← Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Victor Davis Hanson: What Six Democrats Didn’t Say in Their Anti-Trump Message to US Soldiers
01:29:00
On this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler take aim at the six congressional Democrats who called on military members to defy “illegal” orders from the Commander-in-Chief.
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- [00:00]
Jack Fowler
Victor Trump Mondami at the White House. Buddy, buddy. A little bit between a fascist and a commie. I don't know what they call, how they call each other.
- [00:08]
Victor Davis Hanson
I've spoken about. That's okay. You can just say yes, okay. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind Mondami. I think Trump played him. And I'm not just saying that to praise Trump. Mondami, by being with Trump, has a lot of problems with his base because Trump is Satan incarnate to the people who vote for Mondami and they don't believe in ecumenicalism.
- [00:31]
Jack Fowler
Jasmine Crockett and Epstein and those two stars inter aligned or are they actually, I think two galaxies collided. She was trying to embarrass Lise Eldon and it kind of blew up in her face, but dang, she won't admit it. She won't admit it.
- [00:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
Every time I go on a podcast, my first or go out in public speak, the first thing I say to myself is, don't say something that you either don't mean or is factually incorrect or is designed to get publicity or clicks. She has the opposite point of view. I'm going to get on here and say outrageous, crazy things and get publicity. When she said who also took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein, as I had my team dig in very quickly, she didn't say in what context. She didn't say anything. I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein, just so that people understand meaning, I'm just going to throw names out there and smear them and put the article A in front of it. And then if I'm found out because I'm too lazy or my staff is as incompetent as I am, that is specifically why I said a Jeffrey Epstein, I can backtrack and say, well, I didn't say it.
- [01:49]
Jack Fowler
Hello, ladies. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words. VDH is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and he's a senior contributor at the Daily Signal. And he's a man with a website, the Blade of Percy. You should subscribe. I'll tell you why later in this episode. We are recording on Sunday, November 23rd, and this particular episode will be up on Tuesday, November 25th. I'm Jack Fowler, Lucky man. I get to ask Victor questions. I'm dolled up, Victor, a little bit. I got my William F. Buckley tie on. This is from the Buckley Institute at Yale. I go there when they have events tomorrow in real time Monday the 24th will be the centennial of Bill Buckley, so I figured I'd give him a little. Give him a little love. This way, Victor. Let's begin the show today, getting your thoughts on the infamous meeting at the White House between forthcoming newly elected Mayor Mandami Zoram Mandami of New York City with Donald Trump. Then we have that Democrat video, six senators urging members of the military not to follow illegal orders. What the heck was that all about? Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced she is resigning from Congress. Those are three big issues. And we have plenty more to get your take on. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages.
- [03:19]
Victor Davis Hanson
Right is still right, even if you stand by yourself. Mr. Chief justice, may I place the card?
- [03:27]
Jack Fowler
This is Hans Van Spakasse, 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. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen, in his own words. Victor Trump Mandami at the White House. Buddy, buddy. A little bit between a fascist and a commie. I don't know what they call, how they call each other. What are your thoughts on this meeting?
- [04:19]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't know who requested it, but when you're the city of New York mayor elect, you need the federal government much more than the federal government needs you. And we're getting. If it's true that we're getting $20 trillion, I don't believe we'll get 20. But that has been announced. Maybe we'll get half of that. A lot of that will come through New York financial institutions. And so Mondami, I think Trump played him. And I'm not just saying that to praise Trump. I'm just saying Mondami, by being with Trump, has a lot of problems with his base because Trump is Satan incarnate to the people who vote for Madame. And they don't believe in ecumenicalism. So when they saw that, he has to explain and he. There were questions he couldn't answer. That was number one. Number two, he is going, this will be very interesting because he has said things that cannot be sustained. And I mean, arresting Netanyahu when he comes to the UN or using local forces to block ICE activities. And if he does that, he's going to come in contact with the federal government and if he comes in contact with the federal government in a civil insurrectionary scenario, which it would be to say, get out of my city. I'm going to arrest Netanyahu. Ice, you can't do this. We're going to free the. He's going to lose all federal support. The third thing is, who wasn't there? Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Haikam Jeffries. So aoc, Jasmine Crockett. So this guy hasn't even held office yet, and he has an audience with the president. That's got more. As Trump said, I don't know what this guy is, but I've never seen so many reporters here because of the contrast between their philosophies. So I think it served his purposes in saying that I'm de facto now the head of the Democratic Party. That's what Mandami thinks he is. I don't know. He may be, but he didn't say much about what he's going to do. And I'll expect that if he does, it'll be interesting to see if he tries to do all the stuff he did, because if he does, he's going to be in direct conflict physically with the federal government and he's going to lose a lot of money and what is it? And Trump wants to embarrass people by having them seen with him. And he said, you know, call me a fascist, I don't care. So now he knows that Mondami is going to have to twist himself in circles to explain why he was so friendly to Trump. And that'll be interesting to see as well. And Trump, he doesn't get hurt by his base because they say, yeah, he's just on social media all the time. He's mercurial. So what? He's got RFK in there, who ran against him. He's just transactional. He doesn't hold grudges and he's mercurial. One day he likes Elon Musk, next day he doesn't. And Marjorie Taylor Greene will see he's hot and cold. Same thing with Montamey. So don't worry about it. There's no litmus test. They apply to him as they will to Mondami.
- [07:43]
Jack Fowler
I think I like the stage managing and the theatrics of these Oval Office meetings, Victor, where Trump sits behind the desk and people stand next to him at press conferences. It's kind of. It's. I don't know, it's kind of weird.
- [08:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is. The Cabinet meetings are even weirder. They're scripted and it's sort of like Hail to the Chief. Every one of them trying to outdo each other. And then you look at these media people and they got their jaw dropped open like we are being played by Donald Trump. We are being used as propaganda outlets. And yet we complained and complained about the secretive nature and the seclusion of Joe Biden and how he never gave access, he never had. And now this guy gives us so much access that we can't criticize him, even though the access is to his advantage. So he's got them in a pickle.
- [08:38]
Jack Fowler
And as a journalist, you think you'd be thrilled that you have not when.
- [08:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
He dresses you down and says piggy or something or I'm going to sue ABC or I should be taken off the air or some wild thing. And then you have the Cabinet, all the Cabinet people, when they have those, and we've got a record number of barrels because of the great leader. And the great leader is telling. And they, I just look at them and they're thinking, oh, my gosh, how did I get myself in this situation?
- [09:13]
Jack Fowler
Well, interesting. Anyway, Victor, before we move on to, I want to spring a topic here. I mentioned it before the show quickly. And then we're going to get to these Democrat senators some more about the culture. And yesterday I saw a video of trucks coming from Utah to Cincinnati to donate almost £30,000 of food. Now, the University of Cincinnati has a food pantry. Well, byu, Brigham Young University was playing Cincinnati at Cincinnati football. So the good people of Utah sent this really generous donation of food. At the game itself, though the fans of the University of Cincinnati, which by the BYU won the game. The fans were shouting, f the Mormons. Loud chant on and on, F the Mormons. We don't curse on this show. This is not. And it was really disturbing to see such.
- [10:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, it is crude public.
- [10:28]
Jack Fowler
I guess, title.
