← The Victor Davis Hanson Show
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- [00:03]
Victor Davis Hansen
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- [01:51]
Jack Fowler
Hello, ladies. Hello, gentlemen. This is the Victor Davis Hansen Show. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. I'm thankful to be host, lucky to be host of this show with the great man Victor Davis Hansen who is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow with the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. He has a website, the blade of Perseus. VictorHansen.com is the address. Later on in the show, I'll tell you why I think you should be subscribing to it. We are recording on Saturday 23rd November, and this particular episode is out on Thursday the 28th. I think it's the 28th. That's Thanksgiving Day. And I'm gonna, when we get to the end of this episode, I am gonna ask Victor about his favorite kind of turkey stuffing. But before we do that, before we do that, we got some serious topics to talk about, including one really serious and very troubling Victor. Let's begin the show with that. The International Criminal Court's arrest orders for Benjamin Netanyahu and others. So let's do that when we come back from these important messages.
- [03:11]
Victor Davis Hansen
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- [06:13]
Jack Fowler
We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen show. Victor. The International Criminal Court, the Hague, which the United States I believe is not part of it has issued arrest warrants for war crimes for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. And I guess if the head of the country of Israel goes to France or Spain or some one of these EU countries, he might very well be arrested and attempt to prosecute him. I was just freaking nuts. Your thoughts?
- [06:56]
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, all of these things had two cycles of birth. The first was the Versailles Treaty. And I can tell you that that thing was flawed from the beginning. But anytime you have an army that is inside the country that it invaded, as the German Imperial army was in 1918 on the 11th day of the 11th month, in the 11th hour and it does not concede defeat. And then the peace treaty takes place months later. They don't arrive till January. They take six months. You've got problems. So they were the use of utopians at Versailles and they came up with this idea of an International Criminal Court. The United States had no part of it. Remember, we were not Woodrow Wilson got a stroke trying to convince people to sign on to the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty. But we had some pretty wise people back there. The second iteration was what to do with the Nazis after World War II, the Nazi criminals and the Japanese criminals. So there were international criminal courts at Nuremberg. The problem was the same thing as we learned with the original court at the Hague. If you don't have legitimate judges or people from constitutional societies, then it's just, it's just a farce. So you can't have people in the Soviet Union from a government that had murdered 20 million of its own under the Great Terror and liquidated during the show trials and the military tribunal trials in the Soviet Union in the 30s, another 100,000 then condemning and had butchered 20,000 Polish officers in the kin forest. You can't have those people judging Nazi war criminals. And they did. So it has a distributable record. And if you have the un, it's kind of an offshoot of the UN Commission on Human Rights. And when you have people like Venezuela or Somalia or Colombia or Bolivia, all illiberal regimes on these human rights commissions or on members of these international. You get what you see today. And you know, I think it was by 1980, half of all UN resolutions, half of them in the period of, you know, Pol pot, Mao, Zed Dong's 60, 70 were against Israel. So even so now what's very funny is that the EU has pledged to honor the European Criminal Court largely because it never has to do anything to defend itself. And by that I mean NATO is a euphemism for the United States. So it was very easy to say that US officers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be subject to International Criminal Court sanctions or. And of course, George W. Bush stopped that said, there's no way you're going to indict an officer for ordering an illicit artillery strike against terrorists. And if you do, this is what's going to happen. So they backed off us, but they go after Israel. And I, I think. And they're going after it because it's the operations in Gaza. There was a lot written this week that NATO, NATO military high commanders have told the IDF that they are a lot more careful in their anti terrorism raids and operations than NATO troops were, say in the Balkans.
- [10:33]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [10:33]
Victor Davis Hansen
And so it's just, it's just another sign that Israel is small, 11 million people, it's always vulnerable, it's Jewish and the world applies the standard. So now we're to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, but Vladimir Putin is not, I guess. And the people who are committing the atrocities in Sudan are not, I guess, are the Chinese that got a million people in a forced labor camp are not, I guess. Or North Korea that's starving its people is not, I guess. Or Iran that sent 500 missiles at civilian targets in Israel is not, I guess it's completely illegitimate. It has no credibility. We should not honor it. In fact, we should go farther. We should say that any country that tries to arrest the head of state of Israel, we will cut all aid off. And I would tell Mr. Trudeau to stop his virtue signaling. By the way, he's everything the world isn't topsy turvy. He's panicky now because of all these things he said about Trump in the wilderness years of the last four years of Trump's. And now did you see what he said the other day? That he wants a new Canadian, American, North American trade pact with Juan proviso that he, Mr. Liberal, is going to kick out Mexico. He does not want Mexico in this trade pact. Largely.
- [12:09]
Jack Fowler
I didn't see that. Really? Why?
- [12:11]
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, because Mexico has made a satanic bargain with China. So China is to get around sanctions and tariffs, is sending products to Mexico, having them real symbol or sneaking them in the United States as if they're Mexican. Right. So the Mexican government exists out of three, three, three things make it exist. Number one, it's getting $60 billion in remittances from its expatriates. And the vast majority of them are a, getting some kind of public support. And two, they're illegally here. That's the 30 million people here. And they don't want to stop that. So that's why they're opening the border. Number two, they're basically run by the cartels who are poisoning Americans, killing them with fentanyl and trafficking in children. And then three, they are a conduit or a retail store for Chinese products to avoid sanctions and tariffs. And so they're really, if you think about the death to fentanyl, they've killed more people than anybody else each year. And so Donald Trump's going to settle up with the Mexican government and they're going to be, they're going to lose their revolutionary credentials because what he's going to do is he's not going to send these criminals and all of these people who came in under Biden back to Venezuela or back to Colombia or back to Guatemala. He's going to send them through Mexico and then Mexico is going to have to do that unless they want to keep them.
- [13:54]
Jack Fowler
Well, they let them come through.
- [13:56]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah, they let them come through so they're theirs. And then we'll see how Mexico's revolutionary fervor stands up when it's exporting, deporting people or repatriating people back to other Latin American countries. Victor?
- [14:10]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I want to, this is really interesting that you brought up Mexico here. But first I want to come back to it, maybe talk about some success stories south of the border. But first I just want to take a moment for our sponsor, Field of Greens and the biggest sale of the year at Brickhouse Nutrition. It's on now and this is your chance to save a ton on all their doctor formulated products. One of my favorites is Field of Greens. Right now you'll save 30% on their best selling fruit and vegetable super drink that promises your doctor will notice your improved health or your money back. Visit Field of Greens.com and use the code sale S A L E. That's the promo code sale atfieldofgreens.com last time. Don't forget, that's the promo code sale atfieldofgreens.com and we thank the good people at Field of Greens and Brick House Nutrition for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen show and especially on a Thanksgiving Day podcast. We should be a little thoughtful of our, of our gut. I do want to also get back, Victor, to the ICC and Europe and Jews not only Israel, but Jews. But it's interesting, Javier Milai, the president of Argentina, he's broken inflation. He is transforming that country. I don't remember the name. Now, the president of El Salvador. El Salvador was the most violent, murderous country on earth. Okay. It's very tiny country. But that guy, I should look him up. He has. That country's been transformed.
- [16:03]
Victor Davis Hansen
He was that. He was from the Middle east originally. Bukele, I think his name was.
