upper. That is okay. And then the Tidewater, you know, North Carolina, Virginia is considered the acceptable Southern accent. I'm talking by the. By the northern establishment snobby's group. And they. I think their epitome is, isn't it Massachusetts or something like that? Connecticut, Massachusetts. Every time I go to Hillsdale and I just got back that area near eastern Michigan and Minnesota was all settled by Scandinavians. And they have that, they have that Fargo accent. You know why? You know what I mean? It's Because Swedish, sweet Swedish has a pitch accent. It's not necessarily a stress accent. It's like Chinese.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, where you change the pitch of your voice to accentuate rather than pause on a syllable a long time. I'm always amazed by people when I go to Minnesota by two things. They're Scandinavians. They sounded like my relatives. And then the second thing, they're not conservative. They're. I thought all the conservative downtrodden that were farming rocks in Sweden came here and then they became.

[Jack Fowler]

Right rock ribbed Republicans.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, they became farmer labor, Communists.

[Jack Fowler]

Hey, Victor, let's get a little, well, let's get a little serious. A topic in the press the last few days and it's creating a lot of heat. The, the plane, the donation of a 400 million dollar plane to Donald Trump. A new Air Force One from Gutter or Qatar, however one might say it there. I was watching Gutfeld last night and we're recording again on Tuesday the 13th. So Monday the 12th then it was a topic. Oh my gosh, it was, it was required genuflection to. Because this was a good, good thing. But why 400 billion million saves the government. But I don't know, it's just uneasy feeling for me. This is such a horrid regime. I wouldn't take water from them in the desert personally. But who cares what I think? What do you think about this, Victor?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It's kind of a complex issue because Qatar, or Qatar, whatever we want to call it, it's positioned in that strategically ideal place for the Middle east and it looks right across the at Iran and it's a very weak, corrupt government, as many of those governments are. But its way of handling tensions is not like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or the Emirates and they tend to be pro European, pro Western. They get the technology and the investment from the West Vice, they sell the oil and then the military, the British and American militaries, to a lesser extent French protect them. And who do they protect them from? Their Shia populations and Iran. But Qatar has a different position, says to everybody in the west, we have Hamas people here that are terrorists. We have a dialogue with Hezbollah, we're pro Iranian and we have this Al Jazeera, hate the west media outlet. But we like you. So what we're going to do is be what they're trying to be is Geneva, Switzerland. Right. The place in the Middle east that you go to do diplomatic deals. Now as far as the plane. So Trump left and he said you get for the 747, I think was 82 or 83 and it's decrepit. They don't make them anymore, so they're kind of rare. And they're the biggest airliner in, you know, it's the biggest airliner except for the new Airbus. And it's ideally suited for the communication and navigation and security equipment necessary for the first family. And it's comfortable and you can bring your whole staff. You've got super sophisticated. And it was old, so the airframe was dangerous. So when Trump left office, he negotiated a deal, bragged about it, got a great deal. Boeing said they would do it in four years. And then two things happened. Number one, Boeing said, ah, we didn't make us. We didn't gouge the government as much as we want, we're just going to slow down. And then Biden thought, those are Trump's planes. I'm not going to green, I'm not going to jawbone them. So they didn't do anything and they just kind of lollygagged around. And then Trump came back and he said, hey, this is the same plane that I used five years ago and it was already 50 years old or 45 years old. I want a new one. And then Boeing, he called Boeing in, he yelled at them and they said, we'll have one after you're out of office. And Trump said, you mean I'm not going to have a safe new airframe that's customized? And he got mad. So then Gutter said, we'll give you one because we have a bunch. We're going to get a new one ourselves. And you took a look at the pictures of it? My gosh, it looked like a carnival. It looked like a Viking cruise ship or something. You know, it was just beautiful. It looked like the Titanic inside. So anyway, problem is gutter does that and gives. Gutter doesn't give anything for free. And so the left didn't say anything. And then they felt that this was a wedge issue. So they made the point that he violated the emoluments clause by accepting in the Constitution a gift from a foreign country. But he had gotten around 90% of that because he said, it's not for me, it's for the U.S. air Force. And it's not permanent. It's just to tide us over with a safe 747 to the, to the other ones come due. So far, mostly good. I would mind everybody that's angry about it. That gutter in the right before the Gulf War built a billion dollar base and they wanted the United States There. And then they announced the United States could have it without even a lease and do whatever it wanted. You could put a B1 there, you could put a B2 there, you could attack another Arab. Just come here so that the Saudis and everybody doesn't push around, push us around for being pro Iranian and the Iranians don't take advantage of us because we're pro Iranian. So we did. It was a billion dollar gift to the US Military. I