C (2:59)

Yeah, well, keep the prayers going, folks. So you'll follow the bouncing ball. It will get disjointed. But, you know, every episode we have, whether it's viewer listener questions or we're trying to talk about current events, and even if we're several days out from the events, the wisdom of Victor Davis Hanson is always prescient and evergreen. So all that blathered by me. Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Wayne and Marsh and Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. He's a senior contributor at the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of this podcast. And he's got his own website, the Blade of Perseus, which he's still cranking out two pieces a week for. Like Victor is indefatigable in that way. You should subscribe victorhansen.com okay. Lots to get Victor's wisdom on today, this promise by Kevin Hassett, the announcement the other day that your typical American may get. Well, I don't know about typical. You have to pay taxes, and that's not your typical American. But the American that pays taxes may get up to $20,000 in tax relief this coming year. We have really powerful farmer riots in Europe and in England. We have still the crazy trucking madness in the United States. And speaking of madness, Victoria, the turning point USA Conference has been a slug. It's like a UFC battle between conservative commentators. And your and your take on.

B (4:32)

Yeah, well, we should talk about that. I admire them for letting all voices speak, but I'm not sure that it's going to result in unity.

C (4:41)

Yeah. It was not like a National Review cruise, as those things go.

B (4:46)

Now, be careful because after 2016 election, there was somebody on the panel, I think his name was Victor, that had said Trump was going to win. And I don't think people like that. And I had to have an early departure. Jack, do you remember that?

C (5:04)

That makes it sound like you were chased off the boat. No, you had. You were going to David Horowitz's.

B (5:12)

Yes, but you were the director and I was going to file a hostile workplace complaint with you, so I decided to leave a little early.

C (5:21)

Yeah, well, that was after the election, I believe, as it but you were terrific as always, Victor, you were the premier political analyst in America in 2016, which is pretty good for a farmer and a classicist and a military historian. So, anyway, all that said, we'll get to debt the. Oh, not debt, the tax. Write off the relief issue when we come back from these initial important messages.

A (5:47)

Hey, folks, it's Tony Kennett, national correspondent for the Daily Signal and host of the Tony Kennett cast. I need to share something with you. Our goal at the Daily Signal is simple. To cut through the noise and give you the facts you need to stay informed as engaged citizens. Unlike so many liberal media outlets, we're honest about our conservative views and report the news with a commitment to telling you the truth. But I'll be straight with you. Running an independent news operation isn't easy. While big media companies have corporate sponsors and massive bloated budgets, we operate differently. We answer to you, our audience and supporters. That independence is exactly what allows us to tackle the stories others won't touch and ask the tough questions others often avoid. But our independence comes with a challenge. We need your help to ensure the Daily Signal can continue to counter the liberal media's lies with the truth. Every deep dive investigation, every exclusive interview, every fact check we publish requires time and investment. If you've found value in what we do. If the Daily Signal has helped you stay informed or given you insights you couldn't find elsewhere, would you consider supporting our work with a donation today? Even a small monthly contribution makes a real difference in our ability to bring you the journalism you deserve and expect you can support our work by visiting DailySignal.com donate. That's DailySignal.com donate. Every dollar goes directly into making sure we can continue serving you with the reporting you've come to count on. Please go to dailysignal.com and give your gift today.

C (7:24)

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words, recording on the 21st of December, this episode again. Like I said, we hope it's up on the 26th. So second day of Christmas. Hope everyone has had a blessed and happy Christmas. Victor. The headline from the Daily Mail, Americans to receive huge tax refunds of up to $20,000. This Kevin Hassett, who is the National Economic Council director. I love Kevin, by the way. He's a good friend. He's a good man. He was a Hoover fellow before.

B (7:58)

He's a colleague of mine and I like Kevin a lot.

C (8:01)

Yeah, and he's also considered the leading contender for the next Federal Reserve chairman. But yeah, he echoed. Let me see the story President Trump echoed the sentiment during a recent address on Wednesday, claiming families could save between 11,000 and 20,000 ann under his administration's tax policies, calling it, quote, the largest tax refund season of all time. Victor I want a tax refund, but I also want our debt paid down.

B (8:30)

I want our debt paid down. Yeah, I don't know because I haven't read. I haven't been able to find the detail. I don't know if it's something analogous to the military, you know, $1,800, which, you know, for over a million point three is going to, it's going to be billions, a couple of billion dollars. But I don't know whether this is something special or it is a prognosis of the effect of the big beautiful bill by next April. When you factor in tips, a lot of people have said have already paid estimates on their tips and things like that. And the tax reductions in there will retroactively lead to people having more refunds than usual. But we're $37 trillion in debt. We've been running a $1.1 trillion trade deficit. We've been running a 1.9 trillion dollar budget deficit. So I understand. And we have inflation went down to 2.7. So by the way, the Wall Street Journal experts have been consistently wrong that we would have a trade war, that we would have a stock market collapse, that we would have a recession, that inflation would soar. It hasn't, it's gone down. Gdp, if we had not had the shutdown, probably would have ended the fourth quarter at 4 or even higher percent growth. But what I'm worried about is when we look at Joe Biden, he infused $8 trillion into the economy when the supply chains were shaky and consumer demand was exorbitant coming out of COVID And that gave us the 9.1% inflation in 2022, 3. So I hope that this doesn't prove to be inflationary because that's the only missing piece in the Trump economic mosaic. It's not even fair to Trump. I mean, he came in with an average over four years of 5.1 inflation on the part of Biden. He came in 3% in January, excuse me, of December 2024. That had gone down. But it still had over that average of four years, 5.1 per year. But he's already got that down. But the problem is that people have been so strapped because it was 30% inflation. Like we've talked for, things like insurance, gasoline, electricity, et cetera, many staple goods, but they Wanted him to go all the way to, to in 10 months, erase the whole Biden catastrophe. That's been impossible. And we'll see if these things click in. I think it was three months ago I began writing columns saying, you know, if you get half of the promised 20 trillion, 10 trillion, and you get these new AI things and I can tell you from my brief experience in medicine, they're scary because you can give a symptom and all of a sudden you can get the aggregate view 500 refereed medical articles. But if you get that in the equation and you get the big beautiful bill reduction and deregulation, the foreign investment and this 14 to 15 million barrels gas is going down, I think you're going to get a big boom in 2000. I've said that. And the only question that I have, I don't know if it'll come in time for the traditional losses that income incumbent president suffers in his first midterm. But we'll see. I'm not as pessimistic as a lot of people are on the House races because I think the economy is already starting to boom.

