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Victor Davis Hanson: Marco Rubio’s Powerful Defense of Western Civilization

1h 23m 57s

Victor Davis Hanson: Marco Rubio’s Powerful Defense of Western Civilization

Victor Davis Hanson delivers a sharp critique of contemporary global and cultural trends, arguing that the West is in a critical period of decline due to internal decay and external threats. He condemns the political bias in international awards, such as the Nobel Prizes given to Ann Carson and Navi Pele, as deliberate acts of ideological suppression against conservative figures like Donald Trump and Western values. Hanson highlights a concerning shift in education, where graphic and explicit sex ed content is being pushed on young children, undermining parental control and moral development. He also raises alarms about the erosion of Western power, citing weak military alliances, declining fertility, and political instability in key nations like Canada and the U.S. allies. The emergence of satanic prayers in public life and aggressive policies targeting vulnerable populations in Canada are presented as symptoms of deeper cultural collapse. Hanson draws on historical parallels to emphasize the resilience of Western civilization rooted in classical values, free markets, and democratic institutions. He calls for a revival of traditional principles, greater vigilance over national sovereignty, and a recommitment to the rule of law and cultural identity to prevent the West’s collapse. Ultimately, he believes the future of Western civilization hinges on a renewed commitment to self-defense, ideological clarity, and a return to foundational values.

Transcription

12535 Words, 68392 Characters

English
We in the West are in a period of indecision and our culture is superb it's preeminent there's nothing close on the world today we have the rule of law constitutionality free market capitalism and right now we're in trouble we're not defending ourselves our enemies and our people within our own borders are trying to overthrow the West we're either going to lose the world without the Western going to save it with the West well hello ladies and hello gentlemen and welcome to Victor Davis Hanson in his own words I'm Jack Fowler I'm here to ask questions and get answers from the great Victor Davis Hanson who is the Martin and Ely Anderson senior fellow with the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha busky distinguished fellow in history at Hillsdale college this podcast appears on the daily signal network happy home and Victor is also a senior contributor to the daily signal we are recording on Sunday October 11th 2026 this episode will be out on Tuesday October 13th we are going to talk about Nobel Prizes Marco Rubio's speech in Greece Donald Trump get out of here to Zelensky in Ukraine Canada and dementia and we'll get all those things when we come back from these important messages a disturbing curriculum is being used in hundreds of schools around the country and many parents don't even know it's called rights respect and responsibility or the three R's but behind those simple words are lessons with graphic depictions of naked children requiring young children to name and identify genitalia this isn't a health curriculum it's extremely explicit sex ed material pushed on kids as young as five and parents who are sounding the alarm on it in one state report that their school district has been ignoring them our friends at alliance defending freedom are gathering 100,000 signatures on a petition to get this program out of schools and to protect parents right to direct their kids education sign the petition by texting Hanson to eight three eight four eight or visit join ADF dot com slash Hanson that's Hanson to eight three eight four eight or visit join ADF dot com slash Hanson we are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words did you know that Victor Davis Hanson is the best-selling author yet once again if you have not yet gotten the counter revolution the fall and rise of Donald Trump in the magma movement I strongly suggest you get this book which is still on the New York Times bestseller list congratulations again to you my my good friend by the way pictures got a website the plate of Perseus Victor Hanson dot com is the address do subscribe tons of free stuff but if you want to read exclusive articles of Victor writes it's $650 a month discounted $65 for the full year all right Victor I got all that intro stuff done now let's get down to the meat and potatoes here if I could only get my paperwork in order all right Victor let's talk about the two Nobel two Nobel announcements that happened this week and the first one is for literature for Anne Carson a Canadian who was also a class assist allegedly in a poet and I know you know of her on her work and would you comment on that and then I want to know she's Canadian do you think that the selection the fact that she is Canadian may have also been a reason for her to be selected your thoughts on all this as a as a as a middle finger to Donald Trump there you go like I think yeah she she wrote a book as I recall on arrows I didn't think it was as good as Bruce Thornton's book he wrote a better book arrows as well it was far better documented and much more reasonable but I think she was a Princeton class assist and then she became a poet and an activist and she's multi-talented and she's but she checked every box she was a MacArthur genius grant Guggenheim all that stuff but as a general will any international organization or any national organization that fains to be international like the Nobel they hate Donald Trump they just can't stand in there for everything this counter-revolution so he's in a fight with Canada she's a Canadian he has expressed on numerous occasions that he solved six or seven wars the Cambodian war the Ethiopian war the Armenian war with as an etc etc and he deserved it well that's what they hate you're under the rules of liberal decorum you you want I mean I'm just saying this is an act of former academic or whatever I am now I saw it so much my entire life you act like you just shun capitalist prizes or you say things like well I don't I don't want any recognition I just don't believe in that and I don't and if you want to give me a fellowship you can but I'm dedicated to scholarship and then they're just the most conniving people you ever have I've been on two or three prize committees I can tell you I get letters and you're not supposed to contact judges but I've had so many letters I deserve this I deserve this the only difference between Trump and them is that he says it and that breaks the rule so he's never going to get the Nobel Prize even though he if he dismantles the nuclear program and that regime falls that is the most major contribution to stability and peace and since the Berlin wall falling but he will never get credit for it just like Reagan never got credit for it so yeah that that was aimed at him can I can I just ask you I have to pick up that point as well as a peace prize well we'll talk you in a one second you being lobbied as a prize now you've mentioned this before so it's no surprise that you are a member of the Bradley a foundation of Bradley prize is given out every year and I know that you are lobbied by people who want that or they have surrogates lobby but then yes they will also be people who want X and other platforms will criticize Donald Trump for saying something like yes they will they will and they've criticized sometimes and I I don't ever disclose if I'm on the committee or not it's a rotating bill it right but it's very interesting I'll give you another example I used to write before Trump for the New York Times and the Times literary supplement classics reviews or history reviews so I would get these obsequious letters from people that didn't even realize that