ICE Threats, Elite Leftist Radicals, NFL Wokery, and California’s “Stop Nick Shirley” Bill | VDH

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words (June 2, 2026) Episode Summary Main Theme

This episode features Victor Davis Hanson’s insightful commentary on contemporary American politics and culture seen through a historical lens. Topics include anti-ICE radicalism, the class character of elite leftist activism, the “Stop Nick Shirley” bill out of California, culture war conflicts in pro sports (especially the NFL), immigration realities, the fallout of DEI ideology, and how America’s foundational norms are eroding. Victor brings his historian’s perspective to current news, illuminating the roots and potential consequences.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Threats to ICE Agents and the Culture of Political Violence

• Victor addresses the arrest of Nicholas Matthew Skelfo, an Antifa-affiliated activist in New Jersey, for threatening ICE officers and their families, noting a climate of escalating threats and double standards.
• “[ICE officers] are trying to enforce... and return people to their home country... and we have an active resistance that's threatening them all the time...” (05:37)
• He highlights the irony that blue states like California are proposing laws to prohibit photographing employees at immigrant detention centers while ICE agents face death threats with little consequence for perpetrators.
• The class dynamic: Activists are often “wealthy upscale young punks... mostly from white Asian elite,” attacking working-class, often Mexican-American, officers (07:48).
• “No one talks about that, but that's the real subject of the entire thing.” (08:34)

Elite Leftist Radicals & Class Analysis

• Victor and Jack discuss the backgrounds of arrested leftist protesters like Brendan Guyer, revealing how many come from privilege.
• “There is something deeply troubling about this postmodern culture that’s grown up in the bicoastal elite communities in which pampered white kids... get indoctrinated...” (09:42)
• New Leftist snobbery: radical ideology is often a badge for privileged classes, yet their activism often tramples the actual working-class and minority communities.

On Socialism vs. Communism and Radical Policy Proposals

• Discussion of radical political figures’ promises to seize or redistribute property, especially in major cities.
• Victor cautions that the path from democratic socialism to outright communism is short and slippery: “They always move to the left and... the next thing after communism is anarchy.” (13:50)
• Jack compares current “socialist” proposals to those from Europe’s mid-20th-century experiments, and Victor brings in Orwellian and historical examples: “The thing about socialism... [is] the next step is, how do I stop [people] from pushing back? Well, the communists have an answer for that. Any means necessary...” (14:41)

Immigration: Past and Present Perspectives

• Victor draws a distinction between past waves of patriotic, assimilation-minded legal immigrants and today's mass illegal inflow.
• “I am a big proponent of legal immigration if it's measured... But when they come over here and they start trashing the country and they start demanding changes...” (18:21)
• He connects mass migration to civic strain and working-class displacement, referencing overburdened public services and systemic strain in his own California community.

NFL “Wokery” and Double Standards in Sports

• Case study: NFL Giants’ Abdul Carter publicly attacks quarterback Jackson Dart for introducing former President Trump at a rally, even as political protest by leftist athletes is normalized.
• Referencing commentator Jason Whitlock: “Black people can be offended by what white people... but white people can't be offended by what black people believe...” (24:42)
• Victor: “That shows you how deeply embedded this leftist culture has taken over professional sports... sports writers today are among the most leftist of all journalists...” (25:35)
• Cultural leftist ideology is a “virus,” infecting institutions from sports to education (28:52).

Cultural Decay, Coarsening Norms & the Loss of Civility

• Victor and Jack lament the breakdown of decorum, from graduations to church to everyday manners—connecting this loss to broader societal decay and “broken windows” theory.
• “It's a coarsening of the whole culture... you get homelessness... people spit... it just lowers everything.” (29:57)
• University culture as emblem of lost standards: “I couldn't fathom that because knowledge is racial. But they had been taught to say that.” (69:41)

The “Stop Nick Shirley” Bill in California

• California's AB 2624 (“Stop Nick Shirley Act”) would criminalize photographing or sharing information about employees of organizations serving illegal immigrants if they claim intimidation.
• Victor: “They're angry that anybody would be accused of using the methodologies that they created and mastered. They were the people who created cancel culture... They were the ones that did all of that.” (45:00)
• He raises constitutional concerns (ex post facto “bills of attainder”) and decries how such measures target investigative journalism and transparency about fraud (47:45).

DEI Ideology: From Academia to Policing

• Discussion of the case in Britain where police handcuffed and allowed a stabbing victim to bleed out after the attacker (a member of a protected group) claimed the victim was “racist.”
• Victor: “DEI... destroys all deterrence. And it tells a selected group... they get exemptions.” (52:25)
• He connects this to a wider breakdown in meritocracy, with real-world consequences on campuses and streets.

Personal Stories: Life in Rural California Amid Lawlessness

• Victor shares local vignettes: the rise in illegal dumping, violence, and essentially third-world conditions in parts of rural California.
• “There is no law. There's no law at all.” (68:41)
• Recollection of community integration from past generations, now replaced by atomization and fear.

The Permanent Revolution and Loss of Civilizational Memory

• Drawing from Greek and Roman history, Victor frames the rise of ethnic tribalism and intersectionality as a threat to America’s national unity and civil order.
• “Tribalism is the enemy of civilization.” (73:55)
• Anecdotes from his Swedish-American family history illustrate assimilation and civic pride—as a contrast to present-day trends.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The left is adolescent. So anything that they feel adds to their power... it’s okay. And when it’s used against them, they get paranoid.” (05:26)

• “We’re in a situation in America where a federal officer is trying to enforce... and the reaction of blue state America is we’re going to make it illegal to do something.” (05:10)

• “These are wealthy upscale young punks... disparage, slur, smear, try to attack largely middle class Mexican American officers. No one talks about that, but that's the real subject.” (07:48)

• On university decay: “You're at places that have that name, but they're hollowed out and your employer knows it.” (41:04)

• “Tribalism is the enemy of civilization. Ethnic identification that is paramount... It's a pre civilizational idea.” (73:29)

• “There is no law. There's no law at all.” (68:41) Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:17 — The plight and demonization of ICE agents in blue states (Victor Davis Hanson)

• 07:45 — Class divide: Elite activists vs. working-class law enforcement

• 09:40 — Elite leftism: indoctrination and moral arrogance

• 13:15 — Property redistribution schemes and the path from socialism to communism

• 18:21 — Immigration strain and civic consequences

• 24:42 — NFL “wokery,” culture wars, and free speech double standards

• 29:57 — Coarsening of public behavior and cultural collapse

• 44:59 — The “Stop Nick Shirley Act”: doxxing, transparency, and legal retaliation

• 52:23 — DEI in policing and the British murder case

• 68:41 — Rural lawlessness and collapse of local order in California

• 73:29 — The perils of rising tribalism and loss of civic unity

Conclusion

Victor Davis Hanson blends historical analysis with sharp critique of America’s contemporary decline—arguing that elite leftist culture, mass illegal immigration, and the rise of DEI have deeply corroded civic norms, law enforcement, and public trust. The episode features sobering personal anecdotes and bold historical parallels, urging listeners to recognize the dangers of abandoning assimilationist ideals, the rule of law, and a meritocratic society.