- [10:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't like it when Trump and Vance say the shit word. I don't like it when Trump says the F word. I don't like it when all these Democratic people cut videos with F this and F that and it's a coarsening of the culture. And then this crudity about making fun of or trashing someone's religion. We've lowered the bar with antisemitism. And I think people believe me, if they had F the Muslims, oh my gosh, can you imagine what would happen? So what I'm getting at is the left has conditioned or prepped the battlefield that certain things are regrettable, but they're tolerable. But Certain things are career ending and one of them is Islamophobia. He's all right to make fun of Jews or Mormons, but not other people. But we don't have any moral leadership in the political sphere at all. So when you have Brandon Johnson saying, the poor girl who was lit on fire, this is an isolated case and it's not typical, basically, of what he said, think about that. This girl was torched by a person who had been arrested 49 times. He didn't say, I think something's wrong with her judicial, this is amoral. And he didn't visit her in the hospital that we know of. And it follows Irena that was, had her throat slit. And all he can say is that it's isolated. What would he say? You know, I mean, when. After George Floyd was killed, there was the argument. Roland Fryer, the African American economist at Harvard, had published a study showing that policemen, policemen who come in contact with blacks. During 11 million arrests of Americans each year, the number of people who were unarmed and shot, given the frequency of black arrest scenarios versus white, showed no typical pattern of police shooting an unarmed person. And yet the Washington Post published that statement. And yet we were told, if you didn't believe that the shooting of George Floyd was typical of what, white policemen, and they weren't all white, by the way, and that coterie around Derek Chauvin, if that was. If you didn't believe that was typical. And so we rioted for what, three and a half months on the idea that this was endemic systemic racism. But it was one incident. Can you imagine if people, this isn't just one incident of this poor white girl being set on fire. It follows another poor white girl who had her throat slit. And you could adduce a lot more examples of career African American felons who were let out by liberal Obama and Biden appointed judges. It's a pattern. And yet you can't. It's so warped in this country. You can't say that is a disturbing pattern. When the left always tries to make patterns after things and that's what gets people so angry. And then when you had the shootings in Chicago and Johnson, Kentucky, he says that Chicago is calm. Trump would just cause havoc. And he can't and will not say, nor will Michelle Obama, who was in the news. None of these people can. They all want to bring in race, race, race, race, race, race. This is racist. This is racist. Blacks can't swim because of racism, because they get their hair wet. And then white people inflict their views that they have to have white like hair, even though we know Asians and Latinos have straight hair. And she didn't say, and I always have to get my hair straightened because there's too many Asians and they have straightened hair. So it's just a racist thing. And the one thing that you never hear from Michelle or anybody, and I'm not saying that anybody of a particular race has to comment on their particular race positively or negatively. I'm just saying that if you set yourself up as a state representative commentator in a generic, stereotypical fashion for the collective, then you better be honest. And so when you say that the problem in the black community is your hair gets wet and then white women or white men want you to go immediately straighten it, to have some oppressive standard. And 51% of the assaults, rapes and murders in this country are, are committed by about 4% of the population who are black males of teenage and adult age. And you don't say a word about why that is happening and how to prevent it. Something's wrong. And then what we have now, Jack, is every single story about this crime wave that we're experiencing. We have the media and they will not really talk about the. If they don't really talk, if it's kind of cynical, if the person's description is not given, we know that the person is not a white male. But anyway, we have this left wing interpretation of the news story and then they know that they're going to lose readership. So they have the comments and the comments are unadulterated. I mean, they are like some of our Klan comments are so furious racist. In other words, the media is setting this up. We're going to glean this story and clean it up and sanitize it and be misleading. And we know that that will evoke this response in the comments and that way we'll get people clicks and people want to read it. We're going to deliberately provoke the readership and then print what they write. And if they would just report accurately, then you wouldn't have the comments. But you can see what's happening, that people are getting angrier and angrier and angrier. And when the judge in that particular case of the assailant who was out 49 times, she says, well, where are you going to put them? I can't just let every state prosecutor who comes in my courtroom and has a violent felon wants to put him behind bars. What would we do? Well, you keep putting them behind them so they don't kill people. If you don't have enough space. You build space. And if you can't build space, then you have a Marshall plan to address the root causes of the problem. And it's not more money or more teacher unions, higher pay for teacher union faculty and dismal schools. It's tough love. And I don't see anybody talking about it. I really don't.
- [17:34]
Jack Fowler
Well, remember what happened in speaking before Cincinnati, that, that riot in the streets that was suppressed even as news and then spun this a few, a few months. A few months.
- [17:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
Chicago, where they rushed the million dollar mile, what eight shootings in Mayor Johnson and then outside of Charlottesville, in a city not too far away, they had the same thing. It's just same old, same old, same old. And nobody talks about it because to talk about it invites criticism that you're a racist and it's not fair. And yet the people who should be talking about it like a Jasmine Crockett because she can't speak of anything other than race, all she comes out of her mouth is white this and black this, then people like that won't touch it. Right. And that, that, that doesn't work. And then you have Donald Trump getting angry and saying things and then we're off to the races. I don't. It's getting much worse. Racial regulation, much, much worse.
- [18:39]
Jack Fowler
That suppression of news. I know you discussed it a little with Sammy the other day that Bill Maher had that comedian Patton Oswald on and he seemed to be ignorant of just about everything that's happened in America. Living in his. Yeah, they are in his little world of make believe, his bubble. So. Well, Victor, we're going to talk about, we'll get back to Chicago a little later also and we're going to talk about these Democrat senators. But first to our listeners. Ever since COVID millions of Americans have started buying preparedness supplies, especially emergency food. And that's a good thing. But there's a big mistake most people make with their emergency food supply. They don't have any way to cook it in a real emergency when the power is out or the grid is down. And that's why our friends at My Patriot Supply created their Black Friday survival special. It comes with a 4 week food supply plus $150 worth of free gifts including everything you need to prepare your emergency meals like a cook stove, fuel, fire starters, plus a water purifier, a bug out bag and more. It's the complete survival kit your family needs to ride out natural disasters, civil unrest or, or anything worse. And it also Makes a great Christmas present, but it's only available through Black Friday, so head to. I'm going to give you a web address now, preparewithvdh.com to check out everything that's included. With all the uncertainty in the world right now, we simply can't afford to be unprepared. So go to preparewithvdh.com and get prepared today. That's prepareway with vdh.com and we thank the good people from my Patriot Supply for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor? Yeah. These six Democrat senators, one of the more interesting odd examples of political performance art. They concocted this video, encouraging warning, urging members of the military not to. Not to follow illegal orders. Wow, Victor, I was just so weird. Your thoughts on it.
- [20:58]
Victor Davis Hanson
So we have 1.3 million soldiers on active duty and there are representatives, six of them, Congress people and senators say on this video, and they all say, we have served, we're veterans, and we. You don't have to obey an unlawful order. Okay. And it's in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And then they start, you don't have. And the idea is that Donald Trump is issuing unlawful orders. They don't cite one, not one. So really the message then becomes, hey, you, 1.3 million soldiers, you all are lawyers. So when your commanding officer says, get in the helicopter, fly through the fog and look for the downed pilot, you say, that's an unlawful order. I'm not going to do it. You don't have to do it. That is the message. If the message is wink, nod. Donald Trump has been giving unlawful orders, but we don't want to specify which ones. There's a reason why that. And we've heard that it's unlawful to use military force abroad without a congressional authorization.
- [22:28]
Jack Fowler
False.