they had called me a pumpkin from Fresno and all that stuff but they they thought they were so and I never use I actually wrote two good reviews about people who had trashed me but the academic is this very strange species because ostensibly he hates capitalism and he hates materialism and he critiques American consumer culture but the truth of it is that he thinks he's brilliant with his PhD and this and that and he feels that the conniving Wall Street person the the guy that has 17 franchises of McDonald's the Burger King direct these people don't have his taste they don't have his culture they don't have his brain and yet they're making all this money what he's relegated to a faculty kind of a nice cottage it's tastefully you know that's all the nice accoutrements but he doesn't really get to go to Florence on his own money so he's always bumming things he always wants to get fellowships or grounds I would say I have zero power as as a senior fellow at Hoover to make appointments that's all done through formal transparent committees but I would say I get two requests a week from people dear victor as you know as you know as you may have heard I am going I'm very interested and I would be available if it's possible to to come and join you and if you've seen by my latest book have you looked at the review and I don't and in 90% of the cases I don't know that people are doing you a favor victor yes yes yes and their real ability I have to it's this was a Nobel Prize in literature for Ann Carson I just want to read this the New Yorker which just published some of her poems here's one it's it's very brief it's called stanzas stanzas sexes seduction and it goes it's good to be neuter I want to have meaningless legs there were things unbearable one can evade them a long time then you die the other Remind me of your green room. There are things unbearable. Scorn, princes, this little size of dying. Well, whatever. Wallace, Devons and T. S. Ella, she's not, but most people aren't either way. So everybody, all these literary prizes and things think we're in the age of postmodernism. So the more obscure, the more globalist, the more anti-national, the more cynical, skeptical, neilist, the more dreary, the better. She is a classicist. So as was T. S. Ella, as her pound wasn't, he had pretentions of being one. But she does know, and she has studied classical meter. She does know all of the rhetorical tricks of classical rhetoricians and poets. So she knows Catala, she knows Preppers, she knows Tabala, she knows of course Virgil, she knows Arquilicus and Greek, she knows all of them. So you think that she might want to have meter from one or two of her poems or rhymes. Maybe she does, I haven't looked at her corpus very carefully, but I think she's also, those prizes tend to be given not on what you're going to do, but for past work. The Bradley prize is not for past work alone. It is for what you, it's an encouragement to do more. So it's a wonderful prize, but I think she's 77 or 76. I may be mistaken, people will obviously correct me. She's in her later 70s. She also is Parkinson's disease. I'm not attacking her at all. I'm just saying that she represents a type of literature or poetry or expression that is in Vogue now, and being a Canadian and being on the left, everybody there is on the left, essentially, that gets prizes. And I think everybody should know that. And all of the MacArthur, all of those things are on the left. And that, everybody should realize that in this little cloister of academics, that's by intent, because if you're a professor and you want a grant or you want to go study, academy at Rome or whatever, and you apply for all these, they know you're a politics. And you have to be quiet and then you get these. They're all slight. They don't give them to people who are conservative. Yeah, this minute, there's no Hillsdale professors getting. No, MacArthur. No, they'll never. They'll never foundation. There's someone reply. They wouldn't waste their time. Well, there's some brilliant, some of them, you don't even have to apply the MacArthur. I think they just tap you, but nobody at Hillsdale would ever get a MacArthur because of their ideology, not because. And by the way, I keep saying, when you go to Hillsdale, there's a lot of different views. It's not just locked up in one particular conservative view, but they're just branded as conservative so they ignore their scholarship. There's a lot of brilliant scholars at Hillsdale. Well, Victor, let's keep on the Nobel theme and briefly about the peace prize that here's the headline from the Daily, from the mirror in London, Judge Navi Pele beats Donald Trump to win Nobel Peace Prize 2026. It was awarded. She's a South African judge. Navath Navan at them. Navi Pele for her, quote, efforts to promote peace and international law, the 85 year old, a former United Nations human rights chief is currently a judge on the international court of justice. In the case where Myanmar is accused by the Gambia of committing genocide against the Rohingya people. I'm sorry, I'm probably mispronouncing. Names also though today on or yesterday on the free press, Alisha Wysel, the daughter of the late Eli Wysel wrote that Navi Pele has led the effort to accuse Israel of genocide. Some peace act of this Victor, your thoughts on her herself. And of course, this is another stiff arm or Italian salute to the Donald Trump. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's a third rail. The Palestinian issue has become the third rail in the academic world. If you express any support for Israel or you don't express full-hearted support for the Palestinian Dasha, whatever Palestinian cause or whatever you want to call it, then you're done as far as rewards are. And so she, United, I don't think it's, I don't want to be crooks. I don't know her, but I don't think being on the United States Human Rights Commission are connected with you. Given the record of that, almost 40% of the history of those resolutions from the UN are condemning little tiny Israel, not China, not Russia, not Cuba, not Venezuela, not any of these autocratic Middle East, no, it's always either a Western figure who's conservative or a Western nation itself. And then with all these international high commission of this and international court of this, it's, it's people who are on those courts are either very left wing or they come from illiberal regimes. So you have this contradiction where they go to the UN for example, take that one example. And for the first time in their lives, they vote. But out of the 180 or so nations, over half of them don't have democracies. So you get, you know, you get these big speeches against Israel by somebody from, I don't know, Iran or Saudi Arabia or Uganda or Turkey, and we're supposed to take that seriously because they either don't have elections or the elections are all predetermined. And so when you're, when you draw out of that, those waters and you say, I'm going to get this official because her resume was this, this, this, this, this. But get to remember one thing, I mean, Jay, our friend Jay Norlinger wrote a really good book on the history, didn't he? I reviewed it on the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. He did. Yeah. But both the ones that were inspired and the ones that were not. But they reached in the deer. I don't think they're ever going to recover their reputation when Barack Obama was elected. He had done nothing, nothing abroad. And they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. And he even, he even joked about it that he didn't deserve it. And why did they give it to him? They gave it to him because of one reason he was black. And that, that was so power and left wing. If you were black and left wing and a global figure, that negated all the downside that he had not done nothing. And he would go on, remember to have 500 targeted