Victor Davis Hanson: The Modern Left Wants Control More Than Accountability

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: The Modern Left Wants Control More Than Accountability Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson | The Daily Signal
Episode Date: May 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson and his co-host Jack discuss contemporary American politics and culture with an emphasis on how left-leaning elites pursue societal control rather than true accountability. Hanson explores how the modern left transforms institutions, handles opposition, and navigates issues ranging from national security and elections to California’s unique political landscape. The conversation is rich with historical context, personal anecdotes, and pointed critique, retaining Hanson's signature insightful-yet-wry delivery.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Left’s Control of Institutions

• Hanson laments the almost complete absence of conservatives in key American institutions, including NPR, PBS, network news, K-12 education, and the arts.
• Quote [00:00]:
  "Fascism is sort of dictatorship by the control of all aspects of the government. What was NPR and PBS? Did anybody see any conservatives on there? No. They have taken every institution with an iota of conservatism and destroyed it."
• [38:33]: Hanson argues modern American fascists are not crude or obvious, but "suave" and positioned within soft power centers: "They're going to be like Mondami or Obama. They're going to talk like an NPR commentator and they're going to be empathetic. And they're not going to say anything bad about anybody. And when they get in power, you saw what Obama did, you saw what Biden did..."

2. Election Strategy: Playing to Win vs. Playing Nice

• Discussion of Newt Gingrich's six-point plan for Trump’s 2026 campaign, emphasizing the need for an aggressive strategy rather than the “aristocratic Republican orthodoxy” of previous nominees like Mitt Romney and John McCain.
• Quote [05:37]:
  "They should get the guy who made that ad in 2024. They are for they them and Trump is for you... I hope they don't go back to the Queensbury rules. That was what drove people crazy about Mitt Romney and John McCain."
• Hanson explains how the working-class base felt alienated by past Republican candidates' moderation, only to be re-energized by Trump’s combative strategy.

3. Performative Politics on the Left

• Jack and Hanson discuss incidents of extremism in Democratic activist circles, referencing the “Luigi Mangione fangirls” with NYC press passes who celebrated violence.
• Quote [14:19]: "These three people are ignorant. They don't understand. What do they think happens? ... We have 53 million people who were not born in the United States, many of them coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America. And they're very poor and they get quality care... But somebody has to pay for that."

4. Welfare State & Social Discipline

• Hanson uses a personal anecdote to illustrate the disconnect between the rhetoric of a cruel, racist America and the reality of a generous, highly progressive social welfare system.
• Quote [25:11]: "We're getting to the point where the 1% pay about 50%, we get about 40% who pay no taxes, state or federal, and we're the most generous welfare [state]. And yet when you just ask for a modicum, a teeny, teeny weeny bit of audit, they call you all these names."

5. California Politics and Urban Decay

• Los Angeles Mayoral Race:
  Discussion of Spencer Pratt's campaign against incumbent Karen Bass, public corruption, and the loss of public services (e.g., empty reservoirs, rampant homelessness).

• Quote [31:00]: "[Karen Bass] has done nothing as mayor but destroy things... They ask her why she didn't solve the homeless problem and she said, 'Well, I didn't know I'd get so much bureaucratic resistance.'"

• Union Influence:
  "[The unions], the SEI union runs LA and the fire, all the city municipal unions... And then he's got probably a couple million people on federal assistance, state assistance that say that, you know, Doge is horrible and they're getting..."

• Santa Rosa Island Wildfire & Mismanagement:
  Government expulsion of ranchers and overzealous environmentalism led to mismanaged, fuel-heavy lands now prone to catastrophic fires.

• Quote [54:57]:
  "They evicted people. And then the result was what we see now."

6. The ‘Fascism’ Charge and the Left’s Double Standards

• Hanson argues the label 'fascist' is weaponized against conservatives but the left actually exhibits the classic characteristics of fascism—seizing institutions, suppressing dissent through lawfare, ignoring constitutional traditions.
• Quote [41:33]: "If you want to win an election and you got an embarrassing laptop, then you call up the FBI and you say, I know you have it, I know it's true, but don't release it. And then you call Facebook and Twitter up and you say, listen, our FBI's are not going to let you run that story on any social media..."
• Coordinated 'Lawfare' Against Trump:
  Hanson details how prosecutorial efforts at multiple jurisdictional levels began within days of Trump's 2022 reelection announcement ([45:30–48:00]).

7. Foreign Influence and the Left’s Sympathies

• Azra Nomani’s reporting on the organization and instant mobilization of pro-Cuba/Communist groups in America.
• Quote [60:31]: "At least you got to give them credit. It used to be that calling someone a communist was like the worst thing you could call somebody. But now the democratics, they say they're democratic socialists and there's even people who say they're communists and you know them by what they're doing."

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On performative Democratic politics:
  "[The] Democrat plan is just performance art." – Jack [12:28]

• On higher education’s failure:
  "We're turning out people who are degreed and they're in debt and they know nothing. Nothing except ideology." – Hanson [20:00]

• On welfare state hypocrisy:
  "Obama said spread the wealth. Remember Joe the Plumber? 'Why do you want to tax me?' 'I want to spread the wealth.' That's how they view it." – Hanson [26:36]

• On the reality of California’s election process:
  "[In] California, you who are living here after the election is over, we say we have the most sophisticated tech sector in the world... But it takes three weeks to count our ballots..." – Hanson [49:40]

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–01:46 – Introduction & the Seizure of Institutions
• 04:22–07:00 – Newt Gingrich’s Plan, GOP Strategies, and Political Ads
• 09:20–12:07 – Reflections on Mitt Romney, Working-Class Alienation
• 14:19–20:00 – Performative Journalism, Healthcare Anecdotes, Systemic Costs
• 22:00–26:11 – Welfare Dependency, Fraud, and Class Division
• 31:00–36:28 – Los Angeles & California Politics: Homelessness, Union Strength
• 38:06–52:55 – Who Are the Real Fascists? Hanson’s Series and the Left’s Power Grabs
• 54:06–57:50 – Santa Rosa Island Fire, Environmentalism Gone Wrong
• 58:52–62:02 – Azra Nomani, Pro-Cuba Groups, Communist Sympathies
• 62:02–67:35 – Listener Mail, Historical Wars & Popular Culture
• 67:35–69:45 – Closing Reflections, Nostalgic Film Talk

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Tone & Style

• Hanson's tone is pointed, historically informed, and at times sardonic.
• Jack offers lighter, sometimes incredulous commentary and grounds the show with relatable anecdotes and questions.

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Summary Takeaways

• Hanson sees America’s current trajectory as dominated by a leftist elite’s desire for total institutional control, achieved at the expense of accountability, pluralism, and constitutional tradition.
• He juxtaposes this with the alienation of the working class and the inadequacy of “aristocratic” Republicans who failed to connect with or fight for ordinary people.
• The episode blends political analysis with lived experience, and highlights deep skepticism about America’s current welfare policies, election integrity, and media bias.
• Ultimately, Hanson argues that fascistic tendencies—control, suppression, institutional capture—are far more a feature of the modern American left than of its conservative opponents.