- [22:29]
Victor Davis Hanson
Barack Obama killed dozens of people with Predator drones, including a US Citizen. He joked about it at the White House Correspondents Dinner when he said, if you want to date my daughter, it's called Predator P R E D A T O R. Okay. And George W. Bush, George H.W. bush, Harry Truman, they've all used for. If it's. You can't send federal troops into a city that's under siege. Colin Powell begged to use 5,000 Marines for the Rodney King. He did. And we've had, I think, seven instances where presidents have sent troops in, you know, World War I, veterans, Civil War draft, you name it. So they can't list one thing and then they say unicorn code of military justice. Okay, Mr. Left Wing Representatives, go look at Article 90 and 92, and it does say you can obey, but then it has lawful and unlawful order. And you go look at the instances when you can. It's almost impossible. You have to be absolutely sure that you are being told, if you read that thing, what an unlawful order is, something like shoot the prisoner, something like that. It's not what they're imagining. And that is highly ironic because in the first term we have article 88. Since they want to quote the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It says retired general. It says general. Admirals, Admirals. High ranking officers shall not disparage, demean, basically smear the commander in chief, the vice president, cabinet people. And this applies. It says whether they're active or retired and subject to recall. So we had, I think it was eight or nine four star admirals who said he was a liar. He was Mussolini, he acted as if he was Hitler.
- [24:36]
Jack Fowler
He.
- [24:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
He was comparable. I think that was General Hayden who flashed pictures of Auschwitz, said that Trump was doing the same thing on the border. I could go on. So they're not being honest. But what's even worse is very quickly. And I talked a little bit about Sammy and I talked to some others about it, this insurrectionary idea that General Milley, for example, because Trump is so evil, can diagnose him as unstable. Then call his Chinese counterpart in the People's Liberation army and warn him that he will be contacted if he has any order. Milley, Any order. Or he can break the chain of command, which he's not supposed to do, and interfere between theater commanders and the Department of Defense's secretary, which he did instead. He told them all to consult him first. Or you have Rosa Brooks, 11 days after Donald Trump was elected, excuse me, inaugurated, saying, we've got to get rid of this guy. There's three ways to do it. We either have the 25th amendment or we impeach them. Too slow. Or you can have a military coup. Military coup. She said. And then we had two lieutenant colonels. One was very decorated, Lieutenant Nagel and said that, you know what? Trump's. Gonna. General Miller, you're gonna have to remove him. He won't leave. And he has his little green men. And I tell you what, man, when the. When the 82nd Airborne, they don't know what we're allowed. 82nd Airborne goes and confronts Trump, he'll back down. So he's basically calling for an OK Corral shootout between the Secret Service or somebody and the 82nd. So what I'm getting at, Jack, is this is not new. And when you add this to the 600 sanctuary cities where they're defined federal law. It's like Fort Sumter. Or you have Nancy Pelosi saying we're going to arrest any ICE officer in our state that we think breaks one of our law. They don't know what the Constitution says that the superiority lies with the federal government when it is enforcing federal law anywhere in the 50 states, the states at that time. And yet they keep doing it and they don't even believe it what they're saying because when Jan Brewer was the mayor of Arizona and Obama would not, would not, would not do his federal responsibility and close the border, she tried to and they sued her and our liberal judges then said oh no, Governor Brewer, you are that states rights you can't get interfere. And she said well he's not doing his job, doesn't matter. Immigration is a federal. Those same judges are now saying oh yes, we can interfere because before the federal government could not be challenged by the state because it didn't want to enforce a law. It was derelict and that was wonderful. Now when the federal government is dutiful and wants to enforce a law, yes you can interfere. So I don't know who their heroes are. Jefferson Davis, John Calhoun, George Wallace, General Scott, Burt Lancaster and Seven Days in May, I don't know. But it's one of those they're insurrectionists and we're going to get a situation, mark my words, we're going to get a situation next year as the midterms and everything heats up when some crazy blue state governor mayor is going to tell his local police force to stop an ICE officer, whether the ICE officer is in the process of arresting somebody or chasing somebody through the woods as we saw in that tape and you're going to have a confrontation and then we're going to be right bleeding Kansas 1853 or 4. And I don't know how it's going to end, but this is really dangerous. And the left keeps pushing the insurrection button. And these people who are telling soldiers to disobey commands if they feel and they're considered opinion that they can is really bizarre. But it has a precedent. If the chairman of the Joint Chief says that as Dr. Mark Milley with my sophisticated background in psychiatry I tele diagnosed our commander in chief is unstable, then that gives me a right to disobey any order that he gives and beyond that to contact the Communist party in China and warn them that we might attack them and I give them advance warning. And that theory is the same thing you soldiers can diagnose your, you can diagnose your commanding officer as crazy and he gave you a wrong order, so just disobey it. And then they cloaked that in patriotism and their service. I'm a veteran. I'm getting really tired of that too. I really like veterans. I think I grew up in a family of veterans and I think it's a wonderful thing to serve. Everybody I met in the military is wonderful. But when these people say that they're going to hide behind being a veteran, that'd be like me saying you can't talk about food policy. Mr. Senator, have you ever been on a 285 Massey for 12 hours? Have you, have you ever sprayed dimethylate for six hours in a field? You don't know anything about farming. You have no right to talk about food policy. Everybody has a right to talk about military policy. Especially when the military veterans set themselves up to be advocating civil disobedience, which is what they're doing, they really are. Or actually military disobedience.
- [30:15]
Jack Fowler
I'm glad you mentioned Seven Days in May, Victor. I've saw it recently. It is a terrific movie. Even though it's a liberal movie. No question it was made from a liberal perspective. But you wait 60 years and it's an indictment of the current liberal set.
- [30:30]
Victor Davis Hanson
It is, it is the left. But you know, everybody, I want to be very clear. The left is not principle. They don't have a position on states rights or federal superiority in a constitutional sense. They don't have a position on sanctuary cities. That is just for the moment because it's conducive to their larger agenda of acquiring and expanding their power. And I've said this before, but if you're some guy and you're a developer, let's say in Salt Lake City and you want to build a condo and you see a three winged blackbird and you say that blank, blank blackbird nest is right in the way of my bulldozers. And then somebody says, well, you know, it's on the endangered species list. I don't care. The federal government has no jurisdiction here in Utah or you're in Wyoming and you get your cowboy boots stereotype, you go in and they say we can't sell you that.45. Well, I don't, I, I don't follow the federal gun laws. This is the state of Wyoming. I, it's a sanctuary gun city. They would go ballistic. Ballistic. Oh, this is insurrection. You have to follow federal law. They, they just pick and choose because they have no principle. Yeah, Everybody needs to know that when they get up there in jurisdiction, these sanctu. Gavin Newsom, you know, we're going to do this. We're going to do this about sanctuary cities. If you're here illegally, and then you have Karen Bass and Los Angeles officials deliberately creating apps and trying to work with illegal aliens to resist the rule of law as practiced by federal ICE agents. But believe me, sometimes the federal government is good when the protester is conservative, and that's very rarely that that happens. Well, so that's what's really scary about these people. They're French revolutionary Jacobins. They'll do anything and say anything at any time. And I was really angry about that video. I thought, wow, you hide behind your service and then you, for cheap political purposes, you get up there and you send this message to over a million soldiers that there's going to come an occasion where they're going to get an illegal alien illegal order and they're going to have the constitutional right to resist it. When you don't tell people, this is how many orders were resisted in the military the last five years per year, and this is what happens to people who resisted that order. Why don't they give that information out?
- [33:12]
Jack Fowler
Well, resist and you'll be a hero. But don't have a vaccine and we'll can you. Right? It's amazing. So, hey, Vic.
- [33:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
8,500 people.