C (12:15)

Yeah, well, perception is reality, right? In politics, I think in most places. So if the perception of affordability can be changed. I blathered this before, Victor, but I do think when you go into the store and like my wife complaining about a container of ricotta cheese being $4, excuse me, $7 when it used to be four, not all that long ago, I think the response is, yeah, but if Biden was president, it would be $9.

B (12:45)

You know, I'll tell you something too. There's intangibles that we've never had before. Two million illegal aliens, half from deportations, half from self deportations have left. And if you look at the job growth, which was really strong, it was all in US Citizens and before they counted everybody. So what I'm saying is you might have had a million people who were off the books working at below market wages and not paying taxes. Because from my experience, when I talk to employers in this region, which is heavily influenced by illegal immigration, they all say the same thing, that if they hire illegal aliens, and many do, they pay them in cash. And so those are not reported income. So what I'm getting at is that more American citizens have been hired, fewer illegal aliens, almost none have been hired. The people who have been hired will be on the books and paying taxes. And more importantly, California just announced they can't afford it. Gavin Newsom, he did a little trick. He always does. He said Well, I can't allow anybody that's here illegally to get any more expensive Medicare. Cal, he didn't say that's going to send. He didn't say what's going to happen that's going to make the ers even more crowded. If you go to an ER in California, in most parts of California, it is not an emergency room. It is a general practitioner's internist medical office. And you talk to the people, most of whom cannot speak English. But if you can listen to them and decipher like I can some of it, they will say that they're there basically for their routine medical needs and that's very expensive. So what I'm getting at is if you reduce the population who came here illegally, resided here illegally, and takes money off the books or sends remittances as part of this 120 billion that go to Central America and Mexico, that has positive economic consequences for all of us and it will help the economy. But that's something that no one's ever heard about. No one's ever really experienced a zero illegal immigration economy and deportations of people who were working off the books, sending money to Mexico and taxing social welfare.

C (15:18)

Speaking of not speaking English, did you see. And we'll get onto some other larger, more important issues. You saw the headline about the mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, who's a.

B (15:28)

In a.

C (15:29)

He's been elected. He's been mayor since 2021. And he needs an interpreter, allegedly needs an interpreter in court. He can't speak English.

B (15:40)

I think everybody out there of any nationality or ethnic background has to understand something that DEI is the most toxic ideology we've ever experienced because it gave exemption to people to do things on the assumption that they could do things and not be held accountable because of their race or sexual orientation or gender or whatever. And we've seen it in spades with the multibillion dollar fraud in California. Mondame is going to select for one of his interior officer, I think economic justice MSU, who was the labor secretary in California that oversaw $40 billion in medical or unemployment fraud. And we're seeing a multi billion fraud in Somalia. We're looking at truck driver fraud, we're looking at violent. They all have one thing in common. The left has told us these people are all victims. Not on any imperial evidence. Just because DEI says that they're not white, they're not Christian in some cases or whatever. The DEI Rubik is not heterosexual, male, whatever, white. But basically they're not white and therefore they're the oppressed and you have to give them special compensation. And when you do that to anybody for any reason, whether you're a Russian in 1942 and you say you're a communist and you're a commissar, it doesn't matter. And so we're going to that to end. That will help this country recover from its insanity. And this is all of these scandals have that one thing in common, that when you're on the BART and you're in San Francisco and you assault somebody and you are on the oppressor side, BART will say we're not going to release the video of what you did because you're oppressed and it might discourage people from being nice to you and that will encourage violence. If you're decarlos Brown and you get out 11 times because of your circumstances, that means that you'll be more likely to slit somebody's throat. So there is no deterrence for dei. And the worst thing about it is that we were at a point where people who were not so called white were competitively upwardly mobile with the so called dominant population. And now that has all been thrown into confusion because every time somebody, and I'm now referencing Jack, that compact magazine, Jack, excuse me, Mr. Savage, his article about DEI and prejudice. When you give somebody special consideration, exemption from meritocracy and you know, audit, the first thing they have to do, look at Claudine Gay, look at any of those people, look at any DEI appointment. The first thing they have to do is say I am a perpetual victim because you were put there because you were a victim. And therefore you have to find racism, racism, racism. And therefore when you don't find it, you've got to invent it. If you don't do that, you're going to be evaluated on your merit. And if you were selected for that job because you did not have a competitive meritocracy, then you're going to be very angry. So it's self perpetuating. It's a perpetual motion machine. I got into Harvard because I was a minority. I didn't have the SAT score, I didn't have the GPA of somebody else. But once I'm here and people suggest I'm not qualified, I will say that I'm somebody, you know, somebody put something on my door that was racist and somebody said something that was unkind and it's systemic, you don't understand. And that's going to continue and then the university is going to be afraid to say no, no, you weren't qualified and you proved it because you can't do the work in your case they can't say that. And then I don't know. It's so ironic because I'm at a very competitive Hoover Institution and the people who speak I felt the most analytically in my. Of the fellows were Shelby Steele and Tom Sowell, no doubt about it. Kyron Skinner as well. Our director, Condoleezza Rice. Very well spoken, analytical. And guess what, all four of them are African American. And on the Open they succeed. They didn't excel. They're preeminent. So. And then you get di and you know, you think, well, they're here. No, they're not. They came in that are merocratic. Tom Soule is probably the brightest guy I've met and he's very under, under, you know, he doesn't seek attention. But every time he opens his mouth. All those lunches I had with him, it was like, that is so true and so transparent and so common sense. And you just sliced and diced a complex problem into one sentence. I wish I could have said that. That's how he was. Shelby Steele was the same way. It's just baffling why we did this to ourselves.