assassinations of terrorists, which included three US citizen, two or three US citizens. And John Brennan had to lie under oath that they, there was no collateral damage when they, we think, on the great number of civilians were killed. Then he bombed Libya for seven months without congressional authorization. And we all remember Hillary. She, she weighed in. Remember Jack about the possibility of televised executions. And she said, we came, we saw he died. And that was, we referenced to the mob tearing limb by limb apart, cut off, he and saw them rising him. So he was the, he was the Nobel Prize winner. And if anybody else had that record, they would have never even considered him. Yeah. The, the international criminal court would have, yeah, yeah. So the point is, I mean, he was a guy that joked about killing people at the White House correspondent center. Hey, all you guys that want to date my daughters, it's called Predator PRE DAT OR. Do you never know when it's going to get you? Ha, ha, ha. At that time, he had over 500 targeted assassinations. And they were up terrorists, but there were collateral damage, which the CIA director lied about under oath. And so the prize doesn't mean anything anymore. After that, it's so patently, it's like the Grammys. Do you, do you, do you know anybody the last five years that's won a Grammy? Yeah. If you ask me, who was the best actor the last five years for the Oscar, I have no idea. I haven't watched, I haven't watched an Oscar ceremony in 20 years. I used to love them. I used to love them the 60s. A little kid or so we'd all go, so what are the, what are the eight nominations for the best picture of my parents would say, let's go down to Visalia, Tulare and go see each, each picture. And then we can decide who's going to win. Longest date will be the longest day or a thousand clowns or you know what I mean? It was, but now it's just so politicizing a joke. Same thing with the Tonys, they've ruined all of those. And the Nobel Prize is in that category. Well, Victor, before we move on, most people know there's chlorine in their tap water. How could you not when your glass of water smells like it was filled with the local pool, but they drink it anyway because They've been told it's what keeps the water safe. What they've been told, what they haven't been told, is what chlorine becomes after it's added to your water. 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It's not just chlorine or THNs, fluoride, PFAs, pharmaceuticals. If it isn't water, cove purer removes it. Cove purer gives you a water. Just the way you want it, when you want it, hot for tea, refreshingly cold on a hot day at the push of a button. And I love the taste because it tastes refreshing pure. It's clean water, not a sample drawn from the local rec center pool. Clean water is one of the best investments you can make for yourself and your family's health. And because VTH in his own words has partnered with cove purer, they're giving our listeners and our viewers $250 off. If you use this special link, go to covepure.com/VTH. Right now, that's covepure, C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E. Covepure.com/VTH. Don't wait. And we thank the good people of covepure for sponsoring Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. And I will drink to that. Ah, delicious. All right. I was going to say one last thing about Ann Carson. When I said she's familiar, that's not fair to her. She's familiar with translations of Greek and Latin texts. She was a professor of classics. She did translate, I'm trying to get this straight now, Escalus, Sophocles, I think Euripides plays some of them as well. So you can see her translations are in print. And she also translated, I think, the lyric poets. But it just reinforces my point, that she's aware of classical poetry, literature, vocabulary, meter, etc. But that doesn't seem to be reflected in her poetry too much, and that's what I'm trying to say, at least the style of it. It's more affected by post-post-post modernism. Yes. E.E. Cummings or somebody like that, I guess. By the way, our classicist, we should talk about this at a greater length another time. But we so get caught up in images that things from 100 years ago, like Mr. Chips, is your idea of a classics teacher. But there is no way the modern classics teacher has anything to do with Mr. Chips, who just evokes conservatism. It's a conservative sense. You just think somebody who loves classics would be conservative, but I had a few others, you know. I've had a couple of professors like that. I had a guy mark Edwards, he was liberal, but he was very English and proper, the way he sounded and dressed and his decorum. And he would say, "I ask a question once," and he came over to me, "Victa, Victor, your delivery was not sober and judicious, not sober and judicious." You seem to animate it, calm down, calm down, decorum is everything. And Victor has to calm down, yes. And then I liked him though, I really liked him, he was a very superb, humorous, and then I had a teacher in Athens when I was a student abroad. You may know him, HD Kitto, he wrote a famous book called The Greeks. You also wrote a book, a travel book about Northern Greece, it's actually his best book, he had on the English tweed and he was in his 80s, and he would come up the stairs, it was on five flights of stairs, the classroom, and he was in his 80s, and he wasn't in great health. And as he came up, we could hear him and we were all sitting there and we were all taking bets whether he'd get to the third floor or not or the fourth. Or really cruel when you're 19 and 20, so then he, I don't know if he heard us or what, he came up and said, "Well, I must say, I'm not ready to throw caribus, a bone yet, nor do you put coins in my eyes if I'm going nowhere to the Hades." But I liked him, you see the one that taught you what's the Greek roots of squirrel, was that somebody else? No, that was somebody else. That was John Lynch, he was a wonderful class assistant at University of California, Santa Cruz. He had a Yale Ph.D. Harvard B.A., and he wrote a good book on Aristotle's School, and he was my mentor. I was one of his students, for four years. He was the one that told me to go into classics, so I owe him a great deal. I think I owe him a great deal because I think it was wise. But anyway, he was doing etymologies, and I was pretty good at them, because I was taking Greek and Latin in our advance. He would write four or five words and say, "These are the most difficult ideas." So he put squirrel there, and nobody, I mean squirrel, because it comes to Greek into Latin, into medieval Latin, to Old French, French, and to English. But there is a word in Latin called, I mean in Greek, called "Squia, Shadow," and the normal word for "Tales, Oros." So "Squia, Oros," but "Squia, Oros" became squirrel. And he did that a lot, but when he did it, you always remembered that. And yeah, it's fascinating. And he taught me, I think it's very important about philology, but all of you just meant that you try to identify phenomenon by words, and you see how words are used both for clarity and for disdimulation. So when you see, I always approach, ever since that, I've always approached it. When I look at the left right now on campus, and I see words like systemic racism or insidious racism, or then I say to myself, why do you have to put an adjective, systemic? Why don't you just say racism? Well you do that because everybody doesn't see any racism. And you have racism detector, you think. So you have to say, well it's systemic, it's like error, it's everywhere. We can't see error, but we can't see the racism, but I can tell you where it is. And so it's always good to look at what, if there's a word. I think I related to the audience maybe a few years ago that I had another professor, brilliant professor, and I was really a Lionel Pearson. He