Transcript

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Fascism is sort of dictatorship by the control of all aspects of the government. What was NPR and pbs? Did anybody see any conservatives on there? No. They have taken every institution with an iota of conservatism and destroyed it. What is network news? What is the Media? What is K12? It's all a liberal institution. It's subsidized. And when any tiny person revolts, then they go crazy. Foreign.

[Jack]

Hello, ladies and hello gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in his own Words. We are recording on Saturday, May 23rd, 2026. This particular episode will be up on Thursday, May 28th. A little distance between when we're recording and when this episode is up. There's the great vdh, who's this show is named for, has a little travel to do. So Victor is the Martin and Eli Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. And he's also a senior contributor to the Daily Signal, which is the happy home not only for this podcast, but also for Victor Davis Hansen in a few words. Go to the Daily Signal, find that, check it out. It's four times a week. Victor does 7, 8, 9, 10 minute video. People love it. As well they should. Victor's got a website, the blade of Perseus. VictorHansen.com is the address. Go there, subscribe. I'll tell you why later. Also, you'll find a link to, I think you will, to your forthcoming book, Counter Revolution.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, the galleys are coming out this week, so I have people that they mail them to that wrote me about it.

[Jack]

Oh, well, I.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Nice cover.

[Jack]

Okay, good. I am, I'm jazzed.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They rejected the COVID that I had of Donald Trump's fight, fight, fight with the, you know, the ear. But they have another one where he's pointing that they thought was better. Oh, gosh.

[Jack]

Well, that, that photo was iconic. Not as iconic, of course. It's a New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a fake, fake situation. But there's not a single aspect of the world of arts and journalism that ideological.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I could have had the mugshot.

[Jack]

That would have been funny. All right, what are we going to talk about today, Victor? We have Newt Gingrich has a grandson of the. Oh, what was the thing? Contract.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah.

[Jack]

From 1994. We have Ivanka Trump was being threatened with murder by Iranians. Ketanji Brown, a bunch of California related stories. And you have a piece that we have time for. You've got one of your ultra articles from the Blade of Perseus we may get your take on that. So we'll start off with Newt and we'll do all that when we come back from these initial important messages.

[Bradley Devlin]

Hey, I'm Bradley Devlin and just like you, I'm a huge fan of Victor Davis Hansen, whether it's his long form podcast, victor Davis Hansen in his own words, or his short form content for the Daily Signal. Victor Davis Hansen, in a few words. I always leave an episode learning something new.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think they forgot the 1982 Falklands War.

[Bradley Devlin]

And in the age of clickbait and rage bait, that's a really good feeling right?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The media. Thank you. You can leave now.

[Bradley Devlin]

And if you agree, you might like my show, the Daily Signals long form interview podcast called the Signal. Sit down. Every week we take you behind the scenes of the biggest battles in Washington, D.C. as they happen with some of the biggest names in politics. We explore big ideas and, and we analyze the policymaking process from an unabashedly and unapologetically conservative perspective. And that's important now more than ever, especially with the Trump administration back in office, because in 2024, you sent Washington a message it couldn't ignore. It's your government and together we're taking it back. So check us out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, we're there too. And drop me a follow on x RadleyDevlin to stay updated with what's happening on the Signal. Sit down.

[Jack]

Hey folks, we're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. So, Victor, this is. I forget where I found the source here, but Gingrich presents a six point plan for Trump to keep control of Congress. So I'm assuming, Newt, like some of us, you a little get a little nervous here. Every day is another day closer to the elections and we still have no solution. Finality with Iran. Prices are still. So let me read this quickly. The plan includes lowering gas prices, a focus on the high oil prices on the global market, toppling the Iranian regime in a battle of the Persian Gulf, reopening the Straits of Hormuz, emphasizing the successes of the Make America Healthy Again movement, and also promoting a list of the craziest things that Democrats have done amid the Trump administration and providing a blueprint for the American people about what the next two years of a Republican Congress and administration would look like. Victor, I think this makes a lot of sense and Gingrich is a pretty smart dude. I do too.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And I hope they do that. I hope they spend their sizable lead in fundraising and they should Have a series of ads. They should get the guy who made that ad in 2024. They are for they them and Trump is for you. You remember that one. Or they should hire Spencer Pratt's AI ad guy. And I hope they have a whole bunch of them or they show. They said, do you really trust these people? And they can show hikem Jeffrey say we're in a war holding a baseball bat. They can show the women with the phallus. Rubber phallus is shaking them at ice. They can have Mahmoud Khalil with his Hezbollah people at his rallies with Hezbollah flag. They can do all of that stuff. I hope they do it. I hope they don't go back to the Queensbury Marcus of Queensbury rules that, you know, that was what drove people crazy about Mitt Romney and John McCain. They wanted to win nobly rather than to lose ugly. Trump wanted to win any way possible. And they hadn't seen a Republican do that really since Reagan. And that was a change. And they have to. You can't play by the Marcus of Queensbury rules with the Democrats. It doesn't work.

[Jack]

I wonder if Romney had gone for the jugular in that debate. Candy Crowley debate us. Interrupt us. But I wonder if he would have,

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I wonder, said, you should be ashamed of yourself, what you're doing. And he didn't. And you know, when they started going after him for the dog on the car and the elevator and his wife didn't talk to the garbage man and they never, they never really. They should have gone. They should have had a com. They should have had an ad every day with Reverend Wright, chickens coming home to roosters. I say not God bless America, God. And they should have shown that. And then they should have had Obama with that cut where he said to the Chicago Sun Times, you really go to church? Yes, I do. I've never missed a Sunday. And then they have the next one say, I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't in church. And then there's another one saying he married you and Michelle. So they could have done a lot of stuff, but they were too good to do that. They wanted to. You know, he was a very wealthy man. McCain was very wealthy. He was decorated veteran. And they had good lives ahead of him. Both of them were. They had prior offices. So but the guys, the 10 to 15 million of the MAGA people didn't have good lives. The people assembly that were laid off, they didn't have any. They really needed a Republican to come in there and do Something, but they didn't get it. That's why they stayed away. It was Trump that brought them back in.

