Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
Victor Davis Hanson
If you're running a business, you know that every time you miss a call, you're leaving money on the table. When every customer conversation matters, you need a phone system that keeps up and helps you stay connected 24, 7. And that's why you need OpenPhone. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications. It works through an app on your phone or computer, so no more carrying two phones or using a landline. With OpenPhone, your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts like a shared inbox. That way any teammate can pick up right where the last person left off, keeping response times faster than ever. Plus say goodbye to voicemail. Their AI agent can be set up in minutes to handle calls after hours, answer questions and capture leads so you never miss a customer. So whether you're a one person operation drowning in calls and texts, or having a large team that needs better collaboration tools, OpenPhone is a no brainer. See why over 60,000 businesses trust OpenPhone. OpenPhone is offering our listeners 20% off your first six months@openphone.com Victor that's O P E N P H o n e openphone.com Victor and if you have existing numbers with another service, Open Phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open Phone. No missed calls, no missed customers. Hello ladies. Hello, gentlemen. This is the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor is the Martin and Eli Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marcia Buskey Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College and he is a best selling author. So many books. Farmer, rancher, philologist, military historian, classicist man. With the website the Blade of Perseus. You'll find it@victorhanson.com you should be subscribing. I'll tell you why later in this episode which we are recording on Sunday 29th June and it will be up on Tuesday, July 1st. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. I am in the People's Republic of Connecticut, returning from my trip to the People's Republic of California where the great pleasure of doing this directly with Victor last week. Anyway, Victor, as ever in America today, there's just so much to talk about. We are on the cusp as we're talking of the United States Senate, the pushing through the bill back better or big beautiful bill? Excuse me. Big beautiful bill back better.
- [02:55]
Jack Fowler
I think that's the wrong president.
- [02:57]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's the wrong president.
- [02:58]
Jack Fowler
Have you switched since I saw you came out to California, maybe you turned left and I didn't know about it. Yeah, I don't.
- [03:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
I hit my head. First of all, big beautiful bill. And we have some great, great Supreme Court decisions that came out on Friday. And we'll get Victor's take on those things. Maybe a Pew study on the Trump voter from 2024. We'll do all of that when we return from these important messages. What is dadication?
- [03:27]
Jack Fowler
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him day Date for short. Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we work. We did a good job.
- [03:47]
Narrator
That's dedication.
- [03:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is unconstitutional. Have you heard some biased journalists, maybe on a podcast or a YouTube show, say this?
- [04:02]
Jack Fowler
Probably.
- [04:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
Do you just take their word for it? Which begs another question. Have you ever taken the time to read and understand for yourself the meaning of the United States Constitution? Most haven't. That's why I'm excited that Hillsdale College is offering a brand new free online course called the Federalist. This terrific course explains how the United States Constitution established a government strong enough to secure the rights of citizens and safe enough to wield that power. And today, it's our responsibility to pay attention, to be vigilant, as our founders might say, in order to preserve and protect Republican self government. Hillsdale's online course, the Federalist, includes 10 lectures, each about 30 minutes long. You can take the course at your own pace. There's no cost to sign up. They're remarkably well produced and engaging and a must for anyone like me who's never really delved into the Federalist papers. Enroll here at no cost. Go right now to Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll again. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll for free Hillsdale Edu VDH we are back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show. So, Victor. Yeah, last night into the wee hours the Senate was meeting and woke up this morning to headlines that big beautiful bill had picked up enough, enough votes to 51 Republican votes to move ahead. I think J.D. vance would have been a tiebreaker if needed. A negative Republican vote was Thom Tillis of North Carolina. And Donald Trump is calling for his head on a platter in a Republican primary when he's up for reelection. Anyway, Victor moves on to the House. Your thoughts on this big political enchilada?
- [06:05]
Jack Fowler
Well, it was so huge and comprehensive that anybody could find something they didn't like. Anybody could find a lot. I mean it had really good border security. It was finishing the wall. I like the tax on university endowments and tax on remittances is in there as well. Everything is in there. So it's hard to, I mean it's not a lean mean bill where you just get one ideological theme in it. It's got everything in it. And at this point the President's prestige was predicated on it. And we know that the Democrats are not like Republicans. They don't have apostates. You don't see any of these votes where you get some old fashioned centrist Democrat stand up and say I don't know what's happening in my maybe Fettermen, but there's no otherwise they have absolute complete control and discipline ideological straitjackets. So it's very hard to defeat those people because if you any vote against your party aids them and they're never going to do the same thing for you. It's just not going to happen. Even Fetterman's not going to vote for you. And I don't understand Rand Paul especially, I understand where he's coming from ideologically. He does some great things but he's a very smart guy. And when you put it on the ledger, the damage you do by voting against your own party on the most important bill of the year because of some of the things you don't like versus the advantage that you accrue by not seeming a hypocrite or you'll be a purist. I don't understand unless he went to the President and said I need to know exactly what the vote is. And Trump said it's going, we have two extra votes with Vance, et cetera. And he said well can I vote against it to performance art showboat. And he said okay, this time maybe they did that with him, I don't know. But I don't know why when he would agree with 70% of it, why they go with the 30% they don't want given the opposition they have. It doesn't make any sense. It really doesn't. It reminds me of farming, you know what I mean? When you work all year and you've got a plum crop and the temperature is rising and you don't know what the first day to pick a Santa Rosa plum orchard or in our case, disastrous red plum that we had. Anyway, the point is you can pick the perfect date, but if you wait for the perfect date, it might be too green or it might be overripe. Usually it's overripe. You say, I want to get 70% of the crop off in the first and I'm going to wait, wait till I get the. You'll lose the whole thing. And I've done that before. So in the pursuit of the perfect, you become the enemy of the good. And he's never going to get what he wanted. There was no chance in blank blank that he was going to get. Given his libertarian propensities, he was going to get a bill he wanted.
- [08:57]
Victor Davis Hanson
Right.
- [08:58]
Jack Fowler
And there was zero chance he'd get anything under a Democrat. So I guess it's just rebranding himself as the maverick libertarian that he thinks serves a role in keeping everybody honest fiscally. That's all I can come up with. I don't know what his point is. He said Medicaid or something for rural people.
- [09:21]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [09:22]
Jack Fowler
But if you look at most of the Medicaid cuts, they are cuts against in the bill, people who are not working, who are able bodied or illegal aliens and things like that. It's mostly waste, fraud and abuse. It's not gutting the Medicaid program. Here in California, we call it Medi California and it's devouring about a third to fourth of the whole.
- [09:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. I think isn't 40% of the state.
- [09:46]
Jack Fowler
Bud, 40% of the people are on Medi Cal and 50%, all the births are on Medi Cal and he just announced there's no money left. So he can't do his favorite constituency. He can't serve them illegal aliens, which he bragged that he gave 500 million to for Medi Cal.
- [10:04]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Remarkable.
- [10:05]
Jack Fowler
That's a whole. He's a clown, so you can't talk about him in normal tornado.
- [10:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
I'm not saying in Rand Paul's defense because I'm not. I don't know the case he made. But if it is that he thinks this will ratchet up the debt and if the debt is already at a crisis point, I can see that someday somehow that is going to be an issue that is going to demand conscience.
