Old Dominion Shooting Latest Reminder That the Third World Is Not Spending Its Best | Victor Davis Hanson

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words

Episode: Old Dominion Shooting Latest Reminder That the Third World Is Not Sending Its Best
Host: Jack Fowler | Guest: Victor Davis Hanson
Published: March 17, 2026

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Overview

This episode, hosted by Jack Fowler and featuring historian Victor Davis Hanson, delves into the implications of recent violent incidents linked to immigrants, the failures and politicization of immigration policy, the ideological trajectory of major urban centers, historical parallels with societal decline, and current debates about religion’s role in public life. Using recent events—including the Old Dominion University shooting—as a starting point, Hanson reflects on America’s changing cultural fabric, the growing divide in values, and the existential questions facing Western civilization.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recent Violent Incidents by Immigrants ([03:26]–[12:42])

• Hanson recounts several terrorist attacks and violent incidents involving immigrants or naturalized citizens within a 12-day period, including:
  • Old Dominion ROTC shooting: A naturalized citizen killed a decorated ROTC instructor.
  • An Austin beer garden attack by a Sierra Leonean immigrant.
  • Violent attempts and bombings linked to immigrants from Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Central America.

Hanson's Take:

• The label “Islamophobia” is misused to deflect attention from the reality that, statistically, anti-Semitic and anti-white hate crimes far outnumber those motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment.
• "[Islamophobia is] a word that people have coined so when they begrudgingly have to admit an epidemic of racism directed toward Jews, antisemitism, or toward whites, they have to throw in this word as if it’s a national epidemic. But it’s not." — Victor Davis Hanson [07:28]
• Argues for a complete reevaluation of U.S. immigration policy and vetting: “If we're going to let people in from countries that are autocratic, dictatorial, dysfunctional, tribal and anti-American, then we better vet them very, very careful.” [08:21]

2. The Transformation of U.S. Immigration Policy ([08:21]–[12:42])

• Hanson criticizes the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, arguing it shifted from merit-based to familial, non-vetting immigration.
• He claims this change was politically motivated, to attract populations more likely to depend on state welfare and align with the Democratic Party.
• Notes the longstanding value immigrants brought historically, referencing successful stories from Hungarian and Cuban exiles, and more recent “model” immigrants who demonstrated strong patriotism and assimilation.

Quote:

• “Immigration, it was our strength in a lot of ways... But something’s gone wrong where we don’t... There’s an impression that if you’re an immigrant and you come from a hostile country that you will come over here and we will ask nothing of you.” [09:50]

3. Rise of Tribalism Over Meritocracy ([13:00]–[14:16])

• The rise of “tribal” politics, especially in left-leaning activism, is discussed.
• Representatives like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are accused of advocating racial and tribal loyalty over national unity.
• “Their argument is not even one of ideology... it's a racial tribalist argument.” [13:19]

4. Media Manipulation & Soft-Pedaling of Crime ([17:03]–[18:09])

• Host highlights media efforts to obscure the ethnic or ideological backgrounds of perpetrators in recent violent acts (e.g., New York bombing attempt).
• Hanson likens modern journalists’ coverage of terrorism and war to propaganda: “CNN has a special dispensation to report... on the prerogative that they have to be pro-Iranian. And they are. They're like Baghdad Bob.” [19:33]

5. U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iranian Conflict ([21:50]–[26:28])

• Hanson summarizes decades of U.S. presidential failure to contain Iran’s threat, highlighting the role and failures of Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Biden; contrasts them with Trump’s more confrontational approach.
• Discusses possible gains and political repercussions if the current administration resolves major foreign policy challenges (Iran, Cuba, etc.).

Quote:

• “Trump was the first president out of the last eight... that did something about it.” [25:27]

6. The “Axis of Evil” Mayors – Urban Decline in America ([34:33]–[39:26])

• The "league of six" radical mayors is introduced (Chicago, Boston, Oakland, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York).
• Hanson, with satire, lists criteria to join: highest taxes, unfunded pensions, lenient DAs, rampant homelessness, high crime.
• Urban decline is attributed to failed progressive policies, which drive out productive citizens and escalate “mass flight.”

Quote:

• “They remind me of South American left wing dictators... they loot it, wreck it, drive all the industrious people out and then cancel elections... and they turn them into hellholes.” [37:03]

7. Culture and Immigration—Personal Reflections ([27:56]–[33:27])

• Hanson recounts a story illustrating how cultural values influence community outcomes (comparison of two neighboring towns—Parlier and Kingsburg, the latter a historically Swedish community noted for its orderliness).
• “It was about culture. Everything was immaculate... It was just different.” [30:04]

8. Erasure of Western Historical Figures; The Churchill Controversy ([42:29]–[48:09])

• Hanson rebukes the UK’s decision to remove Winston Churchill from the five-pound note:
  • “Whatever you thought of him, and he was a great man... he saved them [the British]. He stopped them. They could not invade.” [44:54]
• Expresses concern over Britain’s “disarmament,” decline, and struggles with integration.

9. The West’s Civilizational Sickness and Oikophobia ([48:28]–[51:30])

• The West suffers from “oikophobia”—self-hatred, decadence, and loss of faith.
• Attacks on Jewish or Western institutions are tolerated; self-loathing and guilt drive a reluctance to defend tradition or enforce law.
• “Maybe it became too godless. I don’t know what it was, but... the West is very, very ill right now.” [49:29]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Islamophobia is a word that people have coined so when they begrudgingly have to admit an epidemic of racism directed toward Jews, antisemitism or toward whites, they have to throw in this word as if it's a national epidemic. But it's not.” — Victor Davis Hanson [07:28]
• “If we're going to let people in from countries that are autocratic, dictatorial, dysfunctional, tribal and anti-American, then we better vet them very, very careful.” — Victor Davis Hanson [08:21]
• “CNN has a special dispensation to report...on the prerogative that they have to be pro-Iranian. And they're like Baghdad Bob.” — Victor Davis Hanson [19:33]
• “They remind me of South American left-wing dictators... they loot it, wreck it, drive all the industrious people out and then cancel elections… and they turn them into hellholes.” — Victor Davis Hanson [37:03]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:26] – Recap of recent immigrant-linked violent incidents and debate on “Islamophobia”
• [08:21] – Call for immigration policy overhaul and historical background
• [13:00] – Critique of tribalism and left-wing identity politics
• [17:03] – Media’s manipulation of narratives on terrorism/crime
• [21:50] – U.S. presidents on Iran & Hanson’s foreign policy critique
• [27:56] – Anecdote: Kingsburg, Swedes, culture, and assimilation
• [34:33] – Woke mayors’ “supergroup” and urban decay
• [42:29] – Churchill’s removal from British currency and Western self-erasure
• [48:28] – Cultural and civilizational decline in the West

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Religion, Identity, and Political Conversion ([54:48]–[63:24])

• Carrie Prejean Bowler Controversy:

  • Former Miss California, appointed by Trump, dismissed after anti-Zionist comments and conflict with other Religious Liberty Commission members. Hanson and Fowler reflect on the growing populist Catholic conversion trend within right-wing circles, expressing skepticism about the sincerity and consequences of these trends.