was very suspicious about that. And then, and then I think right before COVID the United States said, well, you know, we want these two 12,000 foot runways and we want this. And so they did a kind of a ballad, as you know, we, we had redone, but they paid for it. So then the guitarist came in and said, please don't leave. We want to be Geneva, Switzerland, where everybody comes and we can't do it unless you're here to protect us from our neighbors and our friends around. And so we negotiated and they said, we'll spend a billion and a half dollars and make it so nice. Kind of like the plane. And the US Military said, yes. So that was a gift to the US Government. And that was two and a half billion for the original beautiful base. I went there once on the way back. And so anyway, my point is, so far so good. Do presidents ever then after the end of their tenure, do they get the plane? Well, if you go to the Ronald Reagan Museum, you see a 747. But the catch is that while it's valuable as a historical piece and it enhances the library museum, da da da. All of those Southern California installations that honor Reagan, it doesn't work. So then here's where he got in trouble. He said, well, what do we do with it after the gift? And it would have been fine. Nobody would have. The left would have had no ammunition. They would have tried because they'll try anything, but they wouldn't be successful if the Trump administration just modulates a little bit. They said, we love this beautiful plane and it has the same status as the military base that they gave us, and we appreciate that. We're under no obligation diplomatically to favor or to punish them. However, when these two 747s come online, it could be five more years. We will give this plane back to Gutter. And if they say we don't want it, well, it'll be valuable. You can have it. I think there was some people mentioned, well, Victor, why would you do that? Because Gutter will get turned around and give it to Somebody like the Russians or the Chinese, it's valuable. It's a billion dollar plane almost. It's got everything on it. So after we enhance it and they're going to go through it and retrofit it, retrofit it a little bit, make sure it doesn't have any spy devices, beef up the security, it's very valuable. So then the next question was, once Trump uses it for four years and probably the next president will use it for a year or two because these Boeing things are lagging, then what do you do with it? And they said, you can have, the Trump foundation can have it. Well, then I would get out of it the following. I would say the Trump foundation can have it as a museum piece or it could use it for Trump conferences. You know, just park it and have a conference in it. Or you could. But I would not give it to Donald Trump's personal use. And I don't think he would want it anyway. It's so darn expensive to run right compared to a 757. So that's where we are. The left is exaggerated. But you do not want to get a gift from a foreign government to the US Government. Use it and then when it's no longer needed, give it to the President for his private use after he leaves office. It would be good if it was. It's okay to give it to the foundation like Reagan got, but don't use it either. Don't use it yourself or use it for the foundation or have it as a display and he'll have no problem. Unless you feel that we've already violated under the two Bush administrations and the Clinton administration, we violated the emoluments clause by accepting a two and a half billion dollar original gift and retrofit that was given to the US military and therefore affected our attitude to Qatar. But the problem to finish this rant is the university people, the academics that are ranting and raving, they've been gutter and Communist China have given them $60 billion the last 40 years and they have not reported it. There's a big Stanford Review article about Chinese gifting and espionage at Stanford University. They were fined by the first Trump administration Education Department. They had a People's Liberation Army. I think she was a colonel in intelligence posing as a neurophysicist on the faculty of Stanford. Visiting faculty member. So the left can't say anything. They take all the kind of money they can get from hostiles and then they claim that they're not affected by it. And there's no quid pro quo. Right. You know, I've had a lot of people in the past, I have no influence or anything, but I've had people who have come up to me and said things like, do you play golf? No. Oh, well, I'll fly you to my course or. And you can just. I'll teach. We'll have a guy teach you and then just walk with us. Yeah, but there's always something, you know what I mean? There's always a quid pro quo. Do you know this person? Do you know, I want to fast track this foreign national. Can you talk to somebody? As a general rule, anytime someone wants to give you something, there's going to be. In the business context, I have friends that are very generous, but they never ask for a quid pro quo. And I've been generous with my time and stuff for people, and I've never asked for quid pro quo. But when you get into business and very wealthy people and somebody writes you a personal check, I've only had one or two people who've never said do this. You know, if they've wanted to donate to the program. I run the strings attached. It's really weird. You know, I raise a lot of money for Hoover, but usually the people who ask for something in exchange are usually the smallest donors. Yeah, somebody can write a check for $500,000 to the Hoover Institution and never call. You never want anything. And then another person can give you $3,000 for Hoover and they'll say, by the way, I have a friend who has a Rotary Club in Dayton, Ohio. Could you fly out there and speak for free for.