Transcript

[A]

Well, hello, ladies, and hello, gentlemen, and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words on the Daily Signal Network. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. Lucky man. I could ask Victor the questions I believe you would want him to address and answer and share his wisdom on. We are recording on Saturday, May 30, 2026, and this episode should be up on June 2nd. I think Tuesday is the second. Yeah, it is. And Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Wayne Marsha Buskey, Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College, senior contributor at the Daily Signal, essayist, syndicated columnist, author of the forthcoming book Counter Revolution. Go to Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus, and you'll find a link for that. Order it now. It comes out in September, but get your copy assured. We'll talk more about the Blade of Perseus in a bit. Victor, we've got eclectic issues today, but the first one I think I'd like to poke you on is this punk that was arrested in New Jersey for threatening ICE agents and man, oh man, what would it be like to be an ICE agent officer in America today. So we'll get your thoughts on that and the Nick Shirley Stop Nick Shirley act that is working its way through the California legislature, the NFL wokery of the New York Giants or some of the players on the Giants. That and plenty more. And we'll get to all of these things when we come back from these initial important messages. As an advocate of truth, you know that women shouldn't have to share locker rooms with men, women shouldn't have to compete against male athletes, and they shouldn't be punished for speaking the truth. But across America, that's exactly what's happening. Men are being allowed to compete in women's sports, robbing girls of scholarships, medals, titles and safety. Now, the U.S. supreme Court has heard two cases, West Virginia vs. BPJ and Little v. Haycocks, that happened on January 13 that could decide the future of women's sports nationwide. This could be a watershed moment in the fight to protect biological reality and fairness. Alliance Defending Freedom needs your voice today. Visit joinadf.com hanson or text Hanson to 83848 to add your name to their declaration and side with truth and fairness. That's joinadf.com Hanson or text Hanson to 83848. What starts in women's sports spreads to schools, medicine and parental rights. This is our moment to push back, stand with Alliance Defending Freedom today. Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in His own words. Kind of nice day here in Milford, Connecticut. Hope it's an early morning out there where you are, Victor, in God's country, the Central Valley of California. Hope things are going well with. With you. So here's a headline or story that the news has come out today or late last night, Friday, that the New Jersey Delaney hall, that's the name of that ICE detention center which has been the site of so many protests, that this antifa punk who had yelled out, and he was caught on video saying to an ICE officer, I'll kill your whole effing family. Your children, your wife, all dead. I have your face. This is why ICE agents wear masks. Because when they don't. This guy is Nicholas Matthew Skelfo. He's 27, he's from Brooklyn, and he's been arrested by the FBI for threatening to kill a federal agent. Scalpel. Was a participant in 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and more recently in no king's protests. He is an oddball, I think, Victor, but a violent one. Your thoughts on what our ICE officers endure?

[B]

Well, that's what Voltaire said of Admiral Byng. The British have. They have a strange habit. Every once in a while, they hang an admiral. Pour in courage, l', Autreuil, so that they can encourage the others. They need to make an example of people who do that. It's very ironic because I'm sitting here in California where Gavin Newsom will sign into law a new statute that makes it, and we'll discuss that, illegal for people like Shirley to photograph, you know, just because that's supposedly intimidating to immigrants or something.

[A]

Leering center employees.

[B]

Yeah, leering. Leering. And here for months now, these ICE people, these ICE demonstrators, have gotten their face, they've threatened them. Then nothing. No repercussions, None. And so basically, we are in a situation in America where a federal officer is trying to enforce lax, lax enforcement of the past and rectify that and return people to their home country who came here illegally, and the majority of whom, 60 to 70% of whom they're after are still criminals. We have an active resistance that's threatening them all the time, sometimes with violence. And the reaction of blue state America is we're going to make it illegal to do something. What they used to triumph 60 minutes. Remember the ambush interview where all of a sudden Dan Rather would pop out of a doorfront when he'd see a corporate CEO walk by, and then they'd stick a camera in his face and a microphone and said, did you or did you not know about that carcinogen in your assembly. That's what they did all the time. And the left thought this was the greatest thing in the world. But the left is adolescent. So anything that they feel adds to their power and influence, any means necessary, it's okay. And then when it's used against them, they get paranoid. So they're all mad at E. Jean Carroll now because everybody knew she lied under oath when she said that Reid Hoffman didn't fund her lawsuit. And that was a complete lie. He funded almost all of it. And now they decided to do what? Do something nobody does, enforce the perjury law. And they're saying this is lawfare, this is vindictive. Her whole case was a bill of attainder that allowed her to have a suspension of this sexual harassment statute for one year written specifically for her so she could get Donald Trump. So I'm really, you know, it's really demoralizing to see what these young punks do. And then I said that to Sammy the other day, that 45% of them, Jack, are Mexican American middle class people. And nobody in the Mexican American community is doxxing them or exposing them. The ICE officers, the ICE officers, they are self celebrated because when you have 12 million illegal aliens from south of the border come across, they do not go to Martha's Vineyard, they do not go to Atherton, they do not go to, I don't know Palm beach, we know they don't go to Martha's Vineyard or we know they don't go to Nantucket, they go to Hispanic communities. And the result, like mine, and the result is when you go to the emergency room, you can't get served. Or when you go for your mom's dialysis, she can't get served. Or you go to the store and somebody is not speaking Spanish, they're speaking an indigenous dialect and no one knows what to do. Or you're having truck drivers that can't read English and they're killing people given fake licenses. It's basically government. But they're pseudo license, there was no requirement that you had to meet to get them. So that's the problem. This is a class thing. These are wealthy upscale young punks, middle age and retirees, mostly from white Asian elite of this country. And they go out as sort of a sporting event and then they disparage, slur, smear, try to attack largely middle class Mexican American officers. No one talks about that, but that's the real subject of the entire thing.

[A]

Interesting. On the elitist side, and this is another anecdote of another individual. But I'm looking right now, Victor, at a from X a post from someone I meme therefore I am, who writes one of the left extremists who was arrested for kicking and biting ICE agents in New Jersey was previously charged with sexual abuse of children related to the dissemination and possession of children child pornography. So this character's name is Brendan Guyer and he graduated from Madison High School in New Jersey. I want to tell you something, Victor. If you wanted to buy a house in Madison, New Jersey, you better have a couple million dollars. You know, I bet this kid is this was. He's like 25, 26, 27, usually elite upbringing and a very violent and ideologically

[B]

that's what no one talks about in this country. There is something deeply troubling and disturbing about this postmodern culture that's grown up in the bicoastal elite communities in which pampered white kids go to these schools. Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, all of them. And then they get indoctrinated for four years and they don't know anything. They don't learn classical languages, they don't know modern languages, they don't know philosophy, they don't know science or math. They take therapeutic sociology, psychology, and then they become fodder for all these causes and they're so sanctimonious and self righteous because they're wealthy and they're entitled and they think that nobody in their entire life has dared to bother them. And they have security patrols in their neighborhood and they're like little sheltered hothouse plants and we're supposed to take them seriously. And that is really the basis of the Democratic party. And now along it is a dei socialist, Islamicist, elitist new coalition. These people, I think we need to talk a lot more in those terms that these are class snobs and they keep talking about oppression And Mandami is a good example. He talks about whiter neighborhoods and all these oppressors. He came from the 1% of Uganda, 1% in Uganda are of Indian ethnic background according to his own definition and the people around him. He is a settler colonialist. I don't believe that's true, but they would say it was true. So he grew up in affluence and then he came over here and his parents and got greater affluence. And he's never really held a serious job outside of government or being on a board or assemblyman for a term. And he's got all of these pie in the sky social and he's got These racialist ideas. He does not like Jews. It's very clear he does not like white people or he wouldn't say, I'm going to go after the nicer, whiter neighborhoods. When you talk like that, that's just a revelation of your soul. But and so yeah, that's a very disturbing demographic. These very, very affluent left wing people that are so self righteous and you know what it's weird about? They transfer their wealth and their privilege into their ideology. So they think you have to listen to them. Blacks don't know what's good for them unless they listen to Barack Obama, who can instruct them about why they can't vote for anybody but Kamala Harris and why these people are all mis. And that arrogance comes from the idea that they've always had affluence and they've always been privileged and they always expect people to listen to them.

