Victor Davis Hanson: Jean-Pierre’s Lies and the Colombia President’s ‘King’ Confusion

Summary

Podcast Summary: Victor Davis Hanson: Jean-Pierre’s Lies and the Colombia President’s ‘King’ Confusion

Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson (with Sammy Wink)
Date: October 25, 2025
Platform: The Daily Signal

Episode Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson provides incisive commentary on recent political and cultural events, focusing particularly on U.S.-Colombia relations, the legacy of identity politics as embodied by Karine Jean-Pierre, and the current trajectory of the classics discipline in academia. He supplements this with reflections on international politics (Sarkozy, France), illegal immigration, current partisan divides, and the historical roots and survival of the classics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Trump, Colombia, and President Gustavo Petro

[04:52–10:02]

• Colombia as a Drug Exporting Nation:

  • Hanson criticizes Colombia’s long-standing reputation as a drug-exporting country and supports Trump’s aggressive stance on blowing up drug boats heading toward North America.
  • He finds Colombia’s president’s (Gustavo Petro) objections incoherent since he hasn’t denied these are drug boats.

• Diplomatic Hypocrisy:

  • Victor questions why a foreign diplomat like Petro participates in U.S. protest movements under diplomatic immunity, stating Americans would be treated harshly in similar situations abroad.
  • He links this to a double standard in Latin American governments.

• Petro’s Past and Leftist Alliances:

  • Points out that President Petro was a member of the M19 terrorist group—“He was a rebel. He was, he was a revolutionary. They would call him a terrorist.” — Hanson [08:03]
  • Connects Petro to other leftist leaders in Latin America, such as Maduro, Morales, and AMLO.

• ‘King’ Rhetoric and Hypocrisy:

  • Hanson mocks Petro’s claim that Trump acts like a king:
    “You really do think that Donald Trump came to power and retained power without a free election. And right across the border you have somebody who canceled our election by all consensus... Why don’t you direct your animus toward him if you’re worried about kings?” — Hanson [08:40]

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2. Karine Jean-Pierre’s Book Tour & Identity Politics

[10:02–19:12]

• Book Tour Narrative:

  • Jean-Pierre claims betrayal by the Democratic Party, describing their ouster of Biden as a “firing squad.” She asserts loyalty to Biden yet is critical of her own party.
  • Hanson argues that Jean-Pierre lost favor with Democratic elites because she was involved in covering up Biden’s cognitive decline, which “cost them power” and post-administration perks.

• Media and Corporate Pipeline:

  • The expectation that political aides receive lucrative jobs after leaving administration is dissected. Jean-Pierre didn’t secure a high-profile post-election landing pad, fueling her attacks, Hanson contends.
    “She has no constituency... she didn’t get a job, she didn’t get an editorship... she’s angry at the Democratic Party and they’re angry at her.” — Hanson [15:35]

• Critiques on Identity Emphasis:

  • Victor expresses frustration at Jean-Pierre’s repeated emphasis on her identity:
    “Every time I’ve seen her... she says she’s a black LGBTQ plus woman. I can tell that — I don’t need to have it drilled into my head... just be Karine Jean-Pierre. Be a unique individual, but don’t hit us over the head with that race, race, gender, gender stuff.” — Hanson [16:18]
  • Shares a story from teaching days about the pitfalls of constant self-identification and how it increases social division.

• Cultural Appropriation Double Standards:

  • Humorous anecdote on people appropriating Scandinavian “Viking” identity, challenging the idea of exclusive ownership of cultural symbols.

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3. George Santos, Presidential Pardons, and Legal Consistency

[23:43–28:10]

• George Santos’s Commutation:

  • Discusses George Santos’s commuted sentence for wire fraud and identity theft.
  • Hanson is skeptical about the justification for commutation:
    “If he was sentenced and you think the sentence was long, didn’t just knock off two years or something?” — Hanson [25:30]

• Pardon Politics Comparison:

  • Hanson compares Trump’s, Obama’s, and Biden’s use of presidential pardons, noting Trump’s 1,700 pardons (mostly nonviolent January 6 offenders) vs. 1,900 for Obama (over eight years) and 4,000+ for Biden (in four years).
  • Raises issue of selective prosecution and the politicization of legal systems.

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4. Border Security, Hamas, and International Threats

[28:10–30:34]

• Security Failures:

  • Notes a terrorist from the October 7th attack found in Louisiana. Hanson critiques lack of proper background checks and open borders.
  • Observes U.S. lack of border enforcement mirrored by similar Russian and Chinese efforts to destabilize Western societies through migration.

• Disguised Militancy:

  • Points out how Hamas militants blend into crowds and don’t wear uniforms when confronting the IDF, further complicating security and attribution.

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5. Australia, Rare Earth Minerals, and Foreign Relations

[30:34–33:57]

• Rare Earth Supply Chains:

  • Discusses strategic efforts to regain rare earth mineral production shared between the U.S. and Australia, after decades of ceding the field to China.
  • Emphasizes the need to rebuild expertise and joint ventures as China leverages its dominance.

• Diplomatic "Slights" Against Trump:

  • Notes the trend of English-speaking allies (UK, Canada, Australia) openly insulting Trump, only to backtrack when he re-emerged as a major political force:
    “They thought that because he was beyond the pale and they never seen anybody like him again, especially when he left office, they could say whatever they wanted and they insulted him.” — Hanson [33:27]

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6. The State and Value of Classics Discipline

[35:21–54:00]

• What are the "Classics"?

  • Hanson explains the meaning, scope, and intellectual traditions of classics, emphasizing the study of Greek and Latin language, literature, art, architecture, and their centrality to Western culture.
  • Recounts stringent academic requirements for classicists, such as reading canonical texts in original languages and engaging in archaeology, epigraphy, and art analysis.

• Decline and Self-Destruction of the Discipline:

  • Critiques modern academic trends emphasizing identity politics and decolonization, rather than scholarly excellence or universal values.
  • Shares the story of an academic at Princeton who claims classics is inherently racist and aims to "decolonize" the field.

• Preservation and Loss:

  • Fascinating discussion on how only a small percentage (~5%) of classical texts survived due to the copying process, resource limits, and historical accidents.
    “It is true that... with limited resources, often the most popular texts were copied... but by that time, most had been lost.” — Hanson [49:15]

• Greek & Roman Civilizational Advantages:

  • Explores reasons for the ascendancy of Greece and Rome, including climate, geography, Mediterranean trade, mixed crops, and a break from tribalism in favor of consensual government.
    “If you have an open society and you have no borders and you think that’s your strength, well, your enemies think, okay, well this is a way we’re going to destroy you.” — Hanson [67:50]

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7. Lawfare in France and Election Law

[65:00–66:49]

• Sarkozy Jailed for Campaign Finance:
  • Covers the jailing of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy for alleged campaign violations, which appear politically motivated due to lack of concrete evidence.
  • Notes the French (and increasingly American) tendency to criminalize former leaders once out of power:
    “They make sure that once they lose power, they’re in trouble and hope we don’t get that way. But the lawfare started on the left and they seem intent to turn his end to that.” — Hanson [66:19]

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8. Illegal Immigration, Russian & Chinese Influence Operations

[67:50–71:18]

• Migration as a Destabilizing Weapon:

  • Russia and China are alleged to encourage illegal immigration (through the Balkans in Europe, and into the U.S.) to weaken and destabilize Western societies.
  • Hanson critiques “oikophobia” (hatred of one’s own country) and the self-defeating nature of Western openness if not paired with a sense of unity.