[Jack Fowler]

Nothing wrong with Dayton, Ohio, as a classicist. You.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was just picking up for the day.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, I know. As a classicist.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You know, I think it has a beautiful Air Force Museum. I spent a day there. I spoke at the. Isn't that.

[Jack Fowler]

Isn't there a. That's where they keep the UFOs. Is it in Dayton?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Isn't the University of Dayton a Catholic university? Yeah, yeah, I went. I went there once. I got. I shouldn't say. One, I got snowed in there for.

[Jack Fowler]

Three days and you still came out of it a Protestant.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, my God. Gasket driving to. I. I blew the head casket driving to the. In an old Mazda 626. And two in 2001, going to the Naval Academy.

[Jack Fowler]

How many miles did that car have?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You wouldn't believe it. I. It was only like 31,000 miles. The Mazda 626S in the early part of the century were a piece of junk.

[Jack Fowler]

Junk. Okay.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I just talked to somebody about a Mazda version of the crv, you know.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And they said it's the most beautiful car. It's got a Toyota engine, it runs wonderfully. So they've really upped their game, I guess.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Victor, beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Thank you. We've got a couple of other things to get your opinion on. I guess we're. Maybe we should start off with crickets and then talk about the Episcopal Church and its racial calibration of how it engages in charity. And we will do that when we come back from these important messages. Time is our most precious commodity and we've heard from so many listeners who've asked for advice about how they can spend it wisely to improve themselves and the people around them. Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses. That's right, more than 40 free online courses. Learn about the works of C.S. lewis, the stories in the book of Genesis, the meaning of the US Constitution and the rise and the fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian Church with Hillsdale College's free online courses. You can even take Victor Davis Hanson's class, the Second World Wars. This free seven lecture course will help you to understand this massive and complex conflict in a new way. It will give you a clear picture of why the war was fought and how the allied powers ultimately triumphed in order to save the west from a new form of tyranny. This class is taught by Victor Davis Hanson and Hillsdale's president, Larry P. Arn. The course is self paced so that you can start whenever and wherever. Go right now to Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll for free Hillsdale Edu VDH.

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[Jack Fowler]

We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. By the way, Victor's got a website, the Blade of Perseus. We have so many new listeners and viewers, so this may be new to you, but go to victorhansen.com and when you go there you'll see links to the various weekly syndicate column, weekly essays. Victor writes for American Greatness and archives of these podcasts, the actual podcasts themselves, links to Victor's many other appearances and then Ultra articles. There's a little Black Boxes Ultra and those are exclusive to the website. Victor twice a week writes exclusive pieces for the Blade of Perseus. And once a week there's an exclusive video. Subscribe and you can watch them and read them and $6.50 a month or discounted for the full year. 65.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was glad that you mentioned at this hour in California, Virgil's Aeneid when you said I fear Greeks bearing gifts. Timio Graecos, Dona Forensis. It's from Virgil's Aeneid. When remember the Laocoon, the famous Hellenistic statue?

[Jack Fowler]

Yes. Snakes around the snakes. Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He was the prophet, remember in the Aeneid says. Well that part of the epic cycle is missing. So. And you only have two of the eight epic poems, Iliad and the Odyssey. But Virgil had access to the whole. So when he redid it in the Aeneid, he's. They're the ones I fear. Greeks bearing gifts. And that's the gift of the wooden horse.

[Jack Fowler]

Horse, yeah. Victor, let's go a little bit on crickets just because it's so bizarre. You know we last year everyone's heard about, oh, the World Economic Forum, Davos, their people there talking about how too much meat, you know, cows and methane and what we need to do is eat crickets and bugs because they have protein.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They probably had as many rib eyes as they could get their hands on.

[Jack Fowler]

Two fisted pork chops. But believe it or not, there was a funded edible cricket farm project in Canada. Well, it Just went bust. But Canadian taxpayers, their money subsidized this. So there really was an effort to come up with some new line of eating to beat bugs. Leftist bonkers.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's exactly right. They believe that a cow, heifer, cow, steer, eats too much food, emits too much methane gas and in a cost to benefit analysis does not give you the protein that you need versus the damage to the environment. But a cricket does. Little cricket, you know, he comes around your house, he eats dead bugs, he eats dirty crumbs on the floor, he crawls out of your septic tank. He's a natural forager and you don't have to pay anything. So they probably just feed garbage to them, right? And then you put them on a frying pan and they're. When I was a little kid, you ever go to those Christmas parties where people give gag gifts? Yeah, yeah. Well, my parents used to go to a little, a little group of friends in this little tiny ag town. They'd always give it. So one day my dad came home and somebody gave him a tin. It looked like a tin of sardines. It was fried crickets and grasshoppers too. And I like the grasshoppers better than the crickets. But it was a joke. And you can see where they're all going. These Davos Grandees are sitting at the top of the little, the cone of the top of the pyramid, top capstone. And they're looking down at all of us and they're saying, see these stupid, ugly, dumb people, they think they should eat meat. That's for us. We need the protein, we need the taste we need. So we're going to protect our taste buds. But they're going to eat crickets. And you can know that's true because there's two things going on in our food industry. There's this emphases on getting insects or, you know what I mean, sources other than beef or even vegetables, certain types of, you know, vegetarian dairy and stuff to replace meat. But at the very top, we've never had more high end cuisine restaurants, we've never had more food magazines. We've never had more wine appreciation. We've never had more snobbish snobbishness about food. We've never had more exotic food channels for the very wealthy. We've never had more people who. Tell me what I once said that I won't mention my colleagues. But most of the people at Stanford University that are academics can tell you what the best restaurant is in Paris or let's say London or Rome. But they don't know. If I asked them once, well, what's the best restaurant in Fresno and Bakersfield? And the guy said, what the. And I said, well, wait a minute, you're telling me that you know a restaurant 3,000 miles away in a foreign country and you don't know your own people's restaurant just 200 miles away? Yeah, well, I've never been there. Why the blank, blank, blank would I go there? And so that's the attitude. They love food for themselves and it's really a cache to say, you know this restaurant, you eat this type of food.

[Jack Fowler]

That's why I love the movie Soylent Green, because they do. The elite have the food and everybody else is eating Soylent Green. And I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen the movie. Yeah, well. Hey, Victor. More elites, religious elites, Episcopal Church Headline Episcopal Church refuses to Resettle White Africanus ends partnership with the US Government. In a striking move that ends a nearly four decades old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on Monday of this week, May 12, that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Donald Trump's administration. As we've discussed in some past episodes, Victor, farmers, white South African farmers are being murdered, their land being taken from them. And Donald Trump, well, I think a South African roots. Doesn't he, doesn't he part of his family heritage.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Trump is a German derivative name. Yeah. P T R U M P I mean FP or ph.