C (21:12)

Yeah, I'd like to pick up the DEI thing and the higher education in one second. But first to our listeners and readers, if you've studied enough history, 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 found 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 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 in human history. And that's physical gold. Not as speculation, but as insulation. Reputation matters. Which is why we're partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A rating from the 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 for listeners of Victor Davis Hanson, in his own words, to help you get started with real gold. Whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in a bank. If you believe that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious, call 844-790-91918447 909191 or visit protectwithvikor.com that's 8447-909191-84779-09191 or visit protectwithikor.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 before we hit a break and turn our eyes to Europe, the question of meritocracy and higher ed is evident at Brown University and Providen island, where Brown is located, where the chief of police is from Columbia and the head of campus. The campus police seems to be a premier knucklehead. And the removal of security cameras, which had certainly harmed the investigation into the shooter who murdered two and wounded nine or more there a week and a half ago. But even the students at Brown, the sugar cubes, the elites understand that removing meritocracy has a consequence like, what the hell, you put our lives at risk with these knuckleheads running the show.

B (24:13)

Yeah, I felt bad because the FBI, by the way, solved that case. The local people didn't. They had a press conference. I don't want to be too mean, but when I listened to the chief of police and all of the Brown administrative officials and the local people, it was all high five for nothing. They were all bragging about their teamwork and how wonderful they were and how well. And meanwhile, the FBI was working behind the scenes. They found the Portugal visa holder. They knew he had a relate. They found out he had a relationship with the murdered physicist. Jealousy going back years, something right out of an English murder mystery. And then goes to the room and kills him. He was very clever. He knew where the camels were not there. He changed his license plate. He rented a car, but they cracked that case. But you would have listened to the other people. A president of Brown. No one could just say, you spend 100,000 a year to come here and we promise you to be safe. And we let you down because there is not enough cameras on this campus. We should have seen that person. And we have had 10 to 20 rapes on this campus in the last 10, I think last year and 20 the year before and you're not safe here. So every classroom, we don't want to do it, but you have to swipe your card to get in. And this one wasn't it was open obviously, because the former graduate student got in there and they can't admit that. And we still don't know why they don't have enough cameras. We don't know if they took them down. We don't know if they, they shut them off. And we don't know, as has been alleged, whether they were afraid to be left out of the woke anti ice crowd so that they decided to not have the cameras so that poor illegal aliens would be feel safe when they walked on their campus. I guess. But they didn't care about the welfare of the student first. DEI I went on that rant is a deadly, it's a deadly ideology because whether it's the pilot in the cockpit or the air traffic controller or the brain surgeon or anybody, anybody in those positions of life and death that has not been there. And I'm not saying there's not unmericratic factors. There's old boy networks, there's oh, my son should get into Harvard because I did. There's all that. But we can deal with that. But not DEI because it's a blanket totalitarian ideology that demonizes anybody who questions it. And boy, that was on display, I'm afraid, in brown. And it's going to be. And nobody talks about it.

C (27:13)

Well, we are. So, Victor, we're going to come back from this break and turn our eyes to Europe and look at some of the outrage being experienced by farmers and boy, oh boy, who better to discuss that than a farmer himself? Victor Davis Hansen we'll do that when we return from these important messages.

B (27:32)

Welcome to our ugly home. Reddit is back for a historically hideous season. It's our 100th ugly house. This place is mayhem. That is impressive. And if these walls could talk. Do you cry a lot? I do.

A (27:48)

They'd have a lot to say.

B (27:50)

What in God's name is this pit?

C (27:53)

Don't get too close if you've seen the show.

B (27:55)

I'm scared of that.

A (27:56)

Ugliest House in America season premiere Wednesday.

B (27:58)

January 6th, 7th and 8 on HGTV.

C (28:03)

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words, talking on December 21st. And this episode should be up on the Daily Signal site. And on December, Friday, December 26, Boxing Day in England. Speaking of in England, a couple of farm things. Victor, first of all, I'm certain you and many of our listeners and viewers have seen these videotapes of farmers.

B (28:33)

In.

C (28:34)

Brussels essentially attacking the EU with these massive machines. And they're spraying and in France also spraying manure at government buildings. Irate about some of the machinations of bureaucratic fiddling and farting around with foreign policy. And then in England, even on a different level, the new tax laws going into effect that are going to destroy the ability of families that own farms that are already under duress from regulations, from passing them down to their children who are saying, well, if that's the case, what day do I have up until that I can legally commit suicide so that I get around the death tax. And Starmer knows this, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, the Exchequer, and they throw bromides out there. But there are real consequences and deadly consequences to all this. Anyway, Victor, you know better than most how oppressed farmers are by government in various ways. Your thoughts on these, what's percolating in England and Europe?

