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Larry P. Arn
Time is our most precious commodity and we've heard from so many listeners who've asked for advice about how they can spend it wisely to improve themselves and the people around them. Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses. That's right, more than 40 free online courses. Learn about the works of C.S. lewis, the stories in the Book of Genesis, the meaning of the US Constitution and the rise and the fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian Church with Hillsdale College's free online courses. You can even take Victor Davis Hansen's class the Second World Wars. This free seven lecture course will help you to understand this massive and complex conflict in a new way. It will give you a clear picture of why the war was fought and how the allied powers ultimately triumphed in order to save the west from a new form of tyranny. The this class is taught by Victor Davis Hansen and Hillsdale's President, Larry P. Arn. The course is self paced so that you can start whenever and wherever. Go right now to Hillsdale Edu vdh to enroll. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale Edu vdh to enroll for free Hillsdale Edu vdh.
Victor Davis Hanson
Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Victor Davis Hanson Show. Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History and at Hillsdale College. He is a best selling author, a farmer, philologist, military historian, classical historian.
Jack
He's everything right Victor I think so, yes.
Victor Davis Hanson
We are recording on Saturday, May 24th. In this episode we'll be up on the World Wide webs on Thursday, May 29. So much to talk about. Victor's got a website. The blade of Perseus. Victorhansen.com tell you why later in this episode you should be subscribing. Thanks to those many, many, many new listeners and viewers of the podcast. We truly appreciate it. Victor, much to talk about. I have a couple of trans gay political stories. One of them has to do with the real ideological severity of a particular state, Colorado. So I want to get your thoughts on those issues. We also have Donald Trump issuing, I think a very important of order on scientific standards. Are we breeding killers in today's society? A topic to talk about, Trump versus the Mexican cartels. So plenty to get your and if we have some time we'll throw in another topic or two. But we'll get to these issues, Victor, and your thoughts on them when we come back from These important messages.
Larry P. Arn
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Jack
It's easy.
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Victor Davis Hanson
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Larry P. Arn
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Victor Davis Hanson
We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. By the way, when this show is actually up on the world wide webs, Victor will be in one of his final for the time being travel experiences. He'll be in Washington. I too will have the pleasure of being in Washington at the same time Victor, maybe you and me and if the great Sammy Wink is there also we can go get get a picture taken and and share it to share it with our friends. You're going to be giving a talk at I know well the Bradley Prizes.
Jack
Are are being awarded Brad all day Bradley foundation meetings. And then we have the gala prizes where we're going to honor three of our Bradley Prize winners for us. And it's going to be at the Daughters of American Revolution Hall. It's not very far from the White House. And I'm going to give a lecture at the Heritage foundation.
Victor Davis Hanson
So the Russell Kirk Institute.
Jack
Yeah, Russell Kirk lecture on borders, 20 minutes. I think it's, it's supposed to be short than with questions and answers and a panel. I talk to people about it.
Victor Davis Hanson
Okay, all right. A question, maybe. Let me ask it. I'm going. I will review your performance. So, Victor, you know, I'm going to start off with a different in what I from what I said at the outset just to get your quick take on Chuck Schumer. So I think it was probably about two weeks ago from when this is airing, that terrible incident in New York. The Mexican Navy, three masted ship lost its function, crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge. A couple of sailors, sailors died, many were hurt. And the first thing that Chuck Schumer did was to put out a statement to say, is Doge possibly responsible for this?
Jack
I think it was more incriminated. He suggested that cuts to the Coast Guard's vigilance allowed this to happen, which was untrue. He's really deteriorated. You know, he was, he, he was the one that said he was the one, remember in 2020 that got out in front of the Supreme Court and said, gorsuch, Kavanaugh, you've reaped the wind. You've sowed the wind. You're going to reap the whirlwind. You don't know what's going to hit you. And he was the one that urged more recently that Democratic progressive operatives go down and disrupt town halls and Republican districts. He calls for violence almost. He's in an existential crisis. I think he's 73 and he's an institution and he's not going to go out like Dianne Feinstein, you know what I mean? To the last micro energy bolt. Just, you know, just die literally in the saddle. He doesn't, he's, he's going to be out. They're going to boat him out.
Victor Davis Hanson
I could see that in a primary.
Jack
Yeah, yeah. AOC is going to vote him out and he knows that. So now he's sort of, I said he's like Tiresias and Cadmus and Euripides Bacchae. He's an old man that puts on a costume and tries to dance around like he's young and try to out aoc and he can't. And so he tries to blame Trump for everything. And there's so many clips of him prior to 2016 praising Trump to the skies as a businessman and a friend. He has no identity. And he's caught now, as many American left wing Jews are, with the outbreak epidemic of this antisemitism that is 99.9% left wing. Unless you're Tom Friedman and you always say both sides, both sides, Carolina, both sides, both sides. And of course, that is that we know that that was the left wing version of that demonstration. Right has been completely warped and not factual. But he's one of these Jewish Americans that feels really angry that Donald Trump and the MAGA right is the most vigilant force in the United States about anti Semitism. And it's the only force that's willing to deport people from the Middle east that harass Jews. It's the only force that I know that's calling these college presidents to account for their tolerance of antisemitism. And that really bothers people. There was a conference I attended, I won't mention where, where there was a lot of academics that were Jewish to come in and talk about the new anti Semitism. And to be fair, I mean, there were some interesting talks, but I would say fairly if I were to represent the thrust of what everybody said. Jack, you know what it was? Don't dare put me into a position that I have to defend Donald Trump. He is a racist, he is an anti Semite, and here I have to now. And the subtext of it, the truth of it, was that all of their friends in the academy, because that's what they were, intellectuals and academics, had abandoned them basically and would not speak up for them. And most of the animus that was coming toward them, they were shocked because they were Middle east scholars either here on green cards in the university or U.S. citizens or U.S. legal residents and, or DEI people, DEI people that they were kindred ideologically to. And it was almost like, wow, Donald Trump wants to deal with Iran and stop its ability to destroy Israel. But also my friends are blaming me because Donald Trump wants to help the Jews. And I'm in a possible position. I hate Donald Trump. That was their idea, what he did to me. And I could not understand it. I finally just said, I can't take this anymore. And I thought, so you only have one voice in the United States that's worried about the survivability of Israel. And you have one voice who's worried about the harassment and dangers posed to Jewish students on campuses. And you have only one voice who's worried about the epidemic of anti Semitism. And that one voice comes from the conservative movement that's in power, thank God. And yet you are angry at that, that voice, because it puts you at odds with your ideological twin. But they're not your ideological twins anymore. They hate you not for what you say or do, but for who you are. They hate you. And we saw that with Elias Rodriquez. And we're going to see more of that, unfortunately, because the more frustrated these Middle east students are and their kindred spirits, these wealthy, pampered, spoiled, rotten kids at these universities, the more that they try to disrupt and they try to scream and yell and the less effect they have, they're going to get more and more angrier, angrier, angrier. And we're going to see people like this do it because there's no deterrent. Maybe Gene Piero and Pam Bondi have talked about the death penalty for this creep, but I can't read a Tom Friedman column. I don't read them anymore. Because when he gets on anti Semitism, it's basically that the Jews are put into. They're being manipulated by the Maga Trump movement to be natural allies of it. And that means they're not illiberal and they're not going to do it. And then there's just incoherence. And then you want to shake him and say, okay, who's the one that is guaranteeing the survivability of Israel? The Biden Obama people or the Trump people? Who is the one that will be there in Israel's dire need? Who will not cut off arms shipments to Israel? Which people are saying that if you come over here from the Middle east and you harass Jews, you better go back home? Which people are saying, if you're a college president and you can't enforce laws prohibiting anti Semitism, you should quit? I don't think it's the. And then who are the people who are saying what? Who are the people who are killing Jews, put it that way. Who are the people roughing them up? Who are the people in Congress that are openly anti Semitic? Who are they? And that's just clear. They're all on the left. And so why would you want to defend those people just because you don't want to be castigated as conservative?