- [16:11]
Jack Fowler
I think this is.
- [16:12]
Victor Davis Hansen
But he did have. He did have a Mexican name. Not a Mexican, a Spanish surname. After. It was Bukole Ortiz or something.
- [16:20]
Jack Fowler
But. But it's possible, right? It's possible for our own country. You know, maybe we're turning this around, but I know is Mexico seems like a permanent basket case.
- [16:32]
Victor Davis Hansen
It's because they. It's because it has. No, it's a permanent basket case because it will not address corruption and fair treatment of its indigenous people. And it won't because it has a safety valve. So when you have, over the last 30 years, 40 years, 30 million people who would have marched on Mexico City to demand a transparent, fair and just society, when the Mexican government says, go over to the United States.
- [17:06]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [17:07]
Victor Davis Hansen
And that's their Frederick Jackson Turner frontier thesis, that the United States is the frontier. If you have social tensions at home, you go west. And now it's not Horace Greeley saying, go west, young man. It's go north, young man. And then they come here. And then the Mexican government says they're victims of oppression. They're all of these things. They. They open up 50 consulates. But the key thing is send back money so we don't have to support your families because they're indigenous people. Send back your money. And the United States government has an obligation to offer parity because. So it can shed its racist credentials. So they say, you know, United States, you have to give health, welfare, housing, education, food subsidies to illegal immigrants. That frees up cash. They send back two or three hundred dollars a week to Mexico. It's the largest source of foreign exchange in Mexico. And along with cartel money, the economy is kind of booming. And now they're outsourcing. Corporations are having things assembled in Mexico. There's no tariff. It's not sustainable. And Donald Trump knows that. He doesn't care. He knows what Mexico do. He knows what Obrador did. Obrador was trashing him and trying to let people through. And now, of course, Biden has opened up the border again just out of spite. Spite for. Not spite for Trump. So much spite for Us, everybody listening.
- [18:40]
Jack Fowler
And an ISAP did.
- [18:42]
Victor Davis Hansen
You didn't vote for me. You didn't want, you weren't going to vote for me and I had to step down. And you didn't vote for. Harris will hear you. How do you like another million people before I leave?
- [18:51]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [18:52]
Victor Davis Hansen
So I think Donald Trump will. I don't see him doing anything with Trudeau, though. Trudeau is.
- [19:01]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I, he may not be around all that much longer. Victor, you mentioned 50, 50 consulates. I, I wonder, is that, that, that must be part of the problem that there are that many consulates?
- [19:15]
Victor Davis Hansen
It's a deliberate part. It's a deliberate, It's a deliberate strategy of the Mexican government to export human capital.
- [19:24]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [19:27]
Victor Davis Hansen
They do it intentionally and, you know, it's a safety.
- [19:31]
Jack Fowler
Allow them. Don't we. Do we have to allow America?
- [19:35]
Victor Davis Hansen
Because we don't want to, we don't want to be called racist. Yeah, well, I don't know. I, I think there's more than. At one time I wrote an article, I'm saying 50, but that was, I don't know, 10 years ago. I think there's probably closer to 55 or 60.
- [19:51]
Jack Fowler
Wow.
- [19:52]
Victor Davis Hansen
Wow. The point is, the policy of the Mexican government is to avoid social tensions from a one party. Well, now they have two parties, but corrupt government, corrupt judicial system, racist society. They export people who would be otherwise dissidents and demand social and economic change. And they come here and the left wants them to change the demography. So you have a poor dependent class that needs left wing big government, and the right corporate interest wants cheap labor. And the Mexican government facilitates that on the condition that they send back $60 billion, which is larger than oil sales. It's their largest source of foreign exchange. That's besides the 60 billion that goes into Latin Americ America.
- [20:43]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [20:43]
Victor Davis Hansen
So if Donald Trump did one of two things, if he finishes the wall, and by the way, Tom Harmon has already said that in one of his many lectures, that very few people come across where there's the wall. It's very hard to get over, contrary to what everybody says. You know, it's kind of like Barbra Streisand's compound in Malboro, her old compound or shares or all those people, they all, when I go down to Pepperdine, they all have walls. These are. The people say that walls don't work, but apparently they think they work. So anyway, my point is, if he finishes the wall and he stops catching reliefs and he makes people apply for refugee status in their home country and he starts to deport and he emphasizes that it's a federal law that if you are deported, you cannot apply for legal citizenship or residency for at least 10 years. And he announces to everybody, I would go back, so if you want to come, you can apply for it, but if we have to deport you, you're never going to come back for 10 years. Right. If he does all that, then Mexico is going to have a lot less foreign income. And we know another thing from research that the longer a person stays in the United States of whatever status, the less money comes back. That is, his relationships with family members become more tenuous, so he's less likely to send the amount of money. So Mexico needs a fresh cohort every day to come in here to work and send them money back.
- [22:20]
Jack Fowler
And I didn't know that.
- [22:22]
Victor Davis Hansen
And then that's also I wrote about 20 years ago that delayed my appointment to the Hoover Institution. The director, who was a saint, John Racian, said, I think we're going to have to hold off for six months. I said, why? And he said, you wrote a book called Mexifornia and we have some free market, libertarian, open borders economists that don't like it. And I said, okay.
- [22:48]
Jack Fowler
And do your troublemaker.
- [22:51]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. And if you read that book, I kind of predicted what was going to happen. But any case, that's what Mexico, it's a try. They get all these good things. They think we get rid of dissidents, we get money, we shame the United States. We make the people who, the longer their way away from Mexico and the further away from the Mexico, the more they romanticize it. And that means we have a powerful lobby, kind of like the old Greek lobby or the Turkish lobby or the Armenian lobby. We have the Mexican lobby. And they, they're very intent on doing that. Then when you try to call them on, they call you a racist or xenophobic or going to go back. This was America, you know, this was your America was Mexico. And then they had schizophrenic, the Pew poll, I think I wrote about it. In Mexico they had these bizarre polls. They would say, how many of you think that the American Southwest should belong to Mexico? 58%. 60%. How many of you would, if you had a chance, would go to the United States today? 70%. So think about that. We want this land back. So it looked like Mexico. We want Texas, Arizona, New Mexico back. So it will look like Mexico, but we want to leave what looks like Mexico. Right. To go back.
- [24:16]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [24:16]
Victor Davis Hansen
Doesn't make it, it's all basket casery.
- [24:21]
Jack Fowler
Hey, Victor, if we could, before we head off to a break, one last thing. Going back to the International Criminal Court, I want to, I think I've mentioned this before. Tuvia Tenenbaum is a writer. He's a Jewish German. He's a columnist for a German newspaper. Very funny guy, Roly poly. And he's a bit of a clown, and I don't mean that in an insulting way. Clownish. And the German papers asked him to write a trilogue of America because he was based in America. So he was writing this column. They want him to go back to Germany and do a travelogue. And he did. And he start, he, he found it very quickly, whenever he was having a conversation with anyone, very quickly the subject of Palestine, Zionism, et cetera, came up. It was like, scratch a European, scratch a German and they're going to be talking about Jews in a nanosecond. They didn't necessarily know he was a Jew. He'd masquerade as a, as an Arab in his way. And he wrote two books on this. Catch the Jew was one of them. And I slept in Hitler's bedroom and I, I read them. I wrote about them for National Review, reviewed them. And it's, that is a discouraging thing here. I know it's not related to, it is related to the icc, that Europe really. The, the, the, the anti, there is anti Semitism there.