• "Diversity Is Our Strength" Critique:

  • Argues historically, unity—not diversity for its own sake—has been the strength of successful societies.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Identity Politics Satire:
  “Every time I’ve seen her... she says she’s a black LGBTQ plus woman. I can tell that — I don’t need to have it drilled into my head...” — Hanson [16:18]

• On Petro's Hypocrisy:
  “Don’t lecture us... that we have a monarch who was elected twice... when you have a monstrous dictator right next door to you and you can’t say a word of criticism against him.” — Hanson [09:22]

• On Self-Identification:
  “Just be Corinne Jean-Pierre. Be a unique individual, but don’t hit us over the head with that race, race, gender, gender stuff.” — Hanson [16:18]

• On the Modern Decline of Classics:
  “They wanted to say this is the font of all evil in the West. This is racism, sexism, etc.... If you kept doing that, the field would implode.” — Hanson [45:30]

• On the Dangers of Self-Loathing Societies:
  “They understand our great strength in the West is free thought... but they also understand our great weakness—we’re hypercritical of ourselves...” — Hanson [68:32]

• On Civilizational Survival:
  “I can’t think of any society in history that said diversity was their strength. They said that we can overcome diversity with unity.” — Hanson [70:37]

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

• Colombia, Trump, and Petro: [04:52–10:02]
• Karine Jean-Pierre’s Book Tour: [10:02–19:12]
• George Santos and Pardons: [23:43–28:10]
• Terrorism & Security Failures: [28:10–30:34]
• Rare Earth Minerals and Diplomacy: [30:34–33:57]
• Classics Discipline in Crisis: [35:21–54:00]
• Preservation of Classical Texts: [49:01–54:00]
• French Lawfare – Sarkozy: [65:00–66:49]
• Immigration as Geopolitical Weapon: [67:50–71:18]

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Tone and Closing Thoughts

Victor Davis Hanson is characteristically incisive, skeptical of political narratives, and keen to anchor contemporary debates in historical context and universal values. The tone is both scholarly and conversational, mixing anecdotes, classical references, and clear policy commentary.

The episode offers broad-ranging, in-depth analyses useful for anyone seeking perspective on current events, identity politics, academia’s culture wars, and the enduring relevance of the Western tradition.

Transcript

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think he was a member of the M19 terrorist group in Colombia.

[Sammy Wink]

The Colombia president was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, he was a rebel. He was. Every time I've seen her, which is three or four times streaming or on the news, she says she's a black LGBTQ woman.

[Sammy Wink]

I am a black gay immigrant woman, the first of all three of those to hold this position.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I can tell that I don't need to have it drilled into my head, you know what I mean? Just be Corrine Jean Pierre, be a unique individual. I think the idea was that we always played by the Marquis of Queensbury rule. But Trump they really hated. But they thought that because he was beyond the pale and they'd never seen anybody like him again, especially when he left office, they could say whatever they wanted and they insulted him. They never in their right mind thought that this guy was going to come back and be the head of NATO and have tariffs. And then they all trotted in and said, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it. Foreign.

[Sammy Wink]

Hello and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. We're on a new platform with the Daily Signal and we're very happy to have transferred to the Daily Signal. I think everything's going really well. Victor, I hope you're enjoying the new.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I am. I have. I had a lot of. I was at the Hoover Institution this week. A lot of people kind of got angry at me. They said, victor, did you quit your podcast? I said, no, no. It was called the Victor Davis Hansen show. But we wanted to. I'm doing five minute videos for the Daily Signal. We want to unify that platform and we thought for our two with you, a week and two with Jack, we would consolidate it all on the Daily Signal. So we left just the news platform, but under the term, the conditions of our departure, the name had to remain. So we had to have a new name and they came up with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. The problem was is that the so called keys or the referent points where you get on the show was all in the name of the Victor Davis Hanson shows at Apple. So what that means to everybody, if you go on these accustomed platforms, you want to make sure to go to the Victor Davis Hansen in His own Word show. That's the new stuff. You can find it most conveniently at the Daily Signal for quick links or just go to our website@Victor Hansen.com and we have all of them there. YouTube, Rumble, Apple. But anything you see with a Victor Davis Hansen is inert, ossified, calcified and it's just old stuff. Two or three hundred of them. You know, they're good, but we don't have any connection with them anymore. They belong to the old site.

[Sammy Wink]

No, there's nothing up to date. These are the latest.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, they're not up to date. So the stuff we really want you to, we want you all back and we want to grow this community. And I think with the Daily Signal, they're all young kids. I shouldn't say that kids. They're all young, enthusiastic, idealistic people and they're really going to try to develop the Victor Davis Hansen, his Own Word show. So I'm really excited about it. I think we'll be getting a lot bigger reach than we did before, which was quite considerable.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah. Well, Victor, we're going to start with Donald Trump and his argument with the Columbia president and a little bit about Columbia University.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You mean the nation of Columbia?

[Sammy Wink]

The nation of Columbia. So of course it's attached to his blowing up of drug boats that have been driven, been in the international waters. I'm probably pretty sure that's where they're blowing them up. But. And then kjp, kjp, Karine Jean Pierre's book tour, which is not turning out so well, and George Santos. So stay with us and we'll be right back.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Right is still right, even if you stand by yourself. Mr. Chief Justice May have placed the card. This is Hans von Spakowski, host of the Case in Point podcast, which looks at the hottest cases affecting politics, culture and everyone's daily lives. But we talk about them without confusing legal jargon. And we have interesting guests like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And we end with reviews of classic Hollywood movies relevant to the topic. Case in Point, the podcast available everywhere you won't want to miss.

[Sammy Wink]

Welcome back. Victor is still the Martin and Ellie Anderson Senior Fellow in Military History and Classics at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marshabowsky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. You can find him at his website, victorhanson.com and the name of the website is the Blade of Perseus. And we would love everybody to come join us here. There's lots of material, articles, podcasts and even links to his books as well. So Victor Trump and the Colombia president. And Trump, as we all know, has been blowing up drug boats in the Caribbean or in international waters. Anyway, and the Columbia president has entered into this and he has said that he wants to, quote, get rid of Trump after he has blown up these drug running boats. And Trump has announced that he will slash subsidies to Colombia and also raise tariffs. So there's a little.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I don't know why he going on. Colombia has been known for eons as a drug exporting country and it supposedly was stopped. But I don't think anybody has made the argument that the boats headed toward North America in international waters exiting Latin America or South America were not drug connected. All he has to do is say why are you blowing up innocent civilians? But he hasn't made that argument. So if he hasn't made that argument, the assumption is, well, it's okay if we send dangerous drugs to your country and it's none of your business for you to stop the passage of them. And we say it is our business, we're sick of it. You've done it for years, all of these countries. The other thing is he was in when he was at the un That's a problem we have. He was not only at the EU and he was participating in the protest riots or demonstrations. So why would a diplomat come and enjoy diplomatic immunity and the benevolence of the United States while he's going to speak or participate at the United nations then go join a left wing anti government? Where do you think, you think if an American diplomat went down to Colombia or Venezuela and they joined into. I don't think they would be very well treated. So I think he's really angry that the Trump administration is the first that says we're going to treat you like you treat us and if you try to send drugs, you being Latin American, then we're going to stop them and blow them up. And he, he, he has a checkered, he's part of the Evo Morales, Chavez, Maduro Obrego Garcia from Mexico. Not Albergo Garcia Abador but also Abuego Garcia is representative. But these left wing governments that have been predominant, the Maduro government, he was in his young days, I think he was a member. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I'm doing this by memory. I think he was a member of the M19 terrorist group in Colombia.