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, because you can't stomach the reality that on your watch and with your participation and activism, you created and allowed this to happen, whether you're a philanthropist.
Jack
I feel bad. One of the participants at this conference came up to me and she said, thank you for writing so many columns about the dangers of antisemitism. Pause. And I thought, I know what's coming. However, that does not mean that I support your praise of Donald Trump. I said, I could care less. I really could. I could care less. But let me ask you a question. I asked her, what if I had been very critical of American Jews and said they were participating in genocide in Gaza, but I had trashed Donald Trump? What would your attitude be? Well, you didn't do that, so that's a hypothetical. I said, no, no, tell me, would you value that? The fact that I would write things that were critical of Trump more than I. That I had supported the Jews in the past, and they don't have an answer for any of that. And here, Jews in Israel are fighting for their life, and you just. You ask questions of these people at this conference, these people at the conference. And I said, you know, it was always, well, this is complex, and there's a long history of this. And I said, no, it's not complex. Gaza was in the hands of the Palestinian. They had it from 2006. Not one Jew in Gaza. They all got out. American Jews, in a magnanimous fashion, spent about $40 million and gave them a very thriving, prosperous greenhouse industry for winter vegetables and stuff to Europe. They destroyed it. They had an election. It was supervised internationally. They willingly voted in a terrorist organization. That terrorist organization then systematically killed or drove out all political appointees, including those of the Palestinian authorities, some of whom they threw off roofs. And then they got what they wanted. And then for the last 20 years, they have been run by a terrorist clique. And they had this country all to themselves. And they had trillions of dollars in international aid. And they could have gone the Dubai route, they could have gone the Jordanian route. They could have done what 2 million Arabs do by being citizens of Israel and are very prosperous. But they decided not to do that. Or maybe their government that they voted in decided not to do that because there was one election in the old Bernard Lewis formula, one election, one time in the Arab world, and that's what happened. That would happen under the Bush administration. And so what did they do on October 7th? They started a war. Not just a war. They killed more Jews than in any day since the Holocaust, 1,200 of them. They didn't just kill them. They put them in ovens. They raped them. They did. They tortured them. They dismembered they desecrated the body. They did every on imagine every unimaginable thing you can imagine. Just horrific. And then after it was all over, they began as they had before. They got all of their terrorist tentacles from Iran. The Houthis started sending rockets, Hezbollah sent rockets. Hamas came out of the tentacles tunnels and sent rockets, probably about 20,000 rockets. And they were all had one thing in common, they were aimed at civilian targets. And they had another thing in common, they were incompetent. So the Israelis knocked down 98% given their efficacy and scientific knowledge, and then they hated them more for not being killed. And out of that came this crazy movement. And you say to one of these students, as I have on the Stanford campus, as I walk by, take away October 7th, there'd be no problem. You guys could have Gaza as you had Gaza. And you're welcome to do what? If you want to take $50 billion and not build high rise apartments and Marriott hotels and you want to make tunnels like subterranean terrorists, that's your business. It was all yours. You could do whatever you want. And you decided that even that was not enough. You had to go kill a bunch of civilians in the most liberal part of Israel, by the way, who had gone bent over backwards to welcome in somewhere between 10 and 15,000 guest workers every day and pay them two to three times more than they could get in Gaza. And that magnanimity again was seen as weakness to be manipulated and taken advantage of. So it's very simple. They started the war, they wanted to fight it. They wanted to kill every Jew in Israel. They launched all the rockets and they're angry because they can't win, because Iran turned out to be what? A paper tiger. Hezbollah turned out to be a paper tiger. Hamas turned out to be a terrorist paper tiger compared to Israel. And that got them even angrier. So it's pretty simple.
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, is it simple enough to say you gotta kill them? I don't know. And then here though, the protesters, these punks and truly despicable people. Yeah, who 30 years from now, maybe 30 senator from this state or the, or the governor of that state. And boy, I'd love to see some, some hard hats, as in days of old, do things well.
Jack
That's why the Democratic Party's in trouble right now, because their core constituents of old, the blue collar white working class, the Hispanic working class, the inner city black and regular black, they are defecting in massive numbers. And why all these issues? We talked about transgenderism, the border, but also there's something about this new democr youthful elite, the David Hoggs of the world, the AOCs of the world, the Squad of the world, the Bowmans of the world, the Karen Basses of the world. They're arrogant and they talk down to people and they think they're better than everybody, the techie lords, all of them. And people don't like them. They don't like the way they talk, they don't like the sound of their voice, they don't like their background. And they think that they're a global arrogant, despotic elite. And that's the biggest problem. Even James Carville, who's kind of unhinged from time to time, stumbles on the truth and says that his party is full. A bunch of people look down at people and tell them what to do. And same thing with foreign policy. That's the biggest irony. They are the biggest cultural 19th century imperialist we've ever had in this country. They really do believe that we should go in with USAID and go into these traditional Islamic countries, African countries, and then start flying pride flags and gender studies programs and green initiatives, solar, all of that. That's what they did at the University of Kabul.
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, Victor, I want to take a moment for our sponsor, Hillsdale College. I think you know that place.
Jack
I do.