[Jack Fowler]

Well it could regard whether it, whether he does or doesn't.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

This is British, his father was Germanic. But they've been there nine generations, nine from the 17th century and they, you know, they came from the Netherlands and parts of Germany and they're only 7% now left of the population. But they're angry because what keeps South Africa a magnet for immigration and why it has still, even after 40 years of mismanagement and corruption, after the apartheid government, which was racist government, it still is the biggest food producer in Africa and half of the land still belongs to this so called white population which is 7 to 10% depending on whether it's Africana or English. And they passed a law when Mandela came in that they would give compensation and they paid out two or three billion dollars and they bought a lot of land. And of course the land didn't, was not farm as it had the Rhodesia model, Zimbabwe Rhodesia, where you steal you take the land from the white people and then you turn it over to the indigenous people without the expertise to run it, and then it goes fallow and nobody has any food, and you have to import food. And they understand that now in South Africa, but now they haven't. This new government is going to confiscate land without compensation. And almost every one of those Afrikaner families has a member of their family who is shot or killed in the last 30 years in these race wars. And I don't think many of them will come. But all Trump was saying is if you look at the standard of refugee status, most of the people coming across the southern border from China or India or the Middle east or Mexico don't qualify. They're not in existential danger, but these people are because they're killed. So he offered that, and everybody went crazy. The view, all these people said he was a racist. So they're the racist. Because ever since Teddy Kennedy changed the immigration law, you know, in the early 60s, the whole point of the Democratic Party was to exclude European white people and Western white people and bring in non white people who would be poor, without the education and skills, and then they would be constituents of the Democratic Party. And that's what they did. I don't know if they're going to continue to do that because as we said earlier, the Rasmussen poll, so 62% of Hispanics are for Trump, 39% of African Americans are. But anyway, I don't think a lot of people are going to come. They're going to stick it out. They've been there for 100 and 200 years. They've been there longer than some of the black people who migrated into South Africa.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, can I. I'm going to interrupt. I would like to say you have probably a greater sensitivity to this than most people. I mean, you're a person of the land. What fifth generation of that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That came up to me a lot when I was at Cal State Fresno, because in the 80s there was a really strong La Raza department. And then when I wrote Mexo for. I came to school one day and the Daily Collegian had my face with a bullseye on it, you know, like a target. And I went over there and talked to the advisor, which basically was. His family was doing it. And then I went to the president and said, this is inflammatory. You know what I mean? I'm walking across campus and if you're. If they're disseminating this voice of Atsalan to all the students And I have a big bullseye to shoot me. What are you going to do about it? You know what he said? I won't mention his name. But he basically said, you shouldn't have written the book. The book, by the way, Mexifornia is a call for integration, intermarriage, assimilation, and not to downplay race on all people's side and to limit immigration so that we can fully absorb people in the American civic tradition. Okay. Wasn't very radical at all. But the point I'm making is that. So then I would go. I gave a talk at the Fresno county library, and a woman came up, started screaming and yelling at me about indigenous people. You know, you're not an indigenous person, you're a colonizer. And I said, could I ask you a question? When did you come here? When did you come to California? I've been here. My mother came here from Oaxaca. I said, yes. So you've been here 30 years, your family? I've been here since 1870, when my maternal great great grandmother came here with her three sons and there was nobody here. There was no railroad. There was nothing. And they bought. Actually, there was a trunk line being built. It was right after the transcontinental railroad. They built trunk lines, and anybody who came here could buy from the railroad the section that they were given by the federal government with the stipulation that they had, I think, 20 years improve it. And when they didn't, the railroad tried to confiscate it. As we know from Frank Norris's Octopus and the Muscle Slough Tragedy. It's just six miles from myself. We had a running gun battle from farmers and Pinkerton railroad agents who were trying to reconfiscate the land even though it had been improved. So my point is, I was telling this young protester at the talk, do you know how many people of Mexican heritage were in California about 1845 when Jedediah Smith and other people, Fremont, started to come here for the first time? About 15,000. And where did they get the land from? They got the land from Spain after the Mexican Revolution and the first Mexican Revolution. And where did the Mexicans get the land? They got the land from indigenous peoples. And where did the indigenous peoples get the land? They got it from another indigenous people's tribe. So in that sense, that was a racist argument. She thought just because I was a white person, that I was an interloper. That's the word she used, interloper. You're an interloper, all you white people. It was a big La Raza, turn all the land back to Mexico. Then I got in a bigger trouble because I quoted a Pew International poll and I'm doing this by memory. Gosh, that was in 2001, right before 9, 11. So then I said, there is a Pew International poll. And can you please tell me how to reconcile these polls? On the one hand, 70, I think it was. 60% of Mexican nationals said they wanted. 60% of Mexican nationals said they felt the Southwest of the United States should have been kept by Mexico and should return to Mexico. Okay. A slightly greater percentage, 67% said if given the chance, they would migrate to the United States. So I asked her, would you explain this to me? That a vast majority of Mexican citizens feel that Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas should be part of Mexico, and if it were part of Mexico, then 67, a greater percentage would want to leave. So you tell me and what that is. I had a base, a guy I went to high school with. And I said to him, I haven't seen you since high school. And he said, yeah, I was here. He was a Mexican national. He was trying to get a citizenship. But he said, I'm leaving to Oregon because your community has been taken over by illegals. And that's what I left Mexico for. And then I said, well, what are you going to go? He goes, I'm going to go to Oregon. He did. He said, when Oregon has taken over, I go to Washington.