• Fowler on Catholicism:

  • “It's wonderful that people are converting, they're coming back to faith...but some people go back to this weirdo nostalgia...for some people, where this intersects with Judaism is once upon a time we would pray on Good Friday for the perfidious Jew. We don't do that anymore. That's been abandoned.” — Jack Fowler [62:07]

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Manifesto:

  • Hanson praises her as an exemplary immigrant and patriot, sharply contrasting her with Ilhan Omar. He endorses her “Restoring the West” project and warns about the dangers facing Western civilization, drawing parallels with the decline of Rome.

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Historical Parallels & Final Reflections ([64:32]–[70:57])

• Hanson draws lessons from the fall of Rome:
  • Internal division, mounting debt, and inability to assimilate contributed to Rome’s collapse; he sees these threats alive in America and Europe today.
  • Compares modern America to the Byzantine Empire—still an “oasis” in a dangerous world, but facing similar barbarian pressures and internal decay.

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Listener Correspondence ([71:02]–[76:46])

• Letters from listeners highlight the value of Hanson's work, especially for immigrants and those seeking moral guidance.
• Hanson addresses a correction about a past statement on Hillsdale College, underscoring accountability.

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Conclusion

The episode is a wide-ranging, unsparing critique of contemporary politics, immigration, identity, and Western decline. Hanson combines granular analysis of news events (violent incidents, media manipulation, mayors' policies) with historical perspective and personal anecdote. The tone is wry, direct, often nostalgic, occasionally dark—aimed at listeners concerned about the trajectory of the U.S. and Western civilization.

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For more:

• Victor Hanson’s website and Blade of Perseus blog: victorhanson.com
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s manifesto: “Restoring the West”
• Max Nikias’s book: American Trojan (Encounter Books)

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Transcript

[A]

Well, hello ladies and hello, gentlemen, and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. I'm Jack Fowler, the host, and we are talking on the Ides of March Eve. I don't know if there is such a thing, Victor. Maybe we've just invented one. I don't know if you're wearing the Ides of March, but so be it. We are recording on Saturday and this episode will be up on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th. Victor, maybe later in the show you'll get a chance to say something snide about the Irish.

[B]

Hey, my grandmother was full blooded Irish.

[A]

Yeah, well, I'll say something at the end of the show about the wonderful Swedish Irish connection.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah, there is one.

[B]

My grandmother just said, I know you have a Swedish square head, but you have monkey eyes. And I said, what do you mean monkey eyes? And said, your eyes are deeply indented like mine and that means you're Irish like I am. Oh my gosh. So Grandma, Grandma must have noticed that I did. And then all of a sudden I said, oh my God, my eyes are halfway into my skull.

[A]

Well, what a way to begin. Hey, we've got a lot to talk about today. Victor, get yout Wisdom on and number of New York bombing stories. Even though the attempted bombing happened a week ago. Some others Mandami's story about him forming some alliance with major woke city mayors. Carrie Prejean Bowler Madness. Ayaan Hirsi Ali starting a new effort to restore the West. A ton of things to get your take on. And we'll get that take when we come back from these initial important messages.

[B]

Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have changed. But some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife. The importance of passing along our values to our children. The faithfulness of God. Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America the Beautiful.

[A]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words on the Daily Signal network. Daily Signals, run by the happiest of warriors, Rob Bluey. Victor's a senior contributor at the Daily Signal. He also has another gig there, Victor Davis Hanson in Few words. And he is the Martin and Neely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and his website, the Blade of Perseus. You'll find it at victorhansen.com, please subscribe. Check it out. Tons of free stuff. But when you subscribe, you'll get to read the two exclusive articles Victor does every week, plus the exclusive Video. So let's rock and roll, my friend.

[B]

Here's a.

[A]

Let's get a little thing first on the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts of America. I'm surprised they still exist. I thought they might have been sued into oblivion over the years, but I'm not surprised. I know they exist, but like every other institution in America, wokeness marches through them. So here's a headline. Boy Scouts launch Islamophobia Awareness Month Badge. If you're a Boy Scout, you can earn a badge. This is what you have to learn.

[B]

That's a good thing to do, isn't it, Boy Scout? So here we have a what, 12 day period when an Islamicist naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone tries to mow down people in an Austin beer garden and kills what, three. I think he wounded 14 people. And then we had a. Of course the New York Times and Washington Post massaged the headlines and they said that a Lebanese person angry that his family had been hit in a Beirut airstrike, tried to ram his car, did ram his car into a synagogue in Michigan. Security guards dispatched him. I don't think that's Islamophobia. And then we had the two, I guess one was a son of a Turkish naturalized citizen and the other was the son of an Afghan natural. And they thought they were going to do our Sarnav brothers, Jack, remember them? Yes, those were very grateful people who came here as immigrants, thrived in the United States and decided to break our laws, deal dope and try to blow up people. And they threw two IEDs. Of course the media said, oh, they were right wing people throwing it at Mundi. No, they were left wing Islamicists that were trying to blow up counter demonstrators that were conservative or worse, I mean very, I don't mean worse in the bad sense, but I mean more extreme. But I. And then we had, of course, the Old Dominion shooting where a naturalized citizen decided to go into an ROTC classroom and kill a decorated war hero instructor. That was all taking place within 12 days. So what I'm suggesting is Islamophobia is a word that people have coined. So when they begrudgingly have to admit an epidemic of racism directed toward Jews, antisemitism or toward whites, they have to throw in this word as if it's a national epidemic. But it's not. And you look at the FBI hate crime statistics and people who are of that persuasion have a higher rate of being perpetrators than victims. Jews in, I think New York City make up half of all the hate crime victims. And I don't think it's no offense, but I don't think it's Swedish immigrants that are doing that. And I think it calls Jack, for a complete re evaluation of our immigration policy. If we're going to let people in from countries that are autocratic, dictatorial, dysfunctional, tribal and anti American, then we better vet them very, very careful. They better be strong dissidents against those regimes. But when you look at, it's just Obrego comes from Mexico or no, excuse me, Guatemala. Where was he from? Central America. And he doesn't go to his hearing, he beats what would become his spouse. He's a member of gang, he's caught trafficking people. And then he tells us where he likes to go or not. And this is unfair even though he is a foreign national. And then we have immigrants coming, not the majority by any means, but a minority from Mexico and they are waving flags of the country under no circumstances they want to return to. And they're burning the flag in these demonstrations of the country under every circumstance they want to stay in. And then we have the Sikh truck driver. I mean Sikhs have been very good immigrants, but these drivers who are illegal. He killed 16 people in Canada and he said he couldn't be deported, Jack, because the air in India was too bad for his children, his 3 year old. Why don't you stay in India and try to reform Indian air? Maybe you can get a job with the Indian air pollution and not come over here and kill 16 people because you don't know how to understand English. And then we had the course, the San Bernardino in California not too long ago. But what I'm getting at. And then we have the students, of course we have about 30, 40,000 students from autocratic regimes in the Middle East. They come over here, the majority express anti Semitic, anti Israel, anti American persuasions and their protest often violent, as we saw at Columbia or in Los Angeles, at ucla. Then we have our representatives like Ilyan Omar, who was the daughter of a general involved maybe peripherally, maybe directly in the Somali genocide of minorities. And she was an elite. She comes over here, she says it's a trashy country and white people are the problem in the United States. And da da da da, as her sister helps run a government program as part of that whole $9 billion rip off by the Somali community. And I could go on, but you're getting to the point now that that 1965 change in Legis Hart, Senator Hart, and then Ted Kennedy was behind it. I don't think he was the actual author that said no More meritocratic evaluations. We're not going to do that anymore. We're going to take people by familial connections and we're not going to look at basically Europe, New Zealand, Canada, Australia. They didn't want that group of people because to tell you the truth, the Democratic Party knew they were too well educated and they often were dissidents for left wing governments and they were very pro American. And I think it really had something to do with two diasporas. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution where we got about a half a million Hungarians that were fighting and dying against the communists. And then we had the Cuban diaspora and exodus. And those were mostly middle class, very patriotic, and were wiped out either financially or literally by the Castro communist government. And when they came in the left side, we can't have this. No, no, no, no. 56, 1959, no, we're going to pass legislation where we get people who are poor and desperate. No background checks, familiar. Have them come in. They will swell the welfare rolls, they'll grow the state more, redistributed taxes, and we will have issues that the Americans that were here don't resonate with. It doesn't resonate with them, but it will with our new. And the result is now we have 50,000, 50 million people, 53, I think, that were not born in the United States here. And we better start vetting them because from these countries I saw not long ago, you know, Ilia Kazan's America, America, that movie. Did you ever see it? Yeah, it's about his. It's based on his uncle's migration from Cappadocia to the United States and how desperate he was to get to the United States and how appreciative he was. The United States, States. It came up in my mind on our podcast this week. I interviewed Max Nikias, American Trojan. And he has got some very poignant passages. I think you should all look at that book, American Trojan Encounter books where he talks about how he and his wife studied for the citizenship test. He compared the Cypriot constitution to the American Constitution in his Inquisition. But for citizenship, he wanted so much to work with the United States. He was a consultant for the Defense Department. He becomes. He comes there with nothing. And he was USC and, you know, there. So immigration, it was our strength in a lot of ways. We had all those people come, you know, most of the. Many of the big tech companies are formed by immigrants. Elon Musk, Peter Till, the Google people. But something's gone wrong where we don't. There's an impression that if you're an immigrant and you come from a hostile country that you will come over here and we will ask nothing of you. We won't even ask you to be legal and we won't ask you to obey our laws. And if you act like a victim or you use violence against the state, there will be people in the United States on the left that either will contextualize or excuse your criminality. Or if you're not a criminal but you're just simply, simply anti American, they will laud it and think you're a member of the DEI greater brotherhood. And we got to stop it because it's getting dangerous. It really is.