B (29:47)

I wrote two books, Fields without Dreams and the land was everything about it. I mean, when people would call me, when I got to the Hoover Institution, some of our blue chip economists knew about certain things and they would come up to me and they'd say, now Victor, let me get this straight. You have 90 acres of raisins and the vines are 60 or 70 years old and each year they produce a crop, but you don't own it on your own problem? I said, no, I don't. Not if I make raisins I don't own. So the moment you pick those grapes and you put them on the ground, the government owns them? I said, yes, you can't take the raisins and wash them and sell them to a. No, you have to take every single bin unless they give a little bit for personal use and you have to truck it into a government authorized packer and they have to set aside your raisins to be dumped or sold for nothing to keep the free tonnage price up as they adjudicate, not market. And that was true of almost. There was an orange. Same thing with orange orders. I've seen so many orange orchards with oranges dropping on the ground because their marketing order said that they could only allowed to pick so many per week, depending on what the bureaucrats said the market was. All of these were FDR New Deal ideas of price supports that should have been ended years ago. And the other thing is when you. I would just talk for most of my life, my grandparents, my parents, my neighbors, this is what I saw once. We had something called Black Butte plums. They're a beautiful plum. They're tasty. We nurtured it. We cared for the orchard. We sent them 1988 or something. 86. And this was not unusual. So they were sold for 12, 50, $12.50 for 28 pounds, about 30, I don't know, 33 cents. And then here it was, brokerage fee, 10, 15% cold storage fee, processing fee, strapping and palletization fee, forklifting fee, trucking fee, packing fee. And this is the nice one, call rate. Call rate, meaning you don't know what they threw out. Call rate. And then the check came per box from the original sales, $3. And so the farmer was always on the bottom. He had no. He was always independent. That was his problem. They never united, but he always got the end of it. And then you would look at. When I would get, I'd go look at the packer, I'd go look at the broker, I'd go look at the truck driver, I would go look at the processor. They were always well dressed, nice cars. And then I would look at these guys and they had missing teeth. They were grizzled, their cars were torn up. They had nothing except land. And then they would always say the same thing, Jack. Well, you know, Victor, that vineyard went up from 4,000 to hangar to 8,000. And this inheritance stuff scares me. What am I going to do? I think if I die, I can't spend any money. I got to give it to my kids because they'll never be able to pay the inheritance tax until recently. And at that time there was a California estate tax which was repealed at the same time as a federal inheritance. And then when you process all that, and you said, wait a minute, these people, without them you can eat food from the farmer. Without a packer, broker, trucker, you can have local food, you can't do anything. All those people can't do anything, the insurance people, anything. Without the farmer, if he doesn't produce the food, there's nothing. So yes, I'm not one of these people that say that Safeway doesn't deserve to get a profit. They do. They don't make a big profit, by the way. And grocery stores and truckers and brokers and processors and packers. But all I'm saying is with all of those people, enhance the problem product, but only the farmer makes the product. And when you see what you have to go through, you know, it used to, there's the weather, it can change and destroy you in 24 hours. There's labor, you can't get it. There's machines that break down. It's dangerous. You get the flu. You're in the winter, you're, you know, you're spraying. You know I'd say I have a, I have 70 acres. I got to spray diazinon, which is not necessarily a safe thing, and oil spray on dormant peaches, plum, nectarines. I got to get it done because they're starting to, you know, the buds are starting to form and then you're out there all day long on a 500 gallon aero fine sprayer and you're covered with this crap. And this is the days before. This is when they said, this is integrated pest management, Victor. There's no need for protection in the 80s. So you know, you're getting this stuff all over you and then you get the flu. You come in, you think, I got flu 101. And then you think, well, who's going to do it? There's no one else to do it. So you go out there with the flu and you work. And that's what farmers do all the time. And I saw people, you know, I have a twin brother. I haven't spoken to him. I mean, I haven't spoken about him, but he was working and working and welding and not making any money. And then he, he ground the tip of his finger off on the grinder and I said, oh my God, what happened? Oh, I grind it. And then he wrapped it up, he went in the hospital and they, you know, they cleaned it up, cut it and then the next day he's out there. I said, what are you doing? Well, what do you want me to do, Victor? I gotta get the Massey 285 and I gotta get out there and cultivate. They do that every day. It's a very unique profession. And for the people in Europe to do that to those people is shameless. Especially when I see those EU bureaucrats, they look so swarmy and arrogant and they're all tidy and clean and well dressed and well compensated and yet they made so much stress on these people. They're thinking of killing themselves so that their farms can survive before these people go after them. And the other thing is this country is very, it's very and very dangerous thing because they start talking about white, white, white, white, white, white. First of all, most of the farmers I met were not white. They were so called Armenian, Sikh, Mexican, American, Japanese, China and white. But they kind of demonize the physical muscular classes, especially the white muscular classes. And then, and it's always the people on the bi coastal elite, the, the opinion makers that do this. And then you start to think, who does this dangerous dirty job of pumping oil? Who does this thing going under the ground in West Virginia doing coal. Who does this dirty job of climbing down in your sewer to unclog it? Who does all that stuff? It's the working people. And once you've done that, and I have, you have your natural allegiance and solidarity and affinity for those people always for the rest of your life. And I'll just end this rant with. My mom was a very unusual person. She grew up in the same house with her two sisters. They all died of cancer. That's a gene in our family. And very young. 60, 49 and 64, 65. Brain, kidney, breast. And anyway, they all went. My grandfather had never gone to college. He mortgaged his place. He sent two of them to Stanford. They got undergraduate degrees and graduate. My mother also got a double degree at University of Pacific. And then my aunt that was horribly crippled from polio was not able to do that. So she went to San Jose State Industrial School at that time to learn a skill. But my point is this. When you looked at all those people that worked, they all had advanced degrees. And I remember my mom was so excited when she was a superior court judge, second one in the county. And then she was one of the first, if not the first female appellate court judge the state of California. And I had to go to the farmer's market Thursday. And she said, what are you doing? I said, I get out of class at, you know, I get out of class tonight. I have a night class from 6 to 9. So I got to get home and at 10 o' clock I got to load this van up because I have one day off and I've got to correct paper. So what I'm going to do is load up the van. And she said, well's your brother? I said, my brother, he's got. He's doing 10 times the work that I am. How about the kids? I said, they're in school. And she said okay. So I picked her up. She had a day off. Appellate court judge. We drove over the Pacheco Pass. We pull into Monterey and here's my mom with overalls selling tomatoes, plums, peaches and having a great time with everybody. And we drive back and that's what everybody does who's a farmer. They never forget it. They never ever forget it. She would call me and said, I haven't called you. We have a big case. I have to hear it's a multi million dollar. I can't speak of it. It would be indiscreet. But how many trays have been rolled? I need to know are all 100,000 open because it's going to rain tonight. I said, no, I got 72,000 rolled, but I got to get the other 30,000. And she said, do you want me to come down and help you roll? I said, mom, you could be lucky if you could do 200 at your age. Well, I can try. So she came down and here's a Pellet Corps judge on her knee at 61 years old rolling trays. And everybody did that. Farmers. I don't want to be too chauvinistic, but gosh, every time I see one, I go to Hillsdale. You know, I used to ride my bike out and every once in a while I'd see a farmer, I'd stop to them and talk something about them. They're just unusual people and they're kind of a protected species. And there's certain barometers that you can assess the validity of a civilization's morality and success. One of them is how they treat their farmers. The other one is to what degree they're anti Semitic. If that age old curse comes out, it kind of. It's just a tip off that the society is diseased. If that starts to. And it's starting to reappear now. And the way that we treat farmers is another one. And then the other thing is how kind the elite are. In other words, how when you see a person who is an elite, a doctor or a lawyer, do they, when they go into the building, do they talk to the custodian? When they're in the parking lot, do they thank the guy that takes their ticket? When they're in a restaurant that they, you know, they give a little bit more tip than it's warranted. That type of consideration is really a hallmark. And I see that we're losing that. We're losing that too.