[Jack Fowler]

He may have left by now if he moved to Portland.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I was asking him. He turned to me, kind of angry, and he said, victor, why do you think millions of people are leaving Mexico? Is it because they hate the weather? Is it because there's no good farmland? Why is it? And I said, you tell me. He said, because it's corrupt and it's racist and they treat indigenous people like dirt. In that book, I was at the. I was in the waiting room of a doctor who was a really wonderful doctor, Dr. Sorenson. He was like a country doctor, but he was really a good doctor. He kept me going for 30 years. And I was in the waiting room and I was talking to a guy from Mexico and he was so happy to be here. He'd been here about five years. I said, why did you come? Because I was kind of researching for this book. I said, why did you come to the United States? And I thought he was going to say, the money and the safety. And he said, because they treat me with dignity. And I said, what do you mean? He said, the doctor, the doctor in there, he calls Me, sir? Yes, sir, Can I help you, sir? He goes, that had never happened to me in my life in Mexico. I was an indigenous, I was an Indian. They just treated me like dirt. People from Mexico City here in the United States, they call me sir no matter what. So I like dignity. And you tell that to a leftist person, they would think you were crazy. But that's a lot of it. That people come from the poorest sections of the world and they're treated with dignity when they get here compared to how they've been treated in their own country.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, I think most Americans are probably ignorant of that sharp class system.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Same thing with India. I've talked to people from India and I've had other people from India tell me that that person that you're talking to is quasi untouchable. He would be nobody in India. He had no land, he had no connections. And here he is thinking, puffing himself up like he's a Sikh landowner or a Punjabi aristocrat. He's not, Victor. Look at him. So that whole baggage from Europe, from Asia, that's not. This was why this country was different. And they do treat people with dignity. They even treat Jasmine Crockett with dignity. Who doesn't, you know, hasn't earned that dignity, right?

[Jack Fowler]

Gosh. Hey, Victor, quick, before we go to the final break, and we'll have one more question for you. But La Raza seems hasn't dissipated.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Not totally, but it has. The Hispanic community has the largest. I think it's right with Asians. It's about 30% of first generation, second generation Hispanics marry outside the Hispanic community. That's a joke in California where there's two jokes in California. When you go to the bank or something, the person who waits on you is called Taylor Lopez or Brandy Contreras, number one. And then number two, say a so called white woman marries a Hispanic and she's an academia. And all of a sudden she put it the other way. A white guy marries a Mexican woman and now she's Mary Smith, but she's always Mary Lopez, Yurisha Smith, everybody. What I'm getting at is linguistics really shows you the degree of prejudice. When I was growing up, if you were Mexican American and you felt there were prejudice, you were never called Jorge or you were George, or you never said you were Juan, you were John. So I had all those friends. Then when the system came neutral, nobody cared. And then when it reversed and became racist in the other way, all these people that I knew growing up, all of a sudden I'd see them in their 40s. I'd say, hey, John. No, I'm Juan. And then you would say Juan Lopez, I remember you. No, I'm Juan Lopez Yurisha. And then they would have accent marks, covered their whole name and they were trilling and they were doing everything. And so what I'm getting at is that when there was white prejudice against Hispanics and Hispanics like any minority would try to become less Hispanic and when there was prejudice, reverse discrimination against white, then Hispanics would try to become more Hispanic than they were to make the difference, to make the distinction.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, that's fascinating, Victor. We're going to come back and talk about Islamo fascism on the rise and maybe we have time for a very short take on showerheads, toilets and washing machines. We'll do that when we come back from these final important messages. Back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. You know, Victor, I just met mocking shower heads, etc. But these are the things that most intimate with our lives in our lives, our appliances. And we all know how badly our appliances have become over the years because of government regulations. And Donald Trump on earlier this week I call it Appliance Freedom Day. He issued new executive order. He is from from the Washington Free Beacon as part of the Department of Energy sweeping action unveiled Monday. It will rescind dozens of of energy efficiency regulations targeting common household appliances that the Biden administration issued as part of its climate agenda. That includes rules restricting sales of certain types of gas powered stoves and ovens in addition to microwaves, clothes washers, dishwashers, faucets, showerheads, dehumidifiers. Victor, I want to add the blame Biden here but I do remember was in the Bush administration administration where they started the effort to get rid of the light bulb and replace it with, you know, the curly mercury filled thing. So this has been a passion for federal government for a couple of decades.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Just can't let the market adjudicate. I mean people would have got rid of the incandescent light when they did the simple math about new types of light bulbs that were more expensive but saved them money. And they would find out that by trial and error. But I live in California. So when I go on Amazon to order things about a quarter of my can't get, I can't get a gas, any gas engine will not I can't buy a chainsaw, I can't buy a blower. They won't ship it to California. I can't buy bullets for guns. I can't. Although I was surprised I bought pellets for a pellet gun the other day to shoot these birds that are defecating over everything. That's a timely comment. In 1990, Jack, I bought a. I have a really tiny little laundry room from this ancient house. And I bought it, you know those stacked washer dryers from ge that was the nicest thing. That had like a button on a little dial, high, low and then one for washer, high, low. And that was it, that thing. I bought it in 1991 and it went out in 2001. It was still working, but it was loud and the tumbler had got. The bearings were out. I just got rid of it. So I wanted to get one just like it. And they do have one the same dimensions. And it is still made in China and labeled ge. And I couldn't figure it out. It had so many buttons. And it's all energy saving, right? And it has an automatic anti tumbler. If we put tennis shoes in, it will shut. It has everything on it. It blew up the other day and the guy came out yesterday and put a new circuit board in it. And I asked him, I said, how often do these things last? He said, that's a long time for these new ones, five years. And he said, they go out. I said, I had one for 20. He said, yeah, if you can get one, those are better. Find one. But he said, and then I had a pool pump, quarter horsepower, electric motors, two for the clean, one for the pump, one for the cleaner. I had it for. I got it from 91 to 2000, excuse me, 91 to 2010. And then all of a sudden the pool service, it went out. I would just take the motor out, take it in to the electric motor shop. They would redo the, the wiring and I'd put it back in and it ran forever. And then they came and said, no, you can't do that anymore. We have to have energy efficient. These new pump engines, they go out every two years.