- [26:04]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah, there is. And it's left wing.
- [26:06]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. But it's always, they, they, they use the mask of we're really against Zionism and we're really, you know, but they, there's hatred of Jews there.
- [26:14]
Victor Davis Hansen
No, it is, it's a worldwide left wing phenomenon. The old democrat, Joe Klein, he just wrote a column I think yesterday saying he's no longer a democrat. Of all people, he was the anonymous person. Remember he. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, he wrote and said that party left. Me and David Mamet used to be a man of the left. Yes. And Joel Kotkin, who's a man of the left. They all have renounced the Democratic Party a long time ago. But Joe Klein is recent and one of the reasons is they understand that it's an antisemitic. It's been taken over by anti Semites and all of Europe is antisemitic. I should make a very careful distinction. All of Western Europe, everybody says that Viktor Orban and Hungary is this illiberal society. Viktor Orban and Hungary said that Benjamin Netanyahu can come to their country anytime and he will face no coercion. And he will be welcome. In other words, even Italy under Meloni didn't say that. They said they would arrest him. Canada will arrest him. Every country but the Eastern Europeans, they have not said that. Now, that doesn't make sense, does it? Because we're told that Eastern Europe, given its long history of the bulwark against the Ottomans and World War I, World War II, everything that they are the right wing, less sophisticated, less developed countries, but morally, they're light years ahead of the decadent Western Europeans. And they don't suffer to the same degree from antisemitism. They really don't. And Europe is in bad shape. I mean, gosh, the do I guess. Yesterday the dollar was 106 to the euro. It's going to get down to one to one if Trump is president. You'll see the euro at 90 cents.
- [28:08]
Jack Fowler
The European economy, the EU economy and America were almost neck and neck about 10, 12 years ago and they're just stagnant.
- [28:17]
Victor Davis Hansen
They haven't I just remember I did, we had, I had a company with the brilliant Al Phillip, my partner, who still has it. And I would urge everybody to check, check my website soon. I have an ad for his trip to Budapest in Eastern Europe. He's a genius. And for 20 years we corroborated, not on military history trips, but I can remember that one year I think we lost money because it was 144the euro to the dollar. And that was right during the end of the Bush, beginning of the Obama and people were forecasting it was going to go to 150 and the United States was done for. If Donald Trump can do three things, if he can reform the Defense Department so it's got plenty of shells and bombs and munition stops and it welcomes back all the people they alienated, the 50 or 60,000 people who traditionally go into combat units and he can stop the revolving door procurement abuses. And he has a lean, tough Defense Department that the world is scared of. And if he can cut taxes and regulations but at the same time grow the economy so he has more revenue. But here's the key thing. If the key missing Tesla of this mosaic, he's got to have Vivek and Elon cut a trillion, we're running $1.8 trillion deficit, we've got to cut that on a trajectory. So and within four years we're a balanced budget. And everybody said that's impossible. Larry Summer started laughing and said that's impossible. But there is enough money and waste that it's not impossible. If you're willing to do it. But if you could have a nearby balance and budget with a huge economy growing that was paying down the debt with a, with a lean, tough deterrent defense policy, it would just change everything vis a vis China. And did you see this world climate as an Azerbaijan where they're, I guess our representative is John Podesta and we're supposed to give all of these developing countries, you know, under the European Biden administration, blood money that we polluted the planet and heated it up. So they're making these claims for trillions of dollars of transfers.
- [30:49]
Jack Fowler
You didn't say blood money because it was John Podesta, did you? You know his affinity for blood.
- [30:57]
Victor Davis Hansen
But I was thinking about that. I mean, Trump said no last time and he will stop it.
- [31:02]
Jack Fowler
Right?
- [31:03]
Victor Davis Hansen
But it's so simplistic. You guys have more pollution all during the last century and you, you would say to them then, well, then send us. We're going to send you a bill for cell phones and cars and engines because your country had none of that. And somebody had to produce it. And we produced it and when we gave it to you, you bought it from us. But the people who are producing it obviously have to use more energy. So if you want us to give you money, why don't you just say we don't want any of your products because they're polluting. He's going to stop that. He's going to get out of the climate accord again and he's not going to let China shake us down. He's going to have better relations with India. He's going to break up this Russia, India, China axis that was a result of this non ending Ukraine war. I think it's going to be, if he can do all of this, this country will actually be united because the middle classes, wages which stagnated for 12 years under Obama, the last years of Bush until 2017 and then they stagnated again under Biden. If they, if they continue to increase, you'll have a united, powerful country again, Victor. It sounds like it'll be unstoppable.
- [32:20]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, it sounds like you're making the case for Trump, which sounds like a book title, which maybe we should talk about.
- [32:26]
Victor Davis Hansen
I think I'm going to write another book. I just thought I'll call it Return, Rebound, Resurrection. The Return of the Survival. The Rebirth of the Survival of Donald Trump. The Return of Donald Trump and the MAGA Agenda. Well, let's see.
- [32:41]
Jack Fowler
Let's, let's.
- [32:43]
Victor Davis Hansen
The reason I'm confident is that there are a lot of landmines waiting for Donald Trump. And they're, they're going to be the next generation of Comey's and Muellers and Adam Schiffs and Latita James, Jack Smith. They're all buried there waiting for Trump. But this time it's different. He knows they're there and he knows they're going to go off and he knows what they're going to do. Last time, contrary to the vilification that he was vengeful or he's mean or he wasn't, he didn't weaponize anything. Not that he's going to weaponize it now, but he knows what he has to do and he knows who's going to try to destroy him. And that's why these picks are so different than the first administration.
- [33:30]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Well, let's, let's talk about the case for Trump when we come back from these important messages.
- [33:42]
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- [34:41]
We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor and I are recording on 23 November, which is a Saturday, but this episode is up on the 28th. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Victor, just take, you know, we've never, I've never. I should have done this right after the election. I think you deserved a chance to take a victory lap. Not that you're a victory lapper, but you, you know, the Case for Trump is a. Is an important book. Was an important book, I think. Remains an important book. Anything you want to say about it in hindsight of the election?