was a great Hellenistic historian at graduate school. He was telling me, and Tony Robuchek, both of them were, and I had classes from both of them, and they were philologists. And so I was trying to give a lecture on the Battle of Blueprint, and no notes, and I'd say, well, a Pamanondis was usually on the left wing, and he didn't mass to eight, he massed to 50. Stop. What is the word for wing in a military context? I said, "Keros, horn." Well then say it, horn, and I'd say. And then they were counting on the push. How do you know they were counting on the push? Is that your interpretation of Xenophon? I said, "No." He says push. What's the word off these moths? Okay. Continue. I never got to the end of it. It was just constant. And so finally I got frustrated, so I said, "Well, I guess we didn't have gravity until Newton made a word for it." So we were all floating around in space, and then all of a sudden Newton said, "It's gravity, and it appeared, and we're stuck at Earth." Picture the wise guy. Yeah. He didn't like that. He said, "Mr. Hanson, are you suggesting philological tyranny?" This was all very strange for somebody who worked on a farm, coming from Selma, California, and being introduced to this world where, at breaks, everybody was talking whether St. Paul's is better than Andover or whichever preps school, and who was, you know, how many vacations you had and Tuscan, it was a bizarre world for somebody like myself. Victor, since we're doing things Greek lessons. stick with Greece. And I forget who wrote this as a comment on YouTube. But I apologize. But who wrote Jack had looked to hear Victor's take on the great Marco Rubio's message to the people of Greece, Iceland and Portugal. Great job. Keep up the great work. What did you see Rubio's speech given in front of the party? What are your thoughts of it? Well, it was given on the penins. P-P-N-Y-X in English. And that's where the Athenian demos met maybe twice a month, the Ecclesia. And it holds about 8,000 people. And the seats are carved into the rock. And then there's something called the Bima where the speaker would address them. And they would look up at the Acropolis. And they could, I should say at the Parthenon, etc. You saw that shot. It was deliberate. So he was taking the stance of paracles when he in the second year of the Peloponnesian War, we had given the famous funeral oration. So I don't know who wrote it. I've heard of different people contributed to it. It was very good. I thought the only thing that was startling was the emphasis on Thumas. Thumas, T-H-U-M-O-S. We get the thymus gland from it. Thymus. And it refers in the Homeric sense. Homeric heroes have something that swells up in them. It's larger than life. I think we would call it manic depression or something. But you feel like you're enthusiastic. That's another word for in-theos. The God is in you. And it makes you be larger than life. You have a great idea. It's what maybe it's what Elon Musk had at one point when he envisioned SpaceX or the Tesla. Or maybe it's what Edison did when he wanted to electrify the United States. Or maybe it was what Alexander Graham Bell had. Or maybe it was what Grant had at Shiloh when he said, "Lick him tomorrow." Even though he had been defeated and humiliated on day one. So you can't define it. And he was, but it's often in a martial context. And the other thing about it is it's an early Greek it's an early Greek manifestation. It appears mostly in Homer. It appears it's it's used in the classical period, but it's in different contexts. So my point is they were almost telling people, I don't know if they minute or not, that we're all going to be Homeric heroes on the battlefield of Troy. And we're going to do outstanding things that defy rational explanation. So some classes have said, "Well, it's not the irrational." Or there's a famous classes as E.R. Dodd wrote a book called Greeks and the irrational. And he has a chapter about it as I recall. But in any case, they were saying, "Well, the real legacy is rationalism." Aristotelian rationalism, the Stoics, the Epicurean, the Academy, the Lyceum. Yes. And I wrote it. I have a really good article. I thought it was really good. In last issues of new criterion about the big. It's exceptional. I recommend everyone to go find it. And if you can buy it as a single article if you need to. It's basically about the discovery of rationalism or how Greeks thought about things. And that they saw the world is not mysterious. I thought maybe that had influenced one of the writers because they. He was saying in the speech, they didn't see everything as blank or incomprehensible. But they had a rational, you know, physics, metaphysics, biology, mathematics. They could break down any natural phenomenon or inquiry into a field. And then they would know how to inductively reason to find the answer. And that was what marked the West off from other cultures. But yeah, I thought it was really good. A lot of people in Europe didn't like it. But basically, everybody, the speech was, we in the West are in a period of inner we or our indecision, our directional-ness, our word listless. And our culture is superb. It's preeminent. And there's nothing close on the world today. We're either going to lose the world without the West or we're going to save it with the West. And he went through the trajectory from Greece to Rome to the church, to medievalism, to the Renaissance, to the Enlightenment, to the British empirical tradition, Scottish Enlightenment, to the United States founders. And it was very good. And he was trying to say, you don't tear down monuments. Don't change, I don't know if he said change names. I want to stop because Trump has changed names. But Trump's names are not because somebody's sinned. That's the difference. In other words, Trump says, we want to name things America because geographically, they're in our near or proximate America. And we want to reference them from our point of view, not Mexico's or Canada's. But what he meant was, don't destroy things. There's a word, I'm not to your memory, I don't damn memory and try to erase it. Be confident. And accept that we do things very well in the West. And we have universities, and we have the rule of law, and we have constitutionality, and we have free market capitalism. And right now we're in trouble. And we're not defending ourselves, our fertility, our ideologies, their anti-Western, and our enemies, and our people within our own borders are trying to overthrow the West. So that was a very controversial thing to say. He was criticized. I was really surprised. One source of criticism. I guess his name is Ivo. Do you remember him? Ivo, Dad, Dalia, I can't remember his name. And I got to be careful because somebody wrote me a letter and said, it's Latisha, not Latisha. And it's Kenya. And you're disrespecting people of color with their name. Do you see, don limone, you say it however you want. But I would say, I'm going to play the victim here. In 2014, I had a catastrophic bike accident. And so I have all this asphalt still here. And right here, this part of the lip was separated from this part of the lip, and this part was separate. And you, because I went over the handlebars and my head hit straight down and splattered. And I knocked out these four teeth that were these are all implants. I got a bad. It looks like an egg flat. Yeah. So I shattered my nose. I broke my four teeth. I had a concussion. I was told not to fly for a month. I flew eight days later to Europe. And it was a mistake. But one of the things is they had to stitch this left and right parts of my lower and right lip. So one of my wife saw me, she couldn't believe it because I had four lips. And yeah, I did. And so they stitched that they I did went to the emergency room and they stitched them together. And then I had to go lead 100 people in for a European tour. And