[Jack Fowler]

I love my 30 year old dishwasher. No way I'm getting rid of it.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Don't trade.

[Jack Fowler]

Hey, last topic, Victor. You know, personally, the last meeting National Review had when I was publisher and Bill Buckley still alive after the meeting, you know, quarterly or biannual board meeting, the meeting was over. And he said, now listen, I want us to concentrate from here on in on Islamo fascism. I must say I never had heard the word, but I knew exactly what he meant when he said it. And we continue, I think, to have a. We just don't focus on it. We just Don't. And it's ripe and it's rampant. And so Elon Musk on X posted the other day, he owns it. He can do whatever he wants. We're going to see widespread slaughter in Europe. You're clearly seeing a massive increase in the number of attacks in Europe. And the legacy media downplays these attacks. But the attacks, the terrorism, the killing of innocent people is rising. Every week there's more. That is the trend. If you simply extrapolate the trend, it leads to the slaughter of Europe. Very frightening, Victor. And so many people in media, including right of center, do not give this the attention it deserves. Not only in Europe, but here in America, too. Any thoughts on this?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, after October 7th, we had open protest in a couple of towns in Michigan that was anti American and pro Hamas. And these Colombia people who were arrested the other day, they were just shouting openly anti American. They wanted to rename this library to a Hamas hero. So, I mean, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. We have thousands of people who have come over here on visas. Some of them may be citizens who do not like the United States and feel that Islamicism is the future of the West. And they're not going to assimilate, they're not going to integrate. And they're mostly in university. They're students. Marco Rubio has been fantastic. He just keeps reiterating the same thing when he's asked. When he sees these demonstrations that are violent, when they go in it during finals and they disrupt a library where there's hundreds of students who are obeying the rules and just want a place to study. They are endangering their ability to get a dividend from their hard paid, hard won tuition dollars. And these kids come over here from these wealthy Arab countries and Muslim countries and they disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. Rubio just says the same thing. He just says, we know who they are and they're going to be notified that the invitation has been revoked. And I think the left just goes crazy. But they don't understand that it's not. You're a guest. You don't have to argue. You can just say, I don't like the way you comb your hair. I'm not going to give you a visa if you want, if you want. So it's a privilege to come to the United States. You don't have to. You have no right to say, I have a right to go into the United States. And they're not citizens. It's true that they're subject. If you're a resident, you're subject to the same laws. But that doesn't, that doesn't involve your original invitation. It has a shelf life on it and you don't have to renew it or you can revoke it for whatever reasons that you think and some of the reasons are spelled explicitly in statute that you feel that you're not. This person does not advance the diplomatic agendas of the United States or its values go out. And they used to, the left used to always go after. And I agreed with them. They went after former prison guards, remember from Germany when we were growing up. It would be like every single day some Ukrainians, Lithuanians, some Estonians, some Pole that had collaborated with the Nazi regime and was a death camp or even a concentration camp guard. He snuck in in 46 or 48, he changed his name and then somebody saw him and ratted him out and they brought him up and they had an immigration and they deported those guys.

[Jack Fowler]

