Europe's Decline Is Becoming Impossible to Ignore | Victor Davis Hanson

when it comes to my policy farmers gives it to me straight so there's no surprises it's your coverage you should never be confused you hear that an insurance provider with a conscience we're a choir but yes we have that too straightforward coverage you can literally understand that's what you get when you have farmers learn more at farmers.com underwritten by farmer's truck or fire insurance exchanges or affiliate products not available in every state boot season's back which means football season is back and takovas has the denim for game day handcrafted in three timeless cuts every style is made to look great with boots and with multiple washes and colors they might be the last jeans you ever buy find your new favorite denim at takovas.com or stop by your local takova store either way you'll be showing up on game day takovas denim it's made for boots the idea that you go with a list of stores in marseille and the ones with jewish surnames you burn and the ones that are muslims you leave you haven't seen that in europe since the 1930s that's what the nazis used to do they spend too much on social welfare and they don't have a gross domestic product to support it and that means they can't spend enough on defense that means that these borders are open how did that work macro and did the muslim community say thank you no they looked at that as weakness hello and welcome this is victor davis hansen in his own words this is our saturday edition so welcome to everyone this weekend i hope you are enjoying yourself or you're doing your saturday chores and listening to us uh we have a lot on the agenda but victor will do his independent section in the next few weeks and we'll be back with more of that in a few weeks in the middle and he is looking at rutherford b hayes and warren g harding this time around so hayes and harding and before that we'll talk a little bit about the riots in europe musk giving shares of his spacex to kids in america and trump and whistleblowers so stay with us and we'll be right back with those stories many americans gonna have a big wake-up call we have never seen that migration as high as it has been in the last few years this year there have been more people coming to the uk in small boats than ever before you did an extreme thing to the country britain is facing a migrant crime epidemic we don't actually know where they're coming from who they are how old they are why would you let in millions of people who are unvetted if not to change the country from within there is no other word for it demographic replacement england's a blueprint for america it's coming yeah it's just a blueprint thousands of daily migrant crossings a political earthquake threatens to reshape america we are showing there is a new path for politics in our country not all cultures are the same you cannot dance shitty america is a nation of immigrants we are a nation we are a nation of immigrants we're a nation of immigrants the immigration crisis watch now on the heritage foundation's youtube channel welcome back victor davis hansen in his own words you can find victor at his website victorhansen.com and the name of the website is the blade of perseus and you can come join us there for free stuff there's lots of articles and links to everything that victor does his podcasts his writings his book his new book is actually linked and you can either just purchase it at amazon i think our link is two or you can scroll down the page a little bit once you go to the offer and you can get a signed copy for fifty dollars so please come to victor davis hansen.com also last thing for you who are new victor's the martin and illy anderson senior fellow in military history and classics at the hoover institution and the wayne and marsha buskey distinguished fellow in history at hillsdale college victor so let's start with the riots in france i noticed that since you and jack talked about them macron is bringing in the army this time around to do things that he says the police will deal with the rioters and they'll be the sort of a backup for other things that the police cannot attend to but more interesting was chancellor mertz in germany who said or admitted that it is quote most likely the result these riots the result of the riots is that the police will deal with the rioters and they'll be the sort of a backup for other things that the police cannot attend to but more interesting was chancellor mertz in germany who said or admitted that it is quote most likely the result these riots the result of quote non-integrated people due to migration so all the left in america is of course saying it's immigrant bashing and that was legitimate grievances by students but the initial student riots were pretty pathetic i mean they were they're not a lot of them and then it gained steam with the anarchists and communists that wanted to expand it into the streets but it really got violent when you had first and second generation immigrants and they started they were starting to torch uh the statue of the republican in marseille or limoges the historic city hall building that that cupola was beautiful that you know that toppled and uh the idea that you go with a list of people in marseille stores and the ones with jewish surnames you burn and the ones that are muslims you leave we haven't seen that in europe since the 1930s that's what the nazis used to do so he's pretty casual about well i'm going to bring in the army but before we we remember just two days ago we had jack and i were talking about it and we were he was saying that legitimate grievances and all this stuff and we asked what are the name the legitimate grievances and name 60 of your budget not enough social welfare so there's a lot of people who are they're in this doom cycle doom loop that they spend too much on social welfare and they don't have a gross domestic product to support it and that means they can't spend enough on defense that means that these borders are open and these minorities that are islamic and the multi-party system you don't need more than 15 to 35 percent of the population to really affect elections and that means you get concessions and so all the closing the airspace the closing of bases all of that from europeans was we're afraid of our muslim populations who's siding with iran and we would rather side with them than the united states for our own political hide how did that work macron did they say the muslim community say thank you you closed down that airspace the french airspace and you hurt those awful americans that were hurting the supreme leader of iran we're gonna we're gonna really appreciate no they looked at that as weakness and so i don't see any answer because there is an answer somebody would come in and say we're gonna tap our huge natural gas fields we're going to explore north sea oil again and baltic sea oil we're going to get the east uh med pipeline in from cyprus israel greece coming into southern europe for natural gas we're going to close the borders exactly anybody who's here illegally will be deported anybody here who has a criminal arrest a conviction they're going to be deported immediately and we're going to up our defense profile i don't see that happening that's the medicine worse than the disease they just can't do it and they're headed for inevitable decline you see those beautiful buildings you know i mean you they're so schizophrenic the french they trash their ancestors as racist homophobes illiberal and then they bragged everybody they have the most beautiful buildings in the world who built the buildings you know what i'm saying the working people did and the aristocrats who planned them but if you're so ashamed of them is that why you're burning at limoges you want to destroy those