C (41:16)

You know, Victor kind of reminds me of the Saint Crispin's Day speech about holding your manhood cheap. And that, I think is an issue for a lot of people who see what a farmer really does or a welder, and they wouldn't know how to turn on a lawnmower, never mind do the kind of work they do. And some people take that as emasculating and hold those who can do those things. They resent them because they can do that. I think there's something very natural and evil in all that.

B (41:55)

It was funny you said that because I was just talking to some. Someone in a very elite place and they were complaining in the Bay Area that it's very expensive to get remodeling or get Plumbing it is. It's about three times what it's here. And they were saying how outrageous. And people gouge them. And I said, well, for a guy to come out to your house maybe and fix your wiring for $25 or $30 an hour, maybe it is 50 or 60 up in San Francisco or something. But that guy at some point's got to make a will or he's got to go to a stockbroker. Anytime he deals with the elite, it's a matter of magnitude of 10. In other words, that he's going to pay 10 times what he can to get legal advice or medical treatment or financial advice or anything. And the people who. So if you're going to get that kind of. If you're making $700,000 a year and it's. You can't live because housing's so expensive because of those salaries. And then some poor guy, you know, Juan Gonzalez, decides to get on your roof and fix it, and instead of charging you 15, he charges 40. Well, he has to live and he's doing something. You know, I always get back to that thing when the guy, he was legal too. He's not illegal. There was a guy and I had this roofer, Chad, who was just wonderful. And he had this employee, and he was up at 30ft on top of the crest of my two story ancient house with 70 pounds of shingles on his shoulders. And he was tiptoeing across the ridge and I was trying to clean. I was raking all the nails and stuff from the old shingles. And he goes, big there. How do you like this? And he walked, he tiptoed along with about 60 pounds. I thought, man, that guy, he's godlike. I don't know how a person could do that and have such audacity. But what I'm trying to get is not to romanticize the working class, but just treat them as vital people. And each society makes infrastructure and then they bequeath it to the next. So the highways, the aqueducts, the power plants, they're all very sophisticated and they require a very, very educated population. We're losing that, by the way. All the people we curse as racist or old white guys, whatever you want to think. The majority of that population demographic in 1960, 70, was 90% of them. And they created a very, very sophisticated. Not that they did it on their own, but they did it. And then for people to blanketly damn them is a heresy. And now you see, people can't operate. It's kind of like the dark ages. After the Mycenaean period, they can't operate the infrastructure they inherited. And the people who can are absolutely vital. And that's what my biggest worry right now is. When I see a government power plant or an aqueduct or a sophisticated road crew, I'm just saying, do they have the expertise of the people who originally built this project? Because I don't think they do. And Gavin Newsom, does he have the sophistication of a governor like Reagan or Pete Wilson or Pat Brown, the old. No, no. He's inherited a whole state and he's destroyed it because he's ignorant and he thinks it's cute to move around and, you know, all these little things. But he doesn't have any reverence for these people who gave him the state with the most sophisticated infrastructure, and he's ensured that almost nobody knows how to operate it. And that's tragic because we're in decline because of that.

C (45:53)

Well, Victor, we're going to take a little break, and then when we come back, the big topic I'm sure many people want your take on it is the Turning Point USA Conference, in which a number of major speakers were, you know, it was like a Texas death match, wrestling with chairs and tables and ladders and whatever the heck it was. Not a pretty sight. But we'll take your. We'll get your take on it when we come back from these important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words at the Daily Signal. So mamma mia, Victor, let's see, Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson. Steve Banning comes in, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, who also on this takes a sideswipe at Bari Weiss. I mean, it was as we're speaking, I think the conference is still going on in Phoenix. But yeah, I think when conservatism maybe needs a little unity and focus, we have some of its premier public faces choking each other out. Your thoughts?