Victor Davis Hanson
Did you dear listeners and viewers know that Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses? That's right, more than 40 free online courses. Learn about the works of C.S. lewis, the stories in the book of Genesis, the meaning of the US Convention, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient Christian church. With Hillsdale College's free online courses. You can even take Victor Davis Hansen's class the Second World Wars. This free seven lecture course will help you to understand this massive and complex conflict in in a new way. Go right now to Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll. There's no cost. It's easy to get started. That's Hillsdale Edu VDH to enroll for free Hillsdale Edu vdh. And we thank the good people from Hillsdale for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, back on culture and politics, we mentioned trans. I have a few trans things, related things I'd like to bring up with you. One before we go to a break, and this has to do with Colorado and once upon a time, you know, Colorado had one of the greatest senators of my lifetime was Bill Armstrong, which is the gosh, he was a great principal guy. But I'm looking at judging a state by its by Its representation in the senate in the last 30 years. Armstrong, Wayne Allard, Hank Brown, even Ben Night Horse Campbell. Republican senators. And that state has gone. So left now. So here's a headline and has to do with trans. Colorado's trans revolution is worse than you think. As governor signs new law here in Colorado, trans activists control the state house, senate, the governor's seat, and whatever they want to do, however far they want to push the envelope, they can and they did. This legislative cycle, some of the bills are so radical that even California's governor refused to sign similar similar legislation. This session we saw two radical trans bills pass both chambers. One of the measures prohibits free speech and would force parents to affirm their children's sexual identity confusion or risk losing custody. The other bill forces taxpayers to fully fund transgender medical interventions. And if that wasn't enough, we even have what they call a transcontinental pipeline to move trans people here from other states. Victor, what happened to Colorado?
Jack
Well, it's the usual trajectory of the left wing DEI movement. It all starts out as we've been oppressed. Okay, step one, we want equal opportunity and protection under the law. Step two, achieved, we would like to have some redress of grievances for our prior opposition oppression. Step three, usually granted. Now then we get into step four. That's not enough. We want to take our ideology and our lifestyle and mandate that you accept it. Step five, and if you don't accept it, we are going to violate the constitution and put penalties on you. And step six, we are actually, even though we are very small numbers, we are going to exercise power like we're a majority. And that's what they do. Step seven, we're going to exercise that power by majority, by threatening people, by occasional violence, by trying to demonize legislators. Colorado, 30 or 40 years ago, especially eastern Colorado, you know, when you go on the other side of the Rockies, it was analogous to Wyoming, Utah, Montana, ranchers, oil people. But when people left California, they left for two reasons. They left to go to low taxes, red states where there was normality and sanity. So they left. They went to Idaho, they went to Nevada, they went. They used to go to Arizona, but especially Tennessee and Florida and Texas. But there were other Californians that decided they wanted to leave. They were more affluent because California was too crowded. The schools were no good, Their infrastructure. They couldn't go to Yosemite anymore, It was too crowded. So they wanted to get a California lifestyle, natural, you know, and they went to western Colorado, the Aspen, the Vail, the Boulder, the Denver crowd and they control it. And it's. Jared Polis is the. I guess he's the first openly gay governor. He's a multimillionaire, so he is an elite. He's worth about 400 million bucks. So in his way of thinking, he's not really firsthand experience or worried about what the average Coloradan has to do as far as all these initiatives and mandates they have. And it's got a LGBTQ agenda. That's the whole state. And it's not a purple state anymore. It's a solidly blue state. And I don't think it's ever going to change back. I really don't until it gets so bad. I went to. I started going to. You know, I spoke a lot in Denver in the 90s and early at the turn of the Central. It was Jack. The downtown was one of the cleanest, nicest places in the world. They had that street that had been converted into a mall, you know, right downtown. It was the last time I came. I spoke there. There was a crowd screaming and yelling. I couldn't get out of the hotel because, you know, the photographer, Andy, who was injured. Andy Ngo. No, I don't know how to pronounce it.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, yeah. Who's been brutalized by the antifa folks.
Jack
Yeah. Well, there was a rumor that he was in the building as part of the. And they. They. It spread like wildfire. And I looked out the door and they were. The police was there. They were jumping on top of car with an impunity. And the guy who was supposed to take me to the airport, I was worried. He said, he wrote. He called me, the driver and a taxi cab driver I had requested. And he said, I'm not getting near there. And I said, what do you mean? He said, they'll jump in my car. They're crazy people. I know these people. I said, well, I have to get to the airport. So he said, here's what you do. Go out the back door of this hotel and walk five blocks to this park or something. That's what I did. And they were. It was just crazy. And then earlier that day and the day before, I walked down that beautiful mall, and it was just like. It was like Berkeley. It was just the same thing as a California Venice beach street. It was same old deal. And so it's not. It's not. It's like downtown Portland, downtown Seattle, downtown San Francisco, downtown Los Angeles. You know, somebody's got to write about all of these. Downtown Minneapolis, downtown Washington, all of these cities. They're all run by either blue state left wing mayors or DEI mayors or both. And they're complete shambles. They've destroyed these things and they've driven all the productive people out. And nobody really knows the long term effect of all this Jack because there's been a lot of research that shows that when people leave these places they go to red states and yet they don't always become left wing people. The people who are most likely to leave these places are independents, are apolitical and more importantly the red state populations are growing at a greater rate both due to the exodus is that they're gaining and Illinois, New York, California is losing and then the fact that it's for red state or conservative people are more likely to be religiously observant and have two to three children and the lifestyle of the bicoastal elite discourages as AOC said, fertility didn't want to have children and so remember David Hogg said he didn't want to have children. Everybody's just supposed to take drugs, he said and get laid and enjoy yourself. So who knows. What I'm getting at is I don't know what the ultimate ramification is going to be but you could see in 20 years if this would continue at the same rate it would be kind of like the end of us TV show with all these weeds growing over the city. I mean who's going to live there? I mean nobody would want to who wants to live in Minneapolis or Portland or Seattle or at least downtown we.
Victor Davis Hanson
Have to Detroit, great truly great city. Second place for the 1968 Olympics, you know. So it was that great. That late.
Jack
Yeah, it's sad all these beautiful buildings that are just go to downtown San Francisco. Maybe it's coming back a little bit with a new mayor.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, Detroit is. I know it's that they're making improvements but. Well Victor, a couple of other trans related topics ish. Not topics but incidents to get your take on and maybe we'll. We'll get your take on what the latest on Juicy Juicy Smollett when we come back from these important messages.