- [10:29]
Jack Fowler
It is. And he has. This was the first budget and he's got. Now they got everything they want in it. Now they should go for the next three budgets so they don't have reconciliation. They should just be physically responsible and try to. But there were so many things I mean, I don't want to criticize the Doge people, but they were talking about a trillion dollars in cuts. There was no way that was ever going to happen because they were not allowed to look at Medicare and Social Security and Defense, and that was not going to happen. And I said on this show and other venues that if you start giving tax cuts on tips on Social Security and they mentioned first responders, they have to be balanced by reductions in spending and they weren't commensurate. I do give him credit that Trump, the tariffs have brought in more revenue than anybody had thought. I don't know if that's going to continue, but they're bringing in a lot of revenue. Not as much as he, you know, a trillion dollars, maybe over a decade, but not nearly in a year or two. So they need to go back, as I said, and go back to the Simpson Bowles deficit reduction plan. It's there, it's three tax brackets. It's going to lead to a balanced budget in five years. So they could just resurrect it. Obama created it. And they came back and said, you know, we'll have a balanced budget. Had we forgotten followed that Simpson Bowles during the Trump first term and continue it to the Biden, we'd be, I think something like six. We would have a balanced budget, but we would only have spent about, we would have a deficit about six or seven trillion dollars.
- [12:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, long ago. And I forget the Montana senator whose plan was, you know, let's just commit to a 3% annual budget increase. And you would, you would, your growth, the GDP growth would outpace that and can't simplify the American governmental budget. But there has to be a way to constrain it.
- [12:33]
Jack Fowler
Anything that can't go on, as Herb Stein said, I guess he was the one that said it won't go on and it's not going to go on. And what Trump is railing about is $3 billion a day in interest. So he's mad at the Federal Reserve because if they would go down from, say, home mortgage rate, but I mean, whatever the Fed's actual rate is four and a half or something down to two, we'd save a billion and a half a day and that would be, you know, a third of a trillion dollars, that would really help. But when you start having deficits, then they have the argument that deficits are by nature inflationary, even though we haven't had inflation. One of the things that was really weird about all this is that this May June data came out on Trade, I mean it was almost like every single PhD and economist in the Wall Street Journal. Everything they wrote in May was wrong. And that guy named, I don't know, Slok, he was Tilson Slok, he was the Apollo investment manager director. And he said, was Trump right? And we were wrong. And he pointed out that he made a lot of good points. That when you have these huge foreign concerns like Germany and Japan and South Korea and China and they want that US market and they are making fantastic profit margins, they may want to absorb the cost of the tariff to remain competitive and they still will make money because they're making some. And nobody had really talked about that. And then when they had said, you know, when you get rid of illegal aliens, 1 million, almost a million of them self deported, which they said was impossible. Nobody will self deport. I remember reading that a lot. But then the point was that we have the lowest crime rate, did you see that in New York? In years? And it might be the lowest in history at this present rates by next year. So if you take 500,000 criminals off the street that are estimated to be among the 12 million illegal aliens and get them out, then you're going to have lower crime rates and you're going to have a lot of people off the books who are working off the books for cash at substandard wages and you get them off. And maybe people will be looked to to be hired that are U.S. citizens. And there was no inflation like Wall street told us. There was no big drop in unemployment. The job hiring each month was better than expected. Thus stock market's record highs. Personal income is up, personal savings are up. Everything they told us. That's a larger issue, Jack. Everything these experts tell us. Now, I don't know what it is. It's. Well, I do know what it is. But they told us you could not stop the border. It had to be comprehensive immigration reform. Just no way you're not going to stop 10,000 people. There's zero now. You can't deport people. You can't deport a million people. Year we've already done that with self deportations and forced deportations and then tariffs. Free trade, it's the only way to go. Fair trade, that doesn't exist. Whatever, whatever your trade deficit is, you'll do more damage by trying to rectify that and hampering down on free quote unquote trade. It just won't work. And they were wrong. And then I was thinking it was like the 51 and 10 authorities, the economists that said that build back better and inflation reduction acts won't cause hyperinflation. The green experts that said that, you know, Barack Obama's house in Hawaii and Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard should be flooded by now. According to them, they've really taken a hit. And I guess it's because our experts with degrees hate Trump so much that they would rather be wrong and damage him than be proven correct in their analyses and indirectly help him. And then the other issue is the academic world. I don't think people realize it for the last 20 years, but especially since George Floyd, it hasn't operated on a merocratic basis. And by that I mean they're not hiring professors, they're not admitting graduate students on the basis of test scores in the case of students or GPAs necessarily or in the case of faculty. You know, impressive publication. It's been DEI diversity and it's starting to take effect. One of the things I'm doing all the time now when I meet people and I do a lot academics, I was there at Stanford last week, is I ask them, what do you think your graduate program's like now? Because I know what classics is like. And they all say the same thing. I talk to doctors, I've talked to every lawyers. We don't teach what we used to. We do not admit the caliber that we used to. And these people are now more weaponized and more politicized that come out of the academic world. And so you say to yourself, how did Claudine Gay be president of Harvard? That used to be the premier intellectual slot in America. She's a joke, she's a plagiarist. How did that happen? Well, or how do these law professors like the Bankman Frieds or all these people come out of Stanford Law School? It doesn't make any sense. It does make sense that weaponization, politicalization, climate change advocacy, dei, all of these non academic criteria are creating a commissariat. And when you think of the arrogance because of foreign student enrollment, price gouging, price gouging on federal grants, segregation on count, campus dei, they're smug, they're isolated, they are flush with cash, morally superior and then they get out into the general public. And if you have a PhD in Political Science and you're a pollster, you're going to be. We can't trust the polls if you're an economist, we can't trust what you're going to say anymore. As far as Trump, if you're in PhD in political science, diplomatic stuff, and you're going to tell us the. That if Trump goes into Iran, we're going to have a theater war, thousands are going to die. We're going to cause a nuclear retaliate. China and Russia.
- [18:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
You can't trust them, Victor, if you're a scientist. We can't trust the scientific studies anymore. They're so laced with.
- [18:43]
Jack Fowler
Can't trust them on Wuhan, so many PhDs, Peter Dasak and Fauci that the virus was not birthed at the Wuhan level. 4. So the university has really taken a hit. And it's almost like this. If you run a small business, you know more about the economy than a PhD in economics, and you should be trusted more. If you're an electrician, you know electricity, because you have to more than a classicist knows Greek and Latin. I can tell you that right now. The new generation. And if you're. If you want to get a good biography, you should buy some. A biography from someone like Andrew Roberts, who's not in a university. The best biographers are not in universities because they have freedom of action and thought and they have to appeal to people who are normal. So all the universities, it's kind of becoming irrelevant and the people in it should not be listened to. So many experts. God, I was watching MSC and NBC and they all said, if Trump goes in the there. If we were to bomb, there's no proof. There's no proof that Iran was anywhere close to a bomb requires a sophisticated enrichment from 60 to 90%. There's no evidence of that. There's no weaponization. There's no facilities to deliver such a weapon. We had months, if not years, and then as soon as he bombed, it was. Well, this is even more dangerous because There must be £900 of nuclear material that can be almost rapidly weaponized. It's very easy to enrich from 60 to 90%. And now we may be facing a nuclear. You know what I mean? It was just so we went to.
- [20:20]
Victor Davis Hanson
World War three with Soleimani.
- [20:22]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, it was the same thing. It was all politicized because of Trump. They hate it. They hate the way he looks, the way he speaks, the way he talks, what he represents. So you can't. He's done something. He's done more to destroy the economic. I mean that. It's like he's some kind of mercury or something that draws stuff out. You know, he draws the draw. He's able to expose what these people are like through their hatred, and then they expose themselves to be utter frauds. And even the pollsters I was thinking, I went back and looked at the polls, the real clear politics average, you know, some of these polls, like YouGov, they have Trump down like 8 or 9 or 10 poll. And I went back and looked at what they were saying in 2020, they were off in the last on the tally by 8, 7 points. Why would they just not shut down and say, you know what, we're bankrupt. We always get it wrong.
- [21:15]
Victor Davis Hanson
Right. This is our job. We don't know what we're doing. We'll find another career. Never happens.
- [21:22]
Jack Fowler
Never happens.