- [33:23]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, we're going to come back and talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett. We're going to do that right after these important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. We are talking on Sunday, November 23rd. This episode is up on Tuesday the 25th. Victor, two things I just want to drop in. I'm going to call it a free commercial. Well, we're at the Daily Signal. Daily Signal is affiliated with. It's independent, but affiliated with Heritage Foundation. And we are two days out from Thanksgiving. And in the mail the other day, I got this beautiful booklet. I'm going to show it here. I know people on audio can't see it, but this is called Celebrate America and the Thanksgiving Table with proclamations, poetry and song. It just came in unexpected. And it's a wonderful book I want to recommend, folks. It's part of Heritage's America 250 project, and the great Bridget Wagner is helping oversee that.
- [34:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
I know they've had controversy, but I think people are losing sight. And I'm speaking from a person. We're affiliated with the Daily Signal that has an affiliation with Heritage. But I'm employed by the Hoover Institute. They're both great conservative institutions that do a lot of good and Heritage does a lot of good. And they've got a very good board of directors. I know three or four of them, and they're one. Rebecca Mercer, Larry Arndt. They're very good people. I had a good friend that resigned in Robbie George, but that was a matter of his principle. He had a perfect right to do that. But that's open dissension. It doesn't question that. The history of the Heritage foundation has been wonderful, and they're having disputes about the degree to which they should speak up, I guess. But we don't, we don't want to get into it. It's a long comp. I'm not going to get into it. But people who then question the entire Heritage are wrong. It's a wonderful organization.
- [35:37]
Jack Fowler
Well, as you know, it's like at National Review, I was involved with printed projects. I agree with you. I don't. I didn't want to go down this alley. We. You've talked at great length about this controversy in previous podcasts, but just something unexpectedly showed up. And it's really, it's just a wonderful product. I like print products and I want to encourage folks if they're interested in it. Go to heritage.org thanksgiving and download it.
- [36:08]
Victor Davis Hanson
If you're reading that American Essence magazine from Epoch Times. If I'm pronouncing Epoch Times, well, it's Epoch or Epoch.
- [36:16]
Jack Fowler
You pick one.
- [36:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
Epoch. Either one. But that's a wonderful magazine, too. It's like out of the 1950s. It's a beautifully produced magazine. There's not enough of that that tries. I mean, the whole message of popular culture is anti traditionalism, anti Americanism. So when you find any institution that is trying to remind people about what good behavior is and reverence for your country, your ancestors, your parents, the whole model of the nuclear family, it's, it's rare and they should be complimented on the effort.
- [36:50]
Jack Fowler
I think I read this correctly, that I know the new Criterion is publishing next month in America 250 symposium. You're part of that, I think.
- [37:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, I was and I am going to try it, but the deadline is coming up and I had, I had all of these unexpected medical appointments, so I got behind and then I, I got dropped 560 pages of this Trump book that's done that. I had to do the copy editing and one of the other editors tended to disagree with me politically. I don't want to get into it. But I had to do a lot of more footnoting and things.
- [37:32]
Jack Fowler
I don't think people understand what you have to go through. And I think you're more than the typical writer because you write the book, then you have to edit the book, maybe even twice. And then you have to mark the book.
- [37:45]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, it's more than that. You write the book and then you send it in, and then the general editor looks at it, and then they send you. Content changes. Content changes. This chapter shouldn't be here. And then they sent it to a general, what they call line editing. That line editor is supposed to look at grammar, syntax, sentence length, make sure that everything is there.
- [38:16]
Jack Fowler
I know I'm interrupting, but you respond to the general editor's concerns, but then you put a lot of time in response to that.
- [38:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yes, the general editors are not supposed to. The major editor is supposed to approve the content.
- [38:31]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [38:32]
Victor Davis Hanson
But a line editor often thinks they're an author. And I say this, I've written 26 books, so I've had what line editors should do and what they should. Well, I have a line editor. I'm not going to mention anything that feels that he's an author. So he's playing devil's advocate. It would be as if I said, the moon is a long distance from the earth comet memo on the margin. How do you know that? We need a footnote here or there was no evidence that January 6th was an armed insurrection. How do you know that? Can you please give a footnote on every single thing? I have over 488 footnotes now, if I do any more. But my point is, then when you get through all that second editing, then you have what they call a copy editor, and that comes on a printed PDF, and that is supposed to be just mistakes, wrong footnote numbers or something. And then when you get that, then you have the book come out and paid, what they call galley proofs, and then that's circulated. Then you, the author, have to help solicit blurbs for the COVID You have to pick the COVID and you usually are overruled. I think in my 26 books, I was overruled 25 times on the COVID Oh, gosh. Wow. And then you have to promote the book. And that means, I think for the first Trump book, I did over 200 radio. Gosh, I did about seven a day, eight a day. And the only reason that book was a best seller was the late Rush Limbaugh called me up and said, victor, I love this book. And you know what? The number one book is on Amazon right now. I said, no, I don't Rush. And he said, michelle Obama's memoirs and if I promote this book, it'll go to number one. So and then I don't do this regularly, but I'm going to talk about it all day today for three hours. And then the next morning everybody called, said, your book is number one on Amazon. Yeah, that's what Rush lava. He could move, how powerful he could move.
- [40:43]
Jack Fowler
And I think today Mark Levin is pretty influential.
- [40:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
Mark Levin is very close to that. I know. I like Mark Levin a lot.
- [40:52]
Jack Fowler
Well, before we get into the Marjorie Taylor Greene, I do want to note that as you had mentioned, we had mentioned on previous podcasts you were going to be appearing in Bakersfield and you did appear. And I just, I don't want to get into the, to the event. What happened other than Victor, did you get a standing ovation when you showed up?
- [41:14]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I did. They had fireworks. It was really nice. Bakersfield. It might have. They had over somewhere between five and 6,000 people there and there was a very steep ticket price and I didn't charge anything. I wanted to, you know, when Megan Kelly, if she had originally asked me if I wanted to come with Charlie Kirk and so that was over, I think six months or so.
- [41:40]
Jack Fowler
Just the three of you were going to have an on stage conversation and.
- [41:43]
Victor Davis Hanson
Then he was tragically, as we know, shot. So they kind of changed it. So they had a succession of guests with her, like Charlie. You know, I didn't leave till 3 o' clock and it's a two hour drive from where I live. And then I didn't get back till 11:15, I think that night. But I didn't stay for the but I did say one thing that was controversial, maybe it was plain to the crowd. I said I've always liked Bakersfield more than Fresno, which is heretical here in Fresno County. But something's going on in Bakersfield. It used to be the poor sister of Fresno. It's much smaller, the climate is much hotter and Fresno is the central Sierra Nevadas are much wetter and greener. Yosemite National Park, Sequoia Kings Canyon. And they start to taper. They're high Mount Whitney, but the foothills are dry. It's a drier climate. It gets half the rainfall. But now it is like, I mean people are commuting to Los Angeles from Bakersfield because it's so cheap. It's an hour and minutes to downtown LA, an hour and 30 minutes. It's the seat really of the Greatest almond ore almonds are in a recession. But when they're booming, Bakersfield booms. It's one of the biggest oil producers in the country and the biggest in California, I think. And then it's a very. They have kind of a new city to the west of Bakersfield where they're beautiful new homes, very affordable. And they're getting a much higher return of valley natives who go to school on the coast and they come back to live in Bakersfield than we are. We're stagnating. And Bakersfield is ascendant. And every time I go there, and I've spoken maybe 20 or 30 times in my life, the reaction is much more electric than it is in Fresno.
- [43:41]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, my buddy, yours too, Will Swaim, who runs California Policy center also tells me they've. They've got a little center down there now where conservative organizations are incubating and cross pollinating. So it's pretty cool, pretty groovy. God bless Bakersfield.
- [44:01]
Victor Davis Hanson
So, yeah, God bless the San Joaquin Valley. It's an oasis of rational thought in.