[Jack]

We had a National Review Institute summit. I think it was 2011. So it was before the 2012 election. And Romney was the principal. He was the governor of Massachusetts at the time, and he was the principal speaker. And even Mark Stein introduced him. So it was a setup to, like, wow conservatives. And what he did was start. He started talking about his version of universal healthcare, Massachusetts. And it was such a. Like, what? Can he not read the room? I mean, he ended up being the nominee anyway. But still,

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I liked him. I liked his wife especially. They were very fine people. And they came about the date. You're talking to the Hoover Institution, and they wanted to have breakfast with Tom and I. So, yeah. And Tom was reluctant, but I said, tom, we'll just meet at lunch that day, and we'll. We'll just go over to this place and we'll call it our lunch. And so it was right during the oil. You know, oil was going high, and we weren't pumping that much oil. And Tom said something to the effect about, there's these new frackers. And he kept going, well, we have switchgrass, and we can have sugarcane, and we can have this. And Tom said, why do we need any of that? We have more oil than anybody in the world now in these new technologies. And he kept talking about switchgrass and biofuels. Like Al Gore, he left, and Tom kind of went to the bathroom, as he does sometimes did when we were talking to people he didn't want to talk to.

[Jack]

The Irish exit. The soul exit.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes. And anyway, I liked him a lot. Mitt Romney as a person and his wife, they were very decent people, but they weren't going to detour from traditional aristocratic Republican orthodoxy, put it that way. Or they didn't know how to. And that party had been. The Democratic Party had abandoned the white working class, and they did not know how to recapture that and bring them into the fold. Talking about, it's like George H.W. bush when he was campaigning against Dukakis, and all he could say was, we have to lower the capital gains tax. It's a good idea to do that, but that's not what people in the Rust Belt wanted to hear. Same thing with George W. Bush. People can criticize Karl Rowe, but Karl Rowe was a political genius to get him elected in 2004. But they were talking about things like, we're going to privatize Social Security. That's not what people wanted to hear. They wanted to hear two things. That the economy was okay and we were winning in Iraq and we were going to come home if it wasn't

[Jack]

for the swift boat guys. O', Neill, I forget his first name.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Nice guy.

[Jack]

John.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I had dinner with him. He had cancer. He was very ill. He was a very nice guy. He was just the opposite of very well trained, educated lawyer. He was just the opposite of John Kerry. He was very modest. He wasn't an elite. And I think he had either law, accounting or something in maybe Texas.

[Jack]

Texas.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

All they said is don't swift boat it. Swift boat it. Swift boat. And then when they pointed out all the discrepancies in Kerry's story, it was like, well, once I got in the uniform and I went to Vietnam, I can say whatever I want. How dare you question my record? But those guys could question his record because they genuinely had been.

[Jack]

They were there with them.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jack]

Well, Victor, here's a topic I had wanted to raise when we last talked. Talked. And it had to do with the performative nature of Democrats. We were talking about what they stand for, what is their. We just talked about, you know, Newt Gingrich is suggesting a plan. What's a Democrat plan? But the Democrat plan is just performance art. So this of course gets to New York. This has to do with Mamdami and this press pass scandal which I think has gotten some national attention for these ghoulish Luigi Mangione fangirls. So let me just read this quickly from the New York Post. Mayor Mondami wouldn't commit Tuesday, that's last week, to revoking the city issued press passes for three Luigi Mangione fangirls who publicly spouted unapologetic calls for violence. This week, self proclaimed mangionistas April Rios, Ashley Rojas and Lena Weisbrot set up a firestorm Monday when they proclaimed outside a Manhattan courthouse that slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's children were, quote, better off without him while wearing New York City press credentials, et cetera. By the way, you're on the masthead still of City Journal. Manhattan Institute's great.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Wonderful. Yeah, yeah, it's a wonderful book. Ryan Anderson's doing. Myron Magna was a good friend of mine, he's a great editor. And Brian Anderson is. Oh, Brian's the same caliber.

[Jack]

He's a super guy. But they cannot get, and that's a New York City based public. They can't get a press credentials at City hall in New York.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But these, well, Jack Come on, now. All they had to do was endorse murder and assassination. They couldn't even do that.

[Jack]

Yeah, well, this is. This is the. This is the Democrat Party of America, though. This is the kind of performative art they're engaged in as absent any other program.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It's kind of like what Jeff Bezos said the other day. He said something very profound. They were kind of grilling him and he said, I'm going to be remembered not for how much money I made and not for how much money I gave away in my philanthropic. Although I've given billions, I guess.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I'm going to be remembered about how I brought good service at affordable prices to people's doorstep and allow them to shop by just going online and getting anything in the world they want for. And they could price shop and they can get it safely delivered. And that's exactly true. But the point I'm making is these three people are ignorant. They don't understand. I tell you, you know, I did the math, Jack, and I pay a lot of money for Medi Cal supplement for United Healthcare, and I've had it for. Since I was, I guess, 65. So I was always a good bargain. You know what I mean? I never had. I mean, I had sinus operations and stuff, but I paid the surgeon in cash because I. So my point is, I was a good thing. But when you look at the bill that I just got your surgery, it's close. All the surgery, the removal, the lobectomy, and then going back in with a second surgery for four hours. And the six transfusions, five blood, one platelet, if you look at all. And then being in the hospital, it's going to be a. When they finally get done, I think I've had 20 scans at least. X ray, MRIs, CT PET scans. I think I glow in the dark. And the point is, they're going to pay all that. I don't know how they're going to do it with a shrinking, aging population. But they had one contested bill on a PET scan that they didn't understand why it was given too close to the prior one. But there was a reason, and I think I won that arbitration. So my point is, what do they think happens? Do they ever go to communities like mine? When I go to certain stores and I go to the er, I've gone twice in the last five years. I see people who have just arrived from Mexico. And I don't mean they're all Mexican American, they're Central Americans or whatever, but some of these People are in their 60s and 70s and 80s and they have cancer, they have tuberculosis, they have malaria. They've never been to a doctor in Oaxaca, they've never been to a doctor in Chiapas, they have never been to a doctor in Micho Khan. That's another issue about how you afford that. But when they go in for health care, it's a charge, charge, charge, charge, charge. And there's no such thing as preventive health care. And I don't want to quote what someone told me when I was at a recent emergency room. And I won't say where, but the person said to me, 75% of the people that come in here have diabetes. Yeah, start off. And I looked in the schedule. One out of every four in California that goes to a hospital has diabetes. So what I'm saying is that we have an aging population. We have 53 million people who were not born in the United States, many of them coming from Asia, Africa, Africa, Latin America. And they're very poor and they get quality care. I can tell you that I'm a sixth generation. Oh, no, yeah. Fifth generation Californian. And I went to Stanford Med. And I would say that half the patients looked. I mean, they had a card at the desk where I checked in that had 20 languages in it. And I say that maybe half the people I saw there were first were either just came to America or they were first generation. And I think that's great. And they got world class care. No different than when I got. But somebody has to pay for that. And these health care companies are. I mean, you can say they're going broke or they're. The CEOs make too much money. But it's not a win, win deal given the type of healthcare that's so expensive these days and the research and development. So for three ignoramuses to say that the world' better off without this guy who is trying to manage a. I think it's the largest health care company, insurance. Right. It's not an easy thing to do given what he's up against. And to shoot him in the back like a coward in a planned assassination. And I should say alleged, but it's on camera. And then to. To turn him into a Charles Manson. Not even Charles Manson. At least, at least his accolades said that he was. That he was crazy and he was something. But these people think this guy is Christ. Like it's disgusting. And where did they get that? Where do they learn that? They got it from the university. Elon Musk said something really wise the other day. And maybe you sent it to me, Jack. He was basically saying that the smartest people don't graduate from the best school. They go there and they find that it's not very valuable and they quit. It's not because they can't. He's talking about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, some of the people in Silicon Valley, himself. Well, he, not him. He graduated. But he was basically saying it's a waste of time the way they've watered everything down and the way that they're indoctrinated and you're better off. And he said you can get a free education. Just there's so many online courses that are free at universities Hillsdale you could take. You could get a far better instruction in the humanities. All you'd have to do is enroll in all the Hillsdale courses. Don't go to college. And when you had questions, call an online service to a professor. There's so many good professors at Hillsdale. I bet if they could just take one or two and say, you know, we're going to give you extra release time or pay you, but for eight to eight to five, one day a week, you're going to just field calls from the hundreds of people that make reservations to ask a question about the course and forget the degree and all that. We're turning out people who are degreed and they're in debt and they know nothing. Nothing except ideology.