- [21:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor, you, let's keep on this, because from my own little perch on Friday, watching Trump at a press conference after news came out of some of the Supreme Court decisions, and we'll get to that a little later in today's episode. But other news breaking or from recent days, peace brokering peace between India and Pakistan, peace agreement between Congo and Rwanda, success in the upcoming course in Iran. And I don't, Victor, I'm sitting in there thinking like, this guy is colossus. I don't know what else to compare him with.
- [22:02]
Jack Fowler
I don't.
- [22:03]
Victor Davis Hanson
And I'm not trying to.
- [22:04]
Jack Fowler
Is that famous in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar about, I think Brutus says it, that he strides now like a colossus among us.
- [22:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, think about like who over us.
- [22:15]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [22:15]
Victor Davis Hanson
Who is like him? Who in the last 50 years, any world leader has at this moment, moment had such success?
- [22:22]
Jack Fowler
Wait a minute. Who won a Nobel Prize his first couple of months in office? I forgot Barack Obama. Remember he joked that he didn't deserve it.
- [22:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [22:33]
Jack Fowler
I don't know. You know, I got Nobel Prize. I probably didn't deserve it. He didn't. He didn't do anything but be black and play to the guilt of the white, suburban, affluent class. And they gave it to him. There is nobody that has done all of that. Nothing. Nothing like it. The weird thing is, why was he able to do that? He was able to do that because he was willing to say things and do things that no one else would. Because if you did say that NATO was a bankrupt alliance and it wasn't even spending 2% like he said in 2017, they hated you. And if you said that about immigration, we're not getting the best people in the world. When you get 500,000 criminals, they hate you. And nobody wanted to be hated. They wanted on the right. They, they wanted to be John McCain. They wanted to be a Mitt Romney. They wanted to be a voice.
- [23:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
Please don't call me a racist.
- [23:30]
Jack Fowler
Please don't. Please don't do this.
- [23:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [23:33]
Jack Fowler
And same thing. And so that's. Once he was able to have common sense solutions to. To obvious problems and willing to take action. Like tell Iran don't do it or owls and then the or else was followed up. Or tell Sheinbaum, you better patrol your side of the border or the following is going to happen to you. And the same thing with Canada. I don't know what to say. Nobody. You're absolutely right. No one's like him. But again, getting to that motif, the first book I wrote about him and I'm finishing the second book, he is a tragic hero. He's gonna get no support. He can have the most successful four years in history. And when he retires and they have former presidents for a group picture, no one will want to stand next to him.
- [24:19]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:21]
Jack Fowler
Not mediocre.
- [24:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
It'll be Ethan Edwards walking out the door and the door closing on him.
- [24:27]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. No, they would rather pal around with Barack Obama, who probably is the worst. He's worse than Biden in many ways because he started all this craziness.
- [24:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor, I would like to bring up one other political thing I do want to mention. You mentioned plums before, and I know about two years ago or so you gave a great history of the plum crop failing. You did that with Sammy, and I should try and dig it up and renew it for our listeners because it was a great account of the. The perfect being the enemy of the good and the challenges you face daily as a farmer. Two weeks ago, Democrats, I think it was two weeks ago, we're taking the streets in many cities of the no kings. And now we have Trump at the head of NATO calling him Daddy.
- [25:17]
Jack Fowler
I know what happened to the LA riots. I thought, wow, they just disappeared. And I looked ISIS still doing what it is. I had a reader, Gary wrote me, he's a good guy and he wrote and said, have you noticed that they're cleaning the roads in California? And I was driving back from Palo Alto and all these filthy roads, they have cleaners out there. It's almost as if Gavin says, I've got to do something to show that I'm an effective governor. So I'm going to clean up the trash along the side of the roads. I'm going to call the SEIU up and say, hey, we got the Olympics coming up and crazy Trump might cut us. Could you just kind of stop paying people to come out there and get all your wealthy donors to stop? And it's kind of eerie that all those protests have just stopped and that no kings should have been that kind of was stopped because that was really the if you look at the most powerful people from January till the recent Supreme Court decision, it's district judges. And all of a sudden they were the kings. They were, they were ruling all over. And there's been a lot of really good commentary about that Supreme Court decision pruning back their ability to have nations. And have you seen all these quotes from the Biden administration, people in the media and then the doj? This is unfair. A district judge cannot do this. When some conservative groups went to district courts and tried to stop some of the abortion rulings and stuff nationwide, they were so angry about it. Like Obama saying that the filibuster was racist. And then when he was in the minority, he filibustered Alito's appointment.
- [26:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, let's, let's get your some more thoughts, Victor, from you on that case. And then we have the case regarding parents and trans activists. What the heck was the other big case? There were so many of them came out the other day.
- [27:04]
Jack Fowler
The birthright citizenship.
- [27:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, the citizenship. And we have Amy Comey Barrett giving it to Justice Jackson. So there's a lot of SCOTUS material to get your.
- [27:14]
Jack Fowler
I should say something about that. I read part of her opinion.
- [27:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, let's hear it when we come back from these important messages.
- [27:26]
Narrator
Celebrate Independence Day with an epic fourth of July sale. Stock up on the best supplements from brickhouse nutrition.com and and save big 25% off everything with code fireworks25get lean, their number one weight loss supplement packed with natural studied ingredients. No injections, just real results to help you slim down for the summer. Or try Field of Greens, my favorite superfood drink. So powerful they guarantee your doctor will notice your boosted health or your money back. Collagen peptides are another fan favorite for glowing skin and hair beauty experts say. After all, collagen is the fountain of youth for skin and hair. From weight loss to wellness, Brickhouse Nutrition has it all. And our listeners can't stop raving. This sale is huge. But it's only here for a few days and products will sell out. Don't wait. Head to brickhouse nutrition.com and use fireworks25 for 25% off. Let's go big this Fourth of July. Brickhouse nutrition.com stock up now. And thank you Brickhouse Nutrition for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson show. If you're like me, you have a lot of product on your bathroom counter. Well, I have found the secret serum and its vibrant super C Serum. The ingredients in this one bottle can replace your day creams, eye creams, night creams, neck creams, wrinkle creams and even dark spot reducers. Made in the usa. With the highest quality ingredients including vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, vitamin B5 and vitamin E, Super C Serum delivers noticeable results. Simplify your skin care routine, get a healthier complexion and minimize wrinkles and age spots with Vibrance. I just began using Super C Serum last week and I love it. My skin feels so much better, soft, moist and fresh. And by the way, it smells beautiful, like the orange blossoms outside my kitchen door. Give it a try and you'll love it, too. And if you don't find it better than your current skincare routine, you'll get a full refund. Go to vibrance.com victor to save up to 37% off and free shipping. That's Vibrance V I B R I A n c e vibrance.com Victor and we'd like to thank Vibrance for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show.
- [30:16]
Victor Davis Hanson
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen show on Sunday, 29 June. We're recording this episode's up on Tuesday, July 1. I'm here in sunny Connecticut. It's coming through the windows here. I'll pull the shades after the show. Victor's got a website, the Blade of Perseus, and anything and everything Victor writes, you'll find it there, including his weekly essay for American Greatness, a weekly syndicated column in archives of these podcasts. And then Victor, he does three exclusive things for the Blade of Perseus every week. Two of them are articles and then one of them is a special video. And you can watch, you can read them. You can watch them. If you're a fan of Victor's writing and you're not reading them, well, what can I tell you? You're missing out. $65 a year to subscribe, 650amonth. If you want to just stick your toe in the water there, that's the Blade of Perseus. You'll find it@victorhansen.com Victor it's funny. Let's pick up on the judicial decision limiting the local federal judges to their area. And Scott Jennings, who's just terrific there on cnn. He was mucking around with his other.
- [31:37]
Jack Fowler
CNN justice, Kagan, wasn't it?