[A]

I'm glad you mentioned Mandami with his ideological arrogance. Reminds me of that scene in Dr. Zhivago when Zhivago comes back from the war and he sees his. The house that his family has lived in is now being populated by many people and that's what Mandami has just come out in the last few days. I didn't have this in the notes of things we might talk about, Victor, but yeah, he's going to take apartment buildings and turn them over. He's going to take my property and your property and that property and turn them over to other people.

[B]

And that's because he's so astute. He knows exactly of all the thousands of landlords, he can walk into a building and his eyes can detect that it's not kept up or the margin, profit margin is too great. And so he can turn it over to someone who is what, more left wing and empathetic? I don't think so.

[A]

Well, it's interesting too.

[B]

I don't think he can get away with it, but we'll see because that's going to be a landmark case. If a mayor has a. I guess he's going to use eminent domain and say that this is a city takeover, like a bridge or something. I just don't think he can do it. But remember when these people say that they're socialist, when they get in power, they're communist and they always are. They always move to the left and the left and the left and then the next thing after communism is anarchy.

[A]

So I think, yeah, Victor, I think we've been head faked on this in a bit by socialist governments in Europe in the 1950s and 60s, Norway, Sweden, others that were, you know, not communists. You know, maybe they would have, maybe they would have arced that way if they were in power long enough. But I, I think that distorts what, what the truth about socialism and the current socialist cinema that they really are communists. They use the label of socialist.

[B]

I think they were in the 60s and when you look at the West German socialist governments, they had German, East German spies all through their government. They had Russian spies. The Italian Communist Party was deeply infiltrated. Socialists. You read Farewell to Catalonia by George Orwell. The crazy anarchists and all these people were completely taken over by people masquerading as socialists but getting their orders from Joseph Stalin. And the communists were executing anarchists by their droves. So the thing about socialism is when the, when you have a person who is elected as a democratic socialist and he tries to implement these socialist utopian dreams, people push back. So the next step is how do I stop them from pushing back? Well, the communists have an answer for that. Any means necessary because our economic and social goals are so moral they justify killing anything. And that's the narcotic that they drift to, otherwise nobody would want them. And you'll see that after a year or two of this guy, he is going to scare a lot of people. And there's going to be two reactions. They're either going to leave or they're going to start actively resisting. And he is going to get more and more radical if that's possible. And he has led. He is sort of the poster boy for all these crazy people that are running in these Democratic primaries.

[A]

He is. Well, you can't fight somebody with nobody. So I agree the Irish in the neighborhood of woods and the Bronx are essentially kulaks in his eyes. But they have to have somebody to rally around to fight back. And I don't think it's Curtis Lewa or, I don't know who's the current person, who's the Rudy Giuliani of 2029.

[B]

I think the demography has changed. I mean, when Giuliani was at his high point at the end of the 20th century and in and around 9 11, there wasn't 53 million foreign born in the United States. There hadn't been 12 million people across the border in four years. There hadn't been 16% of the population. We haven't acclimatized, culturated, integrated those people and they come over here and they have this idea, legal or illegal. So many of them, these are not the immigration paradigms that we had until recently of legal immigration. So many of them come over here and their first decision is to get on federal either to work for the government or get on federal support and state or local support and then to trash the system by which they benefit from because it's not sufficient. And they're encouraged by the Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, all of that, those people. And it's eye opening. You saw that France the other day. There's a major politician and he's advocating three year moratorium on legal immigration because he said France can't handle and turn into French people, these immigrants, legal or otherwise. And I think Britain, the Reform Party is just as far as labor is concerned, it's a time bomb ticking. They can't stop it. It's going to take over at some and I think they're going to be wildly greeted when they tell people we're not going to do this, what we've done anymore.

[A]

Things are going to get bloody.

[B]

I think I am a big, you know, I'm a big proponent of legal immigration if it's measured. And people come over here because they know that they wanted greater security, economic stability, freedom, et cetera. But when they come over here and they start trashing the country and they start demanding changes and then they start lecturing you what's wrong with it. Like Ilya Omar, first thing you know, she said this is a trashy country and you know, this is dictator and it's got a better America's not as bad as America's worse than the dictators in Somalia. That was a very funny thing to say because her father worked for one Saeed Barry and well, Victor, I think

[A]

on the legal immigration it's going to be a painfully slow and small numbers process would have to be because you have to judge a person, an actual person if they're going to assimilate or not.

[B]

Right? You have to, you have to and you have to ask them a basic question, what's the Gettysburg Address? And we have to teach that Again, we are not even teaching it. So our citizens don't know. But I can tell you 20 years ago when local churches adopted certain families that came over here, my cousin married a girl from Estonia and those people that came from Estonia that were fleeing communism, there were some at the hospital from Hungary. They were the most patriotic people in the world and they were right. They wanted to assimilate. They knew more about America than the native born. And I can tell you my father ran a vocational training campus. He created it in the State Center, Junior College, district to teach people on welfare how to be mechanics, electricians, et cetera. And he had a guy that he hired, I won't give his last name. I think he's passed away. Cruz. And every single morning he was an immigrant from Mexico. He got up at 4 in the morning and drove out there and raised the American flag. And then he stayed late. As soon as sunset, no matter what the time of season, he put white gloves on and he took it down, he folded it and he put it in a little drawer every single day. And that just seems crazy. Today it is.

[A]

I'm glad you mentioned your father because he'll be an entree to a next and kind of related topic. First for our listeners and our viewers. Did you know that over 176 million Americans are drinking tap water with PFAS in it? What are PFAs? They're man made chemicals used in food packaging, nonstick cookware, firefighting foam and so on. Scientists call them forever chemicals because once they're in your body, they stay there, they don't break down and they're linked to hormone disruption, immune damage and increased cancer risk. And here's where it gets worse. The EPA set legal limits for PFAS in drinking water back in 2024. But water systems have until 2031 to comply. That's five whole years from now. And until that deadline arrives, a utility can be operating above the legal limit right now and isn't required to notify you. You're just drinking it. The EPA knows these chemicals are harmful enough to regulate. They're just not making anyone act on it yet. It's on you to take matters into your own hands. Cove Pure was engineered exactly for this, by the way. If you're watching this, you can see over my left shoulder, you can see my covpure. Unlike the normal pitcher filters you get at the store, they're Clearwave Reverse Osmosis technology is certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants, PFAS, heavy metals, fluorides, pharmaceuticals, filtering particles hundreds of thousands of times smaller than a single human hair. What's even better about covpur is that it's very easy. So easy to set up. It sits right on your countertop. You don't have to drill any holes or call a plumber. You just plug it in and the water tastes just like it's supposed to, like pure, clean water, refreshing water. So don't wait for 2031. Take control of your water quality right now. Head to covpure.com VDH and you'll get $250 off for a limited time. That's covpure c o v e p covpure.com v d h and we thank the good people of Codepure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And Victor, I'm going to drink to that from Covure, of course.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Salute. Salute. Okay, Victor, visiting your house last time I was there, noticed on the wall such a cool thing that you had a letter from the New York Giants, New York Football Giants, to your father who was a. A very good college football player and I think was offering him for a tryout for the Giants and it didn't come to pass. But the Giants, the football Giants are in the news. Abdul Carter, who is kind of a cantankerous defensive player, he was attacking Jackson Dart, who is the Giants quarterback, because Dart was asked and introduced Donald Trump when he appeared in Suffern, New York, that's a suburb of New York City, at a rally recently. And Carter on X tweeted, I don't know what the proper term is. Thought this blank was AI, what we doing, man? So he's attacking Jackson Dart. It's okay if everybody player in the NFL takes a knee, disrespects the flag, et cetera, but Jackson Dart invited by the president to introduce, all of a sudden, that is a problem. And we have some interesting commentary on that. I'll just read one, except I've misplaced it here. Yeah. Jason Whitlock, who I think he's a terrific culture critic, he says here's what they've normalized and are trying to reinforce with the Jackson Dart situation. Black people can be offended by what white people, but white people can't be offended by what black people believe. It's legal to love and worship Barack Obama. It's illegal to love and worship Donald Trump. Unsustainable. Your thoughts on any of this, Victor?