[Jack]

Well, they knew nothing from the third grade on too. So that's part of the problem. It's not just college, but that's the whole rigmarole. By the way, Victor, for a lot of people re education is a word associated with communism. But Hillsdale, those type of courses are great for people who have corrective college education. Yeah, I missed it. And his chance to catch. To catch up what I should have gotten when I paid a ton of money for it. One last thing. Since we're talking these three ladies, quote unquote, ladies advocating for crime but just more evidence of the Democrat party being a pro criminal party or pro crime. There was a vote in the House last week, Congress. It passed 231 to 186 all. 186 against were Democrats who voted against this bill to deport a bill requiring the automatic deportation of illegals who commit welfare fraud. And this was so mean.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I know.

[Jack]

The bill would include Social Security fraud, SNAP fraud, mail conspiracy to defraud the U.S. theft or bribery involving federal funds, IT fraud and other crimes. These are criminals, so they should go to jail. Anyway, but maybe it's lucky for them they don't have to go to jail. We'll just kick your butt out of the country. But 186 Democrats have a problem with this.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. What they're saying is, well, we give all this money to the people who administer the fraud. They give donations to us and then we get a subsidized population who is entirely dependent on our largesse because we tell them the Republic. I got something in the mail yesterday from the local Democratic and it has all the candidates, but it had their negative. And it said, I thought they were going to have more than that. They said, you can't vote for the following Trump Republicans. These are local, congressional, judicial, all assembly races. And they said, and the merciless Doge cuts. That was almost nothing they touched. And then it said, and the corruption of Donald Trump. And I thought that was it. That was all they had. But you know, it's funny, if I could document how many times I think I've been to the store once since surgery and I went in there and it was almost a textbook case. I was following people and I was in a line. Usually there's not much of a line. I go in very early, But a youngish 30 year old woman had two baskets and I thought, oh my God, here we go again. Get your book out, you're going to read it. Here we go again. And I thought, okay, here is the staples, the hamburger meat, all this. Too many. RFK is right. If I looked at that basket, everything was processed. Everything was processed. Frozen prepared pizza, frozen prepared macaroni. Can this. Anyway, and then the second one came and this one had beer and it had wine and it had. When she got checked out of the first one, which was paid entirely with ebt, and they took something out of the EBT thing and said, actually that's not covered. And then she got up to the counter and got cigarettes and she asked for lottery tickets, of course. So I thought, this will be interesting, the trifecta. So I was playing, you know, undercover auditor. So then I follow, you know, I kind of loitered around because I had very little. I waited a long time. She had a huge basket of EBT goods. So then I went out and I said to myself, Tesla, BMW, Mercedes SUV or double Chevy or Ford $90,000 truck? Which is going to be. Sure enough, I was wrong about the. It was a BMW suv.

[Jack]

Are you kidding me? No, no, I couldn't afford to look at one.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Never mind. No, I don't think it was bought I think they leased them for, I don't know, 700 bucks a month. And if you're saving that much on groceries. But the point I'm making is, and the person was not svelte, I would say she was morbidly obese if maybe 40 pounds over what she should weigh. So my point is that we are indoctrinated with how cruel a society we are, how horrible and racist and unkind, when our tax system is the most progressive in the world and we're getting to the point where the 1% pay about 50%, we get about 40% who pay no taxes, state or federal, and we're the most generous welfare. And yet when you just ask for a modicum, a teeny, teeny weeny bit of audit, they call you all these names. And when you see this, they say, well, Victor, that you're like Johnny Cash and Welfare Catalog. That's what Reagan said. But it was true. It was true.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So I don't.

[Jack]

They have a right to eat Doritos, Victor. Don't you know that?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I don't know, but I know that it's. And I, you know, it's not confined to any one ethnic group because if I, when I go to the Walmart or somewhere in Hill Hillsdale, I see the same thing. Not quite. It's a much poorer county than California, but it's. Nobody wants to talk about it.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

By the way, it's. Obama said spread the wealth. Remember Joe the Plumber? Why do you want to tax me? I want to spread the wealth. That's how they view it.

[Jack]

And if there are children in that lady's family, and it's school season, season, school year. They're getting, the kids are getting meals, breakfast and lunch at school, also paid

[Victor Davis Hanson]

by you and me. I wouldn't even complain about that. But I was wrong. I said, I'm going to be here for 10 minutes because she's going to have five different EBT cards, throw in a green WIC card for the diapers and formula, and she only had two. And they always said, sorry, this is expired and we need an ID because this, they did say this is a different name than the one that you're showing the other one. But they didn't do anything. They took it.

[Jack]

Well, maybe she got her diapers from Gavin Newsom. So we've got a couple of California things to get to, Victor. But first, to our viewers and our listeners, 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 realize the foundations you thought were permanent are never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for war of time. 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, though they prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or in retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that is outlasted. Every paper experiment in human history Physical gold not as speculation but as insulation. Now our reputation matters here at Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. 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 to our listeners to help you get started with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank. If you believe as we do, that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious, call 8447-9091-9184-4790, 91191. Excuse me. Or visit protectwithvictor.com that's 8447-909191-84479, 09191 or visit protectwithvictor.com History rewards those who take the long view when we thank the good people from Allegiance Goal for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, we're going to talk about one little thing. California. We're going to take a little break, then we'll talk about a few more California things.