In their still in active office in the Department of Justice, by the way, and should be, you know, it'd be a hundred years old now, but you know, so what?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's what they do. So I can tell you that something has happened at Stanford University because the new president did not sign the Harvard Solidarity Letter and at the same time he didn't sign it. The Stanford Review has a damning long article, chapter line and verse about Chinese students who are engaged in espionage at Stanford in Silicon Valley. Money that has been given to Stanford that has not been reported. And Stanford knows all these people know what they do. They know what they do. And that's why they're angry. Because when that Supreme Court ruling came out in 2022 against Harvard University of North Carolina and reiterated the 18th Amendment and the civil rights statutes and superseded that awful Weasley thing. Remember that Supreme Court decision by a lot of rhinos that said that, well, you can use race in some cases, it'll be over in 20 years, that stuff. Sandra Day O' Connell signed that. So anyway, my point is they know what they're doing. And when Stanford puts on their website that they let in 9% white males who make up 33%, they know if the federal government goes and looks at those applications and they see test scores and GPAs, they know that they are being systematically discriminated, as were Asians, they know that and they knowingly violated the Supreme Court ruling and they thought they could get away with when they have separate graduations and they say they're just auxiliary, they know that that's not true, that they are there for a particular race. And if anybody who is European of a descent said we're going to have a white European auxiliary, everybody would say rightly so. That's racist. Same thing with the dorms. Oh, it's just a theme house. No, it's not. There's nobody. Most of those theme houses are 99.9% ethnically dominated. This is from the left who talks about proportions. So they have so much culpability and when you add in there that they have raised a rate of tuition much higher than the annual rate of inflation given these 1.7 trillion, or you add in there that they are gouging the federal government 40 to 60% overhead surcharges on grants, which, you know, they don't do the same for private money from foundations that come in. So my point is they have so much culpability that Stanford does not want to pick a fight fight with the Trump administration. Harvard would be very wise to say, you know, and I haven't even touched the anti Semitism which was epidemic. We had a 900 page report at Stanford written by four, I think several professors and they said it was systemic, widespread, vetted, it was everywhere. Harvard knows all that. And yet they're not going to change unless they're forced to. And they're going to, they're going to be forced to. One final thing. Everybody says Harvard's got 50 billion and Stanford's got 30 billion and you take 5% of Stanford and it's $6 billion or you get, you know, 5% of, excuse me, 10%, 30 would be 3 million and they get about half of that 5%. So they get a million, a billion and a half. And Harvard probably gets, I don't know, 7% and get about $3.5 billion on their endowment. That seems like a lot. Usually their annual budget is twice that and they can only get it through three other sources. They can get it through annual giving, which is way down. They can get it on tuition and they can get it from the federal government. The federal government. It's going to cost Stanford about $180 million more to charge only 15% overhead on their individual grant getters. And the annual giving is down, especially at the law school and the tuition will not cover it. And when you look at the endowment interest, it's. So all these places have, as you know, Jack, targeted endowment funds. So somebody says, oh, you know, I just love the new Green deal. I'm willing to give $20 billion to Yale but I can only do it for if you'll set up a new green deal, recycled sewage lab. Okay, we'll take the money and that's. Or I, I studied cuneiform, and when I was an undergraduate. We don't have a cuneiform professor. I want a professor of cuneiform. I will give you eight. They're all targeted. There's not very much money of those endowments that cover the operating budget, not enough, at least. So. And you know, Wall Street Journal claims there are 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students, students at Stanford, and there's 15,000 staffers of administrative sort. So they have a lot of fat that they can cut. But they're going to lose this battle, and I don't want them to lose. I think universities do well. I think what Trump's doing is excellent because he's trying to save them from themselves. He's trying to say to them, don't be racist, don't cut your administrative staff, don't gouge the government, don't gouge the students with excessive tuition, don't suppress free speech, invite in speakers from different points of view, Let somebody make the case against transgendered men in sports, bring in a Christian pro lifer who believes that a million abortions are wrong just for the difference of opinion, and then listen politely. But they won't do that because the faculty has inculcated these students in a progressive Marxist ideology.

[Jack Fowler]

Now, the Columbia. And we'll end on this. Victoria, which you were mentioning the riots before. I think there were 80 arrests made last week and 61 of them were women. And a number of them, they're not all from Gaza or wherever. A lot of them are homegrown lefties, red diaper baby, grandchildren, etc. But the proportion of women involved in this rallying for these types of religions and faiths and governments that despise women is just, well, it's not shocking myth.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

When we said the gender gap and all this. And if you look at the number of women who are receiving BAS, I think it's up to 56%. And you look in some fields like art history and English, it's like 60% of graduate degrees. And according to the left, they gave us these terms, overrepresented, disparate impact, proportional representation. Remember about the left, all the rules do not apply to themselves. So if you were to apply the left's rules, you would have to start systematically discriminating against women and say, you know what, you're proportionally dis. It's a disparate impact. On men. And you don't reflect the demography of the United States. So you women, we're going to get. We're going to have to start refusing you till we get down to 51%. Sorry, that's just the way it is. They would never do that. There's a. I think finally to conclude all this, there is a. You know, I don't think Van Jones was right calling it a white lash, but it's not just white people. It's. Everybody is sick of it. They're sick of the Jasmine Crocketts, they're sick of the squad. They're sick of all these performance. They're sick of aoc, they're sick of all this stuff because. And what is, what is the common denominator? Very privileged, elite, entitled people because they feel they're not white. Therefore they have exemption to blast the history of the country, the traditions of the country, the nature of the Constitution, even though they're the beneficiaries of it. And they feel they're exempt from charges of racism because they are a victim. They pronounce. And then they cannot be a victimizer, they cannot be a race, but they are racist and they're rich racist, and they're entitled racists, and they're racist against people who don't have what they have. And we're talking about the working classes of all different nationalities, right?