[Sammy Wink]

The Columbia president.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, he was a rebel. He was, he was a revolutionary. He would call himself a rebel revolutionary. They would call him a terrorist. But he was on the lamb in hiding.

[Sammy Wink]

He has strange rhetoric for given that he says Trump is not a, is not a king in Colombia we don't accept kings. Here we accept worse but not kings.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

If he's really worried about kings, he should look across the border and say we don't accept kings like Maduro. Let me Ask you, President, is it Orego?

[Sammy Wink]

It is Gustavo Petro.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Oh, Petro. I thought part of his name was Orego. No. Anyway, President Petro. That's Greek. Petra Rock. President Rock. Let me ask you a question. You don't like autocrats. You really do think that Donald Trump came to power and retained power without a free election. And right across the border you have somebody who canceled our election by all consensus lost the last Venezuelan election. Why don't you direct your animus toward him if you're worried about Kings? Is it because he has a lot of support among left wing people in Latin America and you're afraid and you're not a man of principle, but don't lecture us in North America that we have a monarch who was elected twice and is subject to judicial review and hordes of stays and postponements of executive orders as they wind their way through a left wing liberal court on their way to the Supreme Court. When you have a monstrous dictator right next door to you and you can't say a word of criticism against him, so don't pose as some kind of national liberationist brave leader. You're not. You're just one of the whole line of caudillos in Latin America.

[Sammy Wink]

All right, Victor, so let's go ahead and turn to Karine Jean Pierre's book tour. She said some very surprising things and there's lots of joking out there about her. But I think the biggest thing she, that was interesting about her time in the Biden White House, where on the right we usually consider most of the stuff she came out and said was a lie. And she never let anybody in on Joe Biden's cognitive condition. But she said I, she was shocked at the firing squad that was used to get Biden out. She used the term firing squad and she said she had never seen a, a party do that in the way that they did.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So she, I'm not, I am a cynic. But what is the subtext of this strange position she's taking? She's out campaigning for her book and she's criticizing, of course, conservatives and she's defending to the end Joe Biden. And she's attacking the Democratic Party because the she feels they unfairly pushed out a completely hail sane, cognizant president. Okay, why is she doing this? That's not the reason she's doing this is she's very angry because when she looks back at prior Democratic administrations, I. E. The Obama administration, and you look what happened to all the Obama people, if you were an EPA or You were there and you wanted to. Usually they got out a year before they had no power. So what they did is they called up Google or Apple or Facebook or the old Twitter and they said, you know, Netflix. They had somebody come out, hey, I'm the assistant to the president. Hey, I'm the cabinet secretary. Oh, I'm the head of epa. And you had a. And then they hired you. And that was the payoff because you gave some kind of program or you know what I mean? It was quid pro quo. Hand washes hand. And so she is in this unique position that those people, I. E. The big money interest, the people who hire functionaries when they're done are angry that they lost power. They. They invested, they gave all this money to the left and then they lost the election, the House and the Senate, and they feel they lost it because Joe Biden should have never run for reelection and he hid how bad he was for. From them. It's kind of hard to believe, but that's what they believe. And then it was exposed and became untenable. The rus after the first debate and that she, more than anybody, more than Jill, more than Hunter, was with him and should have, as the official spokesman, called up and said, hey, this is John, Karen, Jean Pierre. I want to just tell you that I don't. Don't tell Joe, but he doesn't know where he is. What am I supposed to do? That's what they wanted. Well, it's not her role to play that. It's to defend him to the end. But they're angry at her because she was part of the Biden cover up that led to their loss of quid pro quo influence. Their attitude in the Democratic donor party that hires functionaries when they're done and out of office is, I gave a million bucks. And before I hire one of your flunkies at my company, I want to see where I get some leverage. So if I call up and say, I want to buy this company, I don't want any antitrust stuff, but I don't have any power now. The money was sent down the drain and it was sent down because, Corinne, you were part of the COVID up. So I'm angry. So when she got out of office, she didn't say, I'm Jen Psaki, I want a big billet at a network or I want to this. No podcast. You know, there's nothing. Nobody stepped up to hire her. She doesn't have any big landing pad. And she's angry that the Democratic Party didn't Rally around her like they do everybody else. So now she's doing two things. She's saying, oh, they were so mean to Joe Biden. That's the only person she's got left is Joe Biden. To say she was a loyal Democrat, but it's incoherent. How can you say I'm leaving the Democratic Party because I was too loyal to Democrats? It doesn't make any sense. So she's trying to stay with the Biden and be a woman of principle. But there it wasn't principled. It was dishonest. She misled the American people. So she has no constituency. She didn't get a job, she didn't get an editorship. She didn't get a hand, a podcast to her. She, they didn't give her an MSNBC CNN, you know, contributing editorship for 500,000 a year or whatever they pay. They didn't get any of that. And she's really angry at the Democratic Party and they're angry at her. So that's, that's where she is. And that book tour is sort of like Kamala Harris's book tour. Your attitude when they get on there, they said, you know, we put up with you and we had to, but we don't have to put up with you anymore. And we don't, we don't like your line and we didn't like your attitude. This is Democrats. And the same thing with Camilla. We went out and gave you money. We voted for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you were a loser and you lost us power. That's how they're an unforgiving influence. The, the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, you know, is unforgiving. It's not like Republicans will they say, well, Bob Dole, you ran a pretty good candidate and hey, John McCain, you did okay and Mitt Romney and well, we played by the Marcus of Queen Berry rules. And we would rather, I don't know, lose nobly than win ugly or oh my God, did you see what Donald Trump did? He called him a flunky. He said this. Not in my name, he doesn't. I would rather lose like we did with Romney and McCain and Dole and everybody else than win that way. That's the Republican attitude. But the Democrats is you do anything to win and you lost. So bye bye. Wouldn't want to be you.

[Sammy Wink]

Yes, well, you do have to give her credit for recognizing she has no constituency in turning to an independent.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It. I do. I don't like the people for any reason that self identify. She's Every time I've seen her, which is three or four times, streaming or on the news, she says she's a black LGBTQ plus woman. I. I can tell that I don't need to have it drilled into my head. Or she's complaining that LGBTQ black women are not amply represented. And I don't know. You know what I mean? Just be Corinne Jean Pierre. Be a unique individual, but don't hit us over the head with that race, race, gender, gender stuff. It would be. You know, I think I mentioned this once. I had this student, and every time she said anything in my Western, I would be reading the Odyssey, Hesiod's works in days, Aeschylus, Prometheus. As a Latina. As a Latina, I just don't. I don't. I don't know why I'm here. Please leave. Well, as a Latina, I can tell you that our family values, you know, or as a Latina, that Latina. And I said, please stop that. Don't self identify. If you do, I'm going to do it. So she did it again. I said, as a white male of Scandinavian background, I don't have much in common with you either. And then she said something like, well, you're the professor. You can't do that. You're supposed to. Like you're above it all. I said, no, actually, I'm just a farmer from Selma that masquerades as a PhD. But my point is, we had a really brilliant Latino dean. He was from Spain, Luis Costa. I liked him. I loved that guy. He was no one. And she went and complained, and he calls me up and said, vic, Victor, what did you do? What did you do? Tell me what you've done. You said you were a white male in class. Why would you do such a stupid thing? And I said, because she kept on. You're like a little kid in a sandbox. She throws sand in your eyes and you're throwing sand back. You're a professor. Then I said, what am I supposed to do, kick you out of the. And then after about five minutes, I said, just leave me alone, Louise. And he said, I'm leaving you alone, Victor. No problem. But I had to do this. And so he was a wonderful guy, but nobody should self identify constantly. That's what Corinne Jean Pierre does.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, it kind of just signals.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I would have said, wow, you know, I didn't know you were black. I might not have known she was gay if she hadn't told me a thousand times. I think she said she was the first black female gay press secretary. It's getting so. We've been so represented by so many diverse groups that they're going to have to go to the fifth or sixth degree now. You know what I mean? I'm the first black female gay. What else? I don't know. Trans.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah. It's gonna have to continue.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Continue.