beautiful works of art it's i don't know i don't i feel bad for them at one time the french were a very dynamic nation you know but not now i know i see that building in limoges the town hall burning down and the cupola just falls into the middle and just reminds me of the taliban in afghanistan destroying those huge buildings and they're going to destroy those beautiful works of art at bayman yeah they blew them up they got a lot of islamists it's really weird in the united states they were saying oh the taliban's not that good we're at we're near imperialism bam bam they blew up not christian but buddhist why would they attack buddhist they're not christian evil christians you know you can't deal with radical islam you just can't deal with it period no all right let's um turn to very uh something very wonderful i think elon musk is giving shares of spacex to u.s children i think billions of dollars i can't remember the exact amount um do you see other corporations following on yeah i do michael dell has already done it the dells And a person I know and like, Ray Dalio and his wife, have been very generous. And their idea is that you're all going to go into these—some of them are going to be privately run. Some will go into the Trump accounts. And people who were young or just born will wake up with $1,000 in account. And if you can freeze the account by the time they'll be 18, they might have $150,000, $200,000 to their name. The more stakeholders you have in an economy, the more they support the idea of an economy. Doesn't this seem like, though, that perhaps they would be buying into Elon Musk rather than the country with such a thing? What's the risk of that? It would be stock shares. So they would want to follow. They would want to follow Elon Musk. So it's a wise investment on his part. So when a kid goes up and he's 12, when he's looking at his little stock portfolio every day, and some left-wing governor of Texas says, oh, we're going to stop you from shooting these polluting rockets out. And he's going, no, don't do that. My stock price will go down. Well, it's good to have that engagement, I think. It really is. Let's turn to Trump, who has passed an executive order, I think. I don't know if he's got legislation, but he wants to pay whistleblowers on fraud a 1% commission or 0.1% commission. So that would be really great for somebody. Yeah, it would give ambitious, all these student journalists you see like Soder and all these, what's his name? They all go out in the street with their little tripod and try to uncover things. What if you unleashed a whole generation? A generation of snoops, private. I don't mean spying on people, but in the sense they were going through government records with AI and seeing things that don't match. And then they were finding, you know, a billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, and they were getting rich off it. It's kind of like the ancient Greek practice of antidosis. I think we should do that. Dosis means a gift. Anti is a gift in exchange. So if you were in the assembly and you saw Kleon, or Phrenicus, or somebody speaking, you say, "He's a crook, I challenge antidosis." And that meant if you can prove that he was corrupt, he gets your fortune and you get his. So you can see it was a demagogic, the poor would do that. They must have had a lot of fake cases on their hands. That would be a big problem, I would think. But you'd have a thousand eyes watching what everybody does. It's true. It's not the state watching them, it's people with self-interest. I was thinking that when I was reading about Trump and his 1% for the whistleblower. I was thinking, well, that's kind of what the founders had intended. They write in the Federalist Papers, you would use ambition to counter ambition. And that's how things would come out well, ultimately, in the end. They talked at length. I mean, John Locke and Burke, I think it was Chesterton said, you need a progressive-looking party to be checked by a traditional party, to be encouraged to move on, to be encouraged not to move on too fast. And that's what the Senate and the House in the Roman fashion do. The Senate slows stuff down, the House accelerates it. All right, Victor, let's welcome our sponsor on the Saturday show, Pure Health Research. They're a continuation. Continued sponsor. Please go to Pure Health Research if you have supplement needs. If you want to drop extra pounds, though, and boost energy levels or reduce swelling in your legs and feet, then this message is for you. Pure Health Research is on a mission to make America healthy again. And two of their best-selling health supplements are leading the way. First is Liver Health Formula. Over 100 million Americans have a sluggish liver riddled with fatty deposits. This can kill your metabolism, pile on the pounds, and make you feel tired. Liver Health Formula takes care of all that. It supports thriving liver health with special ingredients like artichoke extract and milk thistle. This is one of the easiest ways to slim down and revitalize your energy levels. Next is Limp System Support. If you struggle with fluid buildup or swelling in your legs, ankles, or feet, this one's for you. The natural ingredients in. Limp System Support helps gently flush extra fluid and toxins out of your body. And right now, for a limited time, Pure Health Research is offering 35% off Liver Health Formula, Limp System Support, and all 50-plus health supplements Pure Health Research has to offer. Head over to purehealthresearch.com. That's purehealthresearch.com. And use coupon code VICTOR. Again, that's purehealthresearch.com and coupon code VICTOR to save 35% on your order today. And we'd like to thank Pure Health Research for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show. All right, Victor. So, news has come out about Bank of America and their willingness to allow cartels, cartels to basically launder money through. They're not following through on legislation that tells them if there are suspicious things going on, then you need to notify the government. But laundering money through to China to buy fentanyl and to just launder money. And they have been fined by the United States Treasury. This is strange, given that they gave information to the government on January 6th. I think that's where people are going, wait a second. You're not after the cartels, but you're after our citizens. Well, they all did that. Jamie Dimon said they didn't debank Trump, and then he more or less corrected that. Getting back to that, I don't know how Donald Trump wasn't even accused of a crime. I think he was a good prosecutor, and they debanked him. And they had to pay, I think he sued them. But we're having a big problem with when the taxes, when you have federal taxes and state taxes and a high state tax that take 53 or 54% of your income. You know, if you're paying 38% and then you have 13.3%, and that's not counting Obamacare or payroll taxes. And so you're paying 55%. So you're turning to a cash economy, and you have so much illegality. There's this whole areas of discourse we just, we can't talk about. So when you have 27% of the California population that was not born in the United States, and they are used to, they have less reliable banking systems in China, in Russia, in South of the border, they have a greater propensity to value cash. And what I'm getting at is, I can tell you from the local economy that is here, there are billions of dollars, if you were to replicate what I see in Fresno County with roadside stands. When I was growing up, there was a guy with his sister, and they were selling lemonade, you know. And I bet their parents were making them pay income tax that was under $600, over $600. You see clothes and bicycles and lawnmowers all lined up, and then you see food, they're not, they're