- [44:08]
Jack Fowler
California and VDH fans. All right, Victor. Marjorie Taylor Greene has ended her battles with Donald Trump over the Epstein files and other things. And she announced that she is retiring from Congress in early January. And then the barbs that she and Donald Trump traded with each other seemed to have evaporated. And the president's saying nice things about her overnight on social media reports. Anyway, any thoughts you want?
- [44:42]
Victor Davis Hanson
She was going to run for Senate. Yeah, it was going to be very hard. It would be very hard in Georgia of all the Southern states for a die hard original MAGA adherent to be elected to the Senate. I mean, it could happen. But I think Georgia is a little bit more liberal than, oh, Alabama next door or Mississippi, you know. And so the constituents who had been difficult, I think she needed to remember that most Congress people, there's 400 and what, 31. They don't have instant access to the White House.
- [45:22]
Jack Fowler
435, by the way.
- [45:24]
Victor Davis Hanson
435. Yeah, they don't have instant access. And she did. She was texting him and call. That was a very unusual position. So when the Epstein files came out. What are the Epstein files? I was wondering about that the other day. That is the collection of FBI investigative notes. That's the collection of memos. That's the Senate and House investigatory research. That's the local initial prosecution and conviction. All and a lot of that's sealed because of testimonies, et cetera. That's IRS records of his income It's a huge file, and I don't know to what degree it'll all be released, but she was one, along with Thomas Massie and I think Rand Paul, that insisted that it all be released. 90% of those names that are in there haven't done nothing wrong. They're just, you know, hey, I hear Jerry, I hear Jeffrey Epstein's given money. I'll call him up. Or, hey, Epstein, I hear you're doing a longevity program at Harvard. I'd like to give you money, that kind of stuff. They never went to his apartment. They never did anything. Some of them are people like Larry Summers, who trying to shake him down or not shake him down, raise money for his wife. But he was president of Harvard. Epstein gave money, not a lot compared to what some people give. And then he was asking him for sex advice. But there's no evidence that he actually committed a felony. Larry Silmer, just so there's going to be gradations. And the whole problem with the Epstein files was they were in the hands of the Democrats for four years. So if they're Marjorie Taylor Greene when she said, well, Donald Trump didn't release them, well, they were. They could have been released at any time. And so why weren't they? Because I think there was two reasons that if they released it, there wasn't enough incriminating evidence other than Jeffrey Epstein, before he was ever arrested, happened to know Donald Trump. But more importantly, there was the fact that Donald Trump broke off with Epstein before. Before. Before he was arrested and convicted, basically charges relating to trafficking, pedophilia, that stuff. There were names in there of people who not only continued their relationship with Epstein, knowing that he was a convicted trafficker and felon, but may have visited his Virgin island island and his penthouse. And they, according to many media reports, were 80 to 90% Democrat. So they suppressed it. So when Trump came back in, she started publicly saying, release, release, release. And he basically was getting, I think this is a good assumption calls from a lot of the 10% said, don't release it. I gave the guy names, or I had lunch with him, my name was going to be in there or something. And he thought, better not do it, or he might have had a lot of requests as well from Democrats. And he felt that he'd said, okay, I won't do it, but you guys got to tone down. I don't know what the quid pro quo was, but there were reasons and they. That isn't. And finally, the pressure was too much. And she put that pressure on along with Massie and Rand Paul. Okay. And Steve Bannon and people outside of politics. That is one interpretation. The other is he was playing 4, 5, 6, 10 dimensional chest. He had a big news. He said, let them keep demanding. Let them keep demanding. Let them keep demanding. So they're a fanatic, ecstatic. And it's going to be like Al Capone's vault in Geraldo. They're going to keep demanding and then I'm going to release them and pull the noose and they're all going to be Democrats and we'll see if that's true. I don't think necessarily that's what he was doing, but that may be the end result. So she kept hammering that and all she had to do was just say, you know what? I think I disagree with the president, let's release them. But she didn't. She just kept on and on. And then when he hit anybody who looked rationally, empirically, at a disinterested fashion, and how Donald Trump had destroyed the Wagner group in Syria, how he had killed Soleimani Baghdadi, anybody knew, and how he had hit the Houthis, knew that the last thing he was going to do was get in World War 3 or a ground war or it was going to last. So when he decided to take out the Iranian facilities, you knew it. And it was what, 40 minutes in enemy territory. And then when Tucker came out and said World War Three and she came out and they all came out and said this violates Maga creed, it was a one off. And so there were things that they were disagreeing with that I think a disinterested observer would say, that is crazy. He's doing 90% of the things that you want and you're fixating on issues that are either ridiculous, like hitting the facilities in Iran that has nuclear weapons intentions. And even Barack Obama at one time was for missile defense in Eastern Europe until he canceled it, whose sole purpose was protect Europe on their demand from Iranian missiles, not Putin's missiles, Iranian missiles. But when you just focus on that and you focus on the Epstein and you don't let it alone, and people say, just cool it. You're just one of 435 House members, we understand. And you just do it and do it and then you say you're going to run for Senate on that publicity that results, you're a firebrand. And then there are people in the party who go to the president and says, she's our Jasmine Crockett. She's the same Lauren Bobbitt. They're always in the news or yelling and screaming. Then you know that the president has a particular limit and at some point she crossed that line and he just went ballistic as he does on social media. And there's always with Trump. He's always everybody thinks he's vindictive and holds it's just the opposite. He's transactional. He wakes up every day and say what's in the interest? Is the interest holding a grievance grudge, or is it telling Elon we should be friends again? And that's what she'll that's what he'll do with her. Doesn't mean he'll endorse her for Senate or he will endorse her for another run, but he'll probably say, I think she should stay in politics.
- [52:32]
Jack Fowler
Well, to our listeners, Victor, and our viewers, if you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. They drift through debt and division until one day you realize the foundations you thought were permanent were never permanent at all. Today, America is spending at levels once reserved for wartime. We've normalized deficits that would have stunned earlier generations. And policymakers now debate whether the only path forward is more intervention, more printing, more distortion. But here's the historical Every society that pushed its currency beyond discipline eventually paid a price. The wise never waited for collapse. They prepared for the correction. And that's why so many thoughtful Americans, especially those nearing retirement or in retirement, are reallocating part of their wealth into something that has outlasted every paper experiment in human history. Physical gold, not as speculation but as insulation. Reputation matters, which is why we're partnering with Allegiance Gold, a company distinguished by integrity, reliability and an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. For years, they've guided Americans through transparent education and long standing relationships built on trust. And right now, they're extending a special liberty offer for listeners of Victor Davis Hansen in his own words to help you get started with real gold, whether your funds are in a retirement account or sitting in the bank, if you believe that the best time to reinforce your position is before the storm becomes obvious, well then call. Get a pencil, get a pen, piece of paper. Call 8447-909191-84479-09191 or visit protectwithvictor.com once again. 8447-909191-84790-9191 or visit ProtectWithVictor.com History rewards those who take the long view, and we thank the good people from Allegiance Gold for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Victor, we're going to head into the home stretch soon, but we've mentioned now Jasmine Crockett and Epstein and those two stars into aligned or actually, I think two galaxies collided. So she was trying to embarrass oh, what's his. I can't remember. Lise Eldon. And it kind of blew up in her face, but dang, she won't admit it. She won't admit any thoughts on her stunt.