[A]

Well, it's the love of the nation. It was not vital to the 65 act people. It's the love of the party that matters most. So if the nation gets destroyed in the process of strengthening the party, so be it.

[B]

You listen to. If you collate what Representative Talib has said from Michigan or Omar Ilian Omar has said or some of the blue state activists, it's America is white people and we hate it. And we're going to change the demography. And what I'm getting at is their argument is not even one of ideology, although it is ideological, but that's not their main impetus. It's a racial tribalist argument. And they come from countries where tribalism is the accepted norm that your first and foremost loyalty is to your kin or your tribe or your extended family or your first cousin. And they come over here and then they look at the United States in terms of those tribal categories and they fit right into Barack Obama's creation of the 30% who are the oppressed and victimize and they have to wage war against the so called victimizers. It's a very racist argument. And meritocracy is a no, we don't care about that anymore. The more skills, the better you know English, the more capital you come. That's a, that's not good. In their view. Why would we want another one, a successful person to come to the United States?

[A]

It's very white according to them.

[B]

Hey Victor.

[A]

Utah and Florida just passed bills to ban fluoride in the water supply. Why are all these states suddenly doing a massive U turn on fluoride when they've been adding it to the water for the over the last 80 years? RFK Jr has been warning us about fluoride for a while and the government now admits to the fact that fluoride is linked to lower IQ In a study done by The JAMA Pediatrics, one of the top medical journals. Scientists found that fluoride levels over 2 milligrams per liter of water caused more than a 2 point drop in children's IQ scores. You've heard us talk about Covpure before. And if people are watching this on YouTube, they maybe can even see my covpure machine over my shoulder here. It's a water filtration system that sits on your countertop or in your office. Like me, you don't have to drill holes or call a plumber to set it up. You just fill it with tap water, plug it in and it gets straight to work. Their clearwave reverse osmosive technology, Osmosis technology is lab certified to remove up to 99.9% of impurities in your water. Anything that isn't water, meaning fluoride, arsenic, forever chemicals, all of it gets filtered out, leaving you with pure water. And let me tell you, and I've told you this before, once you try Cov Pure water, you're never going back. It's the best tasting water I've ever had. Plus what I love about COVID Pure is it lets you have water exactly the way you want. Whatever temperature you want, just push a button. Cold, hot, warm, room temperature, whatever. If you happen to like fluoride, that's totally fine. There are tons of ways you can get that through toothpaste or mouthwash. But the government should never force you to ingest it. So take back your right to choose. Click the link in our description [e-mail] VDH I'm going to spell covpure. C O V E P u r e covpure.com VDH and for a limited time only, you'll get a special discount of $200 off of COVID Pure. And we thank the good people of COVID Pure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. And I'm even going to drink to that, Victor there with my delicious Coke Pure. Actually, it's refreshing. So let's stick to. Stick to some of the terroristic lunacy, including in New York from last week and Charlie Cook, my dear friend, National Review. He wrote a piece attacking the attempts by the media to hide the truth. Just let me read this Victor, and you get your thoughts on it. This was after the bombing attempt happened. NBC New York got an early start on what would quickly become an overwhelming trend. Telling a curiously non committal story over the weekend, quote, multiple arrests made after suspicious devices found outside Gracie Mansion, home of Mayor Zoran Mandami during anti Islam rally and counter protests. That's a headline. Then the New York Daily News whimpered, quote, protesters throw smoking improvised device clash over Jake Lang pig roast at an anti Islamification rally at Gracie Mansion. The tone, and the tone setting. New York Times itself wrestled with curiously tortured locutions. Quote, smoking jars of metal and fuses thrown at protest near mayor's house. End quote. VICTOR we saw also, I'm sure our listeners and viewers saw or heard of CNN's Abby Phillips weirdness on this, too. Your thoughts?

[B]

Victor Just two Pennsylvania boys just strolling out for sunshine. They happened to go into New York and they said, hey, there's a protest. Oh my gosh, did we bring the bombs? Oh, let's go try them out. We can throw them at these protesters and kill them and maybe we'll get more, I don't know, more publicity than the Sarne brothers and we'll show how much we hate this country, that under no circumstances we wish to leave it. And we're so glad that our parents came here. That was their attitude. And I don't know about the left. I've been watching their war coverage. It's just in the same vein as their terrorists. They really don't really cover these terrorist organ incidents in the same fashion. They really don't cover much. When an illegal alien almost daily molested a little boy or girl or kills somebody, is found to be here illegally or gets in a car accident and kills multiple people, that upsets the narrative. And then that same attitude, you can watch it with the coverage of the war. This is a very strange war. Just to get off topic a minute because we don't have any. Usually we have front lines reporting like we did in the Gulf War, Afghanistan. And while they're liberal, we have independent journalists that give us some corrective. But there's no ground troops, so we have no idea of what the actual damage is on the ground in Iran. We have no idea what the attitude of the people is because it's a censored country. If you interview them and you sneak in, you'll be killed or they'll be killed. And the result is CNN has a special dispensation to report on the, on the prerogative that they have to be pro Iranian. And they are. They're a propaganda. They're like Baghdad Bob. And so everybody doesn't have any idea what's going on. But all we have is historical analyses. And if you think about it, Jack, Iran is a country of 90 million people. It dwarfs Iraq in the First Gulf War, when we tried to go in and remove the regime, which we didn't do, but we pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait. That was 42 days of bombing, actually 38 days of bombing. And then we had a four day war and we lost 300 people. So far we've been fighting for about 15 days and we've lost, I think tragically seven plus six people crashed in a tanker. So we're tragically up to 13 people. But we have taken on a country whose military infrastructure, compared to 1991 Iraq, it's just huge and it's difficult and yet it's pretty much been demilitarized. It has the, I mean it's hidden missiles all over the country and they were able to send two or three, four or five evening, but it's a finite supply and they're losing them daily. And within a week or two they won't have any. And I don't know what the Iranian strategy is, other than, and maybe you can correct me, is that we're a victim. And this was Donald Trump's unlawful war. And if you in the west who hate him as much as we do, will report how we're victims and how he's unfairly starting this unlawful war, it will also help you to win the midterms and neuter him politically. And that's pretty much what's going on.