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Victor Davis Hanson
We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen show recording on Lost my paperwork. Whatever day it is Today, it's Saturday, May 24th, and this episode is will be up on Thursday, May 29th. Victor's website is the Blade of Perseus. Its address is victorhansen.com do subscribe at 6:50amonth or discounted $65 a year. And when you do that, in addition to all the other the tremendous amount of free material you can find on the website, you will be able to access the Ultra articles that Victor writes exclusively for the Blade of Perseus and the Ultra video he does every week. So VictorHansen.com do do that folks. Victor yeah, let's let me just ask you about about Jussie Juicy. He has here's a headline from Hate Crime Hoax to Handshake Settlement. Jussie Smollett. I'll let you calm Juicy Walks Away. Actor and hate crime hoaxer extraordinaire, Jussie Smollett is going to shell out $50,000 to a Chicago charity to settle a lawsuit filed by the city. The lawsuit sought restitution for the cost of investigating the hate crime hoax he perpetrated in 2019. Victor, you think this is the last we're finally going to hear of this character?
Jack
I doubt it. Mayor Johnson, remember, He's got what, 8% approval rating? He's bankrupt Chicago. He's got a civil rights investigation by Harmet Dillon of his hiring. He's the one that when they found out he only basically only wants to hire African Americans. He said it's because they're more empathetic than other people. So he's a complete abject racist. So his government, his city government was the one that made the deal. I gave a talk on Juicy at the Reagan library once it's on tape if anybody wants to look at it. But remember what it was. As soon as that happened, almost instantaneously, anybody with half a brain knew it was completely bogus. Except Camilla Harris, Nancy Pelosi, remember them? Oh, this is another racist. This is another. I wrote, I wrote it the next day before even I said this is just Covington kids. Remember that? The Covington kids had berated this Native American Vietnam combat veteran. All lies. Or it was a Duke lacrosse. They had physically and sexually assaulted a poor working African American mother forced to go into all lies or it was the Duke lacrosse team. These kids and the fraternity had got. All lies. And so Trayvon Martin, the son that Barack Obama said that he never had, just innocently walking around and then beaten up by this white Hispanic beaten to a pulp. And then they photoshopped the pictures of George Zimmer. Remember that? They, they censored the call.
Victor Davis Hanson
Michael Brown.
Jack
Yes, Michael Brown. At some point everybody, we live in the Soviet Union, we really do, the old Soviet Union. And we're just sick of all these lies. So Jussie Smollett basically did the following. He hired two African nationals, one of whom he was having a sexual relationship, bodybuilders, black guys. And he took them on a route and prepped them about what he was going to do. Then they went in and bought mega red caps maga like red caps and rope and bleach. And they're on tape doing it. And then they rehearsed this that somehow he was going to get up at 2:30 in the morning and go get a subway sandwich. And he was going to confront these two people he'd hired but they would have mask on and disguise their accent. And we were supposed to believe that they were white MAGA marauders. And everybody knows that in Chicago in a liberal Black neighborhood at 2:30 in the morning there's a lot of white MAGA people hunting, hunting down poor black actors. And they all are fans of the movie of the TV show Empire. And just so they're prepared they do two things. These white magademons who patrol inner city and the suburbs of Chicago and sub freezing weather with their hats on and their mask on. They carry rope to show you they can lynch you and they try to put around your neck and they also carry bleach. So they're going to bleach you white and they're going to make fun of black TV shows which they're ad. They're just fanatic viewers of. They just can't get enough of Empire. So Juicy just goes down to get his sandwich and he sees two MAGA people, that is the people he hired and they attack him. But Juicy, although he's diminutive and these keep people, these MAGA monsters from Texas or somewhere are huge. They set Juicy off because they say blank, blank you and blank Empire blank your black show that we don't like. Nobody knows who it is in the. Anyway, so they, they start to fight Juicy and he does a miraculous thing holding his cell phone in one hand and his Subway sandwich in the other. With his kickboxing he is able to fight off both of them. I kicked their blank and he didn't drop his phone, he didn't drop his Subway. And then unfortunately they did put the noose around his neck but he fought them off and broke it. So it was just the noose to be showing. And then they tried to throw bleach on him. And they were very smart because the temperature outside would have ensured the bleach would have frozen. But they had a special formula that defied the laws of chemistry and they threw the bleach, bleach in midair and they said abracadabra, don't freeze. And the bleach didn't freeze, it coated him. So then he fought him off and he made his way back and he called the police and they came there and he had this sandwich was messed up and his cell phone, and they asked the cell phone till they could get the. And he wouldn't give it to them because he had fought so dearly for it. And he showed him the bleach and this and he had kind of a bruise where he. And then everybody said this was endemic racism. Da da da da da da. And then within days the whole thing broke down. The people he'd hired turned state's evidence. Yeah, he hired us. We worked out with him. Yes, I had sexual relations with him. Here's the. He was stupid enough to write the checks. They had the checks and they had them on tape buying the materials. And yet all of these left wing people stuck to this story. And at that point you saw that this whole thing dei the whole thing was completely bankrupt. So all it was was this is a has been mediocre actor that a black gay director of a black TV show thought was a mediocre washed up and got rid of him. And he was angry because he would not get any more adoration if he ever got any. So he hired two black people to dress up as white racist and put the maga and then attack him. And we were supposed to believe that everything about it was demonstrably untrue. Within a nanosecond, there was evidence of everything imaginable. And yet they still didn't believe it. And now they let him off. Basically, he should have been in prison for. And remember the D.A. they had to bring in an outside D. A because the city D.A. and she was, Remember, she was communicating with the Michelle Obama team.
Victor Davis Hanson
Right.
Jack
The whole thing was a joke. It was.
Victor Davis Hanson
And the interview, I was looking it up while you were Robin Roberts on abc. It was pathetic insult. Yeah.
Jack
Donald Trump had a really good reaction to it. He said, where's the lawsuit that you smeared all of these people, you called them white racist, and they would never do such a thing. Thing. They never did any of that. And then you. And as I said, you put it into Michael Ford and Michael Brown, I mean, and you put it in with the Covington and you put it in with the Duke lacrosse and you go back to Tawana Brawley and my gosh, yeah, that was Al Sharpton. He never really apologized for that. And you go to the OJ and it's just at some point you just don't believe it. So. And we've had, at Stanford, I think, two incidents where a noose was hanging from a tree. In one case, it was, it was. It was down by the lake and it was embedded into the tree and it was for somebody swinging or something. But of course, that's not how everybody reports it. And it's. People are so conditioned. If you. And we had the race car driver, remember, with the.
Victor Davis Hanson
The day, it may have been Daytona.
Jack
But, yeah, the whole FBI team, then the condition is we're going to produce a news. So we're going to produce the N word written on my dorm wall. And if anybody suggests that we did that to gain empathy or to jack up the need for more DEI officers, they are a racist. If they want us to show the proof of it, they are racist. We don't have to, given the history of racism. That's what we are. And what is it we saw on the populace in general? It's complete cynicism. It's kind of like In Poland, about 19, I don't know, 65. And somebody says, you know, Comrade Brezhnev says that we have the greatest bread allotment of any in the Warsaw Pact. And no one believes it, not one word. And that's where we are now. That's why DEI has vanished, at least for now, because nobody believes it's. True anymore, right?