[Bradley Devlin]

If you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen, you might enjoy the Daily Signals flagship show, the Tony Kenneth cast, the same common sense perspectives you love. Weekdays at 7pm Eastern. And unlike some of the other evening shows, we work up until showtime to bring you the latest breaking news, analysis and good old American sarcasm. Thom Tillis, I'm pretty sure, might have been useful at one time as a doorstop. Find the Tony Kennett cast on YouTube, X Radio TV or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jack]

But you have your primaries coming up, so two of these are political. Let's stick to. Well, let's stick to Spencer Pratt and Water. He put out something the other day. I'm looking at an X post from Eric Daugherty Wow. LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt just exposed Karen Bass after the reservoirs are still bone dry despite it being peak fire season. Two reservoirs that were drained, the Palisades and the Santa Ynez, and they haven't been repaired. And where's the money going to? Homeless, drugs and NGO fraud. Anyway, Victor, no surprise there.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I guess she's done nothing as mayor but destroy things. They ask her why she didn't solve the homeless problem and she said, well, I didn't know I'd get so much bureaucratic resistance. Well, what resistance did you get? You didn't articulate it. Why aren't there? Well, somebody didn't do it. The woman who was in charge of it was from PGE and she was the head of Los Angeles Water and Power. They paid her, I think, $700,000. Had the reservoir above Pacific Palisades been full, they might have saved half that area. But of course, what happens is that she was a DEI person and then she got hired by Puerto Rico as a consultant to help them improve their grid system. And then I don't know what happened to the fire chief. She was the one that was lecturing us all on DEI hiring. She also had that lieutenant who. Remember, she said, if I come in and I see a man, I'm not going to. She wasn't going to pick him up or something.

[Jack]

Yeah, we're going to drag you down the stairs. So you.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, yeah. They asked him, well, can you pick up a man? Well, no, I don't have to pick him up. I'll drag him down. And then there was, of course, the vice mayor that phoned in the bomb threat. And they didn't put him in jail. They gave him a suspended sentence. I think he was in charge, I guess. And then there's a city council of LA, 15 members. There's not one. One Republican, I think there's one independent on it. And they're all hard left. And they were the ones, remember, about Democrats and the left, There's a racist streak that goes back to the founding of the Democratic. So when they had a hot mic that three Hispanic members were making fun of an African American adopted boy. Yeah. Gay father. And they were saying basically he looked like a primate and the father was gay and trying to show him all. It was disgusting. But there were no consequences to that really either. And so Los Angeles is. If you didn't have Karen Bass, you'd have to invent her. She represents what is Los Angeles today. So does Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff just. He represents the enclaves of very, very wealthy people who feel that they're so wealthy that they can shield themselves from the consequences of their deleterious ideology. And we don't, you know what, yeah, there may be homeless. We don't see them. And you know what? When a homeless guy breaks into our neighborhood, neighborhood, we call, we get rid of them. The neighborhood cops get rid of them. Our own security patrols. And I have a 10 foot wall around my place. That's how they think. And I feel much better when I vote Democratic and feel that I have all that toxic empathy. And then there's the people that say, well, if I vote Republican, I'm not going to get all this stuff. And they could cut off all the drugs. I mean they would. If they cut off the drugs and didn't legalize it, the fentanyl and everything, they could have a big, big detox city, you know, outside the city limits, tent city where people were not given any drugs whatsoever, but health care nourishment and make them be have to work and they wouldn't have access to drugs. Yeah, but we would never allow that in the United States. Hell no.

[Jack]

Victor, what's your gut tell you about that election?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, she went From I think 60% down to 40 and he went from 10% above 20. And the Ramana who said she is a communist, I think you call it. She calls everybody a fascist, but I think she's a hardcore socialist. Boarding on communism. She is, I think a few points one or two behind Pratt. They think that XI and Bass will be the runoffs, but the key is the momentum. He was on television the other day and says he's going to win in the primary, meaning he's going to get 51%. But I think if he can beat Ramon and they can hold Bass to 48%, 47%, he has a good chance in the general election. But I'm hoping that he, he can win. But he's up against so many, you

[Jack]

know, union money is big deal out there.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The unions, the SEI union runs LA and the fire, all the city municipal unions. And then he's got probably a couple million people on federal assistance, state assistance that say that, you know, doge is horrible and they're getting, and then you probably, and this is very controversial, but Los Angeles is probably the second or third largest city in the world with Mexico national, not Mexican American citizens, but Mexican national, maybe 1 or 2 million at least from Mexico, especially under Biden. So if you don't require an ID and you don't require any type of on election day, physically coming there and showing an id Then what would you expect to happen when you mail them out every time a person register a car or files for unemployment or welfare? So that's going to be very hard for him, but I'm hoping that he can get into the runoff.

[Jack]

Yeah. Let us pray. Well, we're going to talk about another the governor's race and then a fire out there and maybe another topic when we come back from these important messages.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

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

[Jack]

We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words, recording on Saturday, May 23rd. This episode is up on Thursday, May 28th. Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus is a thing to which you can subscribe. You want to stick your toe in the water. It's $6.50 for a month, but it's discounted the full year for $65. Why would you do that? Because twice a week Victor writes an exclusive article for the Blade of Perseus and he does an exclusive video. And there's tons and tons of free stuff, archives and the site, I believe the site's getting retrofitted and upgraded.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And yes, it is beautified. So beautified. Yeah. Thank you.

[Jack]

Okay, so check it out. The Blade of Perseus, VictorHansen.com is the address. And one more time, I think it makes a great Father's Day gift. So do consider that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I have a series running on the ultra paywall about who are really the fascists. They keep saying fascist, dictatorship, tyranny, oligarchy, but who?

[Jack]

Let's talk about that because you mentioned what's number three they're running in the race. Fascist is the word they just throw out at everybody when and whom to fear about dictatorship. And you write the fascists in this

[Victor Davis Hanson]