[A]

But the other question, Victor, just matter of fact, I think is how could we not have done what we've done knowing what we knew, right? That not taking action. What happens when New York is a dirty nuclear site?

[B]

It was, it's so funny, Jimmy Carter, when he leaves, oh, I should have done more, you know, I should have got, dealt with the hostages. I lost the presidency. It's inept rescue. And then Reagan came in, was pretty tough. But when Reagan left, he said, I should have dealt with Iran. They, they're going to be very dangerous. Then George H.W. bush went into the Gulf and people said, well, why don't you also deal with the Iranians because they're behind terrorism all over the world under Reagan, they blew up the barracks, the embassy. And as you as vice president didn't do, you guys didn't do much. You took the New Jersey, I think, and shelled some people. And then Bill Clinton came in and they blew up, or their agents blew up the Tanzania and Kenya. And we had, in this story, we had the USS Cole. These were all operatives who were funded by Iran, even if some of them were Sunni. And then we had George W. Bush and people, you know, I think a lot of people said, you're going after the wrong person. That Saddam, we got to get him. He's an evil person, but he doesn't have the wherewithal that Iran does. But he did say that he thought somebody should have taken away out Iran. Then Obama made Iran a de facto ally, if we remember, and said the Iran deal would stop the bomb and it would be a friend. I think Ben Rhodes saw the Iranian Crescent, the capitals of Tehran, Beirut, Damascus, and the West Bank, Gaza. They would all form a buffer against the Sunni petro kingdoms and moderate Arab regimes and Israel. And when there was tensions, they'd call in Obama and he would adjudicate with no prejudice, just be disinterested by empowering Iran. And that would create, I guess they call it creative tension. And then we had Biden and he, I think Harris and he used that term they had used with Ukraine. Don't. What would happen if Iran was going to get a bomb. Don't. That meant abroad. That meant go ahead. Because they knew there were no consequences, nothing to back up the dump, nothing. And, you know, when Biden said, don't invade Ukraine, he did. When Obama said, if you start moving that dm, that WMD around Syria, that's a red line, it was no line. He didn't do anything. So Trump was the first president out of the last eight, last seven. And then he was the eight that did something about it. And on the Internet, there are these videos circulating of all of these Democratic politicians, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, all insisting that we had to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. So, and I don't know what they're going to say if in the next 30 days, with seven months to go to the midterms, say we resolve the problem in 30 days. And then Cuba is now negotiating with us. They're starving to death. And they are rumored to say, we will allow Cuban American expatriates to come back with their capital and know how and invest. Well, that's a euphemism, is we're done. Because if that were to happen, you would get conservative Cuban, pro American, American citizens running the whole country in about a week. And if that were to happen, then you would get a political change that would follow. And if he can solve the Iranian problem, either with a Venezuelan solution or the people taking it over, or just say, you know what, but I wouldn't want to be you and leave with, he will be in a very good position. I think the left vaguely understands that that's why they're so paranoid.

[A]

Your lips to God's ears. Well, Victor, we're going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to talk about the axis of evil, Big city mayors that's forming. Sounds like some Marvel Comics group, but we'll get your thoughts on that. And I think we can get into Car, Prejean Bowler and a few other topics when we come back from these messages. We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words on the Daily Signal Network. We are recording on the 14th of March. This episode is up on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. Oh, the connection. The Swede. Yeah, quickly, is, you know, the corniest Irish song of all is McNamara's band. But there's a stanza or two in there about my name is Uncle Julius and from Sweden I did come to play in McNamara's band and beat the big bass drum. So there is that.

[B]

I agree. Every time I looked at a old Western and 1930s, there's a guy called Swede. Remember, he's in the Searchers. He's that John Ford stock Players character. He's always in there. But they're always really nice. But they're all simpletons or dumb or strong. But they're not players or they're not analytical.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

My grandfather had three daughters. One was disabled for her life with polio bedridden. But my mother and her sister married full, you know, they married Scandinavians. One is Swede, us and my first cousin, the Danes. And so when we would go to these things, people would kid around about the Scandinavians and the Danes would say, as I said before, that Swedes are Danes with their brains blown out. Swedes would say that Danes are crafty. Crafty. Oh, gosh.

[A]

Is there in the town nearby? I forget. The Kingsville.

[B]

Yeah, Kingsburg. Kingsburg. Wonderful place.

[A]

Is there a Swedish day festival there?

[B]

Yes. I was the marshal one year. Oh, my. This episode is brought to you by Cologuard. Do you know what's really scary? Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45. The cologuard test is non invasive, requires no special prep or time off work and shifts right to your door in just three simple steps. Cologuard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about the Cologuard test. Cologuard is available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription [e-mail] screen it's a wonderful place. I mean, I think I've told you that story of the writer who came from Weekly Standard. And she wanted to write about California. I shouldn't. Anyway, she said she was writing about poverty in the Central Valley, so she had read about Parlier. So she called me up and said, you're a lifelong native, so can I come out? She's very smart. So we went over to Parlier and I took her to some pretty weird places. You know, supermarket. I went to the old Nicholas Vary winery. And I used to know it pretty well as a kid. Had friends that lived there. And, you know, it was a pretty wild place. And every building seemed to be government owned. John Kennedy this or that. You know what I mean, Caesar? It was all government insistence. But it was quite. I don't know what the word would be. There were wrecked cars, et cetera. And then I said. She said, now can you take me to someplace that's different? And I said, yes, I can, because this is Mendocino Avenue. It's the same avenue that runs into Kingsburg. And she said, well, how far away is that? I said, seven miles. Is there any natural difference? I said, nope. So we drove into Kingsburg. And as we got to the outskirts, there was this. This is funny. First of all, there wasn't a piece of trash on the road and the houses were immaculate. This was 30 years ago. And there was this woman, she couldn't have been a day under 80 with a white bun. And she was on her hands and knees and she had scissors and she was trimming the grass from the curb on her property and making it just perfect. So then we walk down the streets and there's all these Swedish. And she says, oh my God, what happened? Do they get all this federal money? And I said, no. And she said, well, what is it? I said, they're Swedes. And she said, does everybody want to live here? I said, well, what do you think the difference in a house per square foot is in Selma, Sanger, Parlier or Kingsburg? And I wasn't trying to be racial. I was talking about culture. And she was just freaked out because we went and everything was, you know, we went and had coffee and then we had. It was about 11 o', clock, I think. We went and had this Swedish breakfast with, you know, those flat pancakes. It was just. It was just different. And so there's not a lot of Swedes left in that, but the tradition is still there. It's a beautiful thing. And they were very hard working, you

[A]

know, I had dinner There once with Richard and Big Mike. And it was beautiful.