Victor Davis Hanson
It's worn out the patience.
Jack
Yeah, I mean loyalty oath for 50 years the left told us in a loyal oath during the McCarthy period was the worst thing that ever happened in the United States. And this was horrible. And they fought it with the ACL and then they turned right around. They all wanted diversity oaths. Before we hire you, you have to write out your commitment to diversity and how you have sponsored, accelerated, helped the plight of blacks, people of color, gays, trans women. And you have to delineate in detail your sensitivity to it. And if you don't, we're not going to hire you.
Victor Davis Hanson
We don't care. You're the world's greatest physicist. We're not going to hire you.
Jack
No, we don't care about that. So that's. And then the whole time this was going on, China's like this is so great. These stupid people, they are idiots. Every once in a while when they attack us for spying or sending a balloon over, we're going to say you're racist. Yellow peril at 1860, yellow peril 1920. You guys are racist. You're racist. And then every time we tell them oh we have to have eliminate coal, we have to eliminate oil, we have to eliminate natural gas, we have to get wind and solar. China's we'll sell you the solar panels and we're going to. We built three coal plants this month. What a bunch of idiots. We're going to get all the coal in the world and get cheap electricity and then make them buy our spy. SPY embedded panel.
Victor Davis Hanson
All right. Hey Victor, just I have another. I'll lump these two together. Back on trans some headlines. One of our favorite Biden administration officials, Admiral Admiral Rachel Levine was given an honorary degree by Smith College. Surprisingly a feminist group there called the Women's Declaration International protested. It's nice to see a so called feminist group, you know, come and defend women in opposed to its X account. That WDI group said tomorrow Smith College and Historically Women's College will award Richard. Oh they use actually his name Richard quote unquote Rachel Levine an honorary degree. Levine who pretends to be a woman will then speak at commencement. We're on the ground in Northampton, Massachusetts. Massachusetts to show our support for women. And then the other thing Victor, you take them all together is the Supreme Court. The United States supreme court voted to 7 to 2 to order Maine to restore the lawmaker Laurel Libby her powers because she was censured by the state House on party line vote Democrats control the legislature there. Why? Because she spoke out against boys pretending to be women and competing.
Jack
Let's vote about this. Who would be the two Supreme Court justices that would think that it was perfectly fine if a legislator just happened to make a speech that they found disagreeable? That they had a right to remove them from all this is too easy, Victoria.
Victor Davis Hanson
It's too easy.
Jack
And so that's where we are. Those were two of the worst.
Victor Davis Hanson
Sotomayor and Jackson.
Jack
Yeah, absolutely. The wise Latina. And I wrote a column about when she was appointed. She gave a talk, I think it was, at Bolt Hall. I can't use the word bolt anymore. Of course, it's been changed where she used the word latina, I think, 25 times. And then she kept saying that as a wise Latina, I have more capability than a wise white man. Remember that about. To be. To be a judge. And Brown was. Jackson was the one who told us that she didn't really know how to define a woman. And that's who we have in the Supreme Court. And, you know, the whole thing about the trans thing, I don't understand if they really do believe they are. I don't know. I hear conflicting reports. Are they a third sex? Because they keep saying there's more than two sexes, or do they really think they have transitioned to an identical biological sex as biological people? But if you go look at classical studies of sexology and psychiatry, you can see this term, and it's always gender dysphoria or it's gender confusion. And it's in that literature goes way back, and they've done countless statistical studies, and it's always like, point, I don't know, 0.5% of the population, 0.3%. It's just a minuscule amount. It's a definable phenomenon that a person's psyche is mismatched with their body, but there are gradations of it. They have transgenderism. They have transvestism, where people like to dress up in the opposite clothes, but otherwise they're heterosexual. They have all these gradations. They're all discussed by people like Havelock Ellis or Masters and Johnson. It's all there. But this idea that 30% of the brown student body might be transgender, that is something that's just scientifically impossible. And it's part of a cult and a political movement. And, you know, the weird thing is, as I said on a couple of broadcasts, that there's a passage in the historian Diodorus about someone who had multiple sex organs. And there is a famous poem by the Roman poem Catullus, about a man who gets into a frenzy from the Eastern God Cybele and dresses up in women's clothing. And the pronouns in Latin change from ili to illa during the poetry because he becomes a woman. And he transitions in this ecstasy to the mother goddess and he castrates himself. The word in Latin, as I remember, is ponderer ilia, the weight of his testicles, he cuts it off and then the whole frenzy ends and he's on the beach lamenting his fate that he's injured or mutilated himself. And it's kind of an anti Western, it's in the context of Cleopatra, anti Egypt, anti Eastern topos in Roman literature. But it's like this is what Eastern decadence can do to good Romans. But it's not quite black and white like that. There's also an intrigue in this cult that's expressed in the thing. And then of course, we have Petronius Satyricon, a novel written around 60 AD, maybe by a consular official, a consular rank official, Petronius, mocking or a parody of the Emperor Nero. But in the piece de resistance, the Tormalchio's dinner, and then there's three of Askletos and there's the old poet Eumolpus and then Giton and Copious, four of them. My point is that this is very common. Gaeton dresses up as girls, he dresses up as boys. He doesn't have a sexual identity. He transitions back and forth. He's used as a boy, he's used as a woman, he's used as a man. And it's all in this larger milieu of how decadent the Bay of Naples has become with this right before, you know, this is Vesuvius. Well, before that. But food, fashion. What happened to the Roman soldiers that created all this, this. And they mock all this. And it's a brilliant satire. But my point is gender dysphoria is ancient. And it's always in the ancient context seen as something that's not regular or normal and very rare. Rare, rare. And we have been told over the last, I don't know, 20 years ago we didn't talk about it, but now, the last five years, it's the barometer of the. Whether you're liberal or illiberal, if you even question the numbers, it's an epidemic. It's a civil rights issue. Leah Thomas is a full blooded woman. She is no different than any woman biologically. And nobody believes that.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, good luck winning a Democrat nomination if you don't embrace that lunacy that's.
Jack
Going to be the death knell of that party. That was that issue. As minor as it might seem to some people, that and the open border were so illogical and so disruptive and so nihilist, it really hurt the Democratic Party. Yeah, well, Vic, you know, we'll see. We'll see.