- [35:17]
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, I have a 20,000 word update for the new paperback, but when I wrote that, I was asked to write it And I submitted the title, How Trump Won. My editors convinced me the case for Trump. I thought, well, that'll sound like I'm a partisan and fanatic. When it was really a disinterested view about why he won and how he won and why his administration would be successful. And one of the things that I pointed the theme of the case for Trump was he was a tragic hero, that we had become so deadlocked and so lethargic and so overwhelmed with the conventionality that you needed a disruptor. But the problem with disruptors are whether. And I looked at the plays of Sophocles, Ajax, Philoctetes, Oedipus, Antigone. And then I looked at the John Ford movies, especially Ethan Edwards, as you mentioned the other day in the Searchers. And I also talked about the genre in general, whether it was George Stevens, Shane or Sturges Magnificent Seven. There was a theme that the disruptor comes in and he has a set of skills that can solve the problem, but when he solves the problem, then people have the luxury of saying, oh, he tweeted too much. Oh, he's too good. He's, he's. And then he doesn't end up well. And that sort of was what I said, that Trump administrate, that he would have a stellar record, but they would demonize him and he wouldn't end up well. And that happened after January 6th. But this is what I really admire him. 99.9%, including Victor Davis Hansen, that would be the first person could not do what he did had I gone through, if I was impeached twice and put on trial as a private citizen, and I had some of my closest associates calling me a traitor, an insurrectionist. And then I went out into the political wilderness and the FBI came out here and raided my home armed. And then the next thing I knew, the full powers of the US Government, the doj, the CIA, the. They were all against me. And I had a crazy woman, Eugene Carroll, going after me to bankrupt me and make me pay $73 million for an incident that came right out of a TV plot that she copied. Or I had Jack Smith, who had a pathological hatred of me and was going to prosecute me for what Joe Biden was considered exempt from. And then he was going to call this buffoonish riot and insurrections, by which in which I said, assemble peacefully and patriotically, quite differently than Kamala Harris, who was canonized, even though she said, in the midst of rioting and violence and death, this won't Stop. This shouldn't stop. This is a movement. This is going. And when I had all that asymmetry and then. And then I had this crazy nut Fanny Willis and her boyfriend Nathan, about a phone call. Find me 10,000. Find the 10,000 votes. Suddenly I'm a criminal. If I had all of that and then that was going to run again and I have to go through a primary, and then they take my name off the ballot and say I got to fight that and then some. I just turned my head just a millisecond and just two inches, or I would have had my head blown off. And in the next seconds, I put my hand up. Fight, fight, fight. And then just a few weeks later, there's somebody waiting at the next hole to shoot me. And it just a fluke that somebody happened to see him. And then when all this is happening, I start to study the Secret Service, and I see the laxity and the incompetence with such among the Secret Service that I'm in real danger. I don't know. I. I could. There's no way I could do that.
- [39:36]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [39:37]
Victor Davis Hansen
And when he does that, I. And then when I here, my reaction to all of this is then when I hear rfk, he's going to get rfk. I thought, you know, rfk. Wow. I remember RFK said this and this and that. Tulsi Gabbard, I really like her. But you said this and that. Joe Rogan, I. I really like him, but he said this and that. That was my first response. My second response was, wait a minute. Take a deep breath, Victor. You're not a never Trumper. There is a logic to this. And then I started what would be the logic. And I can see it. And he was building an ecumenical movement that would disarm his credit. It's going to be very hard for people on the left to go after RFK on the idea that he wants to make food safer. And it's going to be very hard to go after Tulsi Gabbard when she was a member of the left and she's warning about the Frank Church, like warnings earlier that the CIA and the FBI have a tendency to rob your civil liberties. It's going to be very, very hard, in other words, to go after a lot of these people. And that was by intent. So I don't know how the next administration is going to work out. He's 78 years old, and he's got a lot of problems. And Joe Biden left a complete train wreck for him abroad and at Home. He's got a border that's amassed foreign policy. But I have a great deal of admiration for him and I like. And he completely revolutionized the Republican Party. First person to win a popular vote since George of the party since 2004. And another thing that gets me really angry, we mentioned mandates and this is the new as the California, Illinois, New York, York votes trail in the blue states, his lead that was once 51% is getting down to 50, around 50. So they're saying, see, it's not a landslide. No. As I said earlier in the podcast, every issue was landslide polling, border crime, economy, foreign policy. And Trump embraced those and was the messenger for overwhelming, overwhelming change.
- [41:54]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [41:55]
Victor Davis Hansen
And, but more importantly, Trump himself was running not just as a candidate embracing overwhelming mandates, he was running as a candidate that they had tried to put in jail, that some people had tried to kill. Some people tried to get him off the ballot. And he was the object of 90%, 90% negative media coverage by NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, PBS. And he was outspent if you count the money in the Harris Biden campaign coffers and the political action committees. He raised in total about a billion. They raised with Biden about a billion point eight. And yet he won. How can a person go over all of those? He had academia against him, he had pollsters against him, he had athletes against him, he had entertainment entertainers against him, celebrities against him, foundations against him, traditional media, Silicon Valley, and he won. It's just astounding. It to me, it is. And I don't think we appreciate that sometime.
- [43:02]
Jack Fowler
Well, I'm worried about the appreciation. We'll get to that in a little bit. But it's interesting you just mentioned msnbc, so maybe it'd be a good point right here to get your thoughts. Victor, on the news now, from when, dear listeners, you're hearing this about a week ago, of Comcast, which owns NBC, wanting to, I don't know, sell, get rid of maybe a variety of their cable channels, including msnbc. And they have a cnbc, Oxygen, some others. I think, I think the History Channel, maybe. I'm not positive about that. But anyway, MSNBC is going to be on the auction block or sale block. Do we, should we, should we give a care anymore? Does it, does it really matter what these lunatics are saying?
- [43:57]
Victor Davis Hansen
I think the only chance for it is Elon buys it. Yeah, but what's happening is MSNBC is not sustainable. There's only one person that they feel can get an audience and she's spoiled rotten. And we know who that is, don't we?
- [44:19]
Jack Fowler
Well, is it a certain lady that likes to show her neckline all the time and she has a haircut of a man? That one.
- [44:27]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes.
- [44:28]
Jack Fowler
Okay.
- [44:29]
Victor Davis Hansen
And anyway, not Joy Reed. No. Well, Joy Reed is. I think she's expendable and.
- [44:43]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well.
- [44:44]
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, I don't want to. Troy Reed is a person who has told us that anyone who wore cornrows who was not black was, was culturally appropriating and she's dyed her hair blonde. Joy Reed says that we've got to stop racism and cannot open her mouth without racializing every topic she is. Nobody wants to turn in to a station, tune into a station when she constantly is obsessed by race.
- [45:20]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [45:21]
Victor Davis Hansen
And every. So my point is they're in a. They're in a doom loop because they have this small loyal audience that likes to be told they're brilliant and the world around them is stupid and.
- [45:41]
Jack Fowler
Small.
- [45:42]
Victor Davis Hansen
And it's shrinking because a lot of people want to be with the winner just like the 49ers out here when they're 10 and oh, everybody wants to be a fan. When they're 0 and 10 you can't find a fan. And so that's, that's just the truth. So it's a mega victory. They're on the wrong side. 20 or 30% of their audience wants to feel an uplifting message and they feel the country is changing. So they're leaving msnbc. So then they're in a dilemma. The other, they have this small audience of 800,000. The other five or six hundred thousand wants to be spoon fed every night. Hatred against the right. And Trump.
- [46:25]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [46:25]
Victor Davis Hansen
It's not. Doesn't have the revenue. You put an add on that. People are not numerous enough to go out and buy that product to, to ensure a rate that they can charge the msnbc. So what do they do if they expand the audience? They have to fire the whole cadre. If they fire the whole cadre, at least in the short term they're going to lose that 6 or 700,000 audience. And so they don't know what to do. And so some of the solutions like Wis we said Joe Scarborough is we'll go over and we will make a deal with Satan and then we'll tell everybody that we're balanced and maybe we'll get more people join us than we will lose that want to hear hatred. And that's what they're trying to decide right now that each of them are trying to say which is, which is the wiser Course to take a little hit now from our minuscule audience and expand it and go back to the old CNN of years ago or do we just double down and when you have Rachel Maddow not I can I say the name now I get really angry about her. She's poor.