- [31:39]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. And he said he quoted from her. And yet she's the one in 2022, she gave a talk and said this should be, they should just, they should not have nationwide jurisdiction, these local judges. And yet she voted with the minority in this particular case.
- [31:58]
Jack Fowler
You know that one.
- [31:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
Your thoughts?
- [32:00]
Jack Fowler
The late Christopher Hitchens, the last 10 years of his life. I don't know how he. He got to be a friend of mine. I think he turned Conservative for about 10 years and he was very friendly. And he visited here on the farm a couple times. I saw him at Hoover. I was able to help him get a media fellowship for three years.
- [32:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
He saved your life.
- [32:23]
Jack Fowler
He was always like, you sat next to him at a dinner or he was like sitting next to a king cobra because he could, without warning, without anything, he could turn around and give you a bite, you know, for no reason. But he was very astute. And once he said, it's very hard to get Michelle Obama's undergraduate thesis because people had mentioned that it was terrible and they had kind of not let it. But he had a copy and he sent me a PDF of it. He said, you've got to read this. And this is what I remember. It is written in some language unknown to me, but it's not English. And I read the kanji, and I'm not trying to do, you know, stereotype black deprecation or anything, but I read her opinions. It was sophomoric. I mean, it was. I corrected freshman essays and 18 year olds for 25 years. It was worse. You know, it was this. If a Martian came from another planet, well, where would a Martian come from but another planet, Right? I mean, if a Martian came from Earth, if a Martian came from the South 40. But if a Martian came from another planet, the whole thing was just silly. And her whole opinion was that a district judge, if you would not let him allow his ruling for his regional area of, you know, locale or relevance of the case. But you applied it to, if you didn't do that, you didn't let him apply it to overrule the Congress or the president, anything, the Supreme Court, then you were a tyrant. And it's just God. And then I don't know if all that pressure on Amy Comey Barrett worked or what, but she wrote one of the most devastating takedowns I've ever seen. It was really brilliantly written. I'm not just saying it because I.
- [34:13]
Victor Davis Hanson
Agreed and it was personalized.
- [34:16]
Jack Fowler
It was personalized. It was directed right at Justice Jackson. And then Justice Roberts mentioned, I think, about not attacking the Supreme Court. Justice I think he was when Donald Trump was criticizing them, maybe, but. And he really, I know that he really went after Schumer do you remember that? When he said. You. We've mentioned that so many times on this show. When he went to the doors of the Supreme Court.
- [34:41]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [34:41]
Jack Fowler
Said Kavanaugh, justice the wind. You're gonna sow the whirlwind.
- [34:46]
Victor Davis Hanson
Excuse me. Do you think personally he has. He let him know that that was.
- [34:50]
Jack Fowler
I don't know. But he was right about that. And he was right because later, you remember the assassin. They had all those demonstrations at the justice's home. And then we had the assassin and then we had all of these.
- [35:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
Sister turned him in. Yeah.
- [35:03]
Jack Fowler
Threatening to pack the court and to change the makeup of the court. And so he was right about that.
- [35:11]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Well, that's, you know, on. If I mentioned.
- [35:15]
Jack Fowler
I'm not just saying that because my mom was a judge, but she would get. She was a state appellate court judge and she would be very sensitive when people would personally attack her for an opinion. I mentioned that a couple times. I was at a reception where some lawyer came up and basically threatened her. He was a big developer and he started yelling and screaming, streaming out or.
- [35:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
And, well, judges are not immune from. From harsh criticism, but they. No, they should be immune from.
- [35:43]
Jack Fowler
You're going to reach personal threats. Personal threats, absolutely. You have. They have to be sacrosanct from personal threats.
- [35:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [35:52]
Jack Fowler
And. Or if it. If they're not, then it. It escalates and you end up with people at their homes threatening them and all to coerce them into. To a decision. I would go even further. When you have confirmation hearings and you go after someone and try to destroy them. I mean, I was hoping that Brown Jackson was not confirmed, but they didn't go after her and try to destroy her. They didn't do that to Sotomayor. What they did to Kavanaugh was try to reduce him to almost subhuman status. That he was a virtual rapist, that he was an alcoholic. This was all when he was 17 or 18. There was no corroboration. There was no evidence. Elizabeth, even Dianne Feinstein finally joined in on it. They were horrible. Elizabeth Warren was one of the worst. And what Joe Biden did to Clarence Thomas, it was just.
- [36:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
Can you imagine if Kavanaugh did this? I think very unique thing of keeping a calendar as a teenager and not only doing that as a teenager, but then keeping them for years. So at least he had the evidence to turn back to. And that Blasey Ford, whatever the heck.
- [36:57]
Jack Fowler
Her name was, everything she said was a lie. She said she was afraid of flying and she flew over Hawaii in A lightweight plane that's pretty dangerous. And she said that she had two entrances, so she was scared that she might have to escape. And then it was actually for an illegal rental. Everything she said and she would fly. How did they get a. I'm afraid to fly. But how did you get to the east coast two weeks earlier to be coached? Yeah, I flew.
- [37:25]
Victor Davis Hanson
This is what Justice Barrett wrote. We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial example executive while embracing an imperial judiciary. That is a really sharp. Sharon My wife was saying, I don't know how they're going to. How they're going to act against that.
- [37:52]
Jack Fowler
Well, I said, I think we all said on this that from. I say from February until May, the most powerful people in America are the 350 or 400 liberal district judges. They were running the country. They adjudicate almost anything. Immigration, surely they did. They weren't letting anybody. I mean, their whole theory was that you can come in here illegally and break the law and we're not going to do anything. But if you get caught and you try to enforce a law, then they have all sorts of rights that they never had when they came in and broke.
- [38:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
If you stretch the logic, and I mentioned this before, I know if it's the greatest analogy, but. But if you were a district judge in, I don't know, Chicago in 1943 or 44, and you somehow or other you got wind of the D Day invasion, I guess you would think you had the power to stop it because you were district judge and you had national ambitions.
- [38:52]
Jack Fowler
There was a. That case came up, I think in Chicago. They printed things about military operation. It was the Suntown Times, I think, and they stopped them from doing that.
- [39:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I just meant that where would their power end? It wouldn't.
- [39:07]
Jack Fowler
Judicial. I think it was. Well, I mean, they tried the courts ruled on the deportation of Japanese Americans and I think they erred on that one because at least maybe not in Hawaii, which wasn't a state then, because there were Japanese spies. I think they arrested some 200 of them, but of Japanese and the people who were deported under the Japanese internment, there was only about 60% who were citizens, most of them 40%. Not most, but there was a sizable minority who were resident aliens, usually older people that had come. And as I recall, and maybe some listeners, despite the efforts of Earl Warren, who was the attorney general, and C.K. mcClatchy the second who was running the most, he was the most powerful journalist in California, McClatchy Papers. Those two were the most responsible for it.
- [40:04]
Victor Davis Hanson
And Earl Warren, Attorney General of the State of California.
- [40:08]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. And then he became governor, I think two years later. But there was not one Japanese American that was found to have engaged or Japanese resident in, in California that had engaged in espionage. Not one.
- [40:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor. There were two other big decisions. One was, well, what your take on their ruling on birthright citizenship? I don't know if we've ever really discussed birthright citizens.