I never went back to the plastic surgeon to, you know, we do it. And so I had two big lines here on my face where they stitch it together. I had 150 stitches, 75 on the outside, basically, and about 70 inside my mouth. And I still get, I can't, my mouth swells a lot from all the scar tissue. But my point is that I have a little list. I never had that before. And that's very hard for me because I can't, I have no feeling right here on the top for about the size of my finger. And if I do this on my bottom or lower lip, I can't feel anything at all. I never talk about it. But it's hard for me to pronounce certain words because of that. And anyway, I got a letter advising me to clean up my pronunciation. You're, you're forgiven. Yes. But in any case, that's that's all I wanted to say. Oh, you were talking about somebody who who is a critic. We're certain of pronouncing the name Yeah, I got another critic. Yeah, I got another critic criticism. There, I don't mean they're, they're nasty. Another, and he said, you misrepresented Ashley Babet. And I didn't misrepresent her. I said that she was a diminutive 13 year military veteran who went through an already broken window into the capital while on armed and she was shot laterally by someone in the capital police whose whose identification was not released for eight months. If that had happened in New York, Mayor Mundami would have called her a New Yorker. Well, right. And I always said that at any time in the United States that someone is shot by a policeman person justified or not on armed the identity of the officer is released pretty soon. And he is suspended from duty. And in this case, I thought They were forced multipliers. She was a very small woman. And she was on arm. And I don't defend her breaking through, going to a broken window. And this person wrote and said, well, she had a MAGA frame. I mean, a mixed martial arts frame. And she they found a pocket knife in her pocket. Yeah. Well, pocket knife. And then she was the first person to go in. And she there were people in tactical gear in the general area, tactical gear. So the idea that this small 112 pound, they said, well, they didn't know what they didn't know she was a military veteran. I didn't say that. I said that after in the post facto, it came the knowledge came clear. And then I also said, and I stand by this, that officer bird, they had an investigation. And he was exonerated. Although Donald Trump, Isaiah, we remember settled wrongful deaths who 2025 with their husband, I think, for our parents for $5 million. But the tribunal are the investigatory exonerated bird. But then we found out from press accounts that he had left a loaded service revolver in a capital bathroom. And then on another occasion, he had been cited for I think, discharging a weapon in his neighborhood under other circumstances. So what I'm getting at is you put that in any other case. If she had been black or non-white and she committed the crime of going through a window. And when people saw she was a small woman. And she did not have a weapon that she showed or anything. The idea that you shoot her because she's going to lead a whole mob of big men, follow her in, and they're going to hurt people. And so I don't have any retraction for that at all. None needed. But Victor, I have a little business to conduct right now before we keep on the subject. To our listeners and our viewers, if you studied enough history, you start to see a pattern, nations don't lose their way overnight. 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You were talking today here on Sunday, and I know you're heading down somewhere. I don't know if you want to talk about it just for a spec, but you were heading into some stormy weather. Yeah, there's a big hurricane. A hurricane in the north in Mexico. And now it's entering into Los Angeles. I don't think it's going to get all the way up here. But before I got ill every per week, I would go down to Peperdine University. And they have a wonderful dean, Pete Peterson. And we did we did those we do videos together and then I teach a class or give some lectures. And then at night we go meet some of the supporters of the Peperdine School of Public Policy, which is a wonderful. My daughter graduated. I do it because I like Pete Peterson. I like the Peperdine School. I knew the prior Dean Jen Wilburn. I thought he was a wonderful person. I had good friends on the faculty. Bob Kaufman was a good friend. And my daughter was treated very well there. My late daughter, she who passed away. So. And anyway, I'm going to go down there. But there is a hurricane, but I haven't been watching the news today. And it seems like it's more it's it's varying to the south of Malibu. And then you I can stay near the beach, you know, and because the almond arrow here is so bad, I've got a wheeze and I would my lung will my lung will clear up singular. This is this about a month for four or five weeks where the air where you are is is thick is it even longer than no it's unfortunately it's the first variety of almonds independence is come becomes right at the end of July and early and that's what we have in early August and then you have seven or eight varieties. And they are staggered all the way until right now. So we were driving home yesterday and we saw them shaking almonds. And you shake an almond tree, you get all the dust out, but that's not the problem. It drops on the ground. And then you sweep it into rows. And then you pick it up and and it creates this and you don't water the centers. You can't water it or rot the nut. So they have to be completely dry and the drippers are on the berm. And the result is that you see people driving with their lights on. And the dust is I have a little laboratory. I have a glass table right outside where I'm speaking a patio. And I put wind I clean it and I see how how during the height I would clean it and by that evening you couldn't see through it. It was so dirty. And now it takes about three days or four days to get that way. But if we get the first drain will stop it. Well Victor, I do have to engage in a little other business. If I want to let our listeners and viewers know that when I when I end this, I'm going to be asking you about Donald Trump and Zelensky and his criticisms, his Trump's criticisms, but to our listeners to our viewers. 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Go to home title lock.com/victor to get a free title history report plus a free trial of a million dollar triple lock protection. So you can make sure you're not already a victim. That's home title lock.com/victor or use the link below. And we thank the good people from home title lock for sponsoring Victor Davis Hanson in his own word. So Victor, Donald Trump, what are my notes here? Yeah. President Trump said Saturday. That's yesterday that it was quote, time for Ukraine to get a new president and quote warning Ukrainian president Vladimir. However, Zelensky to stop attacking Russian oil refineries as the two leaders clashed over a US deal with Moscow. It's time for your crane to get a new president. Trump told reporters outside the White House, et cetera. Well, it might probably been a long time since they needed to get a new president. But what are your thoughts on that Victor? Well, what is hurting what's we have 3.4 inflation? It's lower than 5.1. But it would be much, much lower. It would be as if we were back in the first term where the average inflation rate was 1.9. And the reason is not just we're paying, you know, here in California, we paid yesterday $7 a gallon. But it's diesel fuel, which is the fuel that runs the whole economy in sense of trucking. Everything trucking is I mean, it's essential to the whole country. And when you're paying in California $8.50 a gallon and maybe nationwide $6, it's an untenable situation. So I understand why he was upset because Russia is