[B]

Well, I mean, it was even worse than that because during Colin Kaepernick's pre and Covid and post Covid days that spread in the NBA and the NFL, you could see the. That the stands for about a year lost about before he drove down the revenues to NFL teams, people were sick of it. They didn't watch it. And the same thing with the NBA. So they did a lot of damage. So basically, if you become highly political and you insult the flag of the country that you are living in with all of these freedoms and securities and you harm your employer's revenue Stream, which I guess doesn't affect their salary, it's fine. But if you just go to introduce somebody that happens to be what, the President of the United States, it's a political act of treason. That shows you how deeply embedded this leftist culture has taken over professional sports. And, you know, I think you know better than I do that sports writers today are among the most leftist of all journalists because they're doing dei, social construct. Every time they write, they veer off the actual data of, you know, RBIs or catches or passing, and they start giving you breakdowns of ethnic, racial. And it's been highly politicized and it's, it's like an infection. Stuart. I mean, Spencer Pratt has a great commercial, and if you've seen it, it's online, where a very refined looking white woman, almost the typical of Beverly Hills or Brentwood, comes into the emergency room and her daughter is on a gurney. The daughter is beautiful, blonde, said, my daughter, she's very ill. She's got a cough. I don't know what's happened. And the doctor looks at her and she's got Pratt disease. She's got Pratt disease. And the daughter says, I don't, I just don't know why. Karen Bass was in Uganda when the city burned down. I said, no, see, see, she's getting, it's getting worse. I've got to prescribe four hours of npr, three hours of New York Times. And then the woman says, oh, my gosh, we thought we vaccinated. We only listened to Ms. And once in a while, when we want to get frisky, we turn on cnn. And no, I'm sorry, she's got to have npr, New York Times, Washington. And then they wheel her into the isolation ward with the infected and they're all there. And then it ends with the doctor. They go back to the doctor's diagnostic room and he starts coughing as if he's picked it up from her and he's smiling. But it is a virus. You know what I mean? It is. And part of it is the genius of the left was they were able to take very, very radical ideas, transgenderism, that it's an epidemic and that people, 30%, 20% of the population, it's normal for biological men to dominate women's sport events and cases or dress or an open border is just normal. And 12 million illegal aliens is normal. And, and letting people out with no cash bail is normal. And then they made it cool in the universities and pop culture so that when you talk to people, they don't know why they're for it. They just know that it's cool to be for all these things. At least it's cool enough that you don't tell people you're not in public. And it's, it's not only the backing

[A]

of the, of crazy policies, but just on top of that, the coolness of, I don't know, abnormal public behavior now.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

I don't know what algorithms I'm in, Victor, but I see this constant stream of these high school, and I think some of them even college graduations.

[B]

I saw that. That's funny. You said that when we were in high school. No, but when they called our names, nobody was allowed to scream or use, you know, gas powered bullhorns or any of that. I saw it with my children who at the millennium were graduating that in the stands when the family would get up and hoot and yell and then the person would do something like this. But that was innocent compared to what they're doing now. And it's so selfish to disrupt that. And I think they should just say, you know what, everybody has to have a 30 minute graduation course before you can participate in a ceremony. And you're going to. Here's how you shake the hand, here's how you smile to the person, here's how quickly you get off the stage, here's how you tell your family not to scream and yell when you come up there. And we don't want to see you twerk or down any of that. And if you don't want to do it, you can't graduate. You can get your diploma, but you just won't be able to walk through. It's a coarsening of the whole culture. It's back to the broken windows theory that once you let these little misdemeanors proliferate, then you get homelessness. And once you let homelessness proliferate, then people don't take care of the subway or the bus or they don't, they don't do anything. People spit because if you're walking down a sidewalk, a person spits on the sidewalk because he says, well, they're defecating. Spitting's not that bad and it just lowers everything. That's why it's really important. The things that Trump is most criticized for, like trying to restore the fountain in Washington, Union Station, you know that thing when I went to Washington, it was putrid, it was filthy. And then the reflecting pull on the Mall, that's very important symbolically, iconically, to tell people these are public monuments and they're iconic, and we're going to keep them in great shape because it represents our collective values. A lot of this happened in the 60s, you know, when people destroyed norms. I can remember I didn't know what to call my professor the first week at UC Santa Cruz. A guy who was a very good professor, but he had on very long hair, long beard, flannel shirt and moccasins with no socks. And he was sitting on the floor of the seminar. And I walked in, I said, doctor, I didn't know what to do. My mom said, well, I don't think you should. I don't know what you should call them, but we used to call them doctor. And he said, I don't operate on anybody. Call me Bill, you know, that kind of stuff. And I said, that was nice. And everybody sat around the thing. And then I just noticed that people passed wind and didn't try to hold it, or people burped loudly, or there were people with something called patchouli oil. It was a 60s perfume that was almost toxic to smell. But women really thought it was great then, and it was just unpleasant. And you think all of these protocols that grew up over the centuries to make public meetings or opportunities or associations livable that were not animals, were all thrown away. And that 60s generation, they're the establishment. And now they're kind of worried of what they created because it's coming back to bite them.

[A]

As you say, it's pervasive everywhere. And even. I've lamented about this before, and we'll take a break in a sec, but go to church. I go to church. Even so I should be happy. Anyone goes to church when they go to church. These men who are of a certain age, who as children went when there was Latin mass, and yet there they are in shorts and a dirty T shirt and sandals, and there's just no sense of decorum or dignity, given what you're at. So does anything in our society require dignity? Does it require pomp and circumstance? It's not. I hope the pendulum swings back somehow.

[B]

It's so funny when you see. I know people don't believe that, but my grandfather would. I mean, they wore ties on Sundays for dinner. Just my grandmother and my grandfather. And then when they went to Christmas or Thanksgiving, he always had a tie on and a coat. We'd all kind of make fun of them. Why are you doing that?

[A]

And he said, go to baseball games. They wore ties.