- [47:49]
Jack Fowler
Well you should be feel bad.
- [47:51]
Victor Davis Hansen
30, 35 million a year for one night week.
- [47:55]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [47:55]
Victor Davis Hansen
Now she's taking a. I thought she was only getting 20 million. She went down to 15 but I just read that she was getting 30 or 35 and she's getting 30.
- [48:03]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [48:04]
Victor Davis Hansen
So she's down to 25 million. So there's 52 in theory she doesn't do 52 because of experience is probably does 45. But if she did do 50, every time that woman goes on there she's getting what, 450, $500,000 for that hour and then all the and the company it's going broke. It's not a sustainable enterprise is what I'm trying to say.
- [48:29]
Jack Fowler
Absolutely.
- [48:30]
Victor Davis Hansen
So that's going to have to be it's going to have to be changing and if you go look it's happening ever everywhere. The Egan Egan I think his name was E G G and the editor of the Washington Post was just fired. Bezos said you know what I don't want to hear all these echo chamber hatred anymore.
- [48:50]
Jack Fowler
It's a political editor, right?
- [48:51]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes, political editor. I do not want to spend a hundred million dollars of my money so that you can be self righteous sanctimonious and scream and yell to a shrinking audience.
- [49:04]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [49:04]
Victor Davis Hansen
You break even, I'll do it but not this. And I think his name is Ben Pershing at the Wall Street Journal he was a political he came from the Washington Post that was in the wilderness years of Donald Trump when the Wall Street Journal and I want to preface it by I have the utMost respect for five or six of the Washington I mean the Wall Street Journal op ed. Right. Kimberly Strauss, I really like her. I think she's wonderful. Dan Henninger I agree with but, but I got so that I just I can write Peggy Noonan's column in advance. You just tell me what the political climate is this week and I will write a column word for word that'll be almost what she says. It's predictable. And when you look at the coverage that the Wall Street Journal their political essays and you look at the bylines the news division most of those reporters are coming from left wing venues and most of those news accounts are are anti Trump there are you can you can detect it. And that was starting to bleed into the politics of the op ed, some of them. And they fired, I guess he either fired him or he left. Pershing left. So something's going on where people are saying to themselves, let's get back to the news, right? And this hate Trump or hate the right is not where the people are. They want a closed border. They want to afford to buy a steak once a week. They want it to be able to fill their tank up. They want to have a natural gas stove. They want the country to be safe and respected abroad. They want criminals to be put in jail. They do not want San Francisco homelessness everywhere. They don't want looting. They don't want you to tar. They don't want this Duncan Melvini or whatever his name was type of ads on television. We're just tired of it. Just stop it. Stop it. You people are a very small vocal group, but you're not even close to a majority.
- [51:22]
Jack Fowler
And this country's not they market in identity politics. And the elections show one thing. Identity politics are being significantly rejected.
- [51:32]
Victor Davis Hansen
And they're over paid. They're all overpaid. They think they have this talent. Joy Reed doesn't understand. I, I wish I could talk to her. I'd say, joy, I have no animus toward you, but given your talents, I don't think you're the author of an engaging book. I haven't read a book that you've written or two. I don't think you're an effective columnist. I don't think you write influential essays. Do you have a podcast? Maybe. But what you're saying on the air is infantile. And it's just calling people names and racial names. And when they fire you and they will fire you, you're going to have no market value. No one's going to want to hire you. So you should stop that and try to be educated and erudite and analytical. You can beat on the left, but not that way. And so all of these things are not sustainable, right? And it's kind of like the end of the Biden administration right now. It's like, like, you know, it, it the world caught up to you guys and us on the, the Chinese balloon going over the United States, the Afghan scaddle, the screaming and yelling at Israel, China, just telling China that they're not a rival, letting them take us to the cleaners. And it, it just doesn't work. And it's a mess. And everybody knows it's a mess. And everybody knows we need to Change. So I think it's the jig is up.
- [53:04]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [53:05]
Victor Davis Hansen
And I'm glad it is, but it's, it's. Again, I don't want to be too upbeat, but it's, it's very exciting to watch this stuff. Yeah. People, I can, I can see it. At Stanford University, believe it or not, when Donald Trump won in 2016, there was lamentation tables. There is not. There was not milk and cookies and furry animals to pet for these child students. There was not. And the banners are coming down on all of the buildings of, you know, a BLM and diva lives forever. All that stuff. They're coming down. And there's, there's no, there's no encampments. I haven't seen an encampment. Four months we had the Hamas get in your face as you walk by and scream at you. I don't. Something's changed. I don't think it's willing change. I don't think it's sincere change. I think it's based on fear. I think if you're an average student from Jordan or the west bank and you think you can come over to someone else's country and scream and chase Jews into the library and somebody says you're breaking the rules. And if you break the rules, you'll be suspended. And if you're suspended, we're going to have to do by statute, tell the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE Custom Service, that your student visas no longer valid and you'll get your wish. You get to go back to your beloved home, but you'll have to leave the United States that you hate so much. That apparently was a deterrent.
- [54:33]
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, you mentioned before Ethan Edwards, and you, of course, have written about that. He's the character from the Searchers and the doing the dirty work that needs to be done. And I, I referenced it in an article I wrote, Real Clear Politics, this past week. I first, I want to say I woke up and I looked at Powerline blog, our great friends there. And Scott. I saw Scott Johnson a couple of weeks ago at the City Journal dinner. Scott's just, he's the best.
- [55:04]
Victor Davis Hansen
And I've always liked Scott and John, and I like Steve Hayward a lot.
- [55:08]
Jack Fowler
Oh, Steve's great guy. Yeah. I, I've never met John, but Scott's a sweet, sweet man. But as you know, they have an aggregator up top and six articles and one was you and one was our dear friend Dan Mahoney, and another was my piece from Real Clear, and I just made my day that was to be in that company. But today is when we're recording is again the 23rd in real time. Tomorrow would be the 24th. And that's the anniversary of the birth of William, father of Buckley Jr. He would have been 99 if he was still alive. Bill died in 2008. But Bill's the founder of the conservative movement. And my piece was what would Bill say if he was alive today about what's become of conservatism. And of course, you know, there are many people who would say if Bill was around today, he'd say Donald, he'd be a never Trumper or that kind of crapola. And that was the point of my piece to say, you know, there's some very clear dots that connect between Bill Buckley and Donald Trump. I don't want to give him, you know, we can't talk about rightly if somebody was alive, what they would actually say. We don't know that. But there are some real interesting connections. One is, if I may just for a minute or two and get your thoughts. Bill ran for mayor in New York City, 1965. And the people, the voters for Bill Buckley are, there's no question they were the Reagan Democrats eventually. And then eventually the people voting for Donald Trump. No, no question about that. And if you look at the inaugural issue of National Review in 1955, the issues that Bill said were the priority for our movement are still the issues today. And they are really like a MAGA set of issues. And Bill addressed them in very, I think strong, non academic, strong language. But in Bill's rhetoric that really parallel what Donald Trump says. And there's some other similarities. Well, everybody has worth making.
- [57:22]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. So Bill Buckley, I only met him twice. I won an award once at the Wriston dinner from News Corp. No, it wasn't News Corps.