- [40:35]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I mean that's an interpretation that relies on a subordinate clause. As I recall, in the 14th Amendment, if your subject, doesn't it say subject to the rules or the jurisdictions of your home country, which means if you're not a citizen, if you're here in the United States, are you still subject to the rules or the royalties or fealties, et cetera? I can't remember the exact language of the amendment, but I think you could make the argument that they are. Surely this idea of, the idea of soil giving you birthright is very uncommon. And I don't think there's more than two European countries that say that if you have even one parent who is a citizen, then you get automatic citizenship. I think the six or seven that do allow birthright or anchor baby citizenship, they have to have both parents in Europe, but most of them don't. And of course we say that the EU countries and European countries in general are more local, liberal or not than we are, at least on immigration on this issue. So it doesn't make any sense. And as I said, I had a person maybe 20 years ago knock on my door and hand me a piece of paper with the name of a doctor I knew very well in the Selma hospital three miles away and said, I need to find this person. They came from Oaxaca and they had the name of the. And the woman in the car was obviously pregnant. And so they were trying, they had driven up and they were trying to find her because she had delivered babies, medi cal, et cetera. And they knew her and they liked her and that was why they were here and that's why people flew in from China. So it's, you know, there's, it just makes a mockery of legal immigration. It just says, why have legal immigration if that's what you're people are doing? The other thing is very quickly they said that it would be no self deportation. Romney mentioned it in 2012. They laughed at him. Trump said that during the campaign. We're going to do self deportation. If you give somebody $1,000, which they do, and you say you're going to pay for a flight deep back into the country, not across the border, and you say that anybody who gets caught illegally will not be able to come in with a green card. I don't know, some people say said 10, I don't know what the bill says, 10 years or forever. And you say that doesn't apply to you, just come to us, we'll give you $1,000, we'll fly you free back to Chiapas or somewhere. And then if you want to get a green card, you can apply and you won't be disqualified. That's an attractive argument and almost a million people have taken it. And it's actually, if you look at the breakdown, it's much cheaper than rounding them up and deporting them and all the, that regulatory process. So that's another thing that they lied to us about, said, oh, you can't deport people, they'll never go back. Deport voluntary. It worked. The idea that not one, I don't know, I'm trying to sound stunned because if we had this conversation nine months ago and I said, jack, if they left Donald Trump, we'll go from 10,000 illegal entries a month to not one. And then we're going to deploy a million people and they're going to do it voluntarily. Say, oh, Victor, don't say that on the air, it's embarrassing. Or if I said, you know, we're short 45,000 recruits, but most of them are rural, mostly white, lower middle class, middle class people from the interior of the country that were turned off by DI or the vaccination mandate or they were hectored by Mark Miller and they're going to come back, man, they're going to start coming back and we're going to have, we're going to fulfill every recruitment. Nobody think that was possible. To quote Jackson Brown, if I was, if I was a Martian and I came from another planet, nobody would believe me.
- [44:25]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, well, Victor, the facts are in. Again, as I said before, wrong word, maybe, but Trump is in a moment unlike I think anyone else's experience for the last 50 years. I don't only mean America, I just think globally I do.
- [44:44]
Jack Fowler
And I think his success is he has a razor sharp animal instinct. He takes a issue and he looks at it and he's asked himself two questions. One, what is the common sense, human nature solution to this? And where are the poles on this biological men and women's Sports, open border, defund the police, skedaddle from Afghanistan. He knows exactly what the. He can read what most Americans want. Sometimes it's very frustrating to the Republican orthodoxy. Like tips. He came up with that within, what, three days. Harris was emulating him. She'd probably done some Interior campaign polls. Oh, that's popular. So that's his ability. But that's. It's not just his observational capacity to see that. It's the third part of that mathematical problem is you've got to see what the common sense solution is. Innately have that ability. Then you've got to find out what most people believe and then you've got to see why it hasn't happened. And that's usually because it's controversial, it's costly. If it goes wrong and you're against the institutional power of the media, of the University, of the foundation of the administrative state, and you're going to take a hit and they will not do it. They will not. Everybody talked about hitting the nuclear plants in Iran and every time they talked about. They exaggerated, magnified the deterrent capability of Iran. They just had to. And that was the excuse they used. They all said they were going to close the border, but they didn't want to offend Mexico. Republican orthodoxy says if, if you close a border and deport, the Mexican vote will never. You'll lose it for good. That was what I told.
- [46:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, we'll talk about some of those numbers from the Pew study. But before we head to a break, Milford. Victor. I know where that came from. Victor.
- [46:36]
Jack Fowler
I like that name. Milford Hanson.
- [46:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, Milford's where I'm living. You know, if I was doing this in my old mother's apartment in, in the Bronx, I wouldn't have called you Bronx. By the way, on the next show, we'll try to talk about AOC in the Bronx, which is a story you mentioned before. Lists and the list of 100 and plus. I think it was 111 Republicans. Dick Cheney types, Liz Cheney, John Negroponte, Jim Glassman.
- [47:07]
Jack Fowler
Jim Glassman. I knew him a little bit. I liked him so much. He was such a nice guy.
- [47:12]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, but they were. Here's what they signed on.
- [47:16]
Jack Fowler
Eric Edelman.
- [47:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [47:18]
Jack Fowler
Was one of them. Yeah, I knew him a little bit. Liked him. Criticized Trump. That letter was. It was embarrassing because they not only criticized Trump, they endorsed Paris and then they endorsed List of reasons why. And it's. Yeah. That Trump was going to destroy the NATO alliance when he. Nobody in the last 50 years has done more to strengthen it. NATO is in the best situation it's ever been in as far as commitment to defend itself. The Germans have promised to have the biggest army in Europe. They're all shooting for. Trump's biggest problem is we're spending 3.6% of GDP on defense and he's jawbowing them to spend 5. And we're not spending 5. You know what I mean?
- [47:59]
Victor Davis Hanson
I would like to recommend to one of our friendly conservative media outlets, maybe even the Daily Signal, which carries your wonderful videos every day, to check in on the 111 of them, that Republicans who again not only signed the letter criticizing Trump, but they endorsed Kamala Harris. They said she.
- [48:19]
Jack Fowler
What would she be doing right now? Do you think we'd even have a border? I don't. Do you think that what would have happened in Iran, she would have cut off all supply munitions to Israel by now. It was just pro Iran. What would she be doing about Ukraine? What would she be doing about build back better? I guess it would be build back really better and the real inflation reduction acts. It would be a disaster. It would be amusing decision. I agree.
- [48:46]
Victor Davis Hanson
I should have mentioned Bronx. Maybe that triggered.
- [48:49]
Jack Fowler
You don't have advantage of a state that works like California.
- [48:52]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, that's true. All right, well, we've got a few things more to get your take on Victor. One of them is this Pew survey of Trump voters from 2024. And if I have time, I have a question from one of our listeners. We'll get to that when we come back from these final important messages. Feeling tired, foggy or running low on energy lately? You're not alone. And it might be more than just stress as we get older. Our cells don't make energy like they used to. That's why more and more people are trying NAD and methylene blue. These are helping people boost energy. Clear brain fog and stay focused. You can now get both from All Family Pharmacy. It's quick. The doctor's prescription is included and no insurance is needed. Plus they carry over 200 other meds like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics, your daily prescriptions and more, all online shipped straight to your door. Go to AllFamilyPharmacy.com Victor to check it out. Use the code Victor10 for 10% off. That's AllFamilyPharmacy.com victor code Victor10. Take care and stay sharp.
- [50:15]
Narrator
You might be wondering when's the right time to start adding collagen to my diet. How about today? Collagen production starts to dwindle in your 20s by the time you've hit your 50s. Decreased collagen contributes to wrinkles, sagging, skin, joint discomfort. Native Path collagen can help. It's packed with only type 1 and 3 collagen form fibers, the ones your body needs most for healthy joints, skin, bones, hair, nails and gut. Plus, it's third party tested for purity with no fillers, no additives and no artificial junk. Two scoops a day of native path delivers 18 grams of protein. Mix it into your coffee, tea or any drink. It's completely flavorless and easy to use. Right now. Get a special bundle deal at a fraction of the retail price plus free shipping available@getnativepath.com Victor with over 4 million jars sold, thousands of 5 star reviews and a 365 day money back guarantee, this is your moment to take control of aging before symptoms get worse. Go to getnativepath.com Victor now supplies are limited and demand is surging. And we'd like to thank Native Path for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show.