[Sammy Wink]

I have to say her new hairdo is not as nice as her old one. Her old hairdresser with the curly, curly cue look. I felt smarter about how she would look.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I felt culturally appropriated as a Scandinavian and saw she has dyed blonde hair. And I was told that each culture should not call. I know that when Bo Derek wore dreadlocks, remember that? People said that she's African Americans got very angry and said, do not appropriate our Caribbean legacies or whatever it was. And so, you know, I. I think I told you the other thing. The Kingsburg Vikings were Swedish community. My great grandfather was one of the founders of the community. There is a. His. His farm is that park in Kingsburg. I was at a game 30 years ago watching my son, actually. It was about 25 play. And I walked in. I didn't want to go over the Selma side because it was actually more fans than the Kingsburg at that point. It was a basketball game. So I sat down and Hispanic woman had a sweatshirt that said Vikings. And she had blonde hair dyed, which is fine. I thought it was good. And she goes, I don't know you. Are you a Viking? I said, yes. She goes, no, you're not. You get over there with the bears. Selma Bears. And I said, well, I'm Swedish and my. I don't care. We're Vikings. She said, we're Vikings. I said, okay. I said, you mean in spirit or name? But I thought I felt so culturally appropriate. I was robbed of my cultural identity. I was. And she had the. She'd taken the word Vikings. She'd taken the blonde hair. She'd taken my whole identity. If I had worn a sombrero and I had, you know, had a mustache and dyed it black, I would. That would have been terrible. But culturally robbed.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Did I care? No. I thought she looked pretty good. She was actually very nice.

[Sammy Wink]

Well, Victor, before we move on to another person in the news today, George Santos, I have a new sponsor to our show for the Hoover Institution, which you're well, well acquainted with. If you listen to Victor Davis Hansen in his own words, you care about where America's been, where we are now, and where we're headed. That's exactly what Freedom Frequency is all about. It's a new online publication from the Hoover Institution, where Victor is a senior fellow. It is designed to cut through the noise and bring clarity to the issues that shape our country's future. Each week, Freedom Frequency delivers serious, accessible analysis grounded in research and guided by American values of liberty, democracy, freedom, free enterprise and the rule of law. You'll hear from some of Hoover's most respected thinkers, like Condoleezza Rice, General Jim Mattis, General H.R. mcNap, Master Economist John Cochran, and of course, Victor Davis Hansen himself, providing clear thinking and principled solutions for a complex world. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our nation, there's no better time to dig deeper into the ideas that built America and will determine its future. Subscribe now to Freedom Frequency on on substack. That's the freedomfrequency.org that's the whole URL. The freedomfrequency.org and join the conversation. That's light lighting the way forward.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We have a lot of new initiatives at Hoover. It's really kind of a dynamic time. Representing the Hoover mission statement. Small government, limited government, free markets, free enterprise, individual liberty. And you know, I was walking in last week and, or I was out walking in maybe two weeks ago, and in succession, I saw my friend Scott Atlas. I turned the corner, there was Neil Ferguson. I said hello. I had a meeting with HR McMaster and I saw walking by, I talked to John Cochran, the economist. And they were all, I mean, it's, they're all great colleagues. They're all, they reflect the mission statement while these guys do. And women, too.

[Sammy Wink]

Excellent. So Victor George Santos, as we all know, his sentence was commuted. So I was kind of curious of what he was accused of because I looked at his various crimes. Yeah, he was. Is that is one of them. Indicted for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and false statements to the Federal Election Commission. So those were what he actually. But his string of crimes was a little bit longer than that. I'm not going to say he was ever arrested.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think Trump is saying that he was using the Latita James defense, that if he hadn't have been a controversial conservative vote in his first term, that they wouldn't have spotted him like that.

[Sammy Wink]

I read someone who was arguing that seven years was just too long. I believe that's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I think Trump was saying that if he had not been a prominent conservative, he wouldn't have been targeted and the sentence was too long. Take a deep breath. That said I might have not commuted him If I had been president, because I mean some of the crimes were apolitical like identity theft.

[Sammy Wink]

And he wrote checks on somebody else's checkbook and impersonated them.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I've had that, you know, I've had that happen to me where I wrote a check once and the person at a little rural market out here, he, he took my check, you know, and he xeroxed it and he changed and put his dates on it and then he printed a bunch of them and wrote all these. That's a horrible thing to do. So why would he be. They shouldn't have been. I have no animus against him, but he was convicted, he's a criminal and he should serve his sin.

[Sammy Wink]

I don't know that he was tried for that particular.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think he was convicted of identity theft. I'm not sure. But if he, if he was sentenced and you think the sentence was long, didn't just knock off two years or something.

[Sammy Wink]

He claims that he is a changed man, I think, and he found God and I don't know that I believe him. He lied so much about everything else.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But you know, another thing is I got some letters from angry readers. I haven't, they didn't qualify quite for the angry reader column and because they weren't that angry, but they said, well, why don't you criticize Donald Trump for pardoning? Well, Donald Trump has been president for almost five years, let's say four and three quarters years. He, I think has pardoned 1700 people. 1500 were the people on January 6th. The vast majority of them were non violent. And compared to the five months of writing, looting, political demonstrating in 2020 where they arrested 14,000 and almost all of them were de facto pardoned by either not being indicted or, or having the job, the, the tr. The charges dismissed or having them found innocent by a judge or having the judge give a suspended sentence, you know what I mean? Very few of them. So I could see that. So there were about 200. And that eight year period of Joe Barack Obama, I think he did about 1900. 1900. In the four year period of Joe Biden he did over 4,000 pardons. And unlike Obama's and Trump, I have, I am certain he knew, he, he didn't even sign them. I, maybe Trump and Obama did some auto pins, but they had a general idea of a list and they asked questions. I don't think he even had any idea who they were. So, and he, Trump, when he left office was headed for indictment territory. They, they promised to go after he did not pardon himself. He didn't pardon his kids. He didn't pardon anybody. In fact, when Letita James got done with him, the whole Trump family was going to be barred from doing business in New York and they were going to owe 500 with interest, $500 million. Biden did just the opposite. He, he said he was never going to pardon his family or son. And he, he did just that.