- [55:21]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, I think. I don't know. On this podcast and things that we do, every time I go on a podcast, my first or go out in public speak, the first thing I say to myself is, is this a private conversation or is it a public. And even in your private conversation, they should reflect your carefulness of your public. Don't say something that you either don't mean or is factually incorrect or is designed to get publicity or clicks. She has the opposite point of view. I'm going to get on here and say outrageous, crazy things and get publicity. And she's done it so many times, and then she says she doubles down on every one of them. She's never once said, I apologize, I don't mean that. When she said, and these people have all contacted Jeffrey Epstein. She didn't say in what context. She didn't say anything. She just said they were all contacted and there's Lee, Zelda and Jeffrey Epstein. And then when she was caught and said there was either one or two other. Jeffrey Epstein's a pretty common name. Epstein and Jeffrey's a common name. And then she said, well, I didn't say Lee Zeldin got a donation from Jeffrey Epstein. I said, a Jeffrey Epstein. There's an A. These people have an A Jeffrey Epstein. Meaning I'm just going to throw names out there and smear them and put the article A in front of it. And then if I'm found out because I'm too lazy or my staff is as incompetent as I am, I can backtrack and said, well, I didn't say it. So if I have a friend named Crockett who's a felon, and I say, all these people know this felon Crockett. And I see that in his invitation Rolodex, there's Jasmine Crockett, A Jasmine Crockett. I'm not saying it's the same Jasmine Crockett. That's what she's saying. And if I say, well, my friend Crockett who's a felon and trafficker, has a name, Jasmine Crockett. But I'll just say a Jasmine Crockett because it's probably not her. So when she gets mad and threatens to sue me or is embarrassed, I can say, well, I said a Jasmine Crockett. There must be other Jasmine Crockett. But the whole point why she mentioned Lee Zeldin's name was to tie him to the Jeffrey Epstein. And then of course, it depends on what mood she is. But that's another really disturbing. I think all of our listeners are so tired of it. That disturbing modulation of your accent. It first came to popular notice with Hillary Clinton. Remember she was Harriet Tubman quoting, I'm so tired I didn't come all this way. Remember that she was running in 2016. And then there would be Barack Obama who sounded like a concert. Did you know that I was a constitutional law professor? And then when he gets out in front of a popular, I just say, everybody, you gotta do, you know, you gotta, you know, get in their faces. You know, they take, they take a knife, we take a gun to a fight, that kind of stuff. And you know, and then this folks, this, this sort of southern form. Hey, folks, you know, or you all, you all, everybody says, you all, hey, you all, as if that's an intimate vernacular now. And so she, she, it's amazing with her because she's a very up, upper middle class product and she went to prep school and private school and college and she tries to have the, a perfect straight no accent when she's in certain companies. And then when she wants to sound sassy and angry black woman, then she goes into the inner city patois.
- [59:21]
Jack Fowler
It's more real that way.
- [59:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, well, it's more unreal, right? That's one thing I remember. I talked to a person that saw Donald Trump. He came to Tulare, California during the 2000, I think it was 16 campaign. I wasn't there. And somebody said, God, it was like 104 at the Tulare Ag Center. I said, well, so he showed up and they all show up there in California. They always wear a blue work shirt and boots and a caterpillar hat or something. They being the political class, left or right, but mostly conservatives. And they said, no, he wore a black suit. And I said, well, was he sweating? He said he was sweating and his makeup was pouring off him and he had his black shoes. I said, so then he didn't have a hat? No, no. I said, did he have kind of a San Joaquin Valley accent. No, he didn't. He had this grading queen's accent. So Donald Trump comes in a black suit and 104 with a tie to an ag center with a bunch of guys that have tractor caps on and jean. And he's entirely authentic. Whether you like him or not, he's authentic. He never does that. Have you noticed that the only time.
- [60:35]
Jack Fowler
I think Victor, he's not had a jacket on other than playing golf was when he was serving McDonald's the drive thru.
- [60:43]
Victor Davis Hanson
And he took it off. Yeah, he took it off on camera. So there's something to be said for that man. That guy is, he's, everybody said, well, he's insecure, he's a narcissist. He always, well, he knows who he is. He doesn't change his accent, he doesn't change the way he dresses. He doesn't change anything depending on the audience. That's why people appreciated that. But with her, it's just all of this demagoguery and fake accent and fake this and fake that. And it gets. She's headed toward Marjorie Taylor Greene territory. You know what I mean?
- [61:19]
Jack Fowler
Yeah.
- [61:20]
Victor Davis Hanson
Because I could not believe it. I watched some clips. Did you see the CNN host say when she said, and you know, I get this when they have this victim and her name is, you know, it's excise blacked out. We don't know if that's the right person that they did that. The Republican, the CNN person. Actually that was the Democrats that put the black marking on the name and hid it while it was in their custody. Well, that's what I, that's what I said. You know, she just, they're fact checking her now. And when you get to that point, the next point will be she won't be on TV anymore.
- [61:59]
Jack Fowler
Maybe she won't be. She may be elected. But if that's the congressman, I can't remember his name. Ben, whatever the heck, the one that thought the island could flip over.
- [62:07]
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh, Johnson, Johnson.
- [62:08]
Jack Fowler
If he can keep getting elected.
- [62:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
I like him. You know, I had to. I've only appeared one time before a congressional committee and it was his committee.
- [62:16]
Jack Fowler
Oh, really?
- [62:17]
Victor Davis Hanson
And it was on illegal immigration and he didn't know anything about it. He just started ranting about race. But I thought that was the best thing I've ever seen. When that poor general was trying to comment on disaster relief and he's looking and he's. And Hank Johnson says, yeah, Hank Johnson says, I got a question for you. I'm worried about, was it Guam or something? Saipan or Something in the Marianas. What if everybody, you know to see the disaster run on one side of the. Of the island and it flips over. You just saw that guy's expression, the general. Yes, let me think about that. Get back to you. Yeah, that theoretically could be a concern. They thought, you know what his thought was? I have never seen a bigger ignoramus. Who is this idiot? Is he insane? What am doing? I supposed to say, I think he's.
- [63:21]
Jack Fowler
Been reelected at least four times since that happened, so. God. Oh my word. All right, well anyway, I do have to say on correcting yourself, you know, I write that Simple Thoughts newsletter and I had a little throwaway thing the other day about Sirhan Sirhan and I called him a Muslim and he's not. And some one of the readers point.
- [63:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
I don't think he is.
- [63:45]
Jack Fowler
He's not. He's a Christian call cop. Yeah, he's an orthodox and I'm really embarrassed.
- [63:51]
Victor Davis Hanson
But he was a radical Palestinian actor.
- [63:53]
Jack Fowler
There's no question about that. Yeah, but when you, when you are out there in the public in some way and you make. Make an egregious mistake, you should be thoroughly embarrassed and correct yourself publicly. But she'll die before she does that.
- [64:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
So I got a mistake. Just the other day somebody wrote me and I'd said that three World War II active enlisted people. I meant 3% were killed of the 450,000, I think there was 450,000 killed out of 12.2 million. But anyway, I appreciate that when they do that. And then another person, I don't know if you listened to Sammy and I the other day, but they put. I had said that Barry Manlow and I had a lot of letters about that. And it was actually as a person pointed out, they've used Barry Manlo music, but other Australians use it to torture people that are. They want to have crowd control, they play it. But we didn't do that. The military did. I didn't know this. I thought it was Barry Manlow, but I conflated the two and I really appreciate the guy, the person who apparently was there and he said no, it was Black Sabbath and heavy metal. And then I kind of got hurt though because one of my favorite songs in high school is I Fought the Law and the law Won. And they played that to Noriega like he fought the law and the American law won.
- [65:20]
Jack Fowler
Oh, I've heard that song. My kids went to Jonathan Law High School. That was a theme song for that, for that school.