not, and you see huge swap mates everywhere. They're not collecting sales tax. And when you see people, when you go to the bank, when I go to a bank, I won't mention which one, but I would say that one out of every five people is getting cash, and they're getting cash to pay people in cash. And we all know it. And the people who are getting the money in cash are not paying income tax. And the people who are paying them cash to do work that they won't do without being paying cash often are. So what it basically says, if I hire Joe Smith, and he says, I need $30 an hour in cash, then you have to make $60, if you're in the 50%. Bracket, right, you make $60 to pay him $30, but he's really making 60 gross because he doesn't have to pay taxes on it. And it gets very demoralizing. You know, I think when I have asked people to do chores on the ranch, can you wire this? Can you fix this plumbing? And they say, yeah, but I want cash. It's not illegal to pay. I don't want to pay him cash. I just say, well, make sure you report it, because I'll write it off as a, if it happens to be them, I'll write it off. And then they'll say, well, please don't write it off. So there'll be no record of it. So there's a huge black market in America. And we see that with the fraud and abuse without just taking raising taxes off the table. And if you did go after all this waste and fraud, and I think Elon found 200 million, but there's now 500 million, they think, right off the top. And you started to go after swap meets and corner places and actually charge, you could get a, you could cut a trillion and you can get a trillion. But they're going to, this is all going to come up because it's unsustainable, these multi-trillion dollar debt deficits when you owe 40 trillion. Yeah, there hasn't been a lot of talk about that. You would think that the Democrats would, you think by the time they're. A three to four billion dollars a day in interest. Yeah. I guess the Democrats are not anxious to talk about it because they're just as guilty, if not more guilty of increasing that debt. Trump's done a pretty good job, but of increasing the debt, but. He's not, he doesn't, he's not, he's spending too much money. Yeah. Well, it's ideas on, um, on increasing government revenues, revenues so that they can pay the debt. One of them is a wealth tax and our United. United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby has recently endorsed a national wealth tax. And this is what he said, quote, we should have a national wealth tax. It won't work by state because people will just move. And I think we should have inheritance tax that gets close to 100% at some level. I would pay them, unquote. Then go ahead and do it. Nothing's stopping him. I know. So he wants to get some guy with a hundred acres that is in California. I know people with 150 acres and it's sky high, but they're never going to get any money out of it. All they have to do is pay higher taxes because it's assessed higher, right? So you got a guy, say farming 200 acres, it was always about 5,000 an acre. Now it's worth 50,000, right? So, you know, he's got 500,000, he's got $5 million in property. So you're going to tax him as a multimillionaire. And so when he dies, his children then have to. To pay, what, 40% to the government, sell it off? Who's going to buy it? Somebody who's very wealthy and going to just compound the size of farm and destroy homestead farmers. That's. All these wealthy people, I wish they wouldn't comment. They all make all this money and then they say, I'd like to have this tax on people. This is a wealth tax. He didn't even tell the people what a wealth tax is. A wealth tax is not how much money you made this year. It's, we're going to assess everything you own. We're going to come out and assess your house, your property, your boat, your car, your savings account, your 401k, your income. We're going to add it all together. And if we feel that it's too oppressive, we're going to tax the value of yours every year, 1%, 2%. And when you say that, you can have a guy worth a billion dollars and it's all tied up in his own company stock. And they're going to come in and say, you owe, you know, you're going to pay 1%. You owe 10 million bucks right now. And he's going to have to sell stock or sell assets. And then they're going, and who's going to evaluate what it's worth anyway? We're going to have a whole bunch of new assessors that are coming around your house or it's just stupid. I, if you let people make, ultimately when I see people who are, I have to go speak, um, tomorrow to donors at the Hoover Institute, they're all have more money than I do a lot more money. But do I ask myself, let me see, I'll take a shower. Is there a shower hotter than mine? I'm going to drive a Ram pickup is a more deluxe Ram. Get me there faster. I buy tennis shoes for 90 bucks online. Are there $500 shoes in it? Much better. I go to lens crafts, crafters and buy frames for a hundred bucks. Did their $2,000 diamond frames make them see better? You see what I'm saying? So we get all this envy and anger. And when I see the Kardashians on television or online and they're, they're modeling of what $30,000 dress to me, it looks like I get a Costco. You know what I mean? So I don't, I don't, it's not the 1900s. We have all of this mass consumer culture, Costco, Target, Walgreens, Walmart, Sam's club. They just give you so much stuff so cheaply. And it looks at emulates a wealthy person. I can go to, I don't know, I could go to a big Sam's club and buy a sport coat and black Wrangler slacks or something. I can get myself at Walmart or $40 pair of shoes and a tie and I get outfitted for 200 bucks. And then I'll be sitting next to somebody with a $3,000 suit. They can tell, but the average person can't. But I'm getting that. What's the money for then to get, you want to get Jeff Bezos, a hundred, 300 foot yacht. Think of all the people you'd have to hire and monitor. And how often would you use it? Yeah. So there's only, there's that limit to what the money can do. Does Elon have a better bed than I do? I think he sleeps on a cot in a factory. He doesn't seem to dress. He just wears t-shirts. Yeah. He deliberately does nothing as far as that. It's a nightmare. Would it be have what, 12 kids by 12 different women? How could you keep it straight? I don't, I don't get it. I really don't. I don't think Elon's too worried about whether the 12 kids, I bet. By the end of the decade, he'll have even more. And then we have leasing. You know, I go to, I live in an area, the per capita income is $16,000. And I go to a big supermarket and I always play a little game myself. I park distantly. And from there, you know, about a 50 yard walk to the entrance, I asked myself, BMW one, Mercedes two, Porsche three, Tesla four. I just count them and I get about 20. And I guess it's just people go in and say, I have a thousand bucks, put up my credit card and I want to lease it for 500 or 800 a month or something. Yeah. And now you have a Porsche or you have a BMW. Yeah. All right, Victor, let's go ahead and welcome back our second, our second sponsor, Blackout Coffee. Oh, I love this coffee. The two that founded this American owned family, John and Rachel have done this. They've done a great job. So Blackout Coffee, we're delighted to welcome Blackout Coffee to the show as a sponsor. They've been making huge waves in the coffee industry for reasons you'll love. Blackout Coffee was started eight years ago by John and Rachel, a husband and wife team who built the company from the ground up and are still very involved in the business today. They're an American family owned company roasting their coffee in Florida and they stand for the same things we praise here. Hard work, family and love. And the American values that keep this country running. How