[B]

Yeah, they wore. Yeah, that's another thing. Why I'm watching. I love all of these things, like best years of our lives, just to get glimpses of what the streets look like and what people. It kind of reminds me of the Greeks in the Dark Ages when we know that Mycenaean civilization was destroyed. But they went by the lion's gate at Mycenae or they fell through a Tholos tomb. Who were these people? They were giants. That's what they were. They were demigods. And they created Greek mythology out of that debased Dark Age culture that could not explain these monumental architecture and writing. They saw Linear B and they took the Olympian gods from them and they said, wow. Now they came and they created these things on Earth and maybe that's what we're doing. I think we're going to get to that point very quickly. I don't think the average person can replicate what we see. Maybe AI can help us. But when I drive to work and I see the California Aqueduct, I think, wow, who did that? They did it without computers or anything. It's the most amazing thing. And all these dams. I go up to Huntington Lake and I see the Big Creek Electric project and it's still functioning. It's still got the 1912 powerhouses. I thought, wow, who were these people? Because we have all these purchases and I don't think we have the people who come could replicate it. Yeah.

[A]

And even with that, you see baseball stadiums will be built and within 20 years they're taken down.

[B]

You know, another thing that I get really angry. Like Mayor Johnson is always lecturing people. And there was how many people shot over Memorial Day? 26 in Chicago. And what I thought was very angry. He's always criticizing people, but why doesn't he ask himself? So you go out and you put a gun in your belt and you go out at 9 o' clock on a Saturday night to kill somebody that you have a grudge against or gang grievance. And then you do it and you reject society and you hate it. You hate the establishment. Many of these are African American youth. They did not grow up in a two parent household. I understand that. And then they get shot. And what happens when they get shot? All of a sudden they say, where is the 21st century? I need an ambulance here immediately. And then they go to the emergency room and they see some person they otherwise would call a nerd. I'm not talking about just African American who are predominantly the people shooting and getting shot. But anybody that engages in violence, they go to the emergency room and it's somebody who has spent seven to Eight years of his life or her life in education. And immediately they get plugged into the most sophisticated health system in the world. Da, da, da, da. And then if they have life saving surgery, they go through all of that. It's probably a million dollars per patient. And they have no clue what they're doing. All they know is the people who are helping them are often the people they prey on if they saw them as bystanders in the street. And then when the bill comes, they're nowhere to be found. And the city pays for it. I'm not saying that the city shouldn't pay for it if they don't have the means. I'm saying they have no gratitude. And they keep doing it and doing it and doing it and then they demand, demand, demand, demand.

[A]

Johnson was blaming social media for all this.

[B]

Yes. And then they say it has no impact. Mayor Johnson thinks it has no impact on the health. If you have, you know, thousands of people shot. I'm not saying killed, just shot. And they're going in the. That has enormous financial impact. So at some point the society has to say, you know, this is not sustainable. I don't think it is. We're $31 trillion in debt. California is completely falling apart. And when you look to, you look for sanity. Karen Bass says she's worried that meth people might have rotted their teeth out and they need dental care. And then Gavin Newsom is giving. He's denying it, but now another story came out that it's true. These iPads that these prisoners on death row get to look at porn on. They say they. Why did they do that? It's just they can't deal with the existential felonies that are going on. So they just concentrate on little iconic performance art gestures that make them feel good. But they can't deal with it because their ideas have been so bankrupt and caused so much problems. What would Karen Bass do if suddenly she got a bowl of lightning in her head and became normal and she wanted to fix la? She would say, oh my gosh, what did I do? I spent all these billions. I haven't solved the homeless. Oh my gosh, there's no water in the reservoir. But then could she do anything about it? Because there's so many people that were appointed on the basis of criteria other than expertise. I don't think she could. It's like all these left wing professors, they're so typical. They demanded after George Floyd that you destroy the sat, get it out. Because it did not reflect the demography they wanted. They wanted a largely Black and Hispanic 30 or 40% class reflecting demographics. So they got that in many cases. And then they said, well, these kids don't know math, they don't know English, they don't know. And we're Stanford, we're Harvard, we're Yale, we're Princeton, we're the best places. But they weren't anymore overnight because they had to deal with students that were not prepared. So they started having remedial courses and they hushed it up. But these remedial courses were things that they weren't even at the junior college level. They were high school. So you had these hallmark universities that had some courses that were high school level. And then the faculty were getting angry, like, I've got a PhD in Renaissance literature from Harvard and Oxford, and anytime I talked about Dante and my theories about the Inferno when it was composed, I look at my class and they think I'm crazy. They don't appreciate my scholarship, my erudition, all my publications. What happened to my seminar, my undergraduate seminar on the Inferno? They can't read it. Yes, because you were the one, as a leftist that demanded to destroy all criteria to get in your university. And you think you're at Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, but you're not really. You're at places that have that name, but they're hollowed out and your employer knows it.

[A]

I'm just saying I did have an undergraduate course on Dante's Inferno Victory, but it was by a good professor once upon a time. We won't say what institution was that, because I don't want you to start lamenting about Holy Cross and Anthony Fauci. Okay, we need to take a little break, but when we come back, we're going to get your take, Victor, on the Nick Shirley legislation, anti Nick Shirley legislation working its way through California's legislature. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages. If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show, the Tony Kenneth cast, the same common sense perspectives you love. Weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And unlike some of the other evening shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis and good old American sarcasm. Thom Tillis I'm pretty sure, might have been useful at one time as a doorstop. Find the Tony Kennett cast on YouTube, radio, TV or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his Own Words on the Daily Signal network, one of two shows Victor does for the Daily Signal. The other is Victor Davis Hansen in A few words. That's four times a week, and seven to ten minutes of Victor wisdom in each episode. Do check that out. And also go to the Blade of Perseus. The address there is Victor Hanson. That's Victor's website. Tons of free stuff. Links galore. All the past episodes of these podcasts, Victor's weekly essays for American greatness and his weekly syndicated columns. And then also the Ultra articles that Ultra Video he does exclusively every week. Two articles a week, one video a week for the Blade of Perseus. You want to get it? It's $6.50 a month or $65 for the full year. How do you let that. We have some background music right now. I like that. Anyway, that's the Blade of Perseus. We are still Victor, in a way. A garageband kind of podcast. Do subscribe. Okay, Victor, I'm just gonna keep talking here because this is. I promised. We're gonna talk about. Ah, Nick Shirley, here we go. So. So the California assembly, totally overrun by Democrats, passed the Stopnik Shirley act. Assembly Bill 2624 now goes on to the state Senate. The bill's author, Mia Bonta, who is. She's the wife of the Attorney General. Rob Bonta, wrote the bill to protect employees of nonprofits who provide services to illegal immigrants. I'm reading from the Palo Alto Daily Post. The bill bans the photography of employees of protected organizations. If the cameras make the employee feel threatened. Anyone who posts photos or the personal information of those employees on the Internet could be fined a minimum of $4,000 per violation. Of course, this is all in response to Nick Shirley and his little camera going around Minnesota and California exposing a gargantuan amount of fraud. I saw, by the way, Dr. Oz doing the same thing over the weekend. He's in Ohio going to some of these facilities that have hundreds and hundreds of offices dealing with autism fraud or hospice fraud, which are just empty. Empty offices, but somehow or other, they are funneling billions of dollars through them. So anyway, Victor, we have this going on in California. Your thoughts?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, two thoughts. One, they're angry that anybody would be accused of using the methodologies that they created and mastered. They were the people who created cancel culture. They were the people who dox people. They were the people who introduced the iPhone, taking pictures of everybody at demonstrations. They were the ones that did all of that. They were the ones antifa. All those people that got people's addresses. They were the ones that, you know, we had Amy Comey Barrett, who was swatted. I'VE been swatted before. Our house has been. They were the ones that created all that, and he didn't do that. So again, it goes back to that theme that they are so adolescent that anybody who they think might ever do what they did should be strung up. The other thing is the Constitution forbids bills of attainder, and that's kind of a gray area. But a bill of attainder is when the legislature post facto creates a bill to punish somebody, an individual. And we saw it with Donald Trump, as I said, when they, the state of New York, when he was under investigation by the House Democrats, the state of New York passed legislation, it was aimed right at Donald Trump, that said that the state would surrender confidential state income tax returns to Congress. And that's how it started to leak along with the irs. And then when E. Jean Carroll wanted to go after Donald Trump for something that happened 30 years ago, she couldn't remember the date. She had no idea what dress she was. She said she wore a particular dress that wasn't even invented then. And she was completely a lunatic. Her employer said in the defamation and compensation suit, we fired her. She was 80 years old. I mean, come on, we don't get sex therapists, sex advice columnists that are 80 years old, that are unstable. It wasn't because Donald Trump defamed her. We don't like Donald Trump. That's what they basically said. So then the legislature passed a law that said for this year, a person can file a sexual harassment, sexual assault charge against somebody without the five year limitation that was aimed at Donald Trump. And it worked. And that's how she got back into court. And that's what they're doing to Shirley. They are targeting him for something he did in the past to punish him. And we'll see if they're stupid enough that if they pass it and then Newsom signs it. Remember, Newsom is one who tells us that democracy dies in darkness. So we'll see if he signs it. Are they going to go back and see when does he break the law, when it's a new law, who knows? But the law is being created for past acts, not present acts, acts, not future acts. They're trying to punish him and him specifically. And that's why people call it the Shirley Act. They know what it's for. And Mr. And Mrs. Bonita Bone, excuse me,