[B]

It's a beautiful town. I always, my mother, I said, why? When I was aware of things, I said, why are we living on your father's farm? We could have lived on dad's Kingsburg farm. She said, oh, those Swedes, they're so depressed. And so we'd go to my uncle's funeral or cousin and it was so funny. They'd stand around, yah, he died. Silence five minutes. Yeah, he worked hard. Yeah, he could carry two grain sacks on his shoulders. Yeah, yeah, he worked. He got up before dawn. Yeah, he died. Yeah. And then no crying, nothing. And then somebody'd say, yeah, you come over to the house. We have the butternut, you know, the cookies are alphabetical butter. And then coffee. Coffee. They'd make coffee like crazy. And then we sit there and they look at each other and they say, yeah, he was a good man. Yeah, he died. Yeah, he was good, good man. Never owed a penny for like an hour and a half.

[A]

Exciting.

[B]

My mom was very loquacious, you know, and she said, but tell me something about him. I know him, but is there? Yah, he died. He's hard worker. So we didn't get to move to Kingsburg. Well, maybe all for the best.

[A]

Well, let's talk about not Kingsburg, but the Rotten apple and others. Headline is from the New York Post. Zara Mondame and radical mayors of five other embattled Dem cities plot lefty supergroup. So here's the first couple of sentences from this story. Six of the most radical leftist mayors in the United States are plotting to form an ultra woke supergroup that critics say would seek to turn the land of the free into the land of the fee. The motley crew of capitalist crushing Democrat mayors are Chicago's Brandon Johnson, Boston's Michelle Wu, Oakland's Barbara Lee, Seattle's Katie Wilson, who's just like cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and Los Angeles's Karen Bass, and of course New York's Mayor Mondommi.

[B]

I think I read a different story than you did, Jack.

[A]

Really?

[B]

Yeah. I read that these six mayors had criteria to make their league of mayors and they said we're going to organize mayors. When you had six or seven things you have to do. You have to have the highest taxes in the country, you have to have the highest unfunded pensions, you have to have the best DAs that let people out or never indict them when they're arrested, and you have to have at least 5,000 homeless people and on weekends you have to have a lot of shootings and killings and you have to let the SEIU run your city. And if you can do that, we're going to let you be in the league of six. And that's what it was.

[A]

Well, we've talked about this before, Victor, how these places can be restored. I don't know what kind of miracle it's going to take because who's left to come to their senses? Who still lives there and can vote? You had those, you had people in New York who came to their senses. But I think anyone that has that capability has gotten out of Dodge.

[B]

Yeah, they live in Palm beach, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think, you know, Mayor Johnson, his whole idea is, oh, this was a week. This was a normal week. 18 people were shot, six killed. We've got all of this enormous hospital bill, city resources. Oh, next weekend, 10, 15 more killed. Oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm going to campaign on white evil people. Oh, not one person in the school district passed the math test. Oh, that's what he does. Karen Bass. Oh, I let basically Pacific Palisades do burned down and I was gone. And I've turned downtown Los Angeles into a ghost town. And it's all because of ice. It's all because of ice. And Mandami's attitude is, I came in here and my gosh, I'm going, there's supermarkets and they work and I'm going to make a state supermarket and it'll fold in a year. That's their attitude.

[A]

And so don't you think politically, I'm kind of glad they're doing this. I mean, they are that way anyway. And if they all join in some

[B]

group, it's much more of a target for. They remind me of South American left wing dictators like Maduro or Chavez or the people. And they take over a country and they give it about five years and they loot it, wreck it, drive all the industrious people out and then cancel elections and da, da, da, da, and they turn them into hellholes. And then finally there's some. Now we're seeing, I think in Bolivia and maybe Colombia and Chile and Central America, we're seeing conservative governments come back to rebuild them. And that's what's going to have to take. They're going to ruin these cities to the degree they're not always ruined. All of them have mass flight. That's what they don't talk about, mass flight or leaving.

[A]

Mondame said something. I think it was yesterday or the day before we have now we all the more have to increase taxes on the billionaires because our threats have already driven out so many people. So we're going to need to make up for that.

[B]

I don't know. Yeah, I mean what they're talking about is it starts with a billionaire and now they're talking about millionaire classes. But when they talk about taxes, whether on income or capital worth, they don't understand that a lot of people, most people are not liquid. So you can assess somebody and say he's a multimillionaire, he inherited a little house and I don't know, Upper east side that's worth 5 million bucks, maybe it's a thousand square feet and he has no money. And we're going to say that he's a millionaire and he has to have a special surtax on his value. So what does he do? Sell it, rent it? I don't know. But it's never the thing to remember is never applies to the people themselves. His father is a multimillionaire professor. His mother, he was among the elite expatriate community in Uganda. If he calls people colonial settlers in Israel, they have a much more valid lengthy birthright in Israel than the Mandamis do in Uganda. It trust me. And he's very privileged. All of these people are privileged. And they, they never the, the rules that they impose on others never apply to themselves.

[A]

Epstein hangers on too. Hey Victor, I want to read something from Patriot Mobile. Our sponsor, America is entering its 250th year and the direction of this country is being decided right now. Now in our culture and our economy and who we choose to support matters more than ever. Most wireless companies don't care who you are or what you believe. They just want your money. Well, Patriot Mobile is different. For more than 12 years they've stood with Americans who believe freedom is worth defending. Funding the Christian conservative movement when others stayed silent. And here's the deal. You don't have to give up quality or service when you switch to Patriot Mobile. They deliver premium priority access to all three major U.S. networks. So you'll get the same or even better coverage than you have today. Think switching is a hassle? No, it isn't. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade their 100% US based support team. I love that. Can activate you in minutes. Still paying off a device, Patriot Mobile even offers a contract buyout. This is a defining year. We must work together to save our country. So go to Patreon patriotmobile.com VDH or call 972 Patriot. Use the promo code VDH for a free month of service. That's patriotmobile.com VDH or 972 Patriot and switch today. And we thank the good people, very good people from Patriot Mobile for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, before we go in, I have

[B]

a tiny little correction.

[A]

Yes, sir.

[B]

Last time I was talking in praise of Hillsdale and I said of the drastic changes, not that Hillsdale wasn't excellent anyway, but when Larry Arndt was made president, a excellent university became a superb place. And I said that they had a problem with the prior president and they had a search committee and there was controversy because there were people attached to the prior president that may have resisted this new.

[A]

I don't know how they could have, but you're right.

[B]

And I said Bill Buckley had got kind of frustrated and left and I was wrong. Bill Buckley didn't actually go to all the meetings. I think he phoned in a lot of his very valuable advice to the chairman of the board. But I had a person from Hillsdale call me to correct that. But the person who resigned was Bill Bennett in frustration that the former George Roche people, some of them, were not being as candid as was necessary to inform the public of the past problems that had led to his resignation.

[A]

Yeah. Humdingers of problems as problems.

[B]

Yeah, it was, but that is now in the ancient past.

[A]

Well, right. But all the more testament to what Larry Orne.