refreshing to see a company built around all the right things. And since they take their coffee seriously, you get an awesome cup of coffee each time. And I can testify to that. And we even have a little cup from Blackout Coffee. It really is delicious. It drives to your door fresh. Blackout has a wide range of roasts available in ground, whole bean and coffee pods. So there's something for just about every coffee drinker. They've even got pumpkin spice for the pumpkin coffee people out there. John and Rachel are building something great here in America, employing Americans standing for the things that matter while never losing that family business touch. They are proud supporters of our troops. And first of all, thank you so much for joining us. First responders and they make really, really good coffee. And I really, really agree with that. So if you'd like to give Blackout Coffee a try, go to blackout.com slash VDH or use coupon code VDH for 20% off your first order. That's blackoutcoffee.com VDH and use coupon code VDH for 20% off your first order. So I highly recommend Blackout Coffee. They do make a great cup of coffee. So Victor, we're ready to hear about Rutherford B. Hayes and the compromise of 1877 and Orangey Harding. Rutherford B. Hayes, he had kind of the reputation of George W. Bush did. in 2000 when Bush lost the popular vote, but he won the Electoral College. But it was even worse. And they hadn't seen anything like that since the John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson. That was called the corrupt deal, I think, when Henry Clay said that he would work for John Quincy Adams and through the Electoral College against Jackson. And so Ulysses S. Grant, as we said last time, had run, he had been president, he had run in 1868, started after Andrew Johnson finished out Lincoln's term, kind of a disaster. And then he had run, Grant, and he was just worshipped by everybody. As we said, and he was a Northern Republican, but he had been very lenient to Lee and magnanimous. So the South really thought it was about the best deal they could do. He was very strong on the civil right, but they had a lot of corruption. And it took about 150 years for people to rehabilitate Grant's reputation that he really didn't know what was going on. His son was involved, but et cetera, et cetera. But my point is then. He had two terms. And there was an unspoken rule, you could not run for a third term. He would have won a third term. And he would after. Rutherford Hayes was a really decorated, famous war hero. He'd been wounded a lot, even five or six battles. And he. They put Grant's name on the ballot. They put Sherman's name on the ballot, too. And Sherman said, I will not. If nominated, I won't. I will not run. If elected, I will not serve. He just. In his memoirs, he faults Grant for the politicking. So he was only president for four years, but he had a very good reputation among historians for two or three reasons. He was absolutely uncorrupt, uncorruptible. And so all of the J. Fisk, money manipulation under Grant, the subversion of civil service, he came in and reformed civil service. But the reason he came in, he lost the popular vote to James Tilden, a Democrat. You couldn't run as a Democrat from the South. You had to be a Democrat from the North. But he lost the election and the popular vote, and he lost the electoral college. But three states hadn't weighed in yet. So some people call not just the corrupt deal. They call it the corrupt bargain. But he made a deal. He made a deal. He made a deal with Tilden and the Democrats that if these three states who were Southern voted for him, then he would end Reconstruction. In 1877, when he came in, he did. So you couldn't vote in the South from 1865 to 1877 if you had participated in the war, but mostly they. And that was very loosely applied. So for the. And you enfranchised Black voters. So we had this. Strange phenomenon that about 15%, 20% of the population had all of the senators and representatives, and they were Black. And the whites played victim. And they said, this is unfair. And so Hayes came in as a Northern Republican that had impeccable credentials on the war and was a war hero. He said, I will end Reconstruction, and I'll pull all the Northern troops out. And like that, Black people. Disappeared. It's quite unfair in some ways. But it went. Because they were outnumbered, and people voted along racial lines. So that was kind of a shadow over him. And Grant was a little bit upset. Grant was one of the strongest supporters of Reconstruction and voting rights. But then Hayes turned out that he was not a racist. He talked a lot about supporting Black franchise. He was against the Ku Klux Klan. He was for civil service. He was for service reform. And when you look at presidential ratings, they're all biased because they're left-wing historians. But he gets a pretty high mark for that. And he didn't want to run again. He was a typical Ohioan. I mean, the early founders were all aristocrats from Virginia. But the self-made men and the middle classes were from Ohio. And that dominated. So we had in a row Grant. And we would have Hayes. And then I'll see if Chester A. Arthur was. Or Garfield. Excuse me. Garfield. Garfield will follow. And he was an Ohioan, as I remember. If you were a war hero from Ohio, you had it made in the North. Because you were reasonable, conservative. You weren't kind of the crazy New England radical. So people in the South or the border states would vote for you if you were from Ohio. And so he had a very successful reign. If you turn to Warren Harding, he had a really bad reputation for two or three reasons. He was—we had something called the Teapot Dome Scandal. The Navy, after World War I, wanted naval reserves in Elk Hills, California, near Baker. Baker's Field and Teapot. I think it was in Wyoming. And the government owned that. And then he had people within his administration that got government loans. And they got access to pump oil out of there. And they had sweetheart deals with the price they paid. And the government underwrote their equipment and stuff. And he claimed he didn't know Harding. But he probably did. So he has strong marks because— The economy was pretty weak when he came in from 19— He's going to be followed by Coolidge and Hoover. And he—people were—how do I put it? From 1912 to 1912. From 1912 to 1920, people were tired of Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson had been elected in the 1912 election, not because they liked Wilson, but because Theodore Roosevelt had run as a third candidate, a Bull Moose candidate. And he had split the vote of William Howard Taft and himself, who was his successor. And the result was— He was a progressive Southerner. Progressive Southerner, he was a racist, Wilson. He was probably the most racist person to occupy the White House, that latter part of the 19th—but the early 20th century. So anyway, Harding ran on the idea. Nobody ran. They just stayed in their log cabin or their house front porch. They tried to make it look folksy and stuff. Then they let their subordinates. They let their subordinates run the campaign. But his campaign was a return to normalcy and moderation. And we're not going to join the League of Nations. We're not going to berate everybody. He let Eugene Debs, the socialist who had been in jail— People forget that the progressive Woodrow Wilson jailed people for opposing the war. He had like 25 major people, spokesmen that were in jail. Harding let most of them out. And then he— He cut the income tax. He deregulated. And by 21 and 22 and 23, the economy was really booming. And in addition to that, he had really good appointments. He appointed—Calvin Coolidge was his vice president. And he brought in Hubert Hoover as his commerce secretary, who was really