[A]

Mrs. Attorney General, whatever her name, Bonta.

[B]

I mean, there is such a thing as the separation of powers, legislative, executive, judicial. And obviously they're consulting together, the attorney General and his wife to craft a law to get through the Senate and have Newsom sign it. And it's to protect people that could be violent, illegal immigrants. If you had somebody who was. If we had a bunch of people coming from the Netherlands illegally or they were coming from Belgium or Hungary illegally, and you had an attorney general who was from Romania and someone, his wife was from the Netherlands and they were married and they were mad that we were arresting people coming in from Europe illegally and committing crimes and wanted to deport them. People would call them white racists. They really would. White supremacists. What are you doing? What are you doing? Why are you so ethnically biased? Why can't you, as public servants of a racially dispute and ethnically diverse state, treat people on the basis of their character? Why are you doing this? You're protecting people who have harmed other people. And so it's gone so 360s that the civil rights movement, the idea of we judge the content, it's gone so Haywire in a360. We're back to the ethos and the credo of, I don't know, the old Confederacy. All we do is obsess about race, race and ethnic tribalism, et cetera, et cetera, and everybody's terrified of it.

[A]

It's interesting Bonta's in the middle of this, Victor, because one hand, he was the party in one of the More important recent U.S. supreme Court cases came out a few years ago where California wanted to have nonprofits, particularly conservative nonprofits, devol their donors. Now, I know a lot of us are upset about like who's donating to all these nonprofits that are kneecapping America. It's not, I would say it's not unimportant. But on the other hand, the whole point of what Banta was and other attorney generals, his predecessors in California were doing with that case and the Supreme Court slapped him down, was to break non conservative nonprofits. Meanwhile here, the case is to protect leftist nonprofits because that they are the funnel for money that bankrolls the left and enriches various people. So anyway, he's an interesting cat. What else shall we talk about, Victor? Well, there's a terrible murder in Britain. This gets again to the predisposal of the state, state and particularly in the UK it seems that police officers, that doesn't seem to be the case so much in the United States where we still think of our cops as on our side, but not in the UK. And there was a finance student, Henry Nowak, 18, he was on his Way home from a night out, he was attacked by a stranger, Vikram Digua, with an 8 inch blade. Digua is a sheik. He was caught on camera saying I'm a bad man. He stabbed, grabbed a Nowak repeatedly. Police officers showed up, Digwa says, knowing the predisposition of the cops, I was attacked by this, by this racist. The cops put the stabbed Henry Nowak in handcuffs and put him aside and he bled to death. So they took the word of the seat. Crazy man. Anyway, this all came out. The reality of it came out.

[B]

It's just what we've been talking about for years is diversity, equity, inclusion. The problem with it is it destroys all deterrence. And it tells a selected group of people based on their appearance that if they say the right things or they claim that they're part of the 30% binary, now it's probably 40%, then they get exemptions. So there was this altercation, he stabbed this man and then he knows that he's committed attempted murder. Well, murder in this case. And the police come and so he says the magic word that puts him in a safe category. He was a racist. Being called a racist is worse than a sexual predator or a murderer apparently. So then they go and while this man is bleeding out, they put handcuffs on, on him, this boy, and he dies. And then the person who was the perpetrator, it takes them a while to figure out what happened, but they should ask themselves, who trained you policeman? What was the ideology that guided you to kill somebody by letting him bleed out? And they did kill him because he could have been saved. And we saw what happened with George. You could argue that Officer Chauvin didn't mean to kill George Floyd, that he used a standard operating knee in the neck, but it might have been negligent if he had known how much fentanyl and how much post Covid distress he was in. I thought it should have been involuntary manslaughter at most. But they got him. I think second degree murder. And the point I'm making is this was even close. This guy put handcuffs on a suspect who was bleeding to death. Death. So my question is, did all everybody riot and go crazy? No, because they were part of the victimizer class, the oppressor class. And what makes you oppressor or victimizer in the western world is not your, it's not your income, it's not your influence, it's not your morality, it's your skin color. Color. It's that reductionist. And that's what this assailant did. And Remember where this came from, everybody. We had a 10 to 12% African American population and we had about 85 to 88% white population with small numbers of Asians and Hispanics for most of the 20th century, end of the 21st almost. And then we decided, according to Barack Obama, that wasn't enough. So what he did was when immigration started opening earlier in 1965, but it really grew under Democratic presence, although Clinton said he was against it. What happened was then all of a sudden Obama said, you know, my constituency of the oppressed is not large for, but I'm going to redefine affirmative action as diversity, equity, inclusion and say anybody, even a multi millionaire like me and my children and Eric Holder's kids and Oprah, everybody is a victim if they're not white and the white people, then they're settler colonialists. They destroy the Native American. They are all culpable. And you have legitimate grievances that demand repertory trust treatment. And how is that filtered down to the street? It filters down exactly like we saw in London or it filters every time I go out by the mailbox I did yesterday and I see a truck driver, in this case he was of Indian descent going 75 miles an hour with 20 tons behind him. And I look as he fades out my distance and the second trailer looks like a dog's tail wagging. And I say to myself, would you really take a commercial driver's test to get that license? Are you here legally? Do you know that this road is 55 miles an hour tops? 55 miles an hour. And then when I see them pass, I said, you know, you can't pass with a semi truck, another car. You can't do it on a 55 mile. So why was that? And the answer is DEI. And so, so that's what we're dealing with now. It gives people an exemption and it emboldens anybody. In some ways it's ironic because it's the new version of the privileged little frat boy. In every town there was a little frat boy and you had a lot of money and he was spoiled rotten, mostly white, and he got all the exemptions. When the cop pulled him over, if he was in your car, they said, oh, I'm Billy Brown and my dad is the biggest insurance salesman and the tri county area and da, da, da, da, da, and he's going to call you if you don't let me go, that kind of stuff. And that was very bad. And we kind of got rid of most of that, although the left really, I Can't tell you how many leftists I know that when their children went to college, they called and called and called and called to get them in.