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I want to ask you, you mentioned Stanford earlier. Maybe you did earlier on the previous podcast, but I have something to bring up about stuff on campus there. But first I want to talk to our listeners and viewers. Let's face it, our health care system is no longer serving the people it was designed to help. Appointments take weeks only to end in a rushed five minute consultation. Prescriptions are delayed, bureaucratic red tape gets in the way, and treatment options are limited to what some agency deems acceptable. It's inefficient, impersonal and increasingly untrustworthy. And that's why All Family Pharmacy is different. They believe in medical freedom. Your right to choose what works best for your health alongside a doctor who respects that choice. No interference from government regulators or insurance companies. Ordering is simple and direct. Skip the waiting rooms or the long pharmacy lines, just go online, place your order and your medications are shipped right to your door. They carry over 200 medications, including trusted names like Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mebenzadol, antibiotics and other essential treatments your family may need. You can also order emergency kits, customize your supply, or buy in bulk to be fully prepared. Over 100,000Americans have already made the switch to All Family Pharmacy. Perhaps now is the time for you to do the same. Visit allfamilypharmacy.com Victor and use the promo code Victor 10. That's V I C T O R. The number one, the number number zero to get 10% off your first order. That's allfamilypharmacy.com victor, take back control of your health on your terms. And we thank the good people from All Family Pharmacy for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, I'm not going to read all this because I know our listeners are sick of this Bronx accent, but I titled this Stanford Goes Ugly. There's a piece by Ada. I think it's Ada Golcha in the Stanford Review. Lament for Beauty. Stanford's treatment from Architectural Retreat. Excuse me, from Architectural Grace. There's a big new building unveiled for the campus. It's the Computing and Data Science building. I don't know if it's actually been opened or if I saw a rendering, but it's one of these very cold, cold buildings and something else was just open. Similarly, the Escondido Village graduate residences. I guess the.
Jack
Yeah, they're not as bad though as that. Okay, well, I mean the seven I lived there in the 70s and the new residences are actually better looking than the 70s. Stanford has this, had this problem where they had this beautiful Romanesque architecture of circa Roman Empire and the provinces around 400 A.D. to you know, 600. It's beautiful colonnades, kind of a sandstone tile roofs. And then as the university started expanding in the 60s and 70s, they tried to use reinforced concrete and make a modernist architecture in the same color. And they did the art library that I used when I was a graduate student, they did the undergraduate. And what's happened, Jack, is they systematically blow them up. We blew up the art library to build the Hoover Conference center, the Tre Tel building. They blew up the undergraduate library. I guess because of online and the lack of need for a big. They blew it up and it's now an open air. So we do have some of these ugly 70 buildings that trite. But the new ones are kind of. Well, they're all different. This one and the music hall are postmodern, but some of them are kind of like New York classical high rises. You know, they're just. They're sparse, but they're not all glass and aluminum like the 60s. They're kind of retro, like that Chrysler Building, you know, something like that. And their problem is that to emulate the original architecture, which is the most beautiful, with the colonnades and the heavy stones. And during the Loma Linda interquay they took a beating. Even the iconic chapel, the roof collapsed in places it would be too expensive, I guess they feel. So I guess what the article's about, they have three types of architectures. They have the original and the best and the most beautiful. And then they have the 60s, 70s, 80s modernist impressionistic architecture that shows a little bit of Romanesque here and there. And they still have the post office and the store and places like that. And then they have the new stuff that can be retro or in some cases post modern. But you put them all together and they've lost that beautiful Romanesque signature architecture. And it's very hard to make a Romanesque science building. I give that, you know, multi story with a colonnade around it. That's not going to happen. The quad is still very beautiful. And the main quad with a. With the complete. It looks like a Italian Renaissance town or something from the late Republic, Late Empire, Roman Empire.
Victor Davis Hanson
But Relocated to Peking the last time I was there.
Jack
Yeah, Stanford has a lot of problems because it's in the Bay Area and it's in Santa Clara county and they're, you know, it's a left wing lunatic planning commission building codes that they have to comply with and then they have housing for faculty. But the housing, a three bedroom two bath house of maybe 1800. Usually they're made in the 1960s style. They're about four or five million dollars so nobody can afford to live there. And the housing is, you know, when people retire they live for a long time and they can't expel them. So you've got about 20% of the people that are living in Stanford housing are not, they're retired or they're not connected with the university, they're the widow of somebody, some of a professor or something. So they, and then they have this huge acreage to over 2,500 acres that they can't touch and they don't want to touch but it's just, it's very expensive and it's very hard to get around. And I, I've been there all my life. I mean my mom and her sister went there in the 1930s and 40s and I was a kid I would go the alumni thing with them. I was a graduate student for five years there. I was a brising professor on the campus for two and I've been employed by them the last 21 years. And I don't say that as an aficionado of Stanford, I really don't. I really admire the science and what they, they were responsible for Silicon Valley, Stanford University. They both the business plan and the technology came Bill Hewitt and the others, they launched it Stanford Research All Institute. But since then it's got a very strange combination of very, very wealthy snobbishness and aristocratic disdain for average people coupled with left wing progressive socialism Di and that's a bad combination. To see somebody who looks down at the people and the concrete and yet in the abstract always talks about equality and equity and that's what they are, that's the faculty and the students.
Victor Davis Hanson
It's easy to hate the people. You look down on the concrete because like from the third man up in the Ferris wheel, who cares about that little dot down there.
Jack
They always hate the middle class. They feel that their wealthy and aristocratic friends have good taste and the poor or romantic and they're suffering but not the middle class. These are the guys that you know, have jet skis and Winnebagos and maga.
Victor Davis Hanson
Hats well, Victor, we're going to take a little break and when we come back from that final topic to get your take on, and that is the new executive orders order put out by Donald Trump related to scientific research. Think it's important and I think your views on that might be important to our listeners and viewers. We'll do that when we return from these final important messages. We are back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Victor, Donald Trump's new executive order is called Restoring Gold Standard Science. When I first read it, I was like, why are we going back on the gold standard?
Jack
Not yet. He hasn't done that yet. Everything is gold. Golden dome, golden standard.
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah. Golden faucets in my, my hotel room. So here's what he means. The restoration of, of science as we used to believe it was. And we know in recent years, Victor, it's been so politicized and you can't, if you're doing research and you get these conclusions, if they're the wrong conclusions to the liberal ideology ideology or the leftist ideology, you are you, they're not to be followed. And we have so many papers, so many scientific studies that have been debunked because they're based on lies. So here's what the the executive order wants to do. Gold standard science means science conducted in a manner that is reproducible, transparent, communicative of error and uncertainty, collaborative and interdisciplinary, skeptical of its findings and assumptions, structured for falsifiability of hypotheses, subject to unbiased peer review. That's difficult for a lot of scientists accepting of negative results as positive outcomes and without conflicts of interest. I have a feeling, Victor, this is the way science was once upon a time.