- [57:33]
Jack Fowler
It was, that's Manhattan Institute, Manhattan.
- [57:35]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes, it was the, was the Eric Mandel.
- [57:40]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [57:41]
Victor Davis Hansen
But I anyway, I sat next to him for the evening, had a long, a nice talk with him. Everybody has differing opinions on what somebody who's passed would say. I know in families what would your mother say about that? And siblings will argue whether would your father have still voted the way he did you. I'm the inheritor of your. I know I am that kind of stuff.
- [58:01]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [58:02]
Victor Davis Hansen
And in the case of Bill Buckley, as you know, when Trump came on the scene, there were two views. There were your view, which I share. So I'm a little prejudicial that there was a consistent distrust of doctrinaire Republicanism and he weighted in as you said to the Queens and the Bronx and ran. And he said that, that famous thing that you just quoted, that he'd rather Trust the first 2,000 names on the phone book book than you know, that.
- [58:34]
Jack Fowler
Could interest faculty of Har Har.
- [58:36]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yeah. Then the faculty of Harvard if they were running the co. But then there was the other counter argument and that was contingent on a false analogy. But he was the one who excised, exempt, expelled the anti Semites and paleocon racist who did not get on board with the civil rights movement even though he had had, he had had complaints about the way civil rights was implemented rather than just, I think he was a kind of a libertarian. He'd say if you, if you have a restaurant and you don't like somebody, you have a right to do that or something. But anyway, the point I'm making is there was this struggle for his legacy and the Never Trumpers were very adamant about that. And they said, well, you know, Bill Buckley was alive. He would be shocked at what Trump's done to the Republican Party. And therefore this is key, it's to cleanse the Republican Party of Donald Trump.
- [59:34]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [59:35]
Victor Davis Hansen
And just as way he got rid of anti Semites and racists. Of course that was contingent on the idea that Donald Trump was a anti Semite for the, for the comparison to be valid. And he wasn't. He was the best friend that Israel ever had. His daughter is a converted Jew, his son in law is Jewish, et cetera. And he got more black and Hispanic votes than any other Republican of the modern age. So I don't think that analogy worked. But that was a key point for me because I had started writing for National Review. I think I mentioned that 2002, I was hired, if you remember the day. 9 11.
- [60:18]
Jack Fowler
9 11, right.
- [60:19]
Victor Davis Hansen
And Rich Lowry, whom I did not know. I was flying to Hillsdale to talk on George Patton. The plane turned around halfway, came back to the Fresno airport. I was locked down, I think for four hours and Rich Lowry called me. Hello, I'm Rich Lowry. I liked your book the Soul of Battle. Would you consider writing for a while? Why? Well, we had to let go Ann Coulter, I think she'd said didn't that she wanted a new Mecca or something or convert.
- [60:48]
Jack Fowler
Everyone who survived converted to Christian.
- [60:50]
Victor Davis Hansen
So she was let go. I didn't feel like I was parasitical taking her job. So anyway, they said we'll see how it goes twice a week. And I never, never stopped until 2020.
- [61:03]
Jack Fowler
You did not miss a single.
- [61:05]
Victor Davis Hansen
I didn't miss Whether it was the death of my daughter, or whether it was a ruptured appendix in Libya or you name it, being embedded in Iraq. Twice I did it. I haven't missed an American greatness since I was hired. I've written, I think it's now been four years. I've written over 2,000 columns without missing one. But anyway, the point is, I was very loyal to national you, but then this never Trump thing started it and forget about the people I was very close to, I thought were friends that were now attacking me. And that's true. There were five or six of them who mentioned be my name. I thought that was kind of a rule that people didn't attack each other within the confines of the magazine. But nevertheless, I couldn't see how it was sustainable. In other words, I said to myself, don't. Whatever you think about him, he is the nominee in 2016, 2018. Whatever you think about him, him, it's a successful agenda. Inflation is low, defense is strong. The world is without war. Though he's trying to get the border closed. But the more successful he was, the more outrage there was expressed. And so finally I looked one day and I said, my gosh, subscribers are bleeding. Readership is down. This wonderful Bill Buckley legacy is eroding before your very eyes. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Whatever you you think, do not attack the Republican president who embodies 85% of everything you fought for. Because if you continue to do this, people are going to say, hey, National Review, you must have never really, you must have never really wanted conservative justices because Trump gave them to you in spades. Hey, you must have never wanted the border closed. Hey, you must have never wanted low taxes and deregulation because he's done all of this and yet you're saying he's all awful. It's whatever. Whether that was the correct exegesis or not, it didn't matter. It's not sustainable. And so it wasn't sustainable and I had to leave and you left and it's not sustainable. And what I, I don't think the Washington Post to take the direct diameter is sustainable and MSNC is not sustainable and that Camilla Harris campaign was not sustainable. And what do they all have in common? You do not insult the intelligence of your reader or your voter. You don't say to your voter, you don't really know what you're voting. I know more than you. You are ill informed and under educated. That's why you don't appreciate my genius. Or I have flipped and completely renounced my entire political philosophy. But you're too stupid to. To figure it out. Or I will not do an interview. I won't do a press conference. I won't be. But you're too stupid to know why I won't do that. And the same token is yes, deregulation was good and now it's bad because of the Orange Man's fingerprints. Yes, abortion on demand was bad, but now it's good because of the Orange Man's fingerprints. Yes, closing the border was good, but now it's bad because of his fingerprints on that policy. That's just insulting the readers. And these are things everybody, I think has the same experience in their own life with whatever profession they're engaged in. If you're listening your home, clean your home or you're, you're a salesman, you're on the road. Each person has to perform that task that particular day. You have a little bit of marginal error if you've had a distinguished record to coast. But when you write a column in our business or you go on television, you're judged at that moment that second on the quality vis a vis other persons. And you have to understand that and appreciate that you don't get a relaxation. So if you tell somebody something in a column and it shows your personal hatred or it is sloppy or it is contradictory to what you said before, or it makes no logical sense from the conservative point of view, then you're not going to have people follow you no matter what your name is. And I think people forgot that. I think somebody like George Will, who was a very good writer, he under. Didn't understand that. He really did all these never trumpers, Bill Kristol, they thought that they had been so successful that they had captured the hearts and minds of a loyal constituency audience that would do. Would stick with them, the person rather than them, the successful persuader for forever. And it just doesn't happen. I always quote my parents about my mom. I one day she was the first appellate court, second appellate court judge in California was female, first one of the. She was second superior court judge, first juvenile court judge that was a woman. And you know, I think she was one of the fourth or fifth Stanford students to be a woman at law school. But she was very successful. But right before her brain tumor she was selling fruit every weekend after the agricultural collapse in Santa Cruz. And so we would load up this old used telephone van and I'd meet my mom and dad. She was a justice and she was out there with Levi's and a T shirt, 64 years old, selling plums, peaches on the table next to myself and my little kids, you know. And then one time she saw a very wealthy lawyer. And the lawyer said, pauline, what are you doing here? You're selling fruit like a peddler. She said, I am a peddler. We have a farm and we have to keep it going. And you have to. And you can't ever think you're better than anybody else. And the person left. And she said to me, remember one thing, even if you don't believe that, that. And I, she did believe that. Even if you're not just like people and you want more experiences of all different classes, everybody goes up and everybody goes down. And the people you meet going up are not necessarily the people you will stick with you when you go down. Those are the people that with you from the beginning. So what she was trying to tell me is these farmers at the farmers market, the people like that, those are the constituency. And you never, never forget that. When you go, yeah, when I go somewhere and, you know, I'm ready to get on a plane and I'm running and I'm in line and somebody comes up and sticks a book in my face and says, I saw you, I'd like to. I stop and sign it because that's your constituency, besides the fact that they're sincere and they want to talk and give you your ideas. But I won't mention one person. He, he was a Trump official, a never Trumper, in fact. But I was with a. At a book signing and he was insulting. Get away. Da, da, da. And he went down and I can tell you that he does not have any friends on the way down because he, you know, it's not the same as your. There's sometimes people like you on the way up, but when you go on the way down, they don't like you anymore because they never liked you. They just liked your success to hone in on. But the people who were with you from the beginning will be there at the end if you treat them with respect.