B (47:04)

Well, the issue, to cut to the quick, is anti Semitism, Israel, etc. I just looked at the poll in preparation. The Democratic Party, 60% of the Democratic Party does not support Israel. They favor Hamas. It's almost 70% of Republicans do. So let's get that out of the way that the vast majority of Republicans say to themselves the following. I may not know Jewish people personally. I'm not in this for ethnic or religious. I just know that Israel is a constitutional government in a sea of totalitarian autocracy. Two million Arabs live in Israel. Of the 11 million, they live better lives in terms of constitutional protections and freedom than anywhere else in The Middle East. And I do know that contrary to what Tucker said, it was an insignificant state. It's a major exporter. I don't know how they did it, but it's a major exporter of natural gas to Egypt and to Europe. And if you go to Israel and look at its water, solar natural gas powered salt water distilling plants into fresh water. It's amazing. It's the most sophisticated in the world. They have more Nobel Prize winners per capita than anywhere in the world. And it's pro us. And every time we give them a weapon system they call us up and say hey, we don't have the infrastructure and the capital to build an F35 or this type of patriot system. But. But once we get something from you, this is how we can improve it. And they have the most sophisticated anti ballistic system in the world and they share it with us. They're not insignificant, they're significant and they're pro American. And just get the question of Semitism out of the equation. Just if you don't even. You're not interested in it. It is our best ally in the world compared even. It's not like Europe. Europe is a schizophrenic. We all love Europe. We all like the Western heritage, but Europe is schizophrenic. The EU every single day attacks the United States in some fashion and then they flip over their one eye jack card and they say now we're NATO and we love you guys. You've got to stay in NATO. You're essential. And then they flip it over and say well we're going to find mosque and you guys are. Trump is. Yeah. Americans are crass and we don't. Not Israel. It doesn't do that. So that was the, that's the foundation of that whole conference. So. And the other thing is that and this. I want to be careful what I say, Jack. But you agree the, the midterms are going to be one on the economy and everybody should unite around that issue and get the word out that it's much better than Joe Biden's. Disastrous. And it's getting better all the time. They need to communicate that. Why? How? Okay, but ever since Buckley and you knew him so well, Jack laid down the law that people who were anti Semitic and that meant they blamed the Jews inordinately for global problems. They didn't. He was not going to put them into the conservative movement as far as his influence and power. Okay. Ever since then the conservatives have been the watchdog of antisemitism because unchecked immigration from the Middle East, Middle east studies programs, DEI that gave exemptions to anti Semites like Jesse Jackson, Jaime Town, Al Sharpton. Put on your earmaks. Come over here. I want to fight you. I could go on. Helen Thomas, the White House darling who said, tell the Jews to get out of Israel and go back to Poland. I could go on, but know you, you get the Farrakhan gutter relay. All of those people. It was always conservatives who attacked them, not left. They allowed it to happen. And now it's entrenched in the left, anti Semitism. So if you're on the right and you lose that, there's no check on it, there's nobody to say anything. And when you start to see things from the Fuentes group and it filters out, it's not much different from the left. And so I'll give you some examples. Maduro is a cutthroat thug. He's led, did a lot of narco deaths. He emptied his jails and sent the dregs of the world into this country to help destroy it. He's killed people. He's horrible. We're not going to invade him. But the idea that we shouldn't at least stop the narco shipments in Iceland, that's crazy. And yet when you start to read, I was reading very carefully what Candace and people have said about Trump's pressure. They think that Israel's behind it. They think that Israel's behind 9, 11. They think that Israel's behind Charlie Kirk's death. I don't know any major. They think. Candace doesn't think that there was a moon landing. And these are our big spokesmen for the conservative movement. They have these huge audiences because Candace thinks that Macron's wife has a phallus and she's being sued for. She thinks that the Mossad has a contract out on her. These are the most. And these are really popular to a particular demographic of young men. These are young men that suffered from globalization, they suffered from dei, and they didn't have the same opportunities at earlier generations. And they're angry. And these people are feeling that need of. They're fueling that anger against Jews and Israel. And I've never seen anything like it. And I don't want to exaggerate and say this is. Oh, Victor, just calm down. You know, well, yes, we need to unify. And you don't want to drive people out of the conservative movement, but you won't have one if you allow that to happen to keep growing and growing and growing. You've got to stop it. And I say that very reluctantly because I. As I've said so many times, I was on Tucker's show for seven or eight years. He was magnanimous. I never heard him say one thing negatively about Israel or Jewish people. Not one thing. He was always empirical. He was funny. And I don't know what happened. And Steve Bannon, by the way, I knew Steve a little bit. I would say he came up to my office to do a documentary. I would say, if you asked me, when I first met him, maybe 2006, he called me up, I had dinner with him at LAX, maybe 2005, he came up to my office two or three times to do a documentary at the Hoover Institution. I would say if you characterize him in those years, maybe before 2020, I would call him a Christian Zionist. I really would, Jack. Christian Zionist. I don't know what happened to him either. So something has happened.

C (54:12)

Victor. I. We would mention, humorously, the National Review cruises. But when I look back on them, and as you know, I ran them, and the people that participated, the speakers were of the yourself, Milton Friedman, Bob Bork, Michael Novak, Bernard Lewis, Paul Johnson. I mean, just great thinkers and scholars. And that to me was. And many more like that, by the way. But that to me was conservatism. And everyone had a role. Everyone. You know, there are people who are polemicists and there's obviously scholars. But the decline of the admiration of the thought leaders as opposed to the polemicists is a troubling thing for me, for modern conservatism.

B (55:14)