- [65:26]
Victor Davis Hanson
So anyway, that broke Noriega listening to Black Saddle.
- [65:30]
Jack Fowler
Well, you knew. You knew when you said that to Sammy. I think you knew you were going to get hear something from Barry Manilow fans.
- [65:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
Oh yeah, I felt bad picking on Barry Malinois.
- [65:41]
Jack Fowler
It was funny. Victor. All right. Hey, we're going to talk about an unfunny thing and that's the Hamas Israel ceasefire seemingly breaking down here on Sunday the 23rd. And we're going to get to that final topic when we come back from these final important messages. We're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words talking on Sunday, November 23rd. This episode up on Tuesday the 25th. And Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus is@victorhansen.com, check it out and you will want to subscribe. It's $65 a year to do so or 650amonth if you just want to stick your toe in the water. And you will do that because Victor twice a week writes an exclusive article. Not I know. We just talked about the exclusive articles for the Blade of Perseus and an exclusive video every week. And of course there's a ton of other free material, links to Victor's various appearances and his many writings. So check it out and do subscribe again. The blade of Perseus victorhansen.com Victor, the news over the last couple of days and of this morning it seems like, well, here's a New York Post. Is this a New York Post editorial? Hamas refusal to give up means the peace plan is stuck. Here's how it begins. With Hamas reportedly threatening to pull out of the Gaza ceasefire, it's anyone's guess what's next in store for the Strip. Since the deal was inked in October, progress toward a broad, long lasting peace has always seemed dicey. Since Hamas has refused to disarm and surrender and no one has been ready to make the terrorists quit. Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the government of Gaza directly, indirectly or in any form, reads one of the 20 points in President Donald Trump's peace plan. Instead, Hamas fighters have launched nearly daily attacks across the yellow line, which marks where Israeli Defense Forces pull back to under the ceasefire. A number of Israeli soldiers have been killed in actions. I think they say there have been hundreds of incursions, such incursions since the ceasefire agreement. This thing looks like it's it is.
- [68:10]
Victor Davis Hanson
Unraveling and they had a very good strategy. It was evil, but it was effective at Hamas. They basically did not want to be wiped out because Netanyahu was going to go through the whole area of Gaza and hunt every one of them down. And then they. They got on this narrative that everybody was starving to death and it was a mass genocide. Now we're learning that a lot of people who said they were freezing to death and they were starving were what? People in Poland, Russia, Pakistan that were blogging. A lot of that was disinformation. And I saw a blog the other day where somebody was blaming the Israelis for giving them too starch food and they're too heavy now, that they were deliberately trying to fatten them up. But there was so much. The point I'm making is they had the world convinced that these horrible Israelis were killing babies, when in fact they were trying to retaliate and prevent these killers from killing them again. And they were under houses, mosques, schools, hospitals. And no one ever said, well, the Israelis have no right to go in there, and if they did, they have to be more careful. So then you would say to them, okay, you're sitting across from the Canadian or Mexican border and some people come across and murder 1200Americans. And then you go back to that city where they came from, and they're all hiding underground and they pop up in hospitals, schools, mosques. Would you please tell me how to get them out? Just give me a constructive way to do it. How many people do you want to send down in the tunnels and get killed? Just tell me. And so they never gave any alternative for what they thought the Israelis were going to do. And the other thing that was very important, everybody knew, given the history of war, that the enemy was defeated and humiliated, but not eliminated. So as soon as they had the cease fire, Hamas just went back to everybody and said, you think the United States or you think the UN is going to get rid of us? We're here, and if you start to elect anybody else or you start to back these tribal resistance, we're going to kill you. And they were the people on the ground. And so everybody was tired of it. They said, I'm sick and tired of the Gaza war. The Israeli left and anti war was tired of it. The universities had so demonized Israel. So they just wanted the peace thing. But the problem was they were not defeated and they had territory and they were never, ever going to renounce running Gaza. It just wasn't going to happen unless they were really hurting. So they said they were going to agree because they were really hurting. And now they're not really hurting. There's plenty of food. They still have the tunnels, they have parts. They're in control. Iran is still sending money to Hezbollah and Hamas. And they feel that in the long duration, in four or five years, they'll be back full strength. And the amount of violence that is needed to eliminate them is contrary to what the Western world will tolerate. That's what I'm getting at. Because they feel. Hamas thinks that if they kill their own people or they expose their own people as shields, nobody in the world cares. But if an Israeli shoots someone, everybody cares. And that's the way it is.
- [71:46]
Jack Fowler
I thought I saw some.
- [71:47]
Victor Davis Hanson
It's very hard to fight war on those. Very hard. It's almost analogous of World War I. You know, we thought we defeated the Germans and Wilson said, oh, I 14 points and we're gonna do. And Marshall folk and Pershing and Haig said, hey, they're in French and they're in 80 miles into France and Belgium. They have not gone back to Germany. They want a ceasefire. And if we don't push them back and go into Germany and physically dismantle that imperial government and then stay there for 50 years, it's not. It's going to be all over. And so when they didn't do that, you know, Marshall Foch said, this is just a parenthesis. It'll be back. Twenty years later, it was all back again. And it's. It's really weird. I saw somebody who said, and there wasn't. There wasn't a war after World War II because unlike the Versailles Treaty, we were very kind and, and magnanimous and we didn't humiliate. No, it was just the opposite. We invaded their country, we bombed their cities into ruins. We stayed there and we put a gun to their head and said, you're going to be Democrats or else. We outlawed all their parties. We're still there. And all we did in World War I was say, you're guilty for their pay reparations. They didn't pay reparations. And they said they won the war because they were stabbed in the back by communists and Jews while they were in France and Germany, France and Belgium on the offensive. That's what they said. So the problem with the Versailles Treaty was, I hate to say it, it wasn't hard enforced or it wasn't tough enough. And we were tough after World War II. And that's why there was.
- [73:34]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, we could have Pax Americana, but in the Middle east, we can't have Pax Israel.
- [73:38]
Victor Davis Hanson
No, you can't put peace before victory. And they've never been able to translate tactical success on the battlefield. Into strategic victory because strategic victory requires the destruction of the political forces that caused the war. And whether it's 67 or 73, it's very hard for Israel to destroy that ideology. They had the 3rd army surrounded in the Yom Kippur war. And then Kissinger said, you're not going to allow them to die. You know, you're not going to humiliate Sadat. And they didn't. And they had sort of a peace and then they killed Sadat and pretty soon the Muslim Brotherhood was back again. And you've had all these wars since and there's no strategic resolution because strategic resolution requires a level of force that's not compatible with Western sensibility.
- [74:35]
Jack Fowler
Right, Right.
- [74:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, the way we won the surge was that I went over there and I can tell you they said, well, we won the hearts and minds of the surge and we built parks and electrical generation and we won over the people. No, you unleashed Stanley McChrystal and a bunch of killer squads that went out and just wiped out the Baathist and Al Qaeda enemy mercilessly and then didn't talk about it. They didn't. Right. And that's what won the surge and gave us a kind of a peace.
- [75:10]
Jack Fowler
Well, Victor, lots of wisdom shared here today. You thank you very much. We've come to almost to the very conclusion. I do want to remind our listeners again and our viewers to visit Victor's website, the Blade of Perseus. Do visit the Daily Signal and subscribe to its various YouTube channel or its emails. As for me, Jack Fowler, I mentioned before Civil Thoughts, that's an email newsletter I right once a week, comes out every Friday, 14 recommended readings. You can get it free, totally free. And we're not selling your names. Go to civilthoughts.com I know you're going to like it. We get so many comments on YouTube and Victor, your website and other places. So I'm going to read two comments here. The other day you and I were talking about boomers. So here's a comment from free at last. 8141 this is not a pleasant comment. God, you boomers are unbelievable. If I had one word to describe your generation, it would be a contrast between selfish and clueless. We didn't go through the hardship of our parents that endured the Great Depression.