[B]

I think it's the premier Hills private college in the United States as far as the curriculum.

[A]

Well, rather than follow up this with talking about Carrie preaching, which we'll hopefully get to by the end of the show, I do want to make note and get your thoughts on the United Kingdom's decision to remove Winston Churchill and other people from the five pound note and then replace all these images with animals. I don't know what the the Churchill note is going to be replaced with, but to me it seems, Victor, like they're using this broad. We're going to get rid of all these figures in order just really to get rid of Churchill, who has become a pinup boy for ideological hate. We've talked about him before with the crazy Cooper historian. Churchill saves Europe, but he's the bad guy now. Anyway, your thoughts on this? Yeah.

[B]

I don't understand that people forget that when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st 2nd, 1939, Churchill was not prime minister. Neville Chamberlain was. Churchill had been a backbencher earlier, but he had become a vocal critic of appeasement. And he had Said, we don't have enough Hurricanes, we don't have enough Spitfires, we don't have enough tanks, we don't have enough off ships. And this was like in 1931. 32, 33, 34. And so then Neville Chamberlain, who had terminal cancer, when the war progressed, the phony war was over and the real war started up again. On May 10, they invaded, they being the German army, invaded the Low Countries, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. And everybody was shocked. The indomitable army of Europe, the army that never broke, never cracked, never wavered in World War I. The 3 million strong French army with a Char B tank and the dewitt aircraft and some of the best destroyers and battleships on the Mediterranean. It folded in six weeks. And Churchill came in and he looked around and he said, oh my gosh. And what happened then? Every capital in Europe was occupied. Think about it. Spain, neutral. I don't mean occupied, but I mean pro Nazi or occupied Spain. Madrid, pro Nazi. Lisbon, pro Nazi. Brussels, occupied. Paris, occupied. Amsterdam, occupied. Oslo, occupied. Stockholm, Neutral, but unfortunately pro German. Copenhagen, occupied. Berlin. No. Rome, A Nazi, Nazi. Athens, the whole eu, NATO thing, that was all German, all of it. And there was not us. Where were we? We weren't going to get into Pearl harbor. Nearly two years later. Where was Russia? Russia was fueling the entire project. Under the Molotov Ribbentrop appeasement compact, there was only Britain and the British Empire. And that was basically from May 10, 1940, when he took over all of 1940 and all of 1941 until Germany invaded Russia. There was just them, them and they had the whole continent against them. And he saved them, he stopped them. They could not invade. As the great first Lee Lord said about Napoleonic invasion. When they asked him, can Napoleon invade? He said, I don't know if he can invade, sir, but he will not invade by sea, which is the only way. And that's what the British Navy basically said. We don't know whether he's going to try to invade Britain, but we guarantee you he will not come across the Channel. And he did. So why would you Even whatever you thought of him, and he was a great man. Darrell Cooper really maligned him and had no idea what he did, but he saved the entire British system and he saved Europe until we got into it, until the Russians got into it. And so he was a great man. And I can't understand that. But then again, somebody remarked on that and said that there are more British admirals now than ships. And I counted some of the ships on Internet. It Looks like it's true. There's more admirals in the British navy than they have ships for. And Israel has a much bigger air force than Britain does. Also bigger than France and also bigger than Germany. So when everybody's trashing Israel, we should say to ourselves, we are hitting them over a club, NATO members just to invest 2%. Spain won't do it. And here this little tiny country is besieged with enemies and it's got 300 sophisticated fighters and the best pilots in the world, along with our own. And this country is completely Britain disarmed. And it's got an enormous immigration problem, not just in numbers, but on people who don't like it. They come there with the expressed intention of not becoming British.

[A]

I have to tell, I know I'm interrupting, but the guy, the guy who led that Rotherham race, Melissa, he just got out of jail, nine years in jail, and he raped hundreds of girls and pulled out and tortured them and he's out. This is what Britain is now.

[B]

Just change the thing. What if those had been little Muslim girls and there was some lower middle class, white British Cockney guy who did that? They would never let him out and they shouldn't. And you can imagine right now if you had Americans, or especially Jewish Americans, and they were going after mosques and they were driving their cars through a mosque, or they were going into Dearborn and shouting epithets when they knew were Jewish neighborhoods, or they were going and shooting bars up and killing Americans, killing Muslim Americans, you would have outrage. Something sick about the West. It's got this oikophobia. It hates itself. Maybe it's too affluent, maybe it's too leisured, maybe it got unrealistic and thought it was, you know, at the end of history. Or yeah, maybe it became too godless. I don't know what it was, but

[A]

I'll go with the godless option.

[B]

Yeah, that's a lot of it. They believe that they've created heaven on earth and they don't need God. They don't worry. They think they're going to. The tech barons are going to make us all live to 500. That's not going to happen, believe me. But whatever it is, the west is very, very ill right now and these people from the Middle east know it. And they want the only, I guess the only thing that saves us is they come over here as zealots to have a radical Islamic agenda to take over. But in the process they become sort of, you know, that's what. And that's a very weird. When you look at The Sardnev brothers, they were dealing drugs, they had long hair, they were hanging, they listened to rap music and then they got angry at that about it. And some of them don't get angry and they just become, well, the 911

[A]

pilots, terrorists, they all go hanging out

[B]

at strip clubs or strip clubs and having drinks right before. Yeah, it's, you know, it's the same thing. I hate your country so much and I hate your lifestyle and it's so decadent. It's like Khamenei, the now paralyzed head of Iran. He's apparently sought repeated treatment for impotence. If Iran is so good, why didn't he just have an Iranian doctor treat him? But he had to go to Britain and we had that Laranjani, now he's the military cabinet member or the head of the Iranian. One of their Quds for I don't know exact title, but his daughter was a professor at Emory University. And they say that Khomenei, the original Khomeini, he has nephews and grandkids and cousins all over the West. This is from Iran. I hate you so much because you don't let my relatives in. Or I hate you so much because I need a bypass and I gotta go to you. That's what's sick about it. Yeah.

[A]

Well, Victor, we're gonna talk about religion in a second. But first for our listeners and viewers, if you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. Night 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 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, though, never waited for collapse. 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 has outlasted every paper experiment, excuse me, in human history, physical gold not as speculation, but as insulation. Our reputation at Victor Davis Hansen, in his own words, matters to us. Which is why we are year partnered with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability, and an A rating with a Better Business Bureau. For years they've guided Americans through transparent education and long standing relationships built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer to our listeners 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. Call 844-7991-9184-4790-9191 or visit protectwithviktor.com that's 844-790-9191-844479-09191 or visit protect with Victoria. History rewards those who take the long view. And we thank the good people from Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Victor, before we head to our final break, I've mentioned before now a couple of times about this Carrie Prejean Bowler, who was a member of former runner up from Miss America way, way back, Miss California, some controversy at the time. She was appointed to the Religious Liberty Commission by President Trump. And we've discussed this before at a recent meeting, she caused a lot a ruckus there going after Zionism. And now she was dismissed from the board by Donald Trump. And another member of the commission, Samira Munshi, she quit it. She was the only Muslim woman on the commission. Regine Bowler's not going quietly into the night, Victor. She's lamenting. She's all over social media attacking, attacking and keeping up her attack on Zionism. So part of this cabal of cranks on the right who just are.