ambitious. Very competent. And they were reform-minded. The problem was he was surrounded by a lot of cronies from Ohio, the Ohio mob. Under his administration, they developed that phrase that we all know today, smoke-filled backroom. That's how they picked winners and losers. And he had a—you know, he had an illegitimate child. He had three or four. He was probably—not until Bill Clinton—excuse me. Not until Bill Clinton. Not until JFK had you had such a kind of a randy president there. And he was never well. As a child, he'd been ill. And he—in 1923, he was so tired he could hardly move. But he went on a tour. He was the first president, I think, to go to Alaska. And he went on this multi-state tour. And I think it was in Washington. He collapsed and died of a heart attack. And so then Coolidge took over, as we said. saw and had one other term, five years of presidency. So when people look back at him, they look at the Teapot Bone scandal, the Elk Hill scandal, a lot of civil service scandals. But when you actually look at what he did economically and financially, he got the economy going back. He dealt with the war defaults from the war debt that the Europeans owed us. He worked out a deal with the British, could pay at almost no interest over 60, 70 years. And he dealt with German reparations that were not going to France and Britain, so then they couldn't pay us. So he understood you had to go deal with it. He had Andrew Mellon, who was kind of a genius. Charles Evan Hughes was a really Supreme Court justice. He was the Secretary of State. He brought a really a lot of good people around him, but he had a weakness for corruption. And he was rated very lowly, but he's kind of like Grant. If you look at all the liberal historians, Arthur Schlesinger and all, they kind of set the tune that they were corrupt. But then the left in the last 20 years looked for people. They rated them on one criteria, and did they defend Reconstruction? And there was no stronger advocate than Grant. And Harding and the Republicans like Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were not tainted by Southern Democrats that the Democratic Party had to deal with in the North. So they improved. So now Harding, you see that he's been. Each year when various universities rank president, he's getting higher and higher. Even though he allowed a lot of corruption. And so Grant's problem was his son was involved. And Harding's with his two cronies from Ohio. And so then as we work back, then we have to go to 2000. I mean, 1912 to 1920. And that will be Woodrow Wilson. And that's going to be interesting. Because the left loved him because he introduced the income tax, 1916. And he said, we weren't going to go to war, but then we did go to war. And then when we could have gone and finished the deal, Pershing and Marshall Foch said that we should go all the way to Berlin and solve the problem. And he thought that was too mean. He had the 14 points everybody had to agree with. I said last time that Clemenceau said, God only thought we had 10 commandments. Woodrow Wilson, as God, thinks he has 14. But he was very self-righteous. And the irony is he was ranked one of the top eight to 10 presidents. And then DEI came along and you started seeing that he stopped integration of the civil service. There were people talking about blacks that early serving in the military. He stopped that. He was a Southern racist, Virginia. And now he's gone like this. And they take his name off the Princeton Woodrow Wilson School. And he's gone like this. So we'll get to him next time. And I think people will be interested. And Garfield. Yeah. All right, Victor. So let's go to an ad or a message. And then we'll be right back to talk a little bit about the WNBA and expatriates. Stay with us. And we'll be back. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I have a new book out on September 8th, of this year. And I think you're going to enjoy it. It's called Counter Revolution, The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement. It starts right after January 6th. And it details the lack of popularity of Donald Trump, the invective that he endured, the five civil and criminal trials, the effort to get him off the ballot, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the two impeachments earlier, one in which he was tried as a private citizen. And yet he came back. How did he come back? And it details the lack of popularity of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement. And why did he come back? I explain in the book how he defeated his primary opponents, how he was outspent. He had a hostile media and he defeated the Democratic machine and Kamala Harris. It starts on January 6th. It ends pretty much now in May of 2026. What's the title about? Donald Trump is not a revolutionary. He's not a revisionist. He's a counter-revolutionary. This time around, he is not addressing just the symptoms of the progressive project of the last 50 years. He's talking about the causes, not just an open border, but how to stop illegal immigration entirely, not just crime, but sending the National Guard in to make sure cities are safe, not just an Iranian nuclear threat, but ending that threat that seven other presidents had. He identified, but did not act on, not just addressing the transgender issue or the Green New Deal and all of those issues that were so dear to the Democratic Party, but ending them, defunding NPR and PBS. So it is a counter-revolution to unwind and to roll back the entire progressive project of the last 50 years. I think you're going to like it. It's pretty interesting. It will come back in our recent political history. Thank you very much. I'm Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Welcome back. Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. You can find Victor on his social media at X. His handle is at VD Hanson and on Facebook at Hanson's Morning Cup. So, Victor, the WNBA, two things happened this week that I was curious about your commentary on them. In one of the final games, I believe, Golden State Valkyries versus Atlanta Dream, they left the court while the national anthem was being sung by Atlantis Morissette, by the way. And then the second thing before you comment on that, but Ennis Cantor, Freedom and Royce White have been declared formally not eligible because they are males. They had a high school game where one of the first team came out and did you see him? He was carrying American flag. And when the other team came out, he tackled him, the guy carrying the flag. There was a racial component to that, apparently. I looked at clips of that WNBA. There was a lot of people there. But I don't. I don't think it can be salvaged because the referees are all a mediocre. They're all political. The owners are political. They're all left wing. And there's a strong gay component that's not consistent with the demographics of the United States. It's 10% maybe lesbians and homosexual. And that has probably 30% of the players, but it draws people in that community. And so if a person came in like another person did with a chromosome shirt at the game, they tried to boo her and kick her out again. People were booing, as you say, the Star Spangled Banner. So there's a leftist tint to it. And it arises that 60, 70% of the players are black, 30% are gay. It punches all the DEI buttons. And then to add kind of shame or negation to everything, it was going broke. And they had to fly commercial. And they didn't get paid on time. And it was a joke. Nobody watched it. And then you get Kaitlyn Clark come in. And she's a phenomenon, but she's from Indiana and she's playing for Iowa. These are white states. And then you had Steph come in. Sophie, excuse me. I always say Steph. And she pointed. And then she has a podcast. And she's blunt. And she's