[A]

Do you know who I am? Right. That's the calling card of that arrogance.

[B]

Do you know, I can't believe this is happening to me. I've heard that. That one, yeah. So, I mean, they just adopted the. It's just a reverse discrimination. They just adopted the worst habits of the wealthy white class privilege. And they just defined it by color rather than money and status. Yeah.

[A]

You talking about the truck drivers down your street there. And you had mentioned earlier victim above, Victor, about this other accident. So it was a Chinese native who actually became an American citizen. I don't know how he got that, but he was given a commercial driver license, cdl by New York State. And he's the one in Virginia, couldn't read English, couldn't speak English, couldn't read the signs. And he killed five, a family of five from Massachusetts who burned to death in their car. And then I know a few other people are terribly injured. So

[B]

I think we should have a law that says when they pass these laws that you don't have to know English to get a driver's license, that every driver will have a Google code in their navigation system that says on any route you have to drive, you have to drive by the LA Mayor's mansion. That has to be part of your route every time you do. When you start out and you go home, you've got to go by there and you have to go 10 miles over the 10, 20 miles over the speed limit, right by the mayor's mansion or the governor's mansion or any legislature, and see how long that would last. Right.

[A]

Drive down Nancy Pelosi Street. Well, Victor, again, now to our listeners. Viewers, if you've studied history enough, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. We've normalized debt deficits that would have stunned earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention, more printing, more distortion. But here's the historical truth. Every society that pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse, though they prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or in retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that. That has outlasted every paper experiment in human history. Physical gold not as speculation but as insulation. Our reputation at Victor Davis Hanson, in his own words, matters. Which is why we're partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. For years they've guided Americans through transparent education and long standing relationships that are on based, built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer for our listeners and viewers to help you get started with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank. If you believe as we do that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious. Please call 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or visit protectwithviktor.com that's 8447-909191-84479-09191 or visit protectwithvictor.com History rewards those who take the long view. And we thank the good people from Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, I want to get one last thought from you on some Cuba matters, but since you've talked about the front of your house, have you gone walking? Have you found any sofas? Washing, Ma. So anything of interest lately amongst the the rows of trees or down the alleyways?

[B]

Well, you know, I haven't walked. I walked closer to the house because I had this from my operation. I had this afib and then tachycardia. So I don't want to, you know, I would just be walking at my normal walking weight, maybe 75, 80. And then all of a sudden I go up to 110 and I get out of breath.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'd have to call my wife to retrieve me like a puppy dog.

[A]

So you had. Oh, really? Yeah.

[B]

Wow. I should say that. The other night I was outside and I heard a guy shooting and it wasn't down in our former pond maybe a quarter mile away. It was in the orchard right near the house. And then I bent down and tried to see him and then he shot again. And then the dogs went crazy. I mean crazy in the wimpy sense. They went and hid because all of our guard dogs, they were all rescue dogs that people dumped in front of the home. But the ones that we got at the pound, the ones that were really muscular and attacked, they all died off. And we were left with two wimps that are terrified. But anyway, they're good to tell you that when they get terrified and they try to break into the crawl space and go into the house. It's close. And then my wife came out and she said she heard a whiz go by above in the air of a bullet. Oh my.

[A]

This was not a setup question. I had no idea.

[B]

No, that was two nights ago or last night. Anyway, my point is, is that we used to have this 135 acres here in this particular place. And when our siblings all went to different parts of the country, each person sold their allotment. And the neighbor bought this. He's an investment guy in Los Angeles and he has a guy renter. But that pond, that was scenic. It was beautiful. When we owned it is now the local dumping ground for mostly people here illegally. Because I used to walk on it as a public service to the advocacy neighbor in remembrance of my grandfather. I walk out there and say, don't do that. But you know when you see a guy and he's throwing laundry bags or plastic, big garbage bags full of crap into this dry pond or even during the wet pond and you don't know whether he's armed and most of them are armed, it's kind of stupid to say, don't do that. And they get belligerent and well, my long thing when it dries up, then they use this for a shooting match with their AR15s or what, they go into the bottom of the pond and they have a backstop and they just fire away. And because the renter is just renting it and the owner is living in Los Angeles and will sell it the moment it gets back what he thinks is a particular profit, nobody cares. And it's not my property anymore. So I can't go on, you know, go on. I owned it. I helped my brother and anyway, it reverted to him and they sold it. So what I'm getting at is, yeah, it's really dangerous.

[A]

Mad Max, Mad Max out there.

[B]

No one cares though. That's the problem. The law enforcement is over taxed and you have so many chaotic groups. It's funny because I'll give you a vignette. When the big standpipe for the Consolidated Irrigation District is on our property. And that was put in to put the ditches underground. And it's a big. It's got about 12 foot diameter and it's big. And that was the congregation place for all the people who shared and do share the communal ditch. And there was one farmer from Japan, one from India, one from Armenia, one originally from the Netherlands and one from Mexico. And they all would talk and they got along Wonderfully. Were they liberal in the traditional sense? No. If the Armenian guy left, the other guy goes, well there's the old Armenian watch your wallet. The Mexican guy came, where's your sombrero? Or if the white guy, they'd say to my grandfather, you're going to burn up. Why are you guys so white? But they were kidding, you know what I mean? It wasn't malicious and today nobody would ever say that, but it's malicious. That whole natural diversity is gone. And most of the houses are rented out to people from Mexico here illegally. And there's not single family. Every single domicile within a 2 mile radius of my house, with a few exceptions has three or four. I would call them annexes, Winnebagos, lean tos. So you've got maybe 10 or 15, 20, 30, maybe 40 living in one zone for one family. And I don't know who those people are, but they shoot all time. And you know, it's, it's. I don't know what to say. It's dangerous. It's very dangerous. And I have just spent, you know, most of my disposable income redoing the entire house. It was built in 1870, wiring, plumbing, roofing, everything. So it's almost brand new. It's very pretty. It's nice to live here. But there's a big wall around our house. House. And to go outside, I feel like I'm in North Africa around 460 and the vandals have taken over and there's just a little bit of fortified Roman farms that you go talk to. And they all have the same stories. Everybody I talk to who's living out in the country has the same story. They came in and they ransacked my house. When I went to the coast, I opened. A guy walked up brazenly and threw a dog out on my lawn and took off. Can you believe this? I was out here and I was irrigating and a guy just drove up with a pickup and a shovel and threw out paint cans. So when I hear that the attorney general and his wife in the legislature are trying to create a bill of attainder to attack people who try to expose the excesses of illegal immigration. And then they don't live in here and they don't encounter these things every single day. And there is no law. There's no law. I mean there's no law at all.

[A]

When you talk about the old men meeting and breaking each other's chops in a humorous way from days gone by. And that was the way things were and. And there was a lot of humor and there was even camaraderie in that. But nowadays, in a society where everyone's a victim, every comment is a potential insult, right? So.