[Jack Fowler]

The people who wouldn't have attended the Met Gala a few weeks ago.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

AOC, you can trill your Rs and you can play up your Hispanic, but you've got to tell us why 62% of Hispanics just polled that they're for Trump and Jasmine Crockett, before you start talking about, as you did the other day, quote, white boys, or before you're ill, in Omar, as a tape resurfaced from a few years when you said white men are the terrorists, you should ask yourself why 39% of African Americans are happy with Trump. And that's. That should tell you something. They're not happy with you outside your.

[Jack Fowler]

District because, well, even within the district.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They know what you're up to. They saw BLM and all of that divisive hate, hateful record. They saw what happened to Professor Kendi and his fake research center. They blew through $50 million. University of Boston, Boston University. And they're sick of all of it. And they don't you don't you? Don't you, all of you ethnic racial activists don't do anything for your own constituents except pose as you're the defender and the horrible white person is their enemy. And it's so old and tired that people are sick of it. And they're interested in a new paradigm and it's called economics. They're going to vote for the people who lower the price of gas, of electricity, of insurance, of buying a home across the board, regardless of race. And they feel that Donald Trump will do that better than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Barack Obama. Now they really do.

[Jack Fowler]

Amen, brother. Hey, we're almost out of time here, Victor. You've been terrific. Have a couple of comments I want to read from viewers and listeners. And as I mentioned, the last few podcasts, we are on YouTube, we're on rumble, and the numbers are striking and the comments are voluminous. Hundreds and hundreds for every episode. So thank those who take the time to leave comments. We try to go through them. I found a few that I think are quite interesting. I'm going to read three. One is from the Briarwolf and he writes, I'm going to start working Professor Hanson's lectures into my homeschool classes. This man's knowledge is incredibly valuable. If anyone ever interviewed tutors, they know exactly what I mean. He has an amazing amount of generosity with his knowledge. Thank you. That's really cool. Then there's one from rgraceful1. The writer, historian and gifted intellectual. VDH captivates me in some so many ways. But when he changes gears and becomes the man, the person vdh, it truly touches me deep down. How can this one man be so deep and normal? It really makes me want to work at being something more. Victor, that was very nice. That's really.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

When I came home, I think I mentioned to you I was 25, I was getting just got my PhD. I didn't even, I didn't even go to the graduation ceremony. So I came home and he goes, well, what's the deal now? We haven't seen you in almost nine years. I never lived at home after I was 18. I was in Greece two years. I was undergraduate. I didn't even. I just took three months off and went from getting a BA right into the graduate PhD program in classics. But anyway, I said, I don't think there's a lot of jobs for people like me. And my dad said, well, I have a job for you. And he said, now there's a raisin dehydrator up there on the hill and there's a guy working on it, and you're going to go up there and Put a roof on it with him and then you and he are going to figure out how to wire it. How's that? I said, I don't remember teaching me. Well, you'll find out. Just remember, 220 is a little bit more dangerous than 110. And then I said, well. He said, how did you do? Did you do okay? I said, yeah, I did really well. And my thesis, what was your thesis on? And I told him, he said, oh, okay, that's good. My mother was very different. She was all very worried, you know, all that education, now you're farming. It's so sad. But my dad was. He said, well, they didn't teach it a final thing. He said, remember, they didn't teach it a wire up there. And then my older brother, who was very brilliant, but he could be cynical, he later said, as I told you, you're like. He was quoting Samuel Johnson, paraphrasing, you're like a dog that dances on two legs. It's quite. Your knowledge of Greek, it's quite impressive. But we want to know, cui bono? What's it for?

[Jack Fowler]

What's the purpose?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But if you write Greek and you cannot do the roof on the dehydrator, we don't need you.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, I happen to know a lot of people like that. I got one more comment, Victor. I think it's sweet and funny and cool. It's from Rio Rosie 950. Professor Hansen, please stop describing yourself as Skeletor. I watch your podcast every morning with my 8 month old granddaughter Lillian sitting next to me. When she sees your face, she smiles and waves her arms. Lillian is a superb judge. You obviously have a kind face and a soothing voice. I assume Lillian is absorbing your wisdom even though she's too small to say so. Keep up the good work. That is really, really sweet.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I only got Skeletor because some left wing people, when they saw the five minute videos I was doing, there was a little exchange whether it was Skeletor or Freddy Krueger. So anyway, thank you.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, Rio Rosie, that was, that was great. Hey, as for me, quickly, Jack Fowler. I write civil thoughts free, free weekly, every Friday, email newsletter from the center for Civil Society. And why do I do that? Well, I want to put together 14 recommended readings just because I think great articles I've come across the previous week that I think people will like. There's no fee, there's. We're not selling your name. I think you'll enjoy it. Check it out. How do you do that? Go to civil thoughts.com sign up, put your email in. That's it. Sweet and simple again, Victor's website, the blade of Perseus. Victorhansen.com I think a gift of that to dad would make a great Father's Day gift. That's coming up in a month. So, Vic, you've been terrific.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I have five minutes to jump. I just got back from Hillsdale and I'm jumping in the pickup and south. And I are driving 240 miles to Newport to speak to the Hoover Institution.

[Jack Fowler]

Hitting the road in my automobile. Go ahead, man.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then we've got to get back here the next day. All right, well, safe travels everybody. Yeah. So.

[Jack Fowler]

All right. Thanks, Victor. You've been. You've been great.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Okay, thank you.

[Jack Fowler]

Thanks, folks. God bless. Bye, bye. Bye.

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