country are not going to be orange colored and, you know, crude language and comb over with a queen's accent. Sorry. They're just not going to look like they're not going to be eating Big Macs and going to mixed martial arts. They're going to be suave. They're going to be like Mandami or Obama. They're going to talk like an NPR commentator and they're going to be Empathetic. And they're not going to say anything bad about anybody. And when they get in power, you saw what Obama did, you saw what Biden did. He was just, as I said, an effigy. And then you see what Mondami is doing. They are mean people. And what they want to do when they get in, if you want to. Fascism is sort of dictatorship by the control of all aspects of the government. What was NPR and NPR and pbs. Did anybody see any conservatives on there? They used to have your mentor, William F. Buckley, and I like Margaret Hoover. But it's not William F. Buckley firing line. No. They have taken every institution with a iota of conservatism and destroyed it. What is network news? What is the media? What is K through 12? What is all. It's all a liberal institution, it's subsidized. And when any tiny person revolts, if Barry Weiss says, you know, 60 Minutes was getting out of hand, or Paramount, you know, gosh, Stephen Colbert's costing us $40 million a year for him to spout all this hatred, then they go they crazy. So they control the institution. If you want to win an election and you got an embarrassing laptop, then you call up the FBI and you say, I know you have it, I know it's true, but don't release it. And then you call Facebook and Twitter up and you say, list, listen, our FBI's are not going to let you run that story on any social media that that laptop is authentic. No way. And then Joe Biden three days later goes, whoa, Donald Trump, I knew you would bring that up because it's a Russian and I know it's Russian disinformation because we had 51 experts that Anthony Blinken rounded up and Clapper and Brennan and Leon Panetta, they all swore that it was made in Russia or they kind of gave a little out. You know, all the hallmarks of. That's what fascism is. Fascism is you change the system when you get in power. I don't mean you change policy, I mean you change the system. So when somebody tells you something on the left, believe them. When James Carville screams and yells what he's going to do, or Susan Rice streams and screams and yells what they're going to do, or Hikem Jeffries screams and yells what he's gonna do, then they are going to do that. If they can. And they don't care about the law. If they can get rid of the electoral college, they will through this voting compact. Yes, it's unconstitutional, but they will do it if they are in the majority of the Senate after the midterm, they will get rid of the filibuster. They'll find a way to do it. They promise to do it. If they get powers, they will ignore the Constitution about the admittance of new states and they will a way to get D.C. and Puerto Rico in. That's just what they plan to do. And if they get their way, there will be no more 169 year, 15 person Supreme Court. They don't care about tradition. 169 years, so what? Hawaii and Alaska, the last state. We now have the perfect 50 state union. We've done this since 1959. You know, we're up to 20, 67, 68 years. They don't care. Filibuster probably 200 years. They don't care. Electoral College with us from the beginning, 238 years ago in the Constitution. They don't care. That is what fascism. And if you have political intimates, they're all mad that Donald Trump has a fund, which I kind of wish he didn't, but he does for the IRS owed him money because they broke the law and released his tax records to the public. And now he wants to reward people or compensate people who were hurt by the government. Okay, but what a fascist does is he takes a judiciary and he wages war against all of his opponents and destroys them so they can't. So how would he do that? How would a fascist get rid of the political opposition? Well, I think they would raid his home and sprinkle classified labels over the ground and then take all the files out and spread them on the ground and take a picture and say there were 14,000 files at Donald Trump and then say, oh yeah, yeah, there was only 102 of 14,000 were actually classified. And Donald Trump had the right to declassify as president and Joe Biden took him out for 30 years as Senator and vice president when he didn't have the right and he put them in insecure locations and he didn't come forward until he was afraid they'd call him a hypocrite because he had appointed a special prosecutor. That's fascism. Or let's take him off the ballot so the people can't even vote. Let's get 20, 25 almost Democratic and purple states that they wanted to take Trump off the ballot so you couldn't vote on him. And then we had the Eugene Carroll Lawfare, and then we had the Letita James Lawfare and we had the Alvin Bragg Lawfare. Then we had the Fannie Willis lawfare and we had the Jack Smith. And they all had some things in common. Number one, none of those people will ever charge anybody again. Number two, they would have never charged even Donald Trump had he not Scott, announced he was going to run for a third term. And were they coordinated? Oh, Victor, that's conspiracy theory. Because you're talking about a local county and Fannie Willis in Fulton County. Then you're talking about the state of New York with Letitia James, federal government, Jack Smith. How could they be coordinated? Donald Trump announced on November 15, 2022 he was going to run for president. All hell broke loose. And what did? These autocratic people who we might want to use a fascist. They moved. And in three days. What happened on a Friday afternoon? Well, on November, I think it was 18th, 2022, Letitia James showed up at the White House. She's in the logs. She said she was just visiting. Same day. Nathan, has anybody heard of a Fulton county flunky prosecutor going to the White House and meeting with the White House counsel? You think the Tulare county prosecutor, the Fresno county prosecutor goes in and says, hey, Trump, I want to spend the day at the White House with you? No, he was in there. Nathan Wade even charged them for it. That was shameless. Is that the end of it? No. You know what happened that day? They appointed Jack Smith special prosecutor. Well, that's just a trifecta. That's not. Well, there was another one, Michael Cole Angelo, who had been the brains behind Letitia James and was rewarded for that real estate far suit. So Merrick Garland said, we need you. We'll make you number three in the doj. So that's what he did. And then on that same day, people said, oh, my God, Three days ago, Donald Trump declared his candidacy. We've got Nathan down there with Letita, with Fannie, and we've got Jack Smith appointed. And Letita's over with. But this Bragg guy's another incompetent. He might blow it. Hey, Mr. Cole. And we just appointed you this trophy for working with Letita James. Can you step down and go work for Alvin Bragg? That all happened on the same day. Three days after trophy, Trump said he was going to run for president. That wouldn't have happened had he been a Democrat or if he had said, I'm not going to run for president. That's fascism. And if you think, well, that was. I don't know, how about Barack Obama surveilling 20 associate press journalists grabbed their phone data. Yep, he did and that is very weird. Or how about ordering the CIA director, the FBI director, the Director of National Intelligence to ignore the intelligence and go after Hillary Clinton's political opponent and then when that failed to destroy him in the White House. Or how about the FBI being told lawyer to forge a document so they could go surveil Carter Page, you could go on and on on what they did. Lisa Page, remember her and Peter stroke their little text exchange. Remember what Andy said, what Andy reviewed. That's Andrew McCabe. There's no way we're going to let Donald Trump be president. It's kind of like an insurance policy. That was the Crossfire Hurricane. So yeah, that's what fascism can be.

[Jack]

Yeah, well it's a much bandied word and none of it is used in that sense.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They never say, they say he's a fascist. And I just say, well if he's a fascist, tell me what he's doing. That's fascist. Tell me what he's doing. I just told you what they were doing. That was fascist. Tell me what he's doing. And they don't, they don't.

[Jack]

That Victor was talking about an article he has that's an ultra article, one of a series that you're doing. So folks who are interested do check out the website and do subscribe, you can read that and all the other ultra special series that you've written prior that's all accessible. Victor, back to California. Let's take the political. Well when we're talking about the LA race, the gubernatorial race now this is an article I saw today. It's headlined California's Governor's race turning into a three way fight. There was a poll, Evitarus tracking poll. This was commissioned for the Democrat Party. It has Hilton and Becerra tied for the lead each with 22% and Steyer at 15%. So anyway, I don't know if there's much more to say other than that

[Victor Davis Hanson]

in California voting, the Hilton has got to be in the polls by five points to get in because of our mysterious what happens everybody, as you know, in California, you who are living here after the election is over, we say we have the most sophisticated tech sector in the world with our $14 trillion capitalized Silicon Valley. But it takes three weeks to count our ballots and that's because all of these union groups and activist groups send in mail in ballots and that usually means that whoever is ahead on election day doesn't matter. It's who has the ballots three weeks from now. And so Hilton's really got to get more than that. I don't know. Chad Bianco and he. They're splitting the. That conservative vote, but Javier Becerra's kind of slowed down a little bit from his surge. I had a conversation with a politico the other day, very brilliant guy, and he said that Swalwell was taken out, but he was taken out by Tom Steyer. He thought that Steyer's people got him out and then he would be the person. And then they got back at him by the Democratic people who didn't want him because he's not really part of their machine. They, they took Becerra like a deflated swimming pool toy and they pumped him back up and showered him with money. And he's pretty incompetent if you've seen him. And, and so I think the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed Catherine Katie Porter.