[Sammy Wink]

Well, Victor, before we go to break, there's just a, probably a short thing. They found one of the terrorists from October 7th in Louisiana. How did that person manage to get into our country? And you know, I'm glad that we found him, I hope, and he's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Because we don't really take background checks, I'm sure I don't know. But I mean, how did we get 500,000 convicted criminals here? How do we. Almost every single day we see these ICE protests and then quietly, almost no coverage. Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, they're all child molestation, rape, murder, horrendous crimes. So I'm sure that he just walked into the United States and nobody even probably flew to Mexico City and walked across the border or he went over to Jordan and said he had nothing to do. If anybody even asked him. I doubt they even asked him. The other thing is to remember that we say October 7th, Hamas. No, it wasn't Hamas. There was a whole horde of people from Gaza who followed when the word went out that they had knocked down the fence, they were shooting and raping and assaulting Jews. It was tag along. There were hundreds of people who went in and looted and committed violence and killed that were civilians. They weren't merit. They weren't, I shouldn't even say Hamas military. One thing weird thing about the Hamas military is have you noticed they only wear uniforms when they're in peace and when they go kill people. They don't. When they fight the idf, they don't wear uniforms a lot.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, yeah. And they didn't have any. I didn't notice uniforms on October.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, some of them had pants on or they had military gear. But it's not like they had those camouflage press things that they strut around and do and they're goose stepping. In other words, they're really big, tough uniform soldiers when they're killing Jews and police civilians. But when they want to go up against an idf, they don't seem. They wear civilian clothes and then they blend in with a crowd and they're.

[Sammy Wink]

Terrorists and they are afraid. Huh. Last thing before the break is that the Australian prime minister has shown up at the White House. And Trump, I think, is particularly interested in rare earth minerals from they have.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

A lot of rare earth minerals. Everybody should remember that. We had this conversation in the early 80s. We were completely into, you know, there wasn't that much demand, but we were the world's monopoly on them. We had this huge mine in California. We had invented all of the technology and China came along and they said someday lithium and all of these other precious rare earth are going to be valuable and we'll just produce them at a loss and take away. And so finally these rare earth minerals were so accessible from China and so cheap and we had people to go over there. We, our people went over to China and they built the factories. They gave them the technology, they gave them the expertise, they trained them and then they sent it back here to cheap and destroyed our market. We closed down our mine. Fast forward 40 years later, everybody forgot how to do it. Now they're leveraging us and we have a lot and so does Australia. And the idea is that we can quickly regain the expertise we gave away, which is always evolving. And we have the university science research structure. And so it was a good idea that we give them the capital. Our guys go over, work with their guys, the Australians. We build a joint consortium and we use these minerals that are all over Australia and then we have them by extension here in I think Montana, Wyoming, California. But it was kind of awkward because the foreign minister of Australia, the former prime minister, they usually allow the former, I think, prime minister or somebody, they're usually former officials that become ambassadors. He was the one that called Trump a village idiot, didn't he? And they asked him about that Trump. They said, do you like the ambassador? He said no, he didn't like him because he called him a village idiot and worse. So same thing with the British ambassador they recalled. I don't know why all of our. Well, I do know why, but why are our English speaking friends in the commonwealth, Canada, Australia and Britain have said terrible things about the U.S. president. I think the idea was that we always played by the Marcus of Queensbury rules. We were polite and judicious and if they didn't like somebody, they didn't say anything. But Trump they really hated, but they thought that because he was beyond the pale and they never seen anybody like him again, especially when he left office, they could say whatever they wanted and they insulted him. They never in their right mind thought that this guy was going to come back and be the head of NATO and have tariffs and then they all trotted in and said, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it. It's sort of like I said. I think I said that to somebody in I don't know. And Euripides plays the Hippolytus. There's this infamous line in Greek tragedy that really sums up the sophistic movement, how awful it was in the eyes of even though Euripides was kind of a sophist, but they were saying Hypolisis, you swore you wouldn't say, you wouldn't tell. And he said, my, my tongue swore, not me. And that's quoted all over classical literature as a sign of intellectual moral bankruptcy.

[Sammy Wink]

That's hysterical. Well, Victor, let's go ahead and take a break and then come back. And you wanted to talk about the world of classics or the field of classics.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I just introduced that, didn't I?

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah. Yeah. So hold on a second. We'll take a break and come back. Stay with us. Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. I'm still trying to get used to the name of the show and you can find him on rumble and YouTube and those channels have not changed, but we have a new name for the show. So you who were going to rumble and YouTube earlier are still finding it there. And he's found on Spotify and that's where you'll have to do the name change. And also Apple podcasts.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

That's important because somebody wrote me last night and said, when are you going to do a new show? I'm just watching old ones. You're. You're just watching old ones because they they're called the Victor Davis Hansen show. And the people at Just the News may even have ads, but they are running them, but they're not up to date. The new ones can be found in the same location and can you can be directed there by our website or go to the Daily Signal or go to Victor Davis VictorHansen.com and ask and look for the Victor Davis Hansen in.

[Sammy Wink]