got a huge following. And she poses in string bikinis. She's like six feet tall. And she says whatever. And so these two women are not only getting more attention, but they're making everybody, including themselves, with endorsements and attendance. Publicity, a lot of money. So people hate the fact that they're beneficiaries. And it's a thug game in the sense that they're roughing people up all the time. And the referees are not calling it equitably. If it's somebody like Kaitlyn Clark or Sophie Cunningham, they don't call them proportionally. Everybody knows that. So then on the comments of the videos on YouTube and all this, it gets racialized. And I just, I think you had one of the co-owners going after a person with an anti-trans. Nothing happened to them. You had the coach of the Fever are not even defending Caitlin Clark when she was knocked down. You have all of these YouTube and ESPN bloggers that are very racialized. And the NBA has kind of moved beyond that, partly because they have all these brilliant foreign players. So it's more diverse and people are not, they move beyond just, it's a black thing. And it's much more successful. They have to subsidize this thing. I just don't think it's going to make it. I really don't. Because I don't think people want to watch that. I think a small number do. Unless people want to go watch a Luce Libre. Let's turn in and see who gets beat up or who gets fighting or who swears at the, or when you have players, you know, that storm off into the stands and try to go after somebody. Yes, I was going to say. Or they push somebody or they fight. And this is a female sport. It just, it just reminds me of stuff you see on videos. Yeah. Exploitation videos of fights and agree and stuff. It's like the street. Yeah. Street fighting. Yeah. I just don't, I just don't think it's going to work. All right. Let's turn, the Wired, or Wired had a great story on expatriates. And we're talking ordinary expatriates, not people like Rosie O'Donnell that are super rich. And these expatriates said their move was a mistake. So they left this country because of Donald Trump. And now they regretted being in their new country. And these were some of the reasons. They found the new countries had a lower standard of living. You think? Don't they read the statistics? 30,000 less income in Canada alone. Exactly. And things that were ordinary here, like a washing machine or luxury goods there. Little baby washing machines. Yeah. They didn't like the fact that there was so much anti-Americanism around. So they were caricatured and their accents were mocked. They were mocked and caricatured. And they felt like maybe they had overreacted to Donald Trump. You think, you think, you think. I lived three years overseas almost. And I can remember when I was 20 and I went to Greece and there was one supermarket, Marianatos. And you had to go to these little. 1920s like things and you pointed out what you wanted. And then they went, they brought them. They were very nice. And then I remember on our two streets down, there was a little red light and some people were going to a legal prostitute. She looked like she was about 55. And I would talk to her as I walked by the class. And then we had a hot water heater. It was about the size of a teapot. And everybody got angry because we had to turn it on. You had to, you could not leave it on all the time because of the cost. So you turned a little switch and it took like 20 minutes. Then somebody would take a bath. And then you, we had four of us in a room. And then to wash, we had to go down to this little laundromat and the washer was like half of a U.S. normal washer. And then you had to have this machine. I forgot the name. It was not the derangulator or the. But it, you had to put, you were not allowed to put the wet stuff in the dryer. Yeah. Because they were afraid it would break the belts. So this thing squeezed it and brought all, and that, you had to pay for that. So I would go down and it took all morning because everybody used the laundromat. Yeah. And then, you know, gas was that, that, the equivalent today, about $9 a gallon. Yeah. And the food was great. It was cheap. But then I had, you know, had some medical problems. Of course, I got malaria in Egypt and I tore a tendon and I had to have that operated on. And then I got food poisoning. And then the worst of all, I had a kidney stone that tore my ureter in half. So I was in bad shape and had to be flown home. But the medical care was medieval. It really was. The doctors were good. They just didn't have any backup. And when you went to a hospital, you had to have a little list and you said, uh, Sevlaki, $1, uh, brushing your teeth, toothpaste, so much money. And then you want your haircut. And you had to pay everything on a menu. Everything, clean sheets, everything. I like the fact that they told you the price beforehand, because they don't do that these days. When you're in the hospital, you think it's free, but I just got, I looked at my bill when you get like $2 for an Advil tablet. But anyway, the standard of living wasn't what it, is here. And I was walking on the street once with a bunch of guys and there were two of us and they were building, they just had rebar that stick stuck out of the side and they hadn't sawed it off. And it tore the guy's arm open and my open. We didn't, we said, what was that? And somebody knifed us and it was at night and it just tore big gashes into ours. There was, or you'd walk and there'd be manholes that were no warnings. And then, you know, every summer for 20 years, I went to Europe and there would be somebody who was count this, uh, or Duke that ancestral, and they would hear about us. And they'd say, we want you to come over to our ancestral palace. They were beautiful, but they were like 3000 square feet, but they had little narrow staircases and little tiny bathrooms, like one or two in a, like a four or 5,000 square home. And then one guy's, I said, come all over to my Versailles home. Then we have a pool and their pool was like 10 feet by 10 feet. It's we're just so much in excess. People don't realize that to go. Yes. Everything is an excess here. Yeah. And so it's just so much cheaper and you get so much more for your money. And then when you want to get a big screen television, it's, they don't have our ID. Just go in something and they do have Amazon now, but. It's it's an American idea. Yeah. So these ex-patriots were learning a lesson much as you did when you were a young kid. Yeah. If you're a left-wing ex-patriot and you think you're just gonna, oh, I'll just get on my Tesla and I'll go around to Whole Foods and I'll get my favorite wines and cheeses and I'll just zoom back. No, you will be in a high, uh, traffic zone where they're charging you for a congestion fee. As the pastor told me last night from his experience in England, and then you will not have the variety that you do here. And somebody will say, I think you should go out to the winery. And they have, they have some things that are superior. The food's better. And, but an American goes in, he gets his hamburger and fries. He pulls over on a trip and the waiter waitress has got eight other customers. And then she doesn't, the moment he finishes, he starts getting. I'm ready to go, you know, and she, and they get angry. You go to France or Spain and you eat this meal. It's delicious. And the waiter just walks by you. Hi, how you doing? And you're say, if you say, uh, in Greece, you know, I want the bill and they, nah, nah, of course, you know, we'll be here in a minute, an hour later, they come and then they, they, so everything is just slower is what I'm trying to say. Slower. The waiters are more professional. They're professional. They're very professional. They're well-dressed. It's a lifelong profession. Yeah. I hate to use, lose that Europe. It's kind of like a, a museum. I, when I go there, I think everybody who are museum pieces inside a museum. Yeah, that's probably true. Because there, I, uh, the last time I went to Normandy, there was a little, um, there was a, uh, coffee and. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What's the word for it in French, you know, for a bakery or, um, le boulangerie, boulangerie? Yes, either boulangerie or a patisserie. Yeah. Yeah. So I go there and this French waitress, she had her little uniform on, looked like a maid with, you know, it was really nice and she was so, uh, she gave me a, a latte. It was the best latte ever. And then she kept buying, she, she didn't even ask me. She just put a little nice little whipped cream on it. And when she made the latte, it had that little emblem, like a flower or something she could do. And then I had a croissant and she came by and heated it. I didn't ask that. And it was just, and then she was, it was just different. But it wasn't, it wasn't geared to American efficiency. So when you see Americans come over Europe in a group. Yeah. I love my group because they would go into a restaurant and there was one guy, he's passed away, I really like. And he'd say, I want a drink. And somebody would whisper to him, this is one of the most expensive, um, bars in Switzerland. And they charge you 30, 30 bucks for a little gin and tonic. Wasn't that Sardinia where that, that studio was Sardinia? anyway, he just pulls out his wallet and you look at there and it's like five inches thick with your 100 euro 500 euro bill they just throws them on the thing and that really they're freaked out by that i always look at when i go over there and i see a base like in germany when you see u.s soldiers they're frightening they're like six one they're really big and um or i go to germany or spain you see u.s soldiers and then you see french soldiers they look so tiny compared to them i hope they have certain skills sniper skills or something because they wouldn't last against those guys no but they're probably better trained you know what bugs me about those riots even the it's about education is that the french really um educate their citizenry very well any time i've had a french i used to teach and any time i've had a french student from france even though they didn't english wasn't their first language they could outperform the english speakers because they had had such a strong education the dutch i had so many dutch students at cal state and they spoke english better than any of the americans did they would correct their grammar and stuff and you'd say well you can speak dutch and english yes yes i can speak dutch and english and danish and german and french and spanish so they're very impressive because it would be like we have all these little countries in the united states instead of one country there were 30 countries here and we all had to learn their languages and they're integrated but there's a lot to be said for europe i just hope they can save themselves from themselves yeah well it sounds like they're starting to wake up if chancellor mertz is anybody to um listen to so victor i wanted to talk on a subject we've been watching videos where people have tried to feed wild animals or get into zoo areas that had that poor guy he was autistic though in his defense yeah or he climbed down with a tiger and he petted it and then he died he killed him and recently in san diego a coyote was sort of very tame in the neighborhood and the people were feeding it yeah they were feeding it it finally attacked a 16 month old toddler and he was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die and this whole there seems to be a at least a segment of the population that are mystified by the difference between the wild and the domestic they romanticize nature nature can be cruel it's nature it's not bad or good it's nature and i walk at night sometimes around this farm and um when i see a pack of three or four big coyotes you don't know whether one is rabbit or not so i always kind of take a stick with me which wouldn't do very good i probably should take a revolver but it's a fine to kill them they're everywhere now and but they're they uh they kill cats they kill puppies they would kill them in two seconds and eat them like see things they've eaten around the farm and it's it's it's what hubs it's a war of everybody against everything and you just because you're a human you're going to pet something yeah doesn't they might eat you yeah no the wild is animals very unpredictable but the domestic animal is not intended to be wild and i think there's a lot of people since we're in the central valley and we have an epidemic of people dumping dogs they seem to think that the dog is natural i've read that online somebody's saying who cares if people dump dogs they're they were originally wild dogs before humans came along that's not true the dog was bred to be domesticated but they do i think maybe they mean that i have seen them um it's funny every once in a while dump dogs out here they bond together and i can see them when i walk down by the pond that we used to own and there's four or five of them and they're kind of like a pack and they are kind of like call of the wild they've gone back a little bit because they will bite you and a dog medium-sized dog is tougher than a coyote it'll kill a coyote if it's big a german shepherd or a doberman or something like that and uh a big a big dog i mean if you have some mastiff or those belgian dogs that are very they'll give a bobcat they'll kill a bobcat they'll give a mountain lion they'll give a mountain lion a good fight they don't know how to keep themselves alive if they're left out in the wild though they don't have any hunting i've seen german shepherds german shepherds just sit there bewildered when they're dumped out in the countryside what am i supposed to do i don't know why we do that here yeah this area of people as i said earlier i was walking right before i got operated on and a guy won't right on the edge of our property he just opened the door and there were two beautiful german shepherds dumped out and they ran at me and i i didn't know what to do and i was like i don't know what to do i said i yelled him to call your dogs off but they stopped right where they were around me and they were actually not going to bite me and then he closed the door and started taking off and they turned around and ran after him and i ran after him i said i got your license plate number he had his own window down so then he slammed the brakes before i could get there and he called their names to get the dogs back in and then he took off really fast so then i finally got to the end of the almond row and looked down and his red light brake lights were on and he let them out again and they were going the other direction so i don't know what happened to them but they just go out and they see some house that looks well kept or something and they just dump the dog there and they take off yeah i know you said you had a couple of boxers here before that's another breed that has absolutely no idea to how to keep itself alive in the wild it would just starve you just have my names when i wrote i built my own dog cage and when i laid the slab i had all the names i think there were 18 dogs that i had rescued over 30 years and they had died but yeah i i don't know what to say the only thing i i have apprehension is when they drop off a pit bull they've done that a couple of times and one of them had a rope around it and he had the worst scars from fighting on his face yeah i called the spca on that one yeah because my kids were very small then they were all right well anyway snakes we have an epidemic of snake bites because people see a rattlesnake or here in