- [51:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Today is Sunday 29th June, when we're recording Victor. This shows up on July 1st. Let's see. Victor, my notes all now strewn all over the place here like a lunkhead. Ah, here we go. Pew study On Trump's diverse 2024 coalition here's what this analysis says. Trump won with a voter coalition that was more racially and ethnically diverse than in 2020 or 2016, according to a new Pew Research center analysis. Among Hispanic voters, Trump battled to near parity in 2024. Harris 51, Trump 48.
- [52:31]
Jack Fowler
I've seen 50, 50, even another poll.
- [52:33]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, he had lost dramatically or noticeably to Biden in 2020. He was 6136 in the previous election. It says here that he won 15% of black voters, up 8% from four years earlier. He did better among Asian voters. While a majority of Asian voters, 57%, backed Harris, 40% supported Trump. That was narrower than 2020 when Biden won 70%.
- [53:00]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, I think Trump's contributor almost entirely to one, the geometric decline of Joe Biden over those three and a half years and how it hurt the country and embarrassed people. Number two, not in any order. Number two was that hyperinflation when we got up to 9.1. The thing about that wasn't just four years of inflation because the last year or two it was 3.5 or something. But when you looked at staple prices for things like lumber or eggs, it never went down, it was 20 to 25% higher than when you went in. And then that border there was this. People just couldn't accept it. They just looked at the thousands of people coming in and they saw that pathological liar Mallorcas get up there and say that we're going to find out who's whipping these poor people and the border is secure. And Corrine Jean Pierre the border is secure. Everything just knew they were lying and they were lying for a purpose of letting in as many illegal aliens had changed the demographic, electoral poll of voters. That was all it was and everybody knew it. And, and a lot of Hispanics people said, you know what, you people, you talk a great game but we're stuck here and we have all these illegal people from southern Mexico and they're in our schools and we have AP classes and now we're going to have to do what English is a second language and wow, we don't have that many M13 or Nortegna. And now we got everybody coming into our schools like that. And then you have the African American community set. Well, why do all these people get this free stuff in New York hotels or Chicago? And that was a real turnoff for a lot of minorities. It still wouldn't have worked for the Republicans if they had a Mitt Romney or somebody. But when they looked at Mitt Romney would have never gotten a garbage truck. He would never have gone to McDonald's. He would have never gone into Madison Square Garden with that menagerie. He never would have done any of that. But that cemented Trump's fides that he was interested in the working classes of all different backgrounds.
- [55:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think when Trump spoke in the Bronx to mention the Bronx again or that after, when he went to the. I think it was after one of the. His trial where he went to a barbershop and there's just a natural affinity and frankly I'm surprised it was just, just 15% of the black vote. I would think if Donald Trump could run a again it would dramatically.
- [55:25]
Jack Fowler
I think a lot of it was. There was not that smug left wing condescending attitude that oh, I am so liberal. Hello her Linda, how are you? I'm going to give you my used car for that kind of stuff. It was, hey, are you a Mexican guy or what? You know what I mean? It was just blunt and, and it was not. It treated the person as a person and you know, black, Asian, he didn't care. Just treating them like a person and he can offend them or be nice to them, but whatever he did was not predicated on their race. And all of these left wing liberals, they all live in white enclaves. They're all not subject to the ramifications of their crazy ideology. And they know that. Everybody, nobody knows that.
- [56:16]
Victor Davis Hanson
Especially you brought up before this. Here, take the second hand clothes. They're very nice now, but just don't.
- [56:21]
Jack Fowler
I know, I've heard it so many times. You know, it's sort of, it's, don't.
- [56:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
Let the door hit you on the way out.
- [56:29]
Jack Fowler
And you know, when you hear all the things Biden did, and it's all for wealthy people in terms of social and economic and cultural. And he was surrounded by all these cultural. That's who they were. And they thought that, I mean, where do they all live? Where does Nancy Pelosi live? Where does Kamala Harris live? Where does Trump tells you where he lives? He's a billionaire and he's happy about it. But the people around him were not like these people, Gavin Newsom, they were all. And they suffered from the additional wage of hypocrisy because they were talking about the people and equity and equality and fair, fairness. And then Nancy Pelosi's worth 400 million bucks and she lives in all these palatial places. Ditto Feinstein, ditto Boxer, ditto Jerry Brown, ditto Kamala Harris Piney. People said this is all a game for you people. All you do is treat people like they're pawns and you condescend and we don't like you anymore. We want somebody that just solves the problem.
- [57:31]
Victor Davis Hanson
Part of the game is, you know, Nancy Pelosi, you're 86, you're still doing this. I mean, get the frick out. Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo. Can you not do anything else but try to have a job on the public teat?
- [57:43]
Jack Fowler
I mean, no. That's how they make money. It's very lucrative.
- [57:46]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, right.
- [57:47]
Jack Fowler
Basically, Nancy Pelosi went in there with a mediocre real estate husband, local guy, and she knew, she fed him all of the informations about federal projects, about when the likely interest rates were going to go down, what the effect of proposed legislation, and he invested and reacted and bought and sold accordingly. And he ended up with 400 million bucks. And that's what they all do. A lot of them do. At least it's very lucrative business politics.
- [58:16]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. There should be a fund, the Pelosi Fund, and we should all follow it and invest similarly.
- [58:22]
Jack Fowler
You know, it's very funny because they all attacked Devin Nunes when he was the head of the House Intelligence Committee. And he'd been in Congress by then 15 years at that point I think he was in 20. But I know where he lived. It's a nice home, but it's an American suburban home near the 99 Freeway. It's very nice, but it's not. I mean, he didn't make any money is what I'm trying to tell you. Why he was in office. He didn't do that. And a lot of those Republican people I know had nothing when they came out. They made fun of David Valadao. He had his farm, had a lot of financial problems. It wasn't a big conglomerate. So you can go into politics and be honest and not have to do that. But especially if you're a Democrat, though, you suffer that additional wage of hypocrisy because you lecture everybody about fairness and equality and then you feed at the trough. Right.
- [59:15]
Victor Davis Hanson
Hey, Victor, one last thing related to this Pew study. Henry Olson, who I know you know, he's at the Ethics and Public Policy center, he had a piece in the New York Post. Eye popping analysis of Trump's win shows Democrats are in serious trouble. But he relates it to the New York City primary election. Yeah, which you discussed, I know, with the great Sammy Wink the other day. Democrats are right to be worried about the party's shift to the left that Zoran Mamdani's surprise victory in New York City City's mayoral primary implies. That's because the party was already on the outs with the majority of American voters, according to this newly released study.
- [59:56]
Jack Fowler
It's funny that he. We were just talking about entitled people. He goes to Bowdoin College. His dad is a professor of Middle east studies, his mother's a filmmaker. He's very wealthy. He was pampered. He kind of lounged around after college. And then he's says he's going to go after the more affluent and whiter. No, no, no, no, no. Mr. Mamdani, I want to tell you something. I just looked at per capita income by ethnic affiliation. What is the number one ethnic group in the United States on base of their income? You know what it is, Mr. Mondan? It's you. It's people from India. Four years ago, the recent census data, $106,000 was your average income. Now whiter districts, they're down to 17,59,000. And who is between 17 and number one? Other Asian groups, Filipinos, Japanese, Americans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Arab, people from the Middle east in some cases. So when you say you're going to go after white or neighborhoods, you should just say, we're going to go after wealthier people and Asians, because that's what the data says if you're gonna be a racist about it. But that he had to put in that little thing as a little appeal to. He's losing the black vote and he's losing the Hispanic vote. And that's gonna go to Eric Adams. And he wants to put that thing about whiter in there to see if he can peel off some. He got about 450,000 votes. I think there's 5 million registered voters in New York. And under this rank vote voting, it's going to be down to just two or three people in the finals.