Yeah. I won't mention anybody, but I was in the company of someone about four years ago that was of the type that you're talking about an influencer with a bunch of people. And this person was saying things like, the west is this and the west is that, and the west is this. And everything that he said was wrong. And I was thinking, I was just talking to my wife today about. And he was saying that, you know, there was no idea of nemesis. He didn't even know what nemesis was. But he was telling me all of this stuff about what comes around, goes around. And all I said, that's an ancient concept. It's not antithetical to Christianity. It's sort of do unto others as others would do unto you. But the phenomenon, it's not antithetical to a Christian God. It means that people who were pagan according to late antiquities exegesis of what about good people who were born before Christianity, that exemplified Christian values. And of course, in Dante's Inferno, they're in Purgatory. But the point I'm making is there is a temple at Ramnus called the Temple of Nemesis. So there was a goddess who saw that. The Greeks saw so much turnaround come around that they had a goddess for it. And later, I think it was that concept became kind of reified as a Christian precept. But what I'm getting at, Jack, is that all of these people, in a way, I've always been, you know, I just talked about the middle class, but I've also had a great respect for scholars. Not showy public. I'm just talking about scholars, historians, people like Andrew Roberts, for example, a good friend of mine. Brilliant guy. I have an office right next to Stephen Kotkin, the Russian historian, Stalin historian. And every time I go in there, we talk. I really respect that. And Frank Dakota, the Chinese. I'm really lucky at Hoover. But somehow we have. As your point is, we have these people that are oblivious to all that, that there are people in the conservative movement that are very, very astute historians. And they've written. They have a whole life that has nothing to do with conservative politics. And yet you could draw on these people. People. But to go out there and then just to start screaming and yelling that there was no moon landing or that the French president's married to a man, or all of this stuff, and that becomes the veneer of the conservative movement. When you have all of these other people who could give background. I'll give you one example. Tucker said it. Israel was an insect. Michael Duran, I know you know him, Jack. He was a student of Bernard Lewis. He's a Catholic boy from the not boy. Now. He's a very sophisticated guy, but he speaks. He's a Middle Eastern student. He was a professor for a while at Princeton. I have him come out to the military. The guy is absolutely brilliant. And he gave a very sophisticated scholarly analysis. Why everything that Tucker said about Israel was wrong. And it just came out. And you need people like that to do that, to give historical background in the conservative movement and try to tell people that conservatism is a preservation of tradition and values inherited across generations. It's not a blanket, automatic. Western civilization is wonderful. No fault. No. It's a very carefully studied appreciation for what people do. They're not gods, they're just people. But they created a unique. You can read it in Homer, you can read it in Virgil, Thucydides, Tacitus in the medieval period, Dante, Petrarch, there's nothing like it. And it just seems to me that we are the inheritors and the guardians of free speech, open markets, rationalism, the equality of the sexes, all of these things that were unique to the West. And the reason that we're not defending those, we don't have people that have that knowledge, we don't. I don't see people who are spouting this and that, they're getting clicks, I'm not going to name names, but they don't give an in depth analysis of what's going on. And you don't need a degree to do it. You can be, you know, you can read, you can read. I was just reading Conrad Black's latest installment. You know, he was a journalist, but my gosh, when these huge biographies Conrad wrote, whether you agree with them or not, or FDR or, gosh, this history of the world, it's amazing his powers of intellect. And so there are people around us in the conservative movement that are unique and they're not found to the same degree in the left, which has kind of destroyed academia and scholarship through ideology. But I hope that they speak out more.

C (60:36)

Hey Victor, I've got these shifting schedules we have. I have to read one more spot and I will in a second. And after we do that, maybe we can close out with a short take on a former president who seems to like hot tubs. But first to our listeners, if you wanna drop extra pounds, boost energy levels or reduce swelling in your legs and feet, then this message is for you. Pure Health Research is on a mission to make America healthy again. And two of their best selling health supplement are leading the way. First is Liver health formula. Over 100 million Americans have a sluggish liver riddled with fatty deposits. This can kill your metabolism, pile on the pounds and make you feel tired. Liver Health Formula takes care of that. It supports thriving liver health with special nutrients like artichoke extract and milk thistle. This is one of the easiest ways to slim down and revitalize your energy levels. The next is lymph system support. If you struggle with fluid buildup or swelling in your legs, ankles or feet, this is for you. The natural ingredients in lymph system support help gently flush extra fluids and toxins out of the body. And right now, for a limited time fair listeners and viewers, you can get 35% off liver health Formula and lymph system support along with all 50 plus health supplements pure Health Research has to offer. So head over to PureHealthResearch.com and use the code the Coupon code Victor V I C T O R at checkout. That's purehealthresearch.com with the coupon code Victor. And you'll save 35% off your order today. And we thank the good people from Pure Health Research for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, let's round out today's episode with your thoughts. These are Epstein pictures that have come out. I can't keep track of everything, but boy, oh boy, the front page of the New York Post is Bill Clinton in a hot tub with some, I assume, a young woman with her face, you know, blacked out.

B (62:44)

But Jack, you and I, as almost all good conservatives said, and I know our listeners are saying, yep, Victor, that includes me, we said the following. Are you people insane on the left? Do you think that Joe Biden kept those Epstein files hidden and had his DOJ not release them because he was trying to protect Donald Trump? Do you really believe that? Do you think if there was one finger exposed of Donald Trump in a hot tub, it wouldn't have been leaked? And then when they did leak things, Donald Trump cut at the hole. The whole key, the whole thing is, did you cut him off before he was indicted or after? If you did before, you had bad judgment. If you did after, you're culpable, morally culpable. And Trump cut him off and they didn't release anything because they knew that there was nothing there to destroy Trump. And they had a lot of Larry Summers and Bill Gates and Bill Clinton. And so they kept hammering and hammering and hammering because they thought Trump was trying to protect themselves. I don't know why. Trump said, there's two theories about this, Jack. There's the fifth, the 20th dimension chess player Trump, who said, ah, I know what's in there, I know these guys, but I'm not going to swing. The noose to the head is completely in and the neck is tightened. And as soon as they keep the last minute whammo, I'm going to drop the, the floor and they're going to hang because it's all there. Or it was, hello, Donald Trump. I, I'm one of the biggest Republican donors. I give $5 million a year and I had this little problem. I, I was at the airport and Epstein saw me and he said, you want to go, you know, down to my, see my, I was looking for some property and I went down there and blow and behold, there's a bunch of naked girls. And I, I didn't do anything, but, you know, they might have me There. And this is going to. And it's that. That they wanted to protect notable, you know, donors or stuff. I don't know which it is. I think it's probably the former. But I just looked at that story for a nanosecond, and, you know, it was on the, the comments on some of these sites, they were arguing of Maxwell's in there swimming and the other woman, to what degree they could see the straps on the top is, if otherwise, I think that the unknown woman, there's a vague suspicion that she had, you know, a top on the bathing suit, but Maxwell didn't. And so they were trying to see if, you know, and Bill Clinton had his trunks on, but that's what we were do. That's what they're reduced to. And there's going to be more of it now. And I don't know why there's the. They're just crazy, what they do. They hate Trump so much that they, they blow themselves out.