[B]

Well, it's a. It's. I think it's worse than that. It's this paradox. I don't know if it's a psychological mechanism to excuse racism, but when you don't, you can't. There's zero tolerance from. For any ethnic jokes or stereotypes types. So that's good, ostensibly. But then why are people so much more racially discriminatory and mean to people from different races now than they were, say, 30 or 40 years ago post civil rights? They are. It really is. And one of the reasons that I got tired of teaching for 21 years in a underserved community, I guess, Cal State, Fresno, was I had students that would self identify when they talk. And I'd say something to the effect, I don't think, here's your papers, I corrected every one of them. I want you to pick up your blue books for your test, etc. Etc. And then people say, as a Latina, I don't relate to this or as somebody else. And I couldn't fathom that because knowledge is racial. But they had been taught to say that. And then I had all of these students, I don't want to get too specific, that were wonderful. They believed in the melting pot. They were from all over the world. They were from Asia, they were from Africa, they were from the Arab world. We had an irrigation exchange from people from Saudi Arabia. Irrigation that were learning irrigation at the Agdeba. I had all these students in the general education. And then I noticed something that right around 2005, 6, but after I. The last. They. When they were. And they were classically educated, I mean, they were classics majors and minors. And we made them take French, take French, take Latin and Greek, take philosophy. They were better educated than many of their teachers, professors. And then I noticed that when they went out in the real world and I tried to follow them, they were confronted with DEI and they were offered a big carrot, maybe a stick too. And they started to identify ethnically, you know what I mean? And they had never done that before. They had never done that before. And they found out that there were rewards in emphasizing an ethnic pedigree, however tenuous. And there was a lot. I could see it when we were prepping people to go to graduate school, we would have. I had the most brilliant, one of the most brilliant people I ever had was a white male who was very eccentric, long hair, kind of weird wilderness guy. But he was brilliant. Brilliant. And I had about three students going to graduate school that year and he did. I was able to call and lobby for him and he had a perfect gre. Perfect, perfect. He was that smart. But he got into a lesser school and the others got into Ivy League schools. And he came to me and said, you should be ashamed of yourself. So what did I do? He said, you wrote recommendations for people. I said, they can do the work. He said, yes, but I'm perfect. And he worked was. And I didn't get the same type of treatment that the others did. I said, from me you did. But you got to remember you're at Cal State Fresno. There is a prejudice that's not based on being a white male. It's also based on coming from a Cal State campus. But my point is, after few years I just couldn't take anymore. When I'd see them, they would introduce me as I'm this and that diversity. And I have lost contact with almost all of them.

[A]

Intersectionality started happening a long time before we called it intersectionality. As you know, DEI started a long time before it was finally earned that acronym in more recent years.

[B]

So yeah, you can't have patience, everybody. You should not have patience with people who self identify ethnically. It's just not, you know, everybody's tired of it because we're a ethnically diverse, diverse democracy. Unless you want to go the way India and Brazil are, they have caste systems and everybody's cognizant of their caste within the democratic formula. But if you do that here, we're going to be like them. And that's why so many people from India and Brazil come up to the United States because they feel that whatever particular caste they were are trusted tribe in their home countries. They will be given a merocratic or even an advantage if they fit the diversity profile here in the United States. So I don't know why we would do this because tribalism is a pre civilizational idea. You can read it in the first book of Thucydides when he says, before the city state, people arranged themselves by tribe and were nomadic and were not stationary. And then they became part of the city state. And then the first thing as we know, they tried to break up tribal identification and say, you're an Athenian, you're not from the tribe of Aiantus, or you're not from the Marathon, you are an Athenian. And same thing with the Roman Republic. Tribalism is the enemy of civilization. Ethnic identification that is paramount. You know, it's like, my grandfather was Swedish. He was very proud of being Swedish. But when he would walk down Kingsburg, which is a beautiful city still, and there would be people that would, you know, that would identify first as Swedish. I don't know why they're doing this. He goes, it was all rocks in Sweden. All rocks. We all came over here because it was rocks. This was the most beautiful country in the world. I love Swedish people. People. But, you know, he had. He had been gassed in World War I for the United States. Yeah. And then he'd said to me, you know, the Swedes, my sweet, the Swedes, they were neutral. And I was a little bookworm, obnoxious brat in high school when he died. And I said, no, Grandpa, they were worse than that. They subsidized the sale of iron ore. Free delivery to the Third Reich. Yeah. He said, yeah.

[A]

How old was Grandpa when he came over?

[B]

He was five years old, actually. He came as an infant, and he went to Chicago and then he came to Kingsburg. So his knowledge of Sweden was from his father, whom came over with. He came over with. He came first. And he was one of these people that helped found this colony called Kingsburg. Then he went back and got a wife, my great grandmother. And then they had four boys, and my grandfather was the oldest, and he was en route, and they had to stop in Chicago because she delivered him. And then they had four boys and they were. He. If you go to Kingsburg today, he gave his farm or he. I don't know what the deal was. He had four boys, probably some of them inheritance. They sold to the city. But anyway, it ended up as a city park. And there's a nice monument on the corner called Hanson Corner across from the high. That was where the high school was. And the new one is still there. But it's a beautiful city and it's. You know, it reflects. Reflects that the good parts of Swedish ancestry, they're very industrious people, and they're fanatic about tidiness. You know what I mean? Yeah. So anti rock. Oh, yeah. You go there and everybody seems that are. And everybody who is not of Swedish ancestry. And it's pretty much played out. Let's be honest. It's three and four generations away. Very few people speak Swedish or have gone to Sweden, But. But the fumes of that culture linger. So people who are German or Armenian or Japanese or Mexican American, they go to Kingsburg and they were willing to pay top dollar in housing prices at least because it's different than the other communities because of that legacy. Right.

[A]

I've been there. It's a beautiful town. Hey Victor, what we're I'll put off because we're we're at the end here. We have a hard stop for you in a few minutes. So we'll talk about Cuba. And I want to recommend to our listeners though that they may check out the New Criterion, where Victor writes somewhat regularly there. And Jim Pearson has a great article.

[B]

He's a great guy. Yeah, very smart guy.

[A]

Yeah. He got an essay on it's called JFK's Revenge and talks about his assassination, the involvement of Cuba, Castro, Donald Trump. Trump's maybe doing well by JFK in his pressuring of Cuba. But we'll talk about that next episode. I just want to read one or two comments here, Victor. Of the many people, hundreds of thousands who leave comments, here's one from this on YouTube. Lalita JT1NU writes, Our world is becoming a bit scary to me and VD explains how things work in the world that helps me cope. At 77 years old, I appreciate his knowledge of history that reveals it's not the first time the issues have been frightening. Thank you sir. You steady me always. Andrea Freedom, 76, writes, I always turn on my notifications for this podcast. It's the first thing I listen to in the morning. I love VDH and I'm so relieved his cancer diagnosis came back negative. This is from a few weeks ago. The world needs your wisdom. VDH. And one more Bruce Moore 6015 I have learned more from VDH than I ever did in college. Thank you for your clarity, sir. These represent so many similar comments and wishes of goodwill. So thanks folks who take the time for writing them. And thanks for those folks who subscribe to Civil Thoughts, which is what one of the things I do for the center for Civil society. Go to civilthoughts.com, sign up every Friday you'll get my free email newsletter of 1415 recommended readings. All right, Victor, I'm good.

[B]

Thank you everybody.

[A]

I'm going to sneeze now, so way to end the show. But thanks for all the wisdom you share and the great anecdotes. And we'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hatson in his

[B]

own thank you everybody for watching and listening. See you next time. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this and also check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features. In addition.