Jack
I think, I think what they did was they just looked at all the college presidents of the most elitic campuses and whatever they did, they might they wrote something to outlawed. I mean, think about it. Stanford's president, not the interim president before Mr. Levin, but the prior one, had to resign for allegedly falsifying his findings that were not reproducible. And he did illustrations that did not reflect the actual scientific inquiry or finding. And he was ridiculed and had to resign. Claudine Gay, who had been, by the way, a Stanford political scientist, she plagiarized her thesis. Her findings were completely, and she, you know, I think Carol Swain said that she borrowed from her liberally without attestation. So they have a point that it's ubiquitous. And part of the reason that they have such confidence, especially in the sciences and health, is that J. Bhattacharya is an expert. That's, that's what he's trained as. He has an MD and a PhD, but he was not a practicing physician. But he got the MD to understand practical medicine because his expertise in health, economics and research and he understands to a T the type of grants that have been given. So what he's basically saying, and this I think comes from him and RFK is we spend $50 billion on these grants and we're going to cut a lot of them because they're taking away money from legitimate grants because they're dei. And what do I mean by that? What percentage of this community didn't get the third booster in a timely fashion as somebody did in Beverly Hills, something like that. Or the air in Salinas is less breathable than it is in Presidio Heights. In other words, they don't look at all the other factors, wind, climate, they just look at economics. And then they want, they're always trying to find somebody who is a victim of a market capitalist successful paradigm and then they want to have restitution or something. And that's what they're doing. The research is, it's not about curing cancer, it's not about any of that. It's using science and health issues to critique the system as an exploitive system in the typical left wing manner. And they're going to cut it out. And then what the left does, when these cuts are made, they know that the public supports them. So when you cut, as a general, when you cut research grants to universities or you say they can only charge 15% rather than 50, that's going to cost Stanford $180 million a year. Then what happens? Somebody in the English department, you know what I mean, who's writing about the sexual ambiguity of Shakespeare or something, says this is terrible what it's doing to research. We're cutting grants and, and we're not going to be able to cure glioblastomas and you know, we're going to get mast cell leukemia. We're not going to get any of this is all going, this is terrible. And that's what they do. They all hide behind, we're not going to have a super fast computer because as if that justifies what they're doing. But in fact, they're not cutting that stuff. They're, they're going through, sifting through it and they said we're not going to, we don't have the money, we don't have the time to subsidize this DEI research. That's Socialist inspired, equity inspired, diversity inspired. And I just, I think it's great what they're doing. And they have people that really know the university. And that's what scares the left even more. These are insiders who have put up with it. And I would suggest in the case of Stanford, if you don't want somebody to cut your surcharge or overcharge from 50% to 15, or you don't want someone to say that studying how many trans people got the shot two weeks later than everybody else, then you shouldn't have censored Jay Bacharya and tried to destroy him. Because there is something in the world universe called karma. Nemesis. What comes around, goes around. Payback is a bitch, divine retribution, God, whatever term you out there adhere to, it exists. I tend to think it's a religious concept, concept, Christianity. But there is ultimate equilibrium. And what we're seeing now is all the people who are on the bottom rung or on the top rung. And Donald Trump has a uncanny instinct. And I almost think sometimes Jack, when he was picking his cabinet, he said, I need somebody as hhs, who do they hate the most and try to destroy? Bobby Kennedy. I need somebody the NIH who they censored and tried to destroy his career on. Jay Bacharia, I need somebody at FBI who have they monitored. And Kash Patel, I need somebody, Director of National Tele, anybody they put on a terrorist watch list. These McCarthy. Oh, Tulsi Gabbard. I need somebody at the Pentagon. Does anybody write a book about it? And what's happened to the military? And they went out and distracted. Oh, Pete Hexa. That's what he did. He did that. Absolutely.
Victor Davis Hanson
Victor, you mentioned Tulsi Gabbard and that. Did I read this or hear this? That she, she was criticizing the Biden administration. Maybe she was in Europe and then that night they put her on the terrorist watch list.
Jack
Yeah, everybody says. Victor, are you suggesting that the left is more vindictive, more prone to, to destroy civil liberties, more conniving, more dangerous because they're somehow deranged? No, I'm saying all that is true for one reason. Because human nature being what it is, if there is no deterrence, humans are capable of terrible things. And what detours a politician from doing bad things is a free independent media. Media and a free independent university and a free independent foundation and a free independent administrative state. And they all are left wing. And the people in the government know that. And they know they can get away with stuff because they'll always get a cover up. Or they'll get support. So if it's Joe Biden and you say I'm fit as a fiddle and you cancer free and no, the left and that. But if you're on the other side, it forces you to be very, very careful because you know that if you slip up one moment or you exaggerate, you do anything, they're going to go after you. And that makes the Republicans at this time in this place, I don't know how long it will last, but it's been there for a long, long time. More likely not to do stuff like that or if they do it like Nixon and that a lot of that was exaggerated in Watergate. But they're going to go after. They're going to go after Nixon in a way. They never went after JFK for doing some of the same stuff or lbj. But that's. That keeps Republicans and conservatives honest because they have a press and a culture and a university system that hates their guts and the left that makes them dishonest because they're part and parcel of covering up for the greater cause of mandated equality. It's as simple as that.
Victor Davis Hanson
Wow. Greater cause of me having power. I think that's the source of itself. Well, Victor, that's about all the time we have today, except the usual fair at the end of the show of expressing our gratitude for people for viewing and listening. And we thank you for doing that, no matter whether you're on YouTube or rumble watching or Apple, Spotify, etc. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. Many new people doing that. I want to remind you again, Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus. You're obviously here because, because you're a Victor Davis Hansen fan, you should become a fan of his website. We have some friends also out there on Facebook, the Victor Davis Hansen Fan club. It's not official, but they're good people. And Allison and Paul and Joe and they run that. That their thing. Check that out. Victor's got a page on Facebook. Also VDH's Morning cup on Twitter. Excuse me, X is. His handle is at VD Hansen. So do follow all those. Here's some comments I picked up from looking at. I think these are all from. From YouTube. There's just two. I'll read just two. This one is from Niner N9 RPWR 9802. Victor, you're an absolute work of art. My bride of 40 years and I never miss a show. Isn't that nice?
Jack
Victor, you're a work of art.
Victor Davis Hanson
And then.
Jack
Yeah, and then no one's ever said that about me. They've said I'm a Skeletor and Freddy Krueger. But not a work of art.