[Jack]

Really?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, yeah, they did. And the other guy lagging in these polls now. Yeah. And the guy that's even lagging worse. The Matt Mahand. Yeah, the Dukakis guy. Kind of like Dukakis from San Jose.

[Jack]

Oh, gosh.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Remember, I'm not an ideologue. I'm just competent competence, not ideology. That's what Mike told. So let's hope that it works. But when you lose 300,000 Republicans a year to other states, you've been doing it for 20 years and you've got disaffected Republicans that are hiding out in the foothills or in the Valley and they're getting discouraged and you've got a galvanized Democratic machine, it's going to be very hard to win. I hope Pratt can do it, but on the mayor level, and I hope Steve Hilton can do it at the state level, but it's almost. And then if you do win, as Arnold noticed, he thought because he was a mega superstar when he got reelected, he could just ram through, you know, fair unionization. You don't have to pay your union dues if you don't want to. And we're going to do this. And then all of a sudden, bam, they destroyed him. They had, I don't know, three months of non stop ads where they showed him in a private plane smoking a cigar and said, this is your, this is your governor and he's cutting off amount aid to single moms that are pregnant. And that was it. Yeah.

[Jack]

Did he. The train came through him? Yes.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

The, the high school. That was a ballot proposition.

[Jack]

Okay.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, that was either in 2006 or 2008. And it was billed as like, I don't know, 9090 billion dollars. And then that money in that time. And it was going to connect Los Angeles through Tehachapi to Bakersfield to Sacramento and then two thirds of the way to Sacramento, a link over Pacheco Pass and connect with Caltrans in the peninsula area, like San Jose. Right. And then you could, you could, you know.

[Jack]

Okay, yeah, we don't want to go down the rabbit hole. Yeah. All right. Let me talk about a fire. So here's a. There's a great website. We've talked about them before. UN1 I love it because they talk about things rural and as a city guy, we need to be. We. We really need to keep our attention to what government does to abuse folks

[Victor Davis Hanson]

who are rural folks.

[Jack]

So there is a national park. It was once a California ranch and it is on fire. Maybe it's still on fire, Victor, because this piece is from a few days ago. So here's the story. A wildfire on Santa Rosa island. Assume nearly 15,000 acres is 0% contained as of Tuesday morning. That was a week ago. It's the biggest fire in California so far this year, the largest in the island's history. Island was once the home of Vail and Vickers, a cattle ranch. That was before the government took the land, forced the ranchers and the cattle off, shot all the deer and elk. Now, with no grazers left to manage fire fuel, the largely abandoned island is burning along with some of the last remnants of. Of the remaining ranch it will take. It was taken to be preserved. Yet today I watched.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It is preserved. It is preserved. I wrote something about that once. They had a crazy editor who was actually fair for the LA Times. So for about a year I wrote guest columns for them about the Aspen fire and the Paradise Fire. And a person replied to it. I think he was from, you see, environmentalists. And he said it was good to have these fires because they charred pine trees and they all decayed afterwards. And that enriched the ecosystem with grubs and worms and then birds could eat them and build your way up. And this is the way it had always been. And I was a humanist in the bad sense of trying to say humans could privilege themselves. I don't understand California. I never quite understood this, that when you look at the map from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, you see, I don't know, eight or nine of these islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, the Catalina Islands, the only really one that's inhabited. You see Santa Barbara Island, Santa Rosa Island, San Miguel island, and they're all within 40 miles of the coast. They're beautiful places. They don't have water, I suspect. But I didn't understand why you wanted to evict everybody and make them bird sanctuaries or the sparrow sanctuary or something and not let people go on there. And I think they have organized tours every certain times of the year. You can walk around. But what was so bad about allowing this family to take care of it? Or it's private property. What makes an island different from the mainland? You can just go in and destroy this. And then you. Then the custodians who take care of these places have no attachment to them. They just think it's a little tessera and their mosaic of curriculum vitae and dossier and they're left wing, but they don't know much about outside their field. They don't know what people like. They don't think in those terms. They don't think this would be really nice if there's eight or nine islands and we just took two or three and we allowed, you know, people to come out during the day. We have the highly commercial Catalina Islands. So we're going to have one where a nice big pier and we'll let people come out and fish. They'll have bike, we'll make a bike trail. We'll have a concession, one hotel. They don't think like that, but that would be wonderful for the people of la, and they wouldn't do that. Here we have this. There's no islands in California, basically. And you have these big. Some of them are big, some of them are, you know, they're only one square mile, but they're. It would be a wonderful thing. And they didn't just not do that. They evicted people. And then the result was what we see now.

[Jack]

I hope to go to one of the Catalina one. My.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I want to go there, too. I really want to do that before I kick off.

[Jack]

Well, there's a guy, Norm, I'm not going to give his last name, who's been on a number of National Review cruises, lives down in San Diego. I think you know him and he's invited several times. Someday I'm going to take someone up on one of these kind offers to come spend a week in my special place. I've never done that. Victor, let's conclude by. I'm springing this on you. Although I sent you a clip of this. Azra Nomani, who's a friend, she used to write for the Wall Street Journal, she's not now running an investigative shop at Fox News. She's terrific. I'm very Fond of her. She was also as a mom, a leader in the Northern Virginia fight against, you know, these kids who were doing extremely well but because they happened to be, they were just the wrong pigmentation. So their test scores were precluded from national merit.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, I remember that. I'm glad we eliminated racism in the civil rights movement. Movement.

[Jack]

Well, she's now doing investigative stuff for Fox. So pro Cuba activist groups face Department of Justice foreign influence investigation. Here's her story. Amongst the foreign leaders who've been pro under Trump administration's target list, Raul Castro is now up for charges by the US government for murder charges for the 1996 shoot down of those brothers to the rescue planes. I don't know if folks remember that. So this was announced On Wednesday at 1:54pm on Wednesday, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Marxist political organization deeply embedded in a hands off Cuba campaign, published six pre produced graphics denouncing the indictment as a baseless indictment of Castro, a pretext for another war. And then within short order, this is the whole point of what Azra's doing. 145 nonprofit labor groups, advocacy organizations, activists, collectives across America were mobilized immediately in support of the Cuban government, the Communist Party of Cuba based instantly, instantly when these charges came out. It's just an idea of the scope and scale and how cross pollinated the left is in America. Anyway, I recommend folks check out her article.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

At least you got to give them credit. It used to be that calling someone a communist was like the worst thing you could call somebody. But now the democratics, they say they're democratic socialists and there's even people who say they're communists and you know them by what they're doing. So you really do get the impression that they prefer what Cuba looks like today or 10 years ago than the United States. Except they would never go down there and live in Cuba or any other communist relic. But they like the idea of it.