one of the largest suppliers of, we've not so much oil, but they do, of course, but we find diesel fuel. And when you take out, when you deliberately know they're making a fortune, and I understand why Zelensky is doing it, he's hitting the diesel refineries because the world is short diesel fuel and the Chinese need it, the Europeans need it, and Russia is supplying it. And the United States wants the price down. And obviously, if the Russian refineries were at full capacity, the price of diesel fuel would go on. That said, he's in a war. Zelensky for his own survival. And the Russians almost every single day are hitting things. That said, we've given them $140 billion and they won't survive without U.S. continued aid. So Donald Trump, basically, you put all of those conflicting incompatible interests together. He is saying privately, he has been, I mean, you've been reading privately. He said, hit anything else, but just for right now, do not hit the diesel refineries because it's killing the United Western economy. And Zelensky said, yes, but it's also fueling the war machine. It's killing my people. And then Trump obviously would have said, okay, but you wouldn't be there if we hadn't supplied you more than almost anybody. And then he said, he would reply and say, but I'm fighting against a common enemy of the West. And it's your interest that Putin's expansionist policies have been stymied by the heroism of the Ukrainian and back and forth. And so I can see why there was concern, but I don't think it's wise to conduct foreign policy like that. The other problem is that when we see our allies at war, I guess Ukraine is an ally. And there are elections, these are periodic elections. And the British don't cancel elections. So we do two things. In a major existential war, we bring in a bipartisan war cabinet. That's what Churchill brought in Chamberlain. And he brought in people from the Bevan, from the labor party. - Clement Attlee. - Yes. - It was a labor leader. - Yeah. Clement Attlee was, you know, he, Trump had no, I mean, Churchill had no sympathy for him. He had sympathy for Chamberlain the conservative, but Bevan he liked. And my point is that even, you know, Roosevelt brought in two or three cabinet members who were Republicans. And then we had election. When the war started in '39, we had election in '40, we had election '44 right at the height of the war. Churchill had election in July and was thrown out of office when the Pacific War was still raging. We went after the October 7th massacres and the Gaza thing. We put pressure. We being the Biden administration put pressure and they despised Netanyahu to bring in all elements of the Israeli political system and he brought in people who were former and future opponents of him in his war cabinet, but not Zelensky. We haven't had an election in years and he has canceled political parties. He's put, he's suspended habeas corpus. This is some, in some cases, there's rampant corruption. So it would be wise if Zelensky met with Trump and said, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a war cabinet with my political opponents. I'm going to allow political parties and I'm going to emphasize the differences between Ukraine and war as a constitutional system versus the dictators." And I may be thrown out of office, but he's not doing that. And that's part of his problem. But again, it gets down to, I think it would be better not to talk about, I don't think you want to say to a sovereign nation, he shouldn't be president when that nation's at war and you're on that nation's side, at least officially you are. The other thing really quickly is, I mentioned that there's a lot of Obama and Clinton. It's very strange, I was looking at them, somebody sent me a tweet and I mentioned one person who was an Obama Biden person. And they're very angry and you ask me about Rubio, they're very angry at Rubio. And here's why they're angry at him. They feel that he's snubbing our elite allies, our transatlant, why isn't he ever making a personal appearance in Paris? Why does he not go to Berlin? Why does he not go to Madrid? Why does he not go to London? Why is he not in Rome? Instead, he goes to Greece or he goes to Latin America and these are second rate. Does everybody see how stupid this criticism is? He does it intentionally. He's saying London would not even provide security at an RAF base that we share for mutual protection. We have $3 billion worth of beat, one bombers there at 330 million each, 11 of them. And they arrested suspects that were British Iranians and they let them out. And then they added insult to injury by saying they were probably helped organize influence by Iran. We were trying to put an end to the regime ability to have a nuclear weapon. Sicily wouldn't even let us land at a NATO base. France denied all fly over rights. Spain would not let us use a base. As we speak, Germany is racked by a big scandal. The head of German intelligence, who I think 80 has now been found out that he was passing sensitive material or having intelligence relationships with the Chinese and maybe the Russians too. So that's the problem. That's the problem. They don't, Americans don't feel that they can use the bases that they paid for and they support the majority of that NATO budget. And there they last resort that protects NATO in these dangerous times. And what happened? They won't even secure a base in England. They'll let the terrorists out on bail who were planning an operation date. They weren't probably going to hit British planes. They were going to hit our planes. And so what are you supposed to do? But it's a type of snobbery jack that, well, I'm Ambassador to Paris and the Secretary of State's coming to Paris. Who cares anymore? Who cares? If you look at all of these nations, they are in decline. Their fertility is low at 1.3, France is an exception. They have made disastrous energy choices. Their borders are wide open. They have unsustainable, unassuminated populations of foreign immigrants who hate them. I could go on. They've been disarmed until the last five years, only because of Trump where they were arming and because they were almost, I mean, if they didn't, Putin would have probably kept going. And he may still. And believe me, Putin is doing all sorts of things now, threatening the Baltic states, threatening Finland, threatening Poland. And I can tell you, if he goes into those states, I don't think you're going to see an enlistment campaign in the Netherlands or Belgium to go save Poland or the Baltics. Uh-uh. I don't think, I think Jacob, re-smog, who said that the combat ready, ready something like our 101st or something was small half the size of the NYPD. So I don't think Britain's going to do it. We're looking at France. It seems like they're having a near civil war right now. I don't think they're going to rush in and confront Vladimir Putin's war-hardened veterans. And to prevent Estonia or Lithuania or Latvia, our Poland, our Finland from being overrun, it'll be the United States, just like it was in the Serbian campaign, just like it was in the Libyan campaign, just like it was during the Falklands campaign, just like it is when France went into the Congo. So, finally people say, I'm done, I'm tired. I'm tired of it. Same attitude toward Canada. We're tired of it. [BLANK_AUDIO] they don't understand that. We have all this transatlantic elite community that thinks if you're a secretary of state you fill up on 747 with a bunch of subordinates and then you all go to Paris and you all go to London and you all say how wonderful the transatlantic relationship is and then you're sitting on a volcano and you don't ever say to them. Are you guys crazy? You're shrinking and aging. Are you crazy? You have only 10 tanks that operate in Germany. Are you crazy? You have these 16, 18, 20, 30 percent first and second generation Islamic populations