His own words and we'll get everybody there. So, Victor, you were going to talk about the field of classics, what it was and what it is. So why don't you go ahead and.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Take it from I once gave a talk to some congressional people in Washington and it was on a book I had written, Mexifornia, about illegal immigration. And I was introduced as a California classicist. And they had a person who worked for Nancy Pelosi. I think he was from California. He was either an intern or a staffer, Hispanic guy, and he Was really angry at me. So he came and hijacked the. He disrupted the whole lecture. And he said, you're a racist. And I said, why? He yelled out. He said he's even admits he's a classicist. I said, he believes in class privilege because he says he's a classicist. And then somebody said, you idiot. And so he got angry. So he ran out. They had catered all this pizza. And as he came out, he stole four boxes of pizza that were delivered and he tried to go out the door. And there, unfortunately there was a representative interns that were like University of Alabama or somewhere football players, about 6, 5. And they tackled him and took away his pizza. And then I walked over politely and said classicis is from a Latin word, classis, for fleet or ship. That means a particular esteemed group. So people took that Latin word into English and said that these are esteemed bodies of literature, art that have survived across time and space, far beyond their birthplaces in Greece and Rome because of their intent, their global and timeless appeal to human nature. And so people study these things in a variety of avenues. But the center of a classics department, unless you're a radical and want to abolish the study of Greek and Latin, which apparently Princeton University has done to major in classics. But you take Greek and Latin and that allows you to read the seminal works of the ancient world. Ancient world defined by about 700 B.C. starting with Homer, the rise of the city state, going all the way into the late Roman period, probably the Boethius or Augustine. So you're talking about 1200 years of literature, art, architecture. We see the pictures of the White House. Where does the Doric style come from? Where do Ionic columns come from? Where does Shakespeare's Julius Caesar come from? So it's everywhere. Where do words like parody, comedy, skepticism, irony, cynicism, those are all either Greek or Roman words. So the idea is that our entire culture in the west was formed intellectually, artistically, politically. Politics is a good word from Paulus, civically, from kiwis and Latin, the citizen. And that then was dispersed throughout Europe and then throughout the world. And because this was a unifying or common denominator culture in every aspect, it persists and it should be cultivated. There's always things to do about there's. So it has sub discipline. Numismatics, the study of ancient coins, archaeology, excavating places in Italy and Greece, all over Europe, to find. Find evidence from the actual Greeks and Romans. Epigraphy, they wrote. They didn't have print like Gutenberg or They did have papyrus and could write. But public documents, while they might have been on paper and then, you know, pasted to stones, but they were often just carved into stone. And so that is the science of reading inscriptions. You can understand their dialect, grammar. At any particular later date, we have all of the documents of the Athenian Empire. Then there's classical art, the study of base painting. So if you go as an undergraduate, you study Latin and Greek, and then you're introduced to Virgil's Aeneid. You read in Latin, Homer's Odyssey in Greek, Sophocles, Oedipus in Greek, Xenophon's History in Greek. When you go to graduate school and get into a PhD program, until recently, then you were given the corpus. You would have to read all the plays of Aeschylus, all 7, all 7 of Sophocles, all 19 of Euripides, all 11 comedies of Aristophanes, both the Iliad and the Odyssey, all of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon and Polybius. You would have to read the lyrics poets, Sappho, Minermus, Alas, Archilicus. You would be responsible for reading the major orators, Lysias, especially the corpus of Demosthenes and philosophy, Plato, Aristotle. That would be the core training. Then you would have to learn how to write in Latin, Greek, not because you're going to write in Latin and Greek, but because the vocabulary, the active vocabulary of a language is three to five times larger than the passive. So what do I mean by that? It means if I'm reading Greek and I see lithos on the page, I can identify it as stone. But if somebody says, victor, what's the word for stone in Greek? And you think, oh, my gosh, is it lithos or petro? But the point is, once you write, you have to produce them actively, the vocabulary, so you get a bigger and bigger and bigger vocabulary at your fingertips. And once you have to write in Greek and Latin and understand how the syntax, grammar works, then when you see an author, you have a comparative basis. You understand why they're writing, what their word order is for, where they're going to emphasize things. It's not by accident. If you can write a Homeric hexameter, then you know how difficult it is, and you, you know. So that is all the literature. And then when you go to graduate school, you take 12 to 15 seminars in archeology. So you have to go excavate. You go to the Rome, Roman Academy at Rome, where you can go to the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, I did that. And you learn actually finding new evidence. You study vase pain. You can date a painting from 650 to 300. Is it red figure, Is it white figure? Is it black figure? And you can actually see evidence. So if you're studying hoplite warfare like I did, you say, well, what does Thucydides say? And you read in Greek about a battle just take to finish off the field of classics. Then if you want to tell a general audience, I wrote a book called the Western Way of War on hoplite warfare. Well, how do you know that? You go to all of literature. You run searches through computers now and you say to Hoplon and you find all the passages in all the literature. Then you read them in Greek and see the context. So that's evidence for say, the battle of Delium or the battle of Karenia. But maybe you want to see other evidence. What was the armor like? You find descriptions, but then you go to museum catalogs or archaeological publications and you can excavated helmets, spears, the weight, how they are. And then let's say, well, how did they fight? Well, then you can go to catalogs of Greek base painting or tomb painting and there. But you, each of those disciplines will have experts and teach you how to interpret it. And then you say, well, who, who were they fighting? Was Alexander the Great. You can look at coins and see how he was portrayed or what were the slogans that were used. And then, and that's just a historical topic. You might want to say that the text of you Euripides, you know, Bacchae, needs to have work. And you would study the manuscripts, the papyrus, the quotations and other all. And you would find a word or two that was wrongly inserted by a scribe or another scholar. And you would find a better emendation that would change the whole meaning of the play supposedly. Or you would find new scraps of papyrus, say at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, where it's a garbage pile. And somebody would find a laundry list or a shopping list on the backside of a page from Aristotle's Lost Comedy. In other words, people had a library. Nobody, some people, maybe a generation or two here, didn't read or didn't want it. They threw it away. Somebody found an old papyrus and they tore it in pieces and wrote business stuff on it. And then you look at the backside. That's classics today. But the problem is that it takes two to 3,000, I think about 2,000 hours to really learn Latin and Greek. And it's very hard to convince a young person with student debt. You should do that because they want, well, who speaks Greek or what. There's only 5,000 classicists in the United States. Less now, probably about 3,000. There's not many jobs, but it's a wonderful basis of a liberal education if you're going to go into law, medicine or just anything. I, I felt that it enriched me when I farmed for a number of years without. I wouldn't Recommend Getting a PhD than driving a tractor, but. But now the field's under assault.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

By young theorists. And over 26 years ago, John Heath and I, classicist, very gifted guy at the Santa Clara, wrote a book, who Killed Homer? And it was about the death of the discipline and people were killing it by being esoteric, too academic, but too theoretical. They wanted to, instead of enjoying classics and trying to learn about values and ethics, they were trying to say this is the font of all evil in the west. This is racism, sex. So they went back over text and cherry pick them. Well, we read. Did you know when you read the Odyssey that poor little Penelope was home dutiful and she was being cuckled by her husband who was sleeping around with Calypso and Cersei? Or did you know in that line in the Petronius where they make fun of African hair? Do you remember they made fun of gay. You know, this kind of stuff. And this is the. This has been terrible because this had a lasting legacy. So we suggested if you kept doing that, the field would implode. And I kind of as a asterisk or period of that. I just. In this issue of the New Criterion, there's a classicist at Princeton, Daniel Par, Dan L. Paratha Padilla. And he's written classics and other phobias about being an African American from the Caribbean who came as an illegal alien, was given all these lavish scholarships, private prep school. He was impoverished in the illegal alien. He went to Stanford undergrad, Princeton Undergraduate, Stanford Ph.D. program, the same that I was in. And then he went, he was hired at Princeton every imaginable fellowship. Well then suddenly at some point in his life, he said that this was all racist and they were using him as a proverbial pet. And he was supposed to perform as if he was a white classicist when this whole field was racist. And so now he's decolonizing his mind and he wrote the book about it and he wants to turn classics, he thinks into Caribbean classics. And he has the word white, black, whiteness, blackness, white, black, at least in aggregate, 170, 80 times in 175 pages. Every word is white. And it's all anger. It's anger who. At people who didn't help him. And it's anger more people that helped him because they were using him, he feels but that type of self destructive behavior. The field had some of the greatest. Heinrich Schliemann, the great banker who discovered Troy and Mycenae and proved they were real places. Or the architect and cryptographer Michael Ventress had worked at Benchley park In World War II in England he deciphered linear B and showed it was not an oriental language, so to speak, but it was Greek. And Millman Perry, the Yale classes that showed us that proved by going to Serbo Croatia and listening to oral bars at the. The Odyssey and the Iliad were probably performed orally. And what we have is the work of an oral, not a written poet. Things like that are very exciting.