[Jack]

Well, they'll visit on a cruise. I did see some article the other night that. I mean some news clip. Of course, a blackout. The one place that's not blacked out in Havana is the five star hotel that also all the elites.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

You can imagine what the left's worst nightmare is about Cuba. It's not the Bay of Pigs Redukes, it's not Trump trying to invade. No, it's that government imploding like the Soviet Union, like Eastern Europe and then, oh, I don't know, 20,000 multi, multi millionaires or Cubans from Miami, they go in there and they take those waterfronts and they make these beautiful hotels and, you know, Escalade every and they make it sort of like a beautiful place. And that's what they don't. They're terrified. Yeah, they would do it too.

[Jack]

There was a professor I assume on real fascist regimes this isn't norm, but in Cuba, professor was caught on video the other day. I'm waiting nine hours in line at a store for food that when you get finally can get it, if they have it, you get home, there's no way you can cook it because there's no electricity. And then even if you did have, there's no way to preserve it because there's no electricity or for refrigeration or anything like that. So it is a hellacious situation that hopefully will break sooner than later. So, Victor, I want to just read a couple of comments that some folks have sent in great appreciation for all the wisdom you share. As we come to the conclusion of today's episode, Becky Teague writes, I thank God that we have have Victor's voice in a crazy upside down world. Thank you, Sammy. And Victor T. Lindsay1007 writes, I hope Trump is listening to VDH about the Iran war. Trump needs to stop negotiating and take action asap. Maybe by the time this episode is out we will have seen evidence of

[Victor Davis Hanson]

now they're convincing me can't do it during the Hajj, you know, the once in a lifetime trek of a Muslim to Mecca. Mecca. But I would remind the Trump administration that the Yom Kippur war was conducted during the most holy part of the Jewish year. And in some places it's called the Ramadan War because it dovetailed with Ramadan. And they didn't have any objections to it. Muslims, radical Muslims, they only have objections if you make the objection. They're flexible. They'll fight anytime, anywhere. Ramadan, the Hajj, it doesn't matter. But it does matter if you let it matter and if they think that you're worried about it, then they will double down if you just say I don't care. You attack during Christmas, you've attacked during Yom Kippur, we attacked during Hajj. So what Master's attitude.

[Jack]

Yeah, these kind of not constraints is the wrong word. But even the first Gulf War, wasn't it we want to be finished in a hundred hours. What did it matter if it was a hundred hours as opposed to 89?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They finished that. They, they left that war. They cut it off. They could have done another two days and got rid of Saddam. Yeah. And then I think they would have had somebody online. They wouldn't that Cheney and those guys were not going to, you know, have a consensual government and all that nation building. They could have just got somebody to come in they could work with and they wouldn't have killed all the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs and everything if they had done that. But that's, you know, I don't know what to say, but Donald Trump needs to stop, stop negotiating because it's not negotiations. It's. Can't hear you. What shape is the desk? It's what the Communists did in Paris with us over the Vietnam War. Round table or rectangle?

[Jack]

Pork Chop Hill. Same thing.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. Enriched uranium to 21, 22. We'll kind of put it off here, but maybe not. There something we'll discuss next week in Pakistan and we'll include the Straits of Hormuz. Maybe we'll allow X number in and we'll take a little toll, but we'll call it a fee. That's what they want to do. And then all of a sudden, you know, we're getting five months. We've just got June, July, August, September, October. And then we're at the midterm and that's their plan. Talk, talk, talk. And then rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. And then we finally go away and they say they won the war. And Robert Kagan, who's, as I said, son of a great American, probably one of the greatest American classicist ancient historians and a fabulous teacher, Donald Kagan, he's written an article basically saying we lost the war. And he used to be a conservative Republican, but he's, he was, yeah, he's

[Jack]

written for National Review any number of times, but. Yeah, part of that whole cabal. 1. One last comment from Patricia Horlick. This program, plus listening to my Bible app are my favorite ways to end my day. Thank you, Victor. I do want to say. Oh, yeah. For me, civil thoughts, please go to civilthoughts.com, sign up. You'll get my free weekly email newsletter that has 14 recommended readings. It's called simplethoughts. But civilthoughts.com you're gonna love it. This is still Memorial Day weekend. While we're talking and we've talked about this, this, I think two episodes ago. Turner Classic Movies is showing a vast range.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I did watch Guns of Navarone last night.

[Jack]

Well, I didn't stay up for that because that was, it was early here. It was earlier, But I watched MacArthur before and I'd Never seen it with Gregory Peek.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I saw half of. Wasn't as good as Patton.

[Jack]

No, but. So yeah, it was an attempt, I think to be deep. Yeah. There's just one patent, you know, you can't. But it was okay. MacArthur is interesting. More than an interesting character.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Odd to see a movie that has David Niven, Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn all in the same. On the major role.

[Jack]

Stanley.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Stanley Baker, who died I think at 45 of lung cancer.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then they had had Anthony Quail, who's always a good character actor.

[Jack]

I love that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then my fa. One of my favorite Greek actress, Maria. Oh, what's her name? Irene Pappas. Irene Pappas. Yeah, she was. She was great.

[Jack]

She was a traitor, right? She was.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, she was the good Greek woman. The traitor was. She was an Italian actress.

[Jack]

Oh, I should know.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Nia something. And she. She had a tragic life. That was her big role. And she was born in Italy. I can't remember her name, but she died very early of overdose, I think. She was only in four shows. And they also had James Darren as Spiros.

[Jack]

Oh yeah, right.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Remember that? And Stanley Baker, he was great in Zulu.

[Jack]

Oh, that movie.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So there was. That was a great. The first time I had seen it with my parents, I think in 1962. Then I watched it again. I wasn't impressed. The second time I watched it about 10 years. But I liked it. I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, it's not a historic. There wasn't a 15 inch naval guns. But there was a lot of bad decision making with the British on the Dodecanese islands at the end. And they didn't need to try to take the Nazis out. And they did. And it was a disaster. And that was part of the background historically that the. The novelist had elaborated on. Okay. But that was a great. There was some really good movies coming up. I haven't seen today's movies that are on, but we'll. I'll go watch them.

[Jack]

Okay. Well, Victor, you have been wonderful as usual. Thanks for all the wisdom and analysis you shared. Thanks folks for watching and listening. We'll be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. Bye Bye.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you everybody for watching and listening. We'll see you next time. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.