[B]

It was an interesting case. I think it was 2008 or maybe she was Miss California. And she's very beautiful.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And she's married to an ex quarterback, I think. And she and she said things that were controversial about gay marriage and stuff and transgender. And then she, of course, went for Miss America and she came in second. The reason she came in second, I'm doing this by memory, is that I think it was Paris Hilton. The gay guy asked her a question, said, what do you think of gay marriage? And she just, you know, she gave an honest answer. And if you look at that field, she was considered the shoe in for Miss America. And so she answered honestly and said in biblical terms. She was a strong Christian. I think she's a Catholic now. She converted to Catholicism, that it was gambling against biblical teaching and man and woman and all that. And she didn't get it. And that was kind of controversy. And then she, you know, was a model in the news, but she was very conservative. So she drew the attention of MAGA and Trump. But somewhere in that odyssey, and I want to ask you, though, Jack There's a lot of people who have converted to Catholicism lately on the maga side. You know what I mean by that? And it's not the Catholicism that you and most of the Catholics I know. I mean, the attraction for it is something more than just that. I think it now has a political dimension to it.

[A]

Well, it might. I think, you know, one of the. Someone who was moving that direction, and people believe he may have actually, before he was murdered or to have become a Catholic, was Charlie Kirk. And so this increase in attention from one of the leading spokesmen on the right, other than the one named Victor Davis Hanson, who was actively talking publicly about faith, I think started to draw a lot of people. And he. Actually, I'm not to get into this, because I know a lot of our listeners have problems with me talking about it, but he talked a lot about the Blessed Mother, and that is like a third rail for a lot of us.

[B]

Didn't Candace convert to Catholicism?

[A]

She suggests she's a convert. She did, yeah.

[B]

I don't know if Tucker was Catholic or he converted.

[A]

No, he's not Catholic.

[B]

He's always been so Anglican, maybe.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

But anyway, I guess she objected to Zionism, and I don't know if she knows what that means. That is a term for people who were scattered for centuries from their traditional homeland and they wanted to return to Judea, Israel. And after World War II, the United nations officially recognized that as a state. And most of the people who. There was the biggest controversy when people came from different countries, especially after they usually bought land, although it was against the law for Arabs to sell land to Jews, but to the degree you did, most of the territory was bought. And then when Israel was attacked, there was population displacements, sometimes violent on both sides. But it's the idea of restoring the traditional biblical homeland of the Jews from Jews who for centuries were exiled. I know that I had a student once, and he said to me, why do Jewish people have names like silver and gold and diamond and satin? And I said, what do you think? He said, that's because they like them. I said, everybody likes those things. And I said, when they left, they left the Middle East. They were, you know, scattered all around in countries, and they were subject because of, you know, blood libel. And you. Anyway, in case the, you know, Christ killer pejoratives that they were not allowed to own land. Land was the key to aristocracy, and they were usually barred from that. So they began to do whatever, use their talents for precious metals or currencies, et cetera. That would store wealth in ways other than land owning. And when the industrial revolution came, people who understood of non material wealth, stocks, bonds, investments, insurance, they had a natural advantage and that's why they became one of the big reasons. But it wasn't because they said, well, I want to be a diamond merchant when I leave, you know, my ground. It was what am I do? I'd like to buy this and I can't. So Victor.

[A]

Yeah. If you're done, I'll shut up because I wanted to add one other theological point here on Catholicism, if I can do that.

[B]

Well, let me ask you, why do you think as a Catholic that a lot of the maga base high profile are converting to Catholicism? If they are, I think they are. There's a lot. I think if a person's going to be a Christian or they're not saying I'm going to born a Christian church of Christ, Methodist path, you know what I'm saying?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Catholicism has a cachet that is new now I don't mean.

[A]

But it always had a cachet in one sense. I took the conversions in the 19th century In Britain, you know, what was

[B]

the motives, the motive then sin you think would give structure to it or purity and to go back to the original church.

[A]

Yeah, I mean the chain of apostolic succession, you connect the dots all the way back to Peter. There's also something much and I'm not knocking my brothers in Christ, but there's something poetic about the art and the artistry and the liturgy that is different than we see in Mass any Protestant sects. But I'll say one thing as caution, that it's wonderful that people are converting, they're coming back to faith and there is a growth of this in Catholicism especially in some big cities. You see some. Wow, all these young people are coming back to church all of a sudden again. I think Charlie Kirk has somewhat to do with that. But some people go back to this weirdo nostalgia. And I'm not saying the Latin mass is weirdo, but the nostalgia associated with that for some people, where this intersects with Judaism is once upon a time we would pray on Good Friday for the perfidious Jew. We don't do that anymore. That's been abandoned. But there's still some stink of that for some people. So I find it very troubling. Catholics are. Jesus is. Is a Jew, Mary, his mother is a Jew. It is wrong to hate Jews. It is wrong to be anti Zionist. I believe so anyway. That's.

[B]

I was just curious because somebody had remarked to me about the number of Trump critics that were converts and that's or people who are ultra maga are starting to identify with Catholicism more than Protestantism. That's all.

[A]

Well,

[B]

I think it offers a structure or it has an age old,

[A]

there

[B]

was an age old identity going from the Crusades or persecutions or whatever.

[A]

Well, as a person, it has a structure, too.

[B]

It has a structure.

[A]

It does.

[B]

It gives a person who is looking for structure. You know, you can't just say I'm a priest. I can't say I'm Victor Hansen. I'm going to open up a church.

[A]

Yeah. If I'm going to Mass in Fowler, California, it's the same Mass I'm going to in Florida, the same Mass I could go to in Spain, you know,

[B]

although that would be in Spanish.

[A]

So anyway, Victor, we who are some of us who are practicing Catholics, we're sinners, but we are really put off by the thought that Carrie Prejean Bowler or Candace Owens speak for us as Catholics. They do not, by the way, speaking of convert to Christianity, Ayaan Hirshi Ali. And I think we should talk about her as we conclude the show and we'll do that when we come back from these final important messages. Hi, folks. We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words with St. Thomas Aquinas. Jack Fowler, theologian here also. I'm sorry, I'm sure many people will correct my theology in the comments of the show. So again, we're talking on the 14th of March and this episode is up on the 17th, St Patrick's Day. So Victor, I sent you this link. I don't think it's gotten enough attention. I hope it gets more Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who you know, she's a fellow at Hoover.

[B]

Yes. She's a colleague of mine married to Neil Ferbis.

[A]

Yeah, both fellows. Yeah. She started, she, she's done tremendous. She's a incredibly brave lady and she's, she's created this group called Restoring the West. She created a manifesto of restoring the West. I want to encourage people to find that and look at it. But she believes we're in a crisis and we are and that people have to fight back as, as speaking of Christians, as Christians and not be afraid. Anyway, you, do you have any thoughts of about her in general? She's trying to do now.

[B]

I think it's really good. She's had a foundation of her own that's been very active. I think it would be fair to say that she's more conservative. She would Say she's more conservative than she was 20 years ago. But she was very courageous when she was a European in the Netherlands of opposing radical Islamic great danger to herself. Remember Theo van Gogh was killed, colleague of hers.

[A]

And she still has to travel, I think with security.