- [61:37]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't think the final.
- [61:39]
Jack Fowler
It's not ranked.
- [61:40]
Victor Davis Hanson
Has ranked.
- [61:41]
Jack Fowler
No. I think he could very easily if they got behind one candidate. I've been very critical of Eric Adams. I think he was when he was welcoming illegal aliens and when he campaigned and said, I took on white officers and all that crap, he said. And then he flipped after they went after him and they tried to indict him in jail. And then he thought, you know what? The danger to me is the left, it always was. So he's much preferable to Mandani. And if people would get together, New York used to have 35% Jewish, and it's now 12%, about a million point. I don't know, a million. These are not registered voters. These are the total population of residents. But the problem, everybody says, well, why would Jewish voters vote for someone who says globalize the intifada and has said he's going to arrest Netanyahu if he ever sets foot in New York? And he said a lot of crazy stuff about Jews and the Middle East. And the answer is why we. And you see, Michael Bloomberg endorsed him. You know that.
- [62:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah.
- [62:52]
Jack Fowler
And I think the answer is that of that million point two that are still left, they're Jewish. Like, I'm Swedish, with one caveat. People do not go after Swedes in the general population. And they don't go after the Swedish state like they go after Jews and they go after Israel. So my lack of identification with Sweden after four, three and three and a half generations in the United States, and I'm not. I'm, you know, I'm only Jewish on my father's. I mean, Swedish on my father's side. If you're Jewish today and you're three generations from the Pongrams or from your great grandfather coming in from Russia or Lithuania and you're not observant Jewish and a lot aren't. And you don't know Yiddish or any of that. And you know that to identify as Jewish and to identify as conservative can hurt you career wise. Then you're going to be apolitical. And apolitical will entail not really being Jewish anymore. You know what I mean? As far as that's concerned. And I think that's a lot. So when people say the Jewish vote, it's kind of like the Greek lobby in the 70s there was about 10 or 15 members of the Senate and House Sarbanes, those kind of people. And when that Turkish war broke out in 74 in June in Cyprus, they were very strong in trying to have a cutoff of funds to Turkey. But there is no Greek lobby today. It doesn't exist. The reason it doesn't exist is that we're four generations from the Greek diaspora and Greek American Americans are usually older people and the young Greek Americans are three generations. They're intermarried. They don't know Greek. And that's what happens to every ethnic group. And Jews, because of the history and tradition have been more successful in maintaining a Jewish identity. But I think among the left wing, urban Jewish new generation, it's fading fast.
- [64:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Well, back, by the way, to the, the point, Henry Olson was, you know, was trying to make this kind of a doubling down which has, say, Chuck Schumer in fear. Right? Chuck Schumer is kind of to the right of these lunatics, but he's genuflecting in front of them as is, say, Blumenthal from Connecticut, because they are the power center of the party. They're the ones getting the votes out. They are the ones that you go town by city here in Connecticut. You know, it's just they are cleaning out their Democrat town committees and with progressives it is.
- [65:27]
Jack Fowler
But the weird thing about it is it's just like George McGovern in 1972. Humphrey ran in 68 and he was left wing. He wanted the Humphrey Hawkins full employment, remember all that stuff. And he couldn't get out from under. It was kind of like Joe Biden and Komela. He couldn't get out from under LBJ in the Vietnam War. So he lost a close election. So then the Democrats said, well, the establishment said he was too liberal. And we usually win when our guy is either very charismatic and young like jfk, or he has a southern accent like lbj. So they, what did they do? They nominated an uncharismatic northern hard leftist named McGovern. And he took that party cross, crazy left. And the 72 was one of the greatest landslides, I think one of the five great landslides in American presidential history. And then they wised up and they said, well, we're still liberal, but we'll get. At least we'll give a guy with a Southern accent. And that was Carter. And that was it. Then 12 years they were out, and finally they got back to, we're going to get two Southern accents, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. We're going to make them sound like they're centrists and they got back in power. But they looked at that election and, and anybody with a right mind would have said they were far too liberal with Kamala Harris, against fracking, against deportees, all that. And what was the reaction? We were not liberal enough, just like McGovern. And what that means in real terms is you will almost ensure that a moderate, common sense person cannot win a primary and the nominee will not win the general election. And you can see it with Gavin News. He was drifting toward the center, not that he was, but he faked it. He had Charlie hurt, he had Steve Bannon. He started to talk about, oh, yeah, I don't, you know, Trump and I have a relationship. I, I debated Rhonda, and then somebody shook him and said, that's fine, but you're six months too early, a year too early. You're never going to get the nomination if that's what you want. You've got to act crazy left. Go hard left. Attack Trump, Sue Fox, you know, go down to LA and cheer on the seiu. Then you get the nomination. Then you can track sinner. But I don't think he understands that. He's trying, but that party is doing just what McGovern is doing. It's going to lose big.
- [67:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I do. If I was betting now, and I should have looked at the betting markets, Victor, New York City's up there, but Cuomo is. Andrew Cuomo, despite losing that primary, has said he's to going, going to run as an independent. Adams is running as an independent. And then there is Curtis Sliwa, who's the Republican nominee. And people may know him or of him. He's the founder of the Guardian Angels, and he's been doing this kind of.
- [68:09]
Jack Fowler
Shtick for years, sort of like the perennial candidates.
- [68:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, the Harold. Harold Stassen. Yeah, yeah. Also from the Bronx, by the way. I heard him on ABC radio the other. He's not getting out. So you're gonna have three Three anti socialist candidates.
- [68:28]
Jack Fowler
The thing about it is people wouldn't vote for Cuomo for two reasons. One, he put people with COVID into the most vulnerable population with no defenses and he killed off 10 or 12,000 of them and they can't vote for that. And the other thing is he was an egomaniac that probably sexually harassed eight or nine women. Women. And there was pretty good evidence that he did. And so he was, they just didn't like him anymore. And then Eric Adams is, I mean he was very abrasive and obnoxious. And then he only turned slightly conservative when the Biden administration dumped a bunch of people in his city. And two, when he complained, they went after him, the doj, they indicted him or they were going to, I guess did invite him. And so that was the only reason that he is even. But compared to this guy Mamdani, and notice that this guy is not going to lodge. He lost the black vote, he lost the Hispanic. That's the swing vote. All he did was double down on, I don't know what you'd call it, the spaghetti arm vote, the cat lady vote, the Bernie Breaux vote, the antifa vote, the angry white male, affluent high school, high school teacher, nurse vote. And that he had that vote the Democrats. And nothing he says is new. Everybody, everybody has known that you just go to Chicago and what's his name, Brian Johnson, the mayor, he's tried all that free this, free that, we're going to do this, we're going to do this and grocery. I remember there was a pow wow co op when I was in college. It doesn't exist anymore. And they've tried co ops, they've tried all of this stuff. It does not work whether he likes it or not. So he's not new, he has no experience, he's a racist. And he's just doubling down in a rank voting primary on this one demographic. And it's not going to help the Democratic Party. It's not. I would be very scared if I was a Republican if this guy was talking like Bill Clinton did in 92 with Sister Soldier moment or something like that. But he's not. So even if he were to win and he would in two years have coattails that would help AOC get a Senate seat. That would be the best thing in the world for Republicans. The other thing is it's a reaction against the Democratic Party because when you look at Chuck Schumer or Elizabeth Warren or any of those people, what do you see? You see these geriatric fossilized people. Steny, Hoyer and all those people, what are they? Clyburn? All they do is do the same old thing. You know, more money this, more taxes this, more grievance this. And they scream and yell and they're shrill and nobody likes them. They don't have any new ideas. They have on the border, nothing on foreign policy, nothing on defense. Can you imagine Chuck Schumer saying we need to have a Golden Dome missile defense project? Or somebody saying we need to get more natural gas at cheaper prices? No, they're not going to do any of that. So it was a vote against the Democratic fossilized architecture.