- [68:46]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, you can't, as writers call people carnival barkers and chumps and cletuses and not expect the, the people to sour.
- [68:57]
Victor Davis Hansen
You can't. You can. No conservative wants to read a magazine. When they refer to the former conservative head of the United States is an ape in a helicopter. I just don't want to read it.
- [69:10]
Jack Fowler
The purpose of me writing this, and we'll move on from this, was not so much to focus on my former place where I'm still a contributing editor and write on occasion was to note as the centenary of Bill Buckley comes up and it will be used as a grounds for contemplating the state of the conservative movement and who's its leadership. I think folks should realize that Bill Buckley, as you mentioned the 2,000 names in the telephone directory and his race for mayor and other the political Reagan Democrat trend, he said that Bill Buckley, despite his the way people impersonated him and his accent, et cetera, had a great affection for and connection to and understanding of quote unquote populism. And I think he would I don't think he'd be a never Trumper and I'll leave it at that. Victor, we've got to take one more little break here and then we come back. Since it's Thanksgiving, I might ask you a Thanksgiving related question right after these important messages. With Credit Karma, finding the right credit card for you is easy. Our app analyzes user profiles to suggest personalized recommendations.
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Victor Davis Hansen
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Jack Fowler
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- [71:19]
Victor Davis Hansen
We.
- [71:19]
Jack Fowler
Are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Jesus. Since it's Thanksgiving, that means it's almost Christmas, right? Well folks, you should go to Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus Victor Hansen.com and give yourself a Christmas present or treat somebody else to a subscription there. Why? Because if you're a fan of Victor, not only what he says on these podcasts, but what he writes, you will realize going to the website that he writes these ultra articles articles three times a week. They're exclusive to the website. You want to read them, but you can't if you're not subscribing. Five bucks a month, $50 discounted for the full year. Go ahead, treat yourself to that. You'll also find archives for these podcasts. So if you're a new listener to the Victor Davis Hansen show. You can go back in time and really I can't think of the word now though when you binge, you can binge. Yeah, yeah. And then links to Victor's books, etc. So that's bladeofperseusvictorhansen.com Victor, it's Thanksgiving today when this is airing. I just going to stick to a very simple question. You took whatever you want, talk about whatever you want. It's your show, Victor. But what kind of stuffing do you like? Would you tell us?
- [72:41]
Victor Davis Hansen
Well, people who know me, Jack, know that I have zero taste in foods as far as culinary excellence.
- [72:49]
Jack Fowler
Isn't that too bad? Because Mrs. Hansen is like, I know.
- [72:53]
Victor Davis Hansen
I love her turkey. I love turkey. I love brown meat turkey. I love mashed potatoes. I love cranberry sauce. I love everything. Pumpkin pie. I like everything about Thanksgiving. And I have no idea what's in the stuffing, but I like it and I eat it and I'm gonna go.
- [73:13]
Jack Fowler
Do you do any, do you, do you prepare anything yourself or you just leave it to the professor?
- [73:17]
Victor Davis Hansen
It's very sad because my father was a wonderful chef. He could cook, he had recipe, he was really good. And I have zero talent. I can cook a steak, I can bake a potato.
- [73:28]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [73:28]
Victor Davis Hansen
But part of the thing is I don't want to be a. A whiner. But I found out as I got older I'm doing three ultras. That's 2100 a week and two columns, five hours of podcast. I have a full time job that's 200 miles away, which is a 400 mile commute. And I've got. I'm always working on a book. I'm writer in residence for Roger Kimball. We live in 150 year old house so I don't have any time.
- [73:57]
Jack Fowler
How many favor requests do you get by email every day, Victor?
- [74:01]
Victor Davis Hansen
Today, Saturday I got four, but I would say I get 2530 a week. Yeah, and they are. Dear Professor Hansen, remember me? We were talking. Would you please look at this following manuscript, 400 pages enclosed. Would you. Could you any way you could blur it the next two weeks to perhaps or. Hansen, we talked. I called you once. I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm up for a professorship, tenure. Could you please read my file and write a recommendation? Third one. This is all Friday. Third one. Dear Professor Hansen, here's some poems I wrote. I know that you like things about ag. Is there any way that you could call an agent and see if you can get my farm poems published? Dear Professor Hansen, don't want to bother you, but I just thought I might say that I will be driving through the San Joaquin Valley. Is there any way that you could meet me for dinner in Fresno? I had five of those yesterday.
- [74:58]
Jack Fowler
And I know you're not mocking, it's just the.
- [75:00]
Victor Davis Hansen
I'm not mocking it. No, I'm not mocking it. Yeah, I'm not mocking it at all. Because I'm depressed. Because I'd like to be. What really hurts my feelings is when like I have to drive one day or I went to Palo Alto this week and I forgot my weekly trip. I forgot my computer. So if I don't keep up with it and often I'm so far behind, then the person writes and says well I wrote you three weeks ago and I sent my manuscript. I hadn't hear. I guess you're just too busy for. People who don't aren't in the news. They'll write stuff like that. Then now you feel really bad, you know. So I feel I'm not making fun of them because I've been in that situation myself. But I get too many of them. And I have a full time person that does the mail at full time that things are mailed to us and he does that and answers all of them. I have another full time that handles all the gifts that are in my name for our military history program and Hoover. You wouldn't believe how many people try to help a conservative voice at the Hoover Institution by sending a donation to the Victor's Military history group. Sometimes it's $10, doesn't matter. But they all deserve to be recognized and replied to. And we do that. And then we have a website, which I do, I do the Angry Reader. We have a person that reads all that and gives it to me. But then I have my own personal emails and I'm teaching a class as well to what I'm doing teaching a class on World War II at Pepperdine. So I have students to.
- [76:37]
Jack Fowler
I have two papers degrade.
- [76:38]
Victor Davis Hansen
Yes. And I have other obligations with Hillsdale College of my affiliation. So I take it all pretty serious. But it just means that you worry as you get older and you don't have the same level of no time.
- [76:52]
Jack Fowler
To learn how to cook.