Victor Davis Hanson
No, you're. You're a. You're beautiful then. Cliff Holzer 6895 writes, thanks for loving our country, Victor. I'm of the same age, 71, worked as an architect, and I know how hard the last 12 years have been for our country. I have five grandchildren. And for me, you are a guiding moral light that shows a fair, thorough reading of history can be and must be the anchor for our future generations of Americans. Thanks again for your great work, Victor. I want to thank the people who write me because they're enjoying Civil Thoughts. That's the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil Society, where we are trying to strengthen civil society. And Civil Thoughts comes every Friday in your inbox. It's it's got 14 recommended readings, interesting and inspiring or just, you know, cool articles I've come across the previous week that I think you might enjoy. To get it, go to civilthoughts.com sign up again. It's free and we are not selling your name. Victor, you've been terrific. Thanks for all the wisdom you shared and I look forward to talking to you again soon. And we'll be back with another episode of the Victor Davis Hansen Show. Bye bye.
Jack
Thank you for listening and watching again. Much appreciated.
Vertigo: Things That Unmake the Democratic Party
The Victor Davis Hanson Show released an episode on May 29, 2025, titled "Vertigo: Things That Unmake the Democratic Party." In this insightful and provocative discussion, hosts Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler delve deep into the internal and external factors contributing to the Democratic Party's current struggles. The episode navigates through leadership critiques, cultural shifts, policy missteps, and the alienation of traditional voter bases, providing listeners with a comprehensive analysis of the party's trajectory.
The episode opens with a pointed critique of Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Following a maritime accident involving the Mexican Navy in New York, Schumer swiftly attributed the mishap to potential negligence by then-President Donald Trump, specifically citing cuts to the Coast Guard’s vigilance ([07:28] Jack Fowler). Fowler argues that Schumer's actions reflect a deteriorating leadership style, marked by blame-shifting and a lack of accountability.
Notable Quote:
Jack Fowler [07:28]: "He doesn't have an identity. And he's caught now... he tries to blame Trump for everything."
The discussion highlights Schumer's aging leadership and predicts a potential shift within the party towards younger, more progressive figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), suggesting that Schumer's influence may wane as the party seeks rejuvenation.
Hanson and Fowler address the pervasive issue of antisemitism within left-wing circles, contrasting it with conservative efforts to combat such sentiments. They assert that despite strong conservative movements, segments of the Democratic Party and academia remain either complicit or dismissive of antisemitic incidents.
At [14:22], Victor Davis Hanson emphasizes the complicity:
Victor Davis Hanson [14:22]: "Because you can't stomach the reality that on your watch and with your participation and activism, you created and allowed this to happen."
The hosts discuss specific incidents at academic conferences where Jewish speakers felt unsupported, criticizing prominent liberal figures like Tom Friedman for their inadequate responses to antisemitism. They argue that antisemitism is predominantly a left-wing issue, undermining the Democratic Party's credibility and support among Jewish communities.
A significant portion of the episode is devoted to examining how radical transgender legislation is alienating the Democratic Party's traditional voter base. Specifically, they focus on Colorado's shift from a Republican stronghold to a "solidly blue state" dominated by aggressive transgender policies.
Notable Quote:
Jack Fowler [23:56]: "It's a solidly blue state. And I don't think it's ever going to change back."
Fowler outlines a seven-step progression of the left-wing DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) movement, suggesting that the imposition of radical transgender policies is the climax of an ideological overreach. They argue that such policies are not only alienating middle-class voters but also driving away blue-collar and working-class demographics that once formed the party's backbone.
Hanson and Fowler discuss the Jussie Smollett incident as a case study of broader issues within liberal politics. They contend that Smollett orchestrated a fake hate crime to gain sympathy and media attention, an act they view as emblematic of a pattern of deceit within left-leaning circles.
Notable Quote:
Jack Fowler [35:20]: "As soon as that happened, almost instantaneously, anybody with half a brain knew it was completely bogus... except Camilla Harris, Nancy Pelosi..."
The hosts criticize the lack of accountability and the tendency of liberal leaders to overlook or defend such deceitful acts, thereby eroding public trust and highlighting internal fractures within the party.
Transitioning to cultural commentary, the hosts critique the declining architectural and cultural integrity of prestigious institutions like Stanford University. They lament the replacement of beautiful Romanesque buildings with modernist and postmodern structures, viewing it as a metaphor for the broader decline in aesthetic and ideological standards.
Notable Quote:
Victor Davis Hanson [56:56]: "They systematically blow them up... and they're run by either blue state left wing mayors or DEI mayors or both. And they're complete shambles."
Fowler echoes these sentiments, arguing that such changes reflect a loss of traditional values and an embrace of elitist, left-wing ideologies that alienate the middle class and stifle diversity of thought.
A pivotal segment of the episode focuses on President Donald Trump's executive order titled "Restoring Gold Standard Science." The hosts interpret this order as an attempt to depoliticize scientific research, emphasizing reproducibility, transparency, and unbiased peer review.
Notable Quote:
Jack Fowler [60:35]: "They have people that really know the university. And that's what scares the left even more."
They argue that the politicization of science has led to numerous studies being debunked or ignored due to ideological biases. The executive order is portrayed as a corrective measure to ensure that scientific integrity is maintained, free from leftist distortions and DEI-driven agendas.
In their concluding analysis, Hanson and Fowler summarize how the Democratic Party's focus on progressive social policies, particularly around identity politics and transgender issues, is causing traditional voter bases to defect en masse. They predict a continued exodus of conservative-leaning and blue-collar voters to more right-leaning alternatives, further diluting the party's strength and influence.
Notable Quote:
Jack Fowler [51:00]: "It's going to be the death knell of that party. That was that issue."
The hosts emphasize that without addressing these internal and ideological challenges, the Democratic Party faces significant obstacles in maintaining its historical voter base and electoral success.
"Vertigo: Things That Unmake the Democratic Party" offers a critical and thorough examination of the forces undermining one of America's dominant political parties. Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler present a narrative that intertwines leadership failures, ideological extremism, cultural misalignments, and policy missteps as key contributors to the party's current predicament. Through pointed critiques and detailed analysis, the episode serves as a wake-up call for Democratic leadership and voters alike, urging a reconsideration of priorities and strategies to reclaim lost ground and restore the party's foundational strengths.
Additional Notable Quotes:
Victor Davis Hanson [69:24]: "Because we live in the Soviet Union, we really do, the old Soviet Union. And we're just sick of all these lies."
Jack Fowler [70:52]: "They are the biggest cultural 19th century imperialist we've ever had in this country."
For More Insights:
Listeners are encouraged to visit Victor Davis Hanson's website, victorhansen.com, to access exclusive articles and videos that expand on the themes discussed in the podcast. Additionally, subscribing to Civil Thoughts, the free weekly email newsletter from the Center for Civil Society, provides further reading and resources on strengthening civil society.
This summary aims to capture the essence and key points discussed in the episode, providing a coherent narrative that is accessible to those who have not listened to the full podcast.