[Sammy Wink]

Does it ever amaze you that so much of ancient Greek and Roman literature has survived through the ages?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

5%.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, but does it ever amaze? I mean I'm amazed that even that 5% has made it through.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I am too when you think about it. So I think eskos float about 198 plays. We have seven. Seven ripides wrote about 120. We have 19, partly because the word H, Hecuba, Helen, Hippolytus. We had a page of a manuscript that was arranged by letter alpha and we found some plays that would not have otherwise survived. We have almost all of Plato. We've lost, got about, I guess about half or maybe more about Aristotle. Most of the lyric poets are gone. We have some, some have surviving quotations, somebody quotes a long poem. We have all of. I think we have all of what Thucydides wrote. The Peloponnesian War ends in book eight in mid sentence. But I don't think he actually wrote. We have most of all of Xenophon, Herodotus. I think we have all of it. But there's hundreds of names of. I mean we of the old comic Paul. It's the only one we have is Aristophanes and he talks about Quetippus and all these great poets we don't know. And Menander, New Comedy we only have fragments of. We have the Deuce, Gloss, a few plays, but most of it is lost. But it is true that what was copied every two or three hundred years of papyrus would wear out. So it had to be copied and it had to make it into a. What we'd call a manuscript sheepskin Valium, vellum. I Guess. Excuse me. And so that meant that with limited resources, often the most popular texts were copied and then if it made it into a book form with pages that had a better chance and anything that got to about 1500 and Gutenberg and printing usually made it there, but by that time most had been lost. Will we find Matt there's things called palim sets where we find ancient books and they're used on. Either the original was washed off and can be recovered or, or we see things in Pompeii and Herculaneum that were papyrus, that were vulcanized, so to speak. They were burned and we thought we could never do them. And now the cat, certain type of scanners can undo them AI and read them. So we're finding some more. I think we. But you're never going to get more than 1 or 2 or 3%. Some of the stuff as Aristotle's comedy people would like to have. I don't know, I. I think there's a lot of the great loss was Greek tragedy. The majority of those plays are gone. People would like to have them. They would like to have some of the other comic poets of classical Athens. But it's a. It's a rarefied feel. In this book I reviewed for the New Criterion. You can. You can find it online. It's an attack on the Eurocentric privileging of classics England. If you look at Victorian England or even Elizabethan, that period of English ascendancy from 1600 to World War I, one of the reasons it conquered the world was its educational system. They all were taught. The elite were taught Greek and Latin. The diplomatic corps, the writers, the politicians and they. They imbibe the. The ethos too. It's not just a values and there's no that classics is a combination in some sense of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. Because the Romans took Greek after the end of the city state and Greek freedom, they took culture and implanted it onto the Roman system. And because it was much more efficient roads, law, commerce, transportation, they spread it all over the European and African, Asian, northern, eastern, Western Asia, Northern Africa. And that coincided with the birth of Judeo Christianity in the Middle east. So after about 100 AD then all that classical work in philosophy language was put to use for Christianity. And the early church fathers did not have a corpus of stuff from Jesus Christ. He had his actual words as reported mostly by four gospels or carried over by Paul, you know, acts and things. But there wasn't a system of belief about so for people had everyday questions such as, well, my daughter Died at two years old. And she. We didn't. Or say two days old. She didn't have a chance to be baptized. Where is she now? Is there a place between heaven and hell? Limbo? Purgatory? So a lot of Neoplatonic thought about the soul and the body. The Socratic idea that we all have souls, they're like songs that exist. We can't feel or seal them. And then when you have a liar, an instrument, you can make it come alive. That metaphor, the body is just the instrument that makes the song come alive. But the song doesn't die because somebody doesn't have a violin, you know, so all that comes from the Neoplatonic Aristotelian. And the early church adopted that and use that to make. In religious exegesis, to make sense of things. The Catholic Church, Church. And that also caused a lot of the Reformation revolt in the 15th century and 16th century. And saying this is not in the actual words of the Gospel as handed down by. So this is not part of Christianity, the Martin Luther Revolution, because, you know, the Catholic Church, the way the popes were dressed or the cardinals, that comes from Roman provincial officials, the purple and the Romanesque and the Romanesque churches of the early church, that was all classical. So, you know, the Protestant Reformation didn't just go after penances and indulgence and say, you're crooked. But it also said that the ritual and pomp and language and all of that came from pagan culture, classical culture.

[Sammy Wink]

Do you ever ask yourself why or do you have an answer to why it is that this rich culture grew up among the Greeks and among the Romans and not, for example, among Syrians or what, my people? Yeah. Or why not the Celtic tribesmen or the German tribesmen?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Everybody has wrestled with that question.

[Sammy Wink]

Oh, okay. Yeah. Is there any good answer?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

In short, first of all, people have said, if you want a culture to have consensual government or to watch plays, it's very hard to do in Stockholm. It's too cold. So they said the Mediterranean climate favored that. A B. Most classical culture in Greece and Rome was on the Mediterranean. So the Mediterranean was the highway or the bridge or the transit point for three continents. Europe very cheaply, could get to North Africa, North Africa could get to Europe, and you could get to Asia. So culture that was coming from India or even China over land came through Constantinople and the Black Sea or through the silk routes, through Afghanistan, which was conquered by Alexander the Great. But what I'm getting is geographically, they were privileged to be right there at the nexus of three continents and have a cheap means of transportation of connecting them. So the Roman Empire didn't connect to, well, Scotland and Ireland and it never really went across the Danube and the Rhine because of the climate and fierce tribal. But when you could sail right over to Carthage or to Antioch or to Alexander, you see it, it was much easier. So that was an advantage as well. And then it was very close to the birth of civilization, which also was dependent on natural resources and, and positions such as the, you know, they were the early Jews, the Sumerians, the Acadians, the pharaohs, Egyptian culture. They were very much older than Greeks, but the Greeks were able to, they got their, the actual form of their language, the Alphabet from the Phoenicians. A lot of the monumental architecture and statuary came from the Egyptians. And so they, they borrowed extensively from the Near East. But I think a lot of it is they. The other thing is, if you look at the growing season, they had a Mediterranean climate. But, and I made this argument in a book called the Other Greeks, what I'm saying is that they had a much large, longer growing season than England or France, Northern France or Germany or Scandinavia, but they were not part of the desert climates of the Middle east. Or when I say North Africa, it was much more lush than it is today. So what I'm getting now is they had a Mediterranean long growing season and they were able to, to integrate the vine for wine, raisins, grapes with olive oil, olives for olive oil, soap oil, lubricants, and wheat and barley. And they were able to integrate those crops so they diversified against climate damage or they could use labor efficiently. The great Mediterranean triad of crops helped them a great deal.

[Sammy Wink]

So they were healthier and they had more time to think. I mean, I guess what I'm driving at is wouldn't you have to say that to some extent those, all those things are true, that the particular individuals that were born and grew up in this culture were necessary. Like you wouldn't have some things without Plato, without Aristotle, without the individual as well.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The creation of this is the first place we have consensual government, whether it's called oligarchy or democratic or republican government. So if you, let's say if you pick a year arbitrarily, 430 B.C. at that particular date, Pericles was first citizen. They were building the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum, all on the Acropolis. You could, if you walked around this city where there are about a hundred thousand people, you might see Socrates Walking by Pericles. If you went to the theater, you would be watching a new play of Sophocles, a new play of Euripides. Some guys would be still doing Escalus's plague. Aristophanes would be a. You'd see him in the Agora. He would be making fun of politicians. There would be rhetoricians, you know, Lysias would be around, Xenophon would be around. Plato would be a little boy, but he would. Socrates would be there. So. But all of them are gravitating to an area where you could speak freely. I shouldn't say speak freely. Speak more freely than anywhere else. There was no tribal code. Tribalism was the enemy of civilization and their eyes. So what I guess I'm saying is they didn't privilege their first cousin as the Germans did, or the Scots did, or the Celts did, or anybody did. That's what I don't understand about the new identity politics that we have this long tradition that Athens and Rome transcend. The word tribe comes from Latin tribus, and it means three groups of the early Roman commonwealth. And once you transcend that and say that, your ethnic background is incidental to what you do. So Athens really thrives when Solon, when they have the. They say to members and areas of Attica, they say your primary allegiance is not to your tribe. We're going to mix you all up and you're going to be represented as Athenians from the Tridus system. Each one will have a delegate coming from this, this area, but we're going to artificially ensure that it's not regional or ethnic alone. So they, they understood that, but it was a free. It attracted a lot of people. So Aristotle was not an Athenian, but he wanted to go to Athens. And there were 1500 city states, so it was like nothing other. They had no word in their vocabulary for nation, like the Romans, not to you. Thus was their great strength and their great weakness. Because when Alexander and the Hellenistic Greeks came, but Alexander, he was able to conquer them pretty easily. And then Rome was as well, because they could never unite in the way Rome did. Rome had an idea of nationhood and they had a ecumenical idea that you didn't have to look like a Roman to be a citizen of Rome. The Athenians said, we have individual differences among us, but we are different than Thebans. But the Romans very quickly said, kiwis romanos sum, I'm a Roman citizen. You could be black, brown, didn't matter. That was very insidious. It really helped spread Roman culture. By the second century ad, most of the emperors were not from Italy.