- [76:54]
Victor Davis Hansen
No, no time to learn very. I'm very lucky. My wife cooks wonderfully and cooks for me, does the dishes and then I try to make up for her one sided efforts by me doing that little mechanical things around the farm. Well, yesterday, two days ago I took an old a knob doorknob off, replaced it. The latch broke. Closet. I fixed that. There were four drip hoses that were eaten into. I have been putting security cameras. I think I'm on number nine around the farm. Oh yeah, I try to do that, but I don't have much time. Like when I was in my 50s, it wasn't like this. I, I, I, if a high school student once when I wrote Feels About Dream, a high school teacher called me up and said, I loved your book and every person wrote a book review of your book. And I said that's very nice. She called back and said there's 47 of them and they really expect a personal note for from you each one. Oh, I wrote 47 personal notes.
- [78:04]
Jack Fowler
Wow.
- [78:05]
Victor Davis Hansen
So it's stuff like that that But I, I, I, I don't have the time to do that anymore.
- [78:10]
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, I'm not a mind reader, but today, again, this is out on Thanksgiving, so let's just assume this is Thanksgiving Day. I'm going to assume you're thankful for what happened a couple weeks ago with our elections. Give me the alternatives. Right. And I myself am thankful for that. And still, still a little on high over it.
- [78:32]
Victor Davis Hansen
I am too. I feel like like of divine providence that somebody, you know, they always said the United States. Bismarck said it's what, safe from drunks and other people.
- [78:45]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [78:45]
Victor Davis Hansen
That was a very. The United States enjoys divine providence.
- [78:50]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [78:51]
Victor Davis Hansen
But something saved us and I, I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful. I have two wonderful children. I have a wonderful son and daughter and I have a lot of. I was, I always think of my parents. I had wonderful mother and father. Just I worship them like deities.
- [79:13]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [79:13]
Victor Davis Hansen
Wonderful wife. I've been very well lucky. And you know, one thing I just want to, I think we should all be very thankful for alive. I think, I think when you get older, it's not that you're afraid of death, you just don't like death when you start to notice it. So when I look at the Ukraine war and I read 1.6 million dead wounded Ukrainians and Russians and then I see this stuff. I was for the Iraq war, so I'm not going to be. I was probably culpable because I thought that it was necessary for our security and he was an evil person. But now when you look at that, you think, who are these people saying they want to, that we have to win to the last Ukrainian. You know what I mean?
- [80:01]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [80:01]
Victor Davis Hansen
They want to hit Russia and they want to. And this is so good. I, I saw a person on Television about two months ago that said something to the effect well this is very good. What we're doing to Russia is in our interest. We, we, we. They've lost over a million casualties but they're just 18 year old night that are that he forces to go in there. And it's not that you're a pacifist, it's just a death. It's very hard to take when you see and you also, you see people. I'm on a group of high school, my friends in high school they text you a text chat group and when you see people your age that you knew and really like dying. Yeah death, death, death, death.
- [80:40]
Jack Fowler
You know in that war makes you.
- [80:41]
Victor Davis Hansen
Think, it makes you thankful that you're alive.
- [80:44]
Jack Fowler
There's a, there's a guy posts on X remember the fall and, and I've. I started following it a few years ago and every day he marks the birthday of somebody who died in Vietnam and if there's a metal citation for that person he posted. But you know the day after day like oh my gosh, this was a 19 year old kid from Alabama and he was small ground fire and he did something heroic and the next day is another one next day and it's just like this drip, drip, drip. And you think why were did they die?
- [81:22]
Victor Davis Hansen
You know, I know I this week it's funny because it was Thanksgiving, I went upstairs, I don't go up into this desk, I open the death and here were the letters from Victor Hansen who I was named after died in Okinawa. And I was reading him writing to my great grandparents and, and who were Swedish and he was, he was in Guadaca now training 6th Marine Division to go into Okinawa. And it was well, we don't know where we're going to go but whatever it is it's going to. We're going to do a top knob job now that we talked in that era, right. Don't worry about me. This is a great country. We're going to win. And. And then he got killed. And then I was also cleaning out. We have an old shed and when my daughter died I put everything there in it and under plastic. I haven't read it since fenced and I opened it to move it and I saw one of her letters and she said I had had a catastrophic bike accident and she was writing on. She just wrote me a note and said oh you look really bad. Don't worry, you're going to be back to normal dad, just like normal. And then she passed away six months later. How does anybody who's 26 pass away in perfect health? You know, I don't understand it, but these things happen. So we have on Thanksgiving to think about.
- [82:50]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [82:52]
Victor Davis Hansen
Memory to all these wonderful people that died and led wonderful lives. And then to think how lucky we have one more day. One more day is what it's all about.
- [83:02]
Jack Fowler
And Victor, if I may, the family, my wife, my children. Sooner or later, I hope I have grandchildren. If they get active and then rightly active, I should say. And I do want to not blow smoke at you, but I am very, very well aware that there are many, many people who would want to be doing what I'm doing here with you and do it better. And I'm really thankful to be able to.
- [83:30]
Victor Davis Hansen
I appreciate that because I'm around a lot of people who wouldn't want to be you and who make that pretty clear to me where I work, I think. But that's another story. Story.
- [83:42]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [83:42]
Victor Davis Hansen
I have wonderful grand. I have five grandchildren.
- [83:46]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [83:46]
Victor Davis Hansen
And I love them all. They're really wonderful kids. And I was very lucky there. Get back. You look back at your life and you think all these choices were very. I had very good students at Cal State Fresno. I'm very close to a lot of them.
- [84:02]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [84:02]
Victor Davis Hansen
Wonderful. Some brilliant kids. And. Well, it's just wonderful. I had a lot of good friends.
- [84:11]
Jack Fowler
I was talking to Mahoney about that. There's a professor in that you can really engage with some students and actually play a role in their life, setting them down a path and helping them really flourish in the way they wouldn't have without your engagement. And that's not being.
- [84:27]
Victor Davis Hansen
You know, we had a couple of students over election night and one went to Yale after Fresno, know State, and one went to Brown and they married. And now they're classics. Curtis Easton and his wife Christy. They were brilliant students, and it's good to see them. And I get. I. I had a lot of really brilliant students. It's funny about a place like Cal State Fresno. You think, well, you taught at the Naval Academy or you. I had some. Two really brilliant students at the Naval Academy, Alex Martin and Tim Schn. I. But. And I had a lot of good students at Stanford when I taught there and at Pepperdine. I do. But there was something about Cal State because they were from maybe the middle or lower middle classes with a lot of problems. Money problems.
- [85:17]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [85:18]
Victor Davis Hansen
Work. Trying to work. And it was. And boy, some of them, that discovery of that natural talent and where you. Where people wouldn't expect it. I mean, the University you know, know, if I said that the brightest students I ever had in 20 years came from Cal State, Fresno, they wouldn't believe you. But they were there, and they're there now.
- [85:39]
Jack Fowler
Well, and that's really you're not taking a bow. But you, you help make that happen. And that's got to be rewarding because why else are you teaching? It's not to not to see that kind of end result. So. Hey, Victor, we're.
- [85:54]
Victor Davis Hansen
We are out of time. Everybody's listening. Thank you very much for hanging in there today.
- [86:00]
Jack Fowler
Thank you, folks. And thank you, Victor, for everything. And, folks, will. We will be. I wish I could speak English. Victor, we will be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Happy Thanksgiving. Bye. Bye.
- [86:13]
Victor Davis Hansen
Happy Thanksgiving.