that hate you and will not acculturate and assimilate and you're pandering to them. You people understand you've turned your back on the only consensual government in the Middle East that represents Western values. So that's who we're dating with and if Rubio doesn't want to see any of them but he wants to develop a coalition of the willing whether that Cyprus or Greece or some Eastern European countries or the Western hemisphere more power to him. Amen. Well, Victor, we're going to take a quick little break and we'll come back for a short final segment of the show which we'll have at least one topic and that is to me jarring. Satan comes to Iowa and we'll get to that when we come back from these messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hanson in his own words on Sunday, October 11th this episode is up on Tuesday, October 13th. Victor's website I mentioned before, I'll say it again, the blade of Perseus, Victor Hanson.com and on X you'll find @vd Hanson is Victor's handle. So Victor, this is from the lips of Tik Tok on X holy curse word, the city of auto Atomwa, excuse me Atomwa in Iowa opened up their most recent city council meeting with a prayer to Satan. Let us pray, dear father, Hail Satan, what the blank is wrong with these people and the weak response. I've sat on a city council in Millford, Connecticut. I cannot believe if someone came up before us and started giving some satanic prayer. We would just be sitting there going, oh, there's a free speech, right? It's very disturbing. I know it's an anecdote, but it still is jarring that this kind of thing. I don't even know what do they think Satan is. Do they know anything about Lucifer or do they are they imagining the underworld or they see a devil or is he green or red and do you have horns or is he a pan like I don't even know what that means when they're worship just it just seems to me that they are mostly middle-class, affluent, leisureed, bored without any belief in the hereafter. They're not religious. They're outside the Judeo-Christian tradition and they're bored and what does he do when you worship to Satan? What are you worshiping for? Would you please make sure there's seven wrecks on the 99 today and 10 people get killed? Hey, Satan, what evil can we think of today? Can you poison the water supply of, I don't know, Washington DC, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, any major American city? Can you do that? Can you get more mass murders operas? Is that what they're praying for with evil? Maybe someone has been praying for more suicides in Canada because let's end with this Victor. I just, I have to raise this Wesley Smith. I don't know if he-- Yeah, I've met him once, I think. He's kind of the world's expert in America on Canadian euthanasia. Yeah, and he reports on life news and other play. He's also very good on these. Do you think these nuts, they've said that rivers, this river has illegal rights and that kind of stuff, but he's written about, of course, dementia patients are now being targeted for the Canadian made MADID. Now, where do we hear that? Who did that? Nate Schichelgruber, I think. Yes, so isn't that funny? They're giving us all these lectures on morality, from carny, and now they're pretty much emulating the process of elimination and the third Reich from about 1936. And here's the difference. The German Lutheran community heard about that and knew about that when they were getting reports from their congregation that a child with multiple sclerosis or a child with autism or a child with Down syndrome was disappearing. They were said they were taking them to study at institute and they were killing them and they stopped it before the war started. They got so outraged that even Hitler was afraid, but I don't even hear anybody in Canada objecting to the level that's going to stop it, although the Canadians are tweaking it a little bit, I hear. But it's, I guess that's just another suicide of the West, another slice of that, a literal suicide of the West. I'll give you another example of Neil isn't very quickly, and you mentioned it to me and that was here in California, the eel river a hundred years ago was damned in an arid country and we had this beautiful reservoir, Pillsbury Reservoir up in Mendocino County and that allowed the watershed, it supplies irrigation water and municipal water and hydroelectric power to the Russian River watershed and indirectly to a great part of the California wine industry who needs occasional drip irrigation. Believe me, if you talk to those ventures or you look at their farms, they are space age engineers how to extract the maximum amount of efficiency to drip irrigation and they use the maximum, the maximum least amount of water possible to grow a great crop. It's not like they're fertile irrigating and just wasting it and they are under so much pressure by metering their pumps that's coming into and now Gavin decides well we have the water bond in 2014 and the voters voted seven billion dollars to expand the water storage and so and they said 2.5 billion was going to build big reservoirs at Temperance flat up above Millerton Lake at Los Bannos Grande's to kind of supplement the San Luis Reservoir and at the Sacramento River at the site site and I didn't build any of them. Gavin didn't but I did take a half a billion dollars and I blew up four dams on the climate river so I could give it to Native Americans so they could fish. Yes, we got our hair messed up a little bit when we blew up the dams we had a horrific environmental disaster of sediment, mud killed wildlife destroyed the banks of the river was a complete disaster for almost a year. It was poisonous and we lost power for at least 40,000 homes of clean energy and we lost recreation and we lost irrigation and we lost flood control and by the way we're we're destined according to meteorologists that we're going to have a El Nino year with record rainfall and we'll see what happens on the climate river without those dams but now they want to blow up the Pillsbury Reservoir. It has a 35 miles or conference it's it's not that small and turn over the wild eel river to Native American tribes and for ancestral so and where will they get the and PG gotta remember the PG&E board remember the person who destroyed any chance of saving pacific palisades by allowing that reservoir above pacific palisades to be dry and not reacting when people were not allowed to clean the hillsides and we had hydrants it didn't work. In other words the director of L.A. water and power came from PG&E she did I think she's now in Puerto Rico she's paid $750,000 I remember utter incompetent but what I'm getting at is PG&E is part of the state utilities it's regulated but in California what I'm getting at is it's not a bunch of left wing people who go to PG&E or Southern California and say we're gonna really regulate you make it they do that but the people in those organizations or corporate organizations are just as left wing so PG&E is now either under coercion or an agreement say and I don't want any more of it I don't want my I don't want the damn I don't want the power generation I don't I know it's profitable I just don't want any of it and we have 40 so you say to PG&E, well, why don't you try it to maintain it because you're a wind and solar and all these solar farms that produce nothing at night. We have 40 cents a kilowatt at some times during the day. It's the most expensive electricity in the continental United States. And so that is nihilism is what I'm getting at. They destroyed Hollywood almost. They're trying to destroy California agriculture. You should go down Manning Avenue and see all this pristine farmland taken out of production so that we have this massive solar farm. It just keeps growing and growing and huge. And I don't know where they put the electricity at night because the battery storage at Moss Landing