[Sammy Wink]

And war helped to spread Greek culture, as Alexander the Great shows us.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We haven't talked about that, but for a tiny little country, I mean, what they did at Marathon or the Battle of Platea or Thermopylae, they had a means of infantry warfare that was superior to anybody. Alexander used that and expanded it and, and improved upon it, and that's why he conquered the Persian Empire.

[Sammy Wink]

All right, Victor, we better take a break and come back and talk a little bit more about the politics from the week. Stay with us and we'll be right back. Welcome back to the Victor Davis Hansen show. So Victor, this week Nicholas Sarkozy, the former President of France was sent to jail five year incarceration for campaign finance character charges. And Sarkozy claims the fake documents were created by a Gaddafi clan because they didn't like him since he did not support Gaddafi. And a judge, the judges have no proof that money ever changed hands in this financing charge.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So.

[Sammy Wink]

Well, why is he.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Politics isn't being bought bag or beanball or whatever. It applies to France. They try to criminalize everything. So it's his quarter century career. Remember he was, he became famous as the first French politician that openly, unlike De Gaulle or Pompadou, he openly said that he was pro American, pro Western, pro capitalism. And then after 9 11, he visited George W. Bush, remember? And he wore that T shirt nypd. When he jogged around New York, he was very short. He, I think he had a Hungarian name and. Yeah, so he wasn't quite what we expect in a French leader. He was short, but he was very. Everybody liked him in the United States, but we didn't really follow French and eternal politics where if you lose, I hope we don't end up like that. You just don't lose, you end up in jail.

[Sammy Wink]

Well, they wanted to get Marie Le Pen out of the race and they did it. They judge ruled that she couldn't campaign to for office after whatever they charged her with, which was not a whole lot, but they took candidates out.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They do it with every French, almost every French president and Prime Minister. They make sure that once they lose power, they're in trouble and hope we don't get that way. But the lawfare started on the left and they seem intent to turn his end to that. But. And he said he was reading Count of Monte Cristo.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, he did. He said that he was taking his two volumes of the Count of Monte Cristo to prison, I. E. He was thrown in Prison, like Edmund was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And he's going to come back like Edmond Dantes.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, all right. The Bulgarian.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, Chirac was a good example. Chirac, he was prosecuted. He might have been a crook. I don't know.

[Sammy Wink]

So there's a big discussion about illegal immigrants coming through the Balkan peninsula. So it's much broader than just this. But the Bulgarian Interior Minister, Daniel Mitov has come out to say, you know, out in public that Russian spies and gangs are actively aiding illegal immigration to come across the Balkans into the eu. And then as well the UK And I know they're having a conference in the UK on this problem, but the big reason that they might want to do this, according to the Bulgarian minister, is that they want to destabilize the countries in the eu. Russia does and so does China. China is doing the same thing to us.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We know that. We had thousands of Chinese nationals came in. That's kind of scary. A military age on a company illegally there. They understand our great strength in the west is free thought, free association, free research, dynamism. We're not a ethno state. We're not. They understand that, but they also stand. Understand our great weakness. We're hyper critical of ourselves. We have something what a great scholar, Mr. Benedict said. We had him on our oikophobia, hating your own house. And so we had this self loathing that we. Our hypercritical society ends up nihilistic. So they understand that if they call you racist or nativist, you'll do anything to avoid that charge and you're completely open and free. I don't. I never agreed with Pericles when he said, well, the reason that we're stronger than Sparta is because we have a free society and we just open everything up. Not that he really did that all the time, but Sparta did win the Peloponnesian War. So my point is that if you have an open society and you have no borders and you think that's your diversity is your strength, well, your enemies think that, okay, well this is a way we're going to destroy you. And you'll never criticize it because to do so would be against your code of pcdi. What so they're. And they would never do it in their countries. I never understood that diversity is our strength. Drank. You know who said that? The Confederates. When I think was it Scott Johnson pointed that out not long ago in Power Line.

[Sammy Wink]

On Power Line. That book said Douglas and Lincoln debates.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I had written, I had written earlier columns about neo Confederates that the Democratic Party and the manner that it nullified federal law. It went to the one drop law. As far as racial obsession, the fact that it was a pyramidal society without a middle class, it's very similar to the blue state model. But this Frederick, I mean Stephen Douglas used that argument and all the anti bellum proponents said diversity is the strength that you guys get to have. Your. What they were saying was live and let live. We have a little slave culture down here and you have a free culture there and we're all one big happy family. And then Lincoln said it violates. All men were born, you know, free and equal. So I can't think of any society in history that said diversity was their strength. They said that we can overcome diversity with unity. Didn't mean that we're going to exterminate diversity. But it's not something that is a natural advantage. It can be if you have unity. You can say in America, we have such good friends, food, dance, literature, music from all over the world. But we never say yes. We have so many Bill of Rights. We have the Mexican Bill of Rights. We have the Nigerian Article 5 and 6 of the Constitution. We. And we're going to Islamic law. Yeah. We're going to copy Sharia law. No, we don't do that with our court. We leave our core alone. We want it unified, not diverse.

[Sammy Wink]

Absolutely. Well, Victor, let's read some comments and we'll get to the end of the show here. He, he Who Love Loves W1 says, I have to tell Victor. I. I have to tell Victor. His health is improving, the color is good in his face. All the struggles are gone. Good for you.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you. I'm feeling better. I have a little problem with my lung. But some people have said that my high iron is starting to let be less bronze. I don't feel like a little bronze gilded statue.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah. All right. And then From Eric Schoen, P5E he has to say, my father said, quote, flights from reality are caused by poverty of thought. I thank you for all your understanding and work.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you. That's a good definition for these demonstrations. Every once in a while, like if you watch Fox or Newsmax or somebody, they go up to those demonstrations on the street and they'll say, do you like Trump? No, I hate him. Why do you hate Trump? I don't know. Everybody hates him. Or they'll say, what are you protesting? I don't know. They don't. You know what I mean?

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Nobody ask why am I here? It's a flight from reality.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Victor, thank you for all your wisdom and thanks to your audience for joining. Choosing to join Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, the new podcast. And I hope everybody can find us out here in the open space. The Aether, as the Greek said. Yeah, we haven't gone anywhere. Just the old Victor Davis Hansen show is not us. It's now history.

[Sammy Wink]

That's right.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You're welcome to go look at an episode, but we prefer you to be in the Here and now with Victor.

[Sammy Wink]

Davis Hansen In His Own Words.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you, everybody.

[Sammy Wink]

Yeah, this is Sammy Wink and Victor Davis Hansen and we're signing off.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

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 [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.