C (65:46)

Oh, karma, as you say. Karma. Karma.

B (65:50)

Yeah. It's almost like they're suicide bombers. They just, they, they just want to blow everything, but they're. They just blow the. It's like a suicide bomber that doesn't get to the target, you know, and it's. And it's the same thing about January 6th. You know, it's insurrection and overthrow the government. And the more that everything leaks out. Oh, the bomber. They sat on the bomber. The identity of the bomber. Oh, he's African American. Oh, we didn't know that. Oh, five people didn't die. Policemen on January 6th, as we said. Oh, Ashley Babbitt was unarmed. Oh, Mr. Rosenberg, the Pulitzer Prize leftist journalist, said that he saw FBI people all over. Oh, oh, they didn't tell us, Christopher Wray. There was 220, 20 FBI informants and another 20 or 38. Oh, it just, it's, you know, if, you know, it's really. I'll just finish on this. I have this book that I hope I can just finish right before this procedure. But when you look at all of these incidents, Trump has some. I, I don't know, but he, he always said that this was rigged. This is rigged. This is it. And you look at the Fanny Willis thing now. She was completely humiliated in the little inquiry in Georgia the other day. She just started screaming. And then it comes out that there's what, 250,000 or more ballots in Georgia that were absentee, that the registrar did not authenticate with signatures, and they went into it. That would have made the difference in the election. Right there. And then when you read about January 6th and all the information that they didn't release, and it's kind of like the COVID lab. I wrote something, I think February of maybe March of 2020, and this person, Axios attacked me or something. But everybody knows now that that wasn't a conspiracy theory, that it came from the lab and that Collins and Fauci knew it and tried to cover it up because they were involved in funding it. And, and so all of these things are coming out now. And it's, you know, Donald Trump said it was a rigged collusion. Collusion Russia. And then you start to see that Brennan and Clapper and Comey met with Obama and they tried to rig the. And change the assessment. So it was collar. It doesn't look good for the left, and I hope they get it out.

C (68:24)

Well, I hope it doesn't look good to the voters next November. So we. Let us. Let us pray.

B (68:30)

Trump was kind of like a Cassandra figure from mythology. I mean, he was just screaming, yelling in the high, you know, like, Cassandra, don't bring that wooden horse inside the wall. I know that there's Greeks inside there. You're nuts. Apollo made you crazy. And it's kind of like this is a rigged election in Georgia. I really won. That Covid is the Chinese virus. Yeah.

C (68:56)

I wonder if he's more like the Randy Quaid character from Independence Day.

B (69:01)

Yes, exactly. But he has an instinctual ability to see what's going on.

C (69:09)

Well, I have four things to share as we end the show. And by the way, there are just so many hundreds of comments of people wishing you well and literally actively praying for you, Victor. But here are a few comments in general. One's from Elizabeth Mayo, who writes, I love Victor Davis Hansen. I don't know how he could be so calm telling us about these leftists. Then Chris Russell writes, wow, I feel so much smarter than I was 90 minutes ago. Thank you, VDH and Sammy, for sharing your insights and knowledge. The third one is from sitting here who writes, you're doing great work, Victor. The world needs you and others you teach. History is very important in all societies. Thank you for your continued dedication to the Constitution. And the last thing is not a comment. But something came up on X. And you have talked. We've talked recently. Mostly you run on the movie Heat, and we've mentioned the Thief. And a Mama believer wrote me, well, picking up on that, hey, have you seen a Sharkey's machine? And I'm like, gosh, I haven't seen that in 40 years or something. But I go, well, I don't know if you've seen it, Victor. Oh, my gosh, now I can't remember his name. He was in all those trucker movies and he was married to Dinah Shore. Oh, isn't this terrible? Burt Reynolds. Yes, thank you. Duh. Burt Reynolds. He's the star of it. He was Sharky. And it's these movies of the early 80s, not that heat was of the early 80s, but this genre of big cars and bullets and action, and it's well worth it. So I want to thank Mama Believer for suggesting it. So I went back, I watched it last night. Great movie from 1982, Sharkey's machine. So anyway, all that blathered. Oh, one more thing. Thank you, folks, for subscribing to Civil Thoughts, which is the free weekly email newsletter I write for the center for Civil Society. It comes out every Friday and has 14 recommended readings. Please do sign up@civilthoughts.com and do go to Victor's website, thebladeofpercious victorhansen.com and do subscribe $65 a year. And if you're on X, Victor's handle, isdhansen. If you're on Facebook, VDH's Morning cup, and check out the Victor Davis Hansen Fan Club, the great people there. Victor, I love you. You've been great. You've been terrific, and I hope to be able to record another couple of podcasts.

B (71:41)

I hope so, too. With you. There's going to be a period of hiatus, even if everything goes perfect on this procedure on the 30th, but it won't be long long. So I'll be back.

C (71:56)

You'll come out of the tunnel or the wormhole or whatever it is one comes out of. And I said to somebody, I was.

B (72:02)

Walking, a good friend of mine said, well, when is this? And I said, I'll see you on the other side. And I'm on the other side of the procedure. And yes, the other side. What are you saying? I said, well, the other side of the procedure, not the other side of eternity.

C (72:17)

Well, yes, you can see why he thought that way.

B (72:21)

I'm very fortunate, though. I cannot tell you how many people at Stanford Medical School, once I got in, that was my fault. I wasn't plugged into it. I had gone to. But once I got plugged into it, everybody's been wonderful, and I'm very confident in them. To me, they're deities. I mean, they're really amazing people. And I know they're going to take very good care of me.

C (72:47)

Well, they're going to be operating on an amazing person. So anyway, Victor, you've been terrific. Thank you for all the wisdom you shared. Thanks folks, for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hanson in His Own Words at the Daily Signal. Bye Bye.

B (73:01)

Thank you everybody for watching and listening. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.