- [76:28]
Victor Davis Hanson
In World War II.
- [76:29]
Jack Fowler
But have you ever had spam? Yes, Victor, I have had spam. I've also been told from birth by your generation that I'm entitled, lazy, spoiled, soft, weak, useless person because of the year I was born. Your generation will go down as overseeing the downward inflection point in American history. Congratulations, man.
- [76:49]
Victor Davis Hanson
Wait, is this a Generation Z?
- [76:50]
Jack Fowler
Yeah. Well, I don't know what generation free at last is.
- [76:53]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, you know, I don't think we said that. We did. I just wrote an article that's coming out Thursday on the lost Generation Z. And I said there's two different views of it. One, they didn't go through the Depression, they didn't go through World War II, nor were they taught by that generation. And the country was much poorer, more in the 1950s and early 60s than it is now. I mean, there was no such thing as cell phones and video streaming and all credit cards.
- [77:23]
Jack Fowler
Right.
- [77:23]
Victor Davis Hanson
But that being said, I think we've said on the video that I'm very sympathetic to Generation Z because I feel that the universities were much better when we went there.
- [77:35]
Jack Fowler
Absolutely.
- [77:36]
Victor Davis Hanson
And now they're just their indoctrination. We all graduated in four years, now it's six. The student loans are propping up, a theft by the universities. They're charging over the rate of inflation each year. The tuition, room and board, it's almost impossible. They don't care about getting their students jobs. And it's very hard to be a young person and date if you're a male. And that's what we're talking about, the lost generation. Because on the one hand, you've got a Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, popular culture of semi nudity and provocative sexuality, and then you've got an Edwardian Victorian code that says if you succumb to hookup, sexual congress when you don't know the person. And those are usually crass and empty relationships. And the other party, the female party, doesn't feel it leads to something. Forget what they profess, but it doesn't lead to a relationship, then you are going to be suspect, especially if she happens to be on campus and talk to her feminist studies professor and you're going to be charged.
- [78:44]
Jack Fowler
Revisionary history and kangaroo court mix.
- [78:48]
Victor Davis Hanson
Yeah, But I will say this. I can tell you to the listener, the writer, that. But when I look at today's youth and I see their cars and I see the amount of work, physical, hard, dirty work, I don't see anything comparable to what my parents went through. And I didn't do anything comparable to what they did, but I did a lot more than my children. And my children are doing a lot more than their children. That's what I'm trying to say.
- [79:20]
Jack Fowler
Yeah, well, you and I. Well, you. I started Working when I was 8. I'm 65, so someday I'm gonna just that alone what 8 year olds work in now nowadays. All right, one more comment, Victor, and this is from your website and this is from the Baronter.net. he says, I don't think the alt. Alt right is an appropriate designation any more than alt right even is. If you hold the beliefs of a Nick Fuentes, you stepped off the reservation. You no longer have a claim to any designation of conservative or right. If we have to use the imperfect model of right and left, such values are not conservative values.
- [80:02]
Victor Davis Hanson
That's a good point. Alt right, everybody. When I first heard that term, I thought it was trying to demonize that group as German because the word in alt, the adjective means old. So I thought it was like paleo, the Greek prefix, the paleo conservatives. But it doesn't. It stands for alternative. So all I was saying is the alternative. Alternative. The alternative to the alternative right. And what I meant was the Buchanan, Tucker Carlson. Right. And then the alternative to that is even more alternative and that's the Nick Fuentes unabashed anti. Semitism. And I don't know if that's improper when I say that there's the anti Semitic left and these people have, you know, they're anti Semitic on the left do. I can't, I can't say left because John Fetterman is a Democrat and he's not. No, I'm saying that it's the extreme version of the left wing and increasingly so not so extreme. If you look at the squad, aoc, Crockett, all those people are very anti Israel. And so I, I don't, I think it's okay to say all. All right, okay. Or paleo right. Or whatever.
- [81:18]
Jack Fowler
Well, we are confined by left right.
- [81:22]
Victor Davis Hanson
Nick Fuente is in a special category. I, before I wrote a word about him, I, I listened to eight or nine, maybe ten hours of him. It took a long time and just. He is much. He, he's, he's much worse than he sounds. And the clips that people pay play to embarrass him.
- [81:43]
Jack Fowler
Yes.
- [81:44]
Victor Davis Hanson
You know, Ben Shapiro, Daily Wire had a bunch of clips where he uses terrible language. He makes fun of. He says things that are much.
- [81:53]
Jack Fowler
But like it or not, he, There is some. I don't know if charisma is the right word or entertaining or whatever. Alluring. He's got something there and he's using that too.
- [82:06]
Victor Davis Hanson
He's a master communicator. He understands that he has a demographic of men between the ages of 15 and 40, mostly white, but not exclusively so, that are angry at all of the reverse discrimination, the whole toxic masculinity. They've been told. And the economic globalization ruined a lot of good jobs. And they get tired of being told by feminists and DIY wealthy people. Wealthy people that they're racist and they're sick of it. And he comes along and he says, well, there's a lot of people who talk and sympathize, but they don't tell you the nitty gritty. And here it is. And he just spouts abject racism. He says things that. One of the tapes was the weirdest thing I ever talked about. Hurt in my life. I won't repeat. But the gist of it was that he was going to rape a young boy and then he was going to rape him again and get arrested, then get arrested, then rape him again and get arrested, then rape him again and get arrested. At some point when they kept letting him out of jail, then that person, who I guess was a feminized male furrier or something, at that point he would marry him because the person had been so eager to be subjugated and demonized and disgraced and humiliated by Fuentes. This was hypothetical, that then he would marry him because that's what he wanted. And that was kind of a riff on why women like to be humiliated and beaten as submissive male partners.
- [83:47]
Jack Fowler
I thought that was.
- [83:48]
Victor Davis Hanson
I turned it off. It was the sickest thing I've ever heard. It really was. And I thought this guy, he didn't say that on Tucker. He didn't say that where he appealed. But that's the danger. He gets on these big platforms and kind of tones it down, and then he invites the interrogator. Why don't you be mean to me? Why don't you cross examine? I'm a nice guy. And this. Wow, you really are mean to me. And so people don't get mean to him because he's a schizophrenic. He has two sides.
- [84:22]
Jack Fowler
Well, he seems a little possessed there. Well, Victor, you've been terrific as ever. Thanks for all the wisdom you shared. Thanks, folks, for watching. Thanks for listening and we will be back.
- [84:34]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you, everybody. Yeah, and I'm a little older than the bizarro Victor on my other old show in the alternate reality Victor, but he's become a Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- [84:47]
Jack Fowler
Oh, is he?
- [84:48]
Victor Davis Hanson
Well, he's an apostate. I'm gonna try to have a seance tonight and tell him to stop. The old Victor Davis Hansen show. Okay, well, all 900 episodes.
- [85:01]
Jack Fowler
That and maybe brass knuckles. Who knows what'll work? And thanks for everything. And Bill Buckley, wherever you are in heaven, I'm sure you're there. Happy 100th birthday.
- [85:09]
Victor Davis Hanson
Ah, yes. Happy birthday.
- [85:10]
Jack Fowler
We'll be back soon with another episode. Bye bye, folks.
- [85:13]
Victor Davis Hanson
Thank you, everybody. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website@victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.