the in the foothills and they think well this is really neat i'll take a picture on my phone and they don't understand that a rattlesnake can jump four or five feet at you and i'm mixed when you know it's i understand they're protected many of them but i i have mixed feelings when somebody finds a rare coral snake that's that is will kill you and a rattlesnake if it's big enough will kill you and they catch it and then they transport them you know what i mean from their property all right victor so let's i got one last thing i know that you're watching the first season of foda f-a-u-d-a on netflix and i was wondering if you had uh reflections and what's it about well it's the biggest hit now in the arab world because very even-handed it's kind of a theme that you can't trust anybody and the israelis and the palestinians are fighting a cold war the palestinians are trying to blow up and kill israelis and the israelis are kind of trying to blow up and kill the people that are trying to kill them so it is pro-israeli but it's so nuanced that a lot of people in the arab world like it because it gives a lot of respect for you know radical islamists so it's kind of a strange movie it's hard to and uh it's if you put i have only seen the first two seasons but one of the last one came after october 7th but if you put october 7th into the movie in your mind there were six thousand two thousand civilians and four thousand and they were all in the same movie and they were all in the same movie 4,000 Hamas killers that crossed the border and killed 1,200 people. The Israelis now, according to Grok or AI, if you look it up, have killed 4,000 of them. And they just announced they killed the three people who brought the young German-Israeli girl and had raped her and killed her. She was on that truck as a trophy almost. They killed every one of those people. So that's, who does that? The Mossad, not really. It's the Benshin. Yeah, Benshin. And it's the domestic. I guess it's kind of like a mix between our FBI. And this is a special unit that works with these people. But what's amazing is the Israelis look like Arabs and the Arabs look like Israelis. And the Israelis, to be effective, speak perfect Arabic. And for the terrorists to be. Effective, they have to speak perfect Hebrew. So it is confusing. After a while, it gets exhausting because they're all. you just want to say to them just stop it you know just tell the palestinians you have all of gaza wall yourself off from the jews you have all the west bank it's a good place it was part of jordan they created the name palestinian about 50 years ago they're jordanian just while you don't have anything to do with israel you don't like them and just unite gaza and palestine and make a it's like the size of kuwait or something make a kuwait there you know what i mean and say to the israelis we're going to be better highways than you better universities wealthier you and compete with that but this idea you're going to go back and kill everybody and they're going to go to the river to the sea and wipe out the israelis it's not going to happen you don't kill six million jews and then the survivors go to their ancestral homeland and out of nothing build this sophisticated you don't kill six million jews and then the survivors go to their ancestral homeland and out of nothing build this sophisticated society with 200 nukes and think they're going to say oh my gosh iran's threatening us oh my gosh hamas is threatening us houthis are threatening us hezbollah they have all these rockets they want to kill us we better go to the un we better ask the international criminal court let's go talk to the world health organization they're not going to do that let's get the you know they're not going to do that they're going to say there's not going to be any more holocaust if you keep pushing and breath will do something that you won't want so one thing i'll finish is there is a theme in there that we're going to go kill israelis in such a grotesque manner they'll overreact and then all the western people will have the producers really have a low opinion of western europeans that are easily deceived so they they make make it like the palestinians understand how stupid the left is and so they're going to try to have an atrocity and then israel will overreact and then the left will give them more money which is true does it have any compelling characters or is the plot compelling uh there was a guy named moreno he looked really sleazy i kind of liked him he got everybody gets killed uh but there's this how about the main guy is he doron that means in greek i don't know if it's a greek name or not it means greek name i don't know if it's a greek name gift but he's kind of homely he's got a bald head he's but he's indestructible i mean almost every he signs up to be a suicide bombers to get intel they're almost ready to shoot him and they save him he goes into a hotel i mean a wedding they almost shoot him he his wife hates him he tries to save her husband a brother they blow him up his wife leaves him and sleeps with his best friend his best friend is sleeping with his wife in his house every bad thing happens to him and they hate him they ostracize him they kick him out of the organization but when they all when they need somebody to kill a bad terrorist they always bring him back so he's on his horse farm he's on his dad sheep farm he's on his winery minding his own business doron we've got a mission for you and then when he does stuff they say that's out of control he's kind of like a he's a dirty hairy character but he is fascinating and you get the i haven't seen the end i have a feeling they're not going to kill him off yeah because he's indestructible yeah how about the cinematography are you very good yeah it's very very authentic to the region and it captures very well that on the everyday level there's a lot of israelis that speak arabic and there's a lot of arabic israelis there's a lot of people in the west bank that count on doing business with israelis and so and then there's i like there's i there's this assumed corruption you know about if you want to build a hotel on the west bank you got to get this israeli guy to do that okay all right victor we're at the end of the show and i know that you have larry cudlow show to do in just a few minutes so i have just one comment from jimmy olsen blues i cannot believe and accept the marxist muslims are going to take congress please vote i am worried love to jack and vdh so there you have it a nice ending everybody go out and vote he's right jimmy's right and i always say hope for the best and prepare for the worst yeah this is sammy wink and victor davis hansen and we're signing off thank you everybody for watching and listening thank you for tuning in to the daily signal please like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this you can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition when it comes to my policy farmers gives it to me straight so there's no surprises it's your coverage you should never be confused you hear that an insurance provider with a contract conscience we're a choir but yes we have that too straightforward coverage you can literally understand that's what you get when you have farmers learn more at farmers.com underwritten by farmer's truck or fire insurance exchanges or affiliate products not available in every state kick off the fall season with dacovas our quality western boots are handcrafted with 200 meticulous steps for broken in comfort right out of the box and each pair is built for all falls festive moments from game day to tailgating to outdoor festivals and long weekends find your perfect pair and customize them with complimentary boot stamps and branding at a dacovas store near you or shop with us anytime at dacovas.com