- [71:35]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Well, I do feel for those who live in New York, and I have many family members there.
- [71:41]
Jack Fowler
Don't you think he gets elected?
- [71:43]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I'm expecting, you know, when Covid happened, where I live, I'm in the New York City solar system and it's Pluto, but it's still within the solar system. And real estate is a good way of gauging things. And it shot up overnight when Covid, you know, hit the city. And I'm confident there's no evidence of it yet. I'm confident real estate prices of the suburbs of New York are just going to go.
- [72:07]
Jack Fowler
I think Palm beach and Naples will go out sky high.
- [72:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I actually did see something about real estate agents in southern Florida now preparing for.
- [72:16]
Jack Fowler
I bet you're going to lose people in the NYPD if he gets elected. Because if you didn't, if you were out there and you were patrolling the streets and somebody, you know, you got in a conference, you pulled somebody over and he had a gun, and you had a gun and you shot him. You were gonna. You're gonna go to prison under this guy, under his. And under Alvin Bragg. Did you see Letita James and Alvin Bragg are ecstatic about him, but he's a complete fraud. I don't know what it is. I was talking to a couple of friends about this new demographic. White women, 30 to 55 or 60, not the old hippies usually working for the government in some sort. Very successful in terms of pretty affluent, upper middle class and very, very left wing, but very strident. And I know a lot of them in my own sphere. And you can't talk to them. Them. If you want to stereotype people. If I mention Trump or anything, they go. They just go. I mean, they're faced. I was at a group of high school people I knew not too long ago, and there was one person that fit that category. And when I walked in, you should have Seen her face, it was just contorted.
- [73:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
There was something along these lines. Victor, the New York Post wrote about today was a. It was a date thing. Someone sent their text messages and they had a date coming up. And then the woman said, and by the way, it was a woman and a man. I know it can be different things in America today. Oh, I hope you vote. I voted for Mondami. And so excited, aren't you? And the response was the cancel of the reservation. And then somehow or other these persons who they were got out and she complained and said, I'm going to call the cops. And the guy's response was, you're going to call the cops because of a tweet. But these are the cops that your candidate wants to get rid of. You know, he doesn't want any police.
- [74:12]
Jack Fowler
I know. I don't know what it is. It has something to do with they have comfort or they have enough education, they think they know it all and they see everything that other people don't see. And they're so morally smug. They're mostly agnostic or atheist or radically secular. And you know, it's. You can't talk to them about global warming, you cannot talk to them about dei. But it doesn't affect their own lives. They're very materialistic. They love to fly to Europe, they love to have a Range Rover or, you know, a big suv. Their whole life they live is in contradiction or antithetical to their belief system. But they're weird people. People.
- [74:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
I think it's real to the cultural emasculation of men in America today also.
- [74:59]
Jack Fowler
I think it is, because I think it is. I was in academia, they're very prevalent in academia and I remember a non profit world and they're at it. The weird thing is though, that every once in a while I would meet one of these type of people and they would go the other way. They were so starved for masculinity that they would go out and date a truck driver. He'd come to a faculty party as a totem or something. And I don't know they've done something with. If I look at my extended family and I say to myself, do they have a college education? Yes. Do they have sizable students debt? Yes. Are they married? No. Do they have children? No. Do they own a house? No. Are they approaching 30 or over 30? Yes. And I don't know why that is. Part of it's the economy. Part of it's 55% of all college graduates are women. They're hiring women and minorities and white males know that and they feel that they're berated all the time. Even these literally. And most of the people I just discussed who will remain unnamed, cousins, nieces, nephews, the whole extended family. I would say they're center left. But the center left are the people who have made it almost impossible for some of them to have the upward mobility of their parents generation. And I don't know what it is. I don't know.
- [76:33]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's two generations of our bodies, ourselves and all this other indoctrination.
- [76:38]
Jack Fowler
Michelle Obama said the other day that the least important thing was having children or being a woman to have children. I couldn't believe that.
- [76:50]
Victor Davis Hanson
She tried to correct herself quickly, but.
- [76:53]
Jack Fowler
Yet what would you think if you were her child? You would think, well, what did mom ever do that was more important than me? Was it her Princeton undergraduate thesis?
- [77:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, mom's been a victim for her.
- [77:06]
Jack Fowler
She had wait. Well, she had to pay for her own food. Come on. She paid for her own food. No, she said the budget was boy, what she went through. She went to a Target and some woman said, can you go up in that shelf and get something nervous? She was right. She said, they always raise the bar. We start to make it and then we have ballet lesson and then we have this and they raise the bar. This is a downright mean country. Never been proud before until Barack was nominated. What she went through 330000 measly dollars to be the coordinator, the community coordinator for the University of Chicago Hospital. How poor is that? Four houses. How many houses does Jeff Bezos have? She's only got four mansion. That's not fair.
- [77:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Surprised they weren't at the wedding. I didn't see them. They were not.
- [77:53]
Jack Fowler
Everybody's tired of the Obamas.
- [77:55]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. All right. Well, Victor, we are working on.
- [78:00]
Jack Fowler
I don't want to tire our wonderful audience.
- [78:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I wanted to quickly read thanks to everyone who leaves comments on Victor's website. Again, that's the blade of perseusviktorhanson.com on YouTube, on Rumble on Apple. So I'm going to read two short comments. Try to read them all. Gail. Gail Bollinger writes commenting on the end. This is when you and I talked the other day, commenting on the end when you talked about your cowboy grandparents and uncles. My great uncle Cuff Burrell supplied a lot of the rodeo horses on the circuit. He lived in Hanford. I think his son Cuffy still lives in the old homestead. Great memories of good men. He was also a friend of Slim Pickens.
- [78:44]
Jack Fowler
So slim Pickens is. Yeah, yeah, we talked about him, Swede. I saw him when I was like 5 years old at the Woodlake Rodeo. He was a rodeo clown. I think he knew how to ride a horse.
- [78:57]
Victor Davis Hanson
He knew how to ride an atomic bomb.
- [79:01]
Jack Fowler
I think he was a kid. He could ride anything with four legs, maybe two.
- [79:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
Megan Wall, 1019, wrote, I think in the last two weeks I have commented Victor is such an adorable man, like 10 times. I would love to meet him. Megan, you would love to meet him. I know that. So thank you, Megan. Thank you, Gail Bollinger.
- [79:24]
Jack Fowler
I like meeting. I'm not an antisocial person. I like meeting people. It's just that sometimes at the airport I see some Karen that scan and she fixates on me and she hits that I know you, that age group. And then her face starts to contort and then she comes up to me maybe one out of every 20 encounters I have. And then she said, I just want to tell you that I don't listen to you. I said, well, if you don't listen to me, how do you know who I am? I don't know how I know you are Trump. Yeah, you know.
- [80:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh, you bring out the best. Victor. People write to me thanking me for Civil Thoughts. And that's the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil society. It has 14 recommended readings. It's free. We don't sell your name. You're going to want it yourself if you don't get it already. How do you get it? You go to civilthoughts.com, sign up and bingo, it'll come in your inbox every Friday. So thanks for those who do subscribe and who I've got a lot of emails of appreciation. Victor, you've been terrific. I've apologized for our glitch when I disappeared. Maybe that's actually a benefit to this episode. We'll be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show.
- [80:45]
Jack Fowler
Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening and watching. Much appreciated.