[B]

Yeah, oh yeah, she has. She has security and more. Interesting. We were talking at the beginning of the show about. I mentioned immigrants like Max Nikias and you know, Ilya Kazan and people from the traditional. She is a traditionalist as far as immigrants go. She comes to the United States from Europe, but originally from Somalia. And she is hyper patriotic, loves the United States, forget what her politics are, but she's just the ideal American that benefits the country. And so it's a sharp divide. If you look at her and Ilyan Omar, one person is a destructive personality and came here under probably illegal circumstances. Allegedly Aion is just the complete polar opposite of that. And Ilhan Omar always says she's threatened, but I don't think she really is threatened. Aon is. She is threatened by people who are radical Islamists.

[A]

Well, she's a fighter and she deserves our support.

[B]

There is such a thing as the West. There is such a thing as Christendom. There is such a thing as believing that Europe and the United States, not a racial thing, but a cultural civilizational concern, is under assault, partly self inflicted, sort of like. And it's kind of a question whether we're all going. I mean, in the 5th century AD the Western Empire that had everything going for it, it had a third century Renaissance. You could go from the Danube and the Rhine all the way from Scotland to the Atlas Mountains in Libya, from the English Channel all the way to the Persian Gulf on a Roman road with habeas corpus. It was a system that was working for the benefit. And it collapsed and it collapsed under debt, under barbarian invasions from Germany and what is now Poland, across the Danube and the Rhine and internal. Basically, I don't know what it's to be a Roman anymore. People said, I don't think tribalism, the inability to assimilate, acculturate and integrate all these 70 million people into the original Italian agrarian ethos that had been the Roman republics on the other side of the empire where there was more money and came later to the empire, the Greek speaking Empire, the Byzantine Empire. It lasted for a thousand years. And people are asking themselves why. Well, it had an orthodox religion and not that Catholicism was under assault with all of these different Manicheanism and liberalism, all of these different assaults. The Church a long time Mostly because of the work of Augustine to unify it. And the Byzantines had a very different message. It is we are the protectors of the Roman tradition. We are the protectors of the legacy of Hellenism from the Greeks and we are the protectors of Greek Orthodoxy. And it was pretty straightforward and it survived for a thousand years. And I get the impression sometimes that Europe is following the way of the Western Empire and we're sort of trying like we're like Byzantium, that we're under assault, but we're an oasis in a very dangerous world. The United States.

[A]

Well, you said debt and inability to assimilate and attack from outside. Sounds like the same broad factors are alive and well.

[B]

Yeah. And not tribalism and not. You start to look at papyri and documents in the outer provinces and people are not. They don't know what case endings are. Conjunction, declension. They're not speaking the same language. It used to be if you were a Roman soldier, you couldn't marry. Now you see evidence that the Roman legions on the Rhine were all intermarried and they didn't want to go to Libya if they were ordered. There was a sectionalism, sectarianism, and it was starting to break apart. And the Byzantines had always the Greek. They didn't call themselves Byzantines, they called themselves Romanoid. They overemphasized, maybe unity and cohesion. And if you were. And Justinian put everybody in the hippodrome and closed the gates and slaughtered 30,000. They were kind of. He was kind of the first doge minister. They were bureaucrats and the government was too big. The blues and the reds and the greens and he got rid of them.

[A]

Aggressive way to handle the situation.

[B]

So yes. Okay.

[A]

Well, Victor, I have a couple of comments to read here from folks of the thousands that come in now every week on YouTube, rumble, Apple, all the platforms, whether you're listening to the show or watching the show, the first two have to do with your Max Nikias interview from the other day. And this one is from Brakash Kishineveski. I'm sorry If I mispronounced that. 5896. I know I mispronounced it, writes Victor. I don't get tired thanking you for each show you produce another amazing interview. As an immigrant myself, very often I get upset watching nonsense complaints by the American born people. Thank you Max for underlining this. Then Elizabeth Glickman, 2725 writes, Fantastic interview, VDH. A total treat to meet this fascinating gentleman from one of My favorite parts of our planet. His intelligence and vibrancy are rare qualities. This is one episode that gets bookmarked, marked for excellence. I. I don't know if you have the book handy, Victor. I have it somewhere up on my

[B]

shelf, but I have it right around here. Hold on. Oh, well, I have it in the other room. But wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

Right here. Hold on.

[A]

A little close, but there you go. American Trojan Encounter books.

[B]

Roger Kimball's emphasis. And it's a wonderful book. And the descriptions of coming to the United States and then acculturating and excelling and working hard without any support. I mean, he got fellowships from his university and things, but no money and living, you know, a very spartan lifestyle and then having him, him work his way to an academic and then going, getting. Becoming a distinguished engineer with a national, if not international reputation. One thing people remember should forget is we look at Greece as a little small country, but if you actually. And we've always have critiqued their educational style as too rigid, but it was based on the German style. And if you graduate from the Polytechnic University in Greece, I've met people. And as far as traditional mathematics, physics, engineering, it's one of the toughest places to get a degree from. And he got his PhD from an American university, but is an undergraduate there. So it's a fascinating read. I think you'll all enjoy it. It has a very controversial but needed section on. At the pinnacle of his ability, his record where he had transformed USC. No longer to the O.J. simpson School, the poor brother of UCLA, but higher faculty profile, more difficult to get in. And then all of a sudden, MeToo came and there was a person on the faculty he didn't even know about who had done something allegedly improper. And there was an investigative. And people said you should have fired him without, you know, basically without due process. And he, he said, let's work it through. LA Times got ahold of it. It was right, the thing of me too. And he resigned over it as a matter of principle. But that was a grievous blow because if you look at what happened after he left usc, it just, I'll be frank, it just sort of crumbled compared to what it was. It was right at the pinnacle of becoming the next Stanford of California. It was a tragic mistake. And the, you know, the person who was the alleged. He died. And he was never, he was under. He was on trial, but there was never any question that Max Nikias was not attendant to it. He had a full panel. And then the irony of it was US Division of Civil Rights stepped in, did an exhaustive investigation. Guess what they said the president of USC had done exactly what you were supposed to. Yeah. And had both preserved civil liberties of the alleged. And then they had turned the case over. Once the university examination was over, the district attorney was free to come in, which he did, and press charges. If you have not Me too did a lot of damage.

[A]

If you haven't seen the interview or listened to it with Victor and Max Nikias, I hardly recommend you do so. One more comment to read Victor, and then we'll close down. This is beautiful and sad at the same time from Misty Lake 48 Victor, my husband died suddenly on February 23rd. We always watched all of your podcasts together. He respected your opinions and knew you had the education and experience to back it all up. However, the main reason he respected you was that you are a man of outstanding moral character, a good man and a good Christian. I will continue to watch you with my angel watching over me, praying for your recovery as we need you in the fight. God bless you. This is from Ruthie White in Beaverton, Oregon. Thank you. Beautiful.

[B]

Yeah, that was very nice. I've been going on ascent and I had a little dip heart problems. But I hope that's just the way it is when you're recovering from the two operations.

[A]

Well, you're not 22 anymore, so that's also a factor.

[B]

So I'm 52, 72.

[A]

Hey, if folks want to. I get a lot of emails. Folks like civil thoughts. That's the thing I do one of the things I do, center for Civil Society. It's a newsletter, comes out every Friday, 14 recommended readings. You should get it. Go to civilthoughts.com and sign up. And I work do that for the center for Civil Society where we are trying to strengthen civil society. Do that. Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus VictorHansen.com. subscribe Victor, you've been terrific, as you always are. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you my friend and to all else. To all me brothers and sisters out there. God bless. We'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Bye bye.

[B]

Thank you everybody for listening and watching.