has blown up twice now and doesn't store it. And then you go after you, when I go to work, I pass this strange, I don't know what it is. It just miles and miles and they keep getting bigger. And you see more and more almonds taken out and farmland taken out because there's not enough water because they've rewritten the contracts for the California water project and the Central Valley project. And then when you get on eye five, you go over a patch, you get on 152, you go over a patch, and you see these massive wind turbines. And you'll see a thing. This is so funny. You'll say whether it's, you know, you can't detect when they're not moving. But when it says conditions are windy, be aware of a little light on the high. They're not moving. They're never moving. There's like three or four of them. They're all just steady. Unless they see it bald eagle. Then they know. So I mean, that's California. And how can you, how can he even think of running when he took money out of a fund to build dams? He didn't build any. And then he blew up four of them. And now he wants to blow up a fifth one. And then he hasn't done a thing to expedite the rebuilding of Pacific palisades. And we're sitting on a $20 to $30 billion high speed rail of the Asco. And we have the highest power, the highest gas prices, the highest income tax. I think you meant $200 to $300 billion fee. Asco. Yes. I've seen some numbers like this. Yeah. Well, that's going to be the eventual. I'm talking about what he's already wasted. Oh, yeah, that he's spent already. Yeah. Yeah. And when I go over the overpass on Mountain View, I don't see one foot of track, not one foot 10, 10 years down the drain. Yeah. Victor, you mentioned, I just want to draw our listeners and readers attention to a site called Un1, UNWO and Un1. And Keeley Covello has written this piece on the mountain lake, the lake Pillsbury that you just were referencing. It's a very long article. But if anyone wants to get an understanding of just how demented and ideological bureaucrats are, and as you said, PG&E and others and the other destruction that would come from it, it's this is I think well worth reading. We're going to have an election. Steve Hilton has made up some ground. Yeah. But I would remind Californians that if you're to the left and you think they're not coming for you, not everybody can join the SEIU or the teachers union. There's not enough room. Not everybody can be on Medi-Cal and not working or be here illegally or whatever be it recipient of California largest. Someone has to pay for that. And if you are and all the people who pay for that as everybody is left wing. So all the Silicon Valley people are starting to say, well, we gave them all the money. They're us. No, they're not. You have money. And they're going to go after you. They're not just going to go after you with the 13.3 income. They're going to try to pass a billionaire's tax to go after you. They're going to an all-you level of filmmakers and Hollywood that give money to Hillary and Biden and Obama. They're going to go after you. They already are. They're not going to help you. Everybody's leaving Hollywood and all you Napa ventures and everybody, you know, Nancy Pelosi's up there and all don't think they won't go after you. They have to go after you because 300,000 people are leaving. 10 million people left. There is no conservative Republican party anymore. It's just you have supermajorities in the legislature. All the judges are left wing. There's not one statewide Republican. It's a left wing socialist experiment. And there's no more evil white male, Christian, wealthy, entrepreneurs left to pay the taxes. So they are turning on their own. And I think you're going to see a lot of upper middle class, professional Hispanics, Mexican Americans, particularly. And they are starting to see that Viserra is going after them because they can't afford this horrendous 13.3 if it hits you, tax, and they can't afford housing and they understand that. And a lot of people are saying on the left, well, why do they come after me? I voted for them. I gave them money. Why do they hate Hollywood producers? Why do they hate left wing Napa ventures? Why do they hate left wing techies? Why do they hate left wing professors? Why are they taxing us? Why are they depriving the economy of water? Why is Gassy? Because they can. There's no one left. You're the only people with money left. And they're stealing it. They got to steal it and redistribute it. Yeah, the billionaire's tax will be a thousand dares tax that they'll come after your pension. Well, it's Willie Sutton said you got to go with the money is right. What's finally going to happen to California? You're going to have on paper, you're going to have teachers started 150,000 and you're going to have SCIU government employees, state employees at 120,000 and you're going to have the head of LA water and power not at 750,000, but at two million and we're going to have a three-day work week and there's going to be nobody to pay for it. They're all going to be gone. Yeah, they're all Elon's not going to be here and Zuckerberg will leave and all of them will leave. Well, EOR, thank you for that uplifting message. As we conclude, I want to say a thing or two, by the way, I was out last Thursday in Minnesota. I spoke to the annual gathering of the St. Croix Review. That's ST-R-O-I-X, St. Croix Review. I never website St. Croix Review.com. It's a sweet quarterly. It's been around 59 years. I want to recommend people check it out and do subscribe. But while I was there, of course, the Victor fans came to me. They love, man, I don't know, man, are you loved, Victor? Jim Kay from, I'm not going to give his last name, Jim's from Wisconsin and he's got one of the businesses that they built, they create, make fire trucks and business pretty good, but he's a huge fan of yours. So, never misses a show. And he's one of many who talked to me about love and affection for you. We had a donor that I met to the Hoover Institution. I won't mention the family's name, but she was one of the sweetest, nicest persons I've ever met. She was very conservative Christian and we talked for an hour about the status of education in America and she's been so generous to universities. But she targets the money. I should say she and her husband who just passed away. But there are a lot of people left in California that they're trying to do something. I don't know if it's going to work or not. I don't want to end on a completely negative note. I had a guy, we had a conference of 92 people come Friday. That was the first day I was there for a whole day. I was a big accomplishment. I just didn't give a lecture and go home, but I was there for 12 hours. And this is at Hoover. Yeah, military history working groups, military officers, generals, all different ranks, military analysts, former government, government officials, academic, every, it was a cross section. And we discussed tactics, strategy, politics, technology at what did we learn from Ukraine, war, a ran war in the Middle East wars with Israel. And it was very fascinating, stunning. And I had a wonderful team, three people and they did a wonderful job. It was just incredible. I mean, we have with this beautiful new building and our director, Condoleezza Rice came and talked to people for a while, and we had a cappuccino bar for everybody we had. And I raised the money. And then the donors that I invited to oversee what so they wouldn't see the money is not well spent. They were very happy. And it'll come out in publications, but it's, it's not all that, but one person I'll just end with this came up and said, "Why do you live 200 miles away when you could live besides the cause? Why do you drive 400 miles away for 23 years?" I hadn't really thought of that. And I said, "Why would I?" I mean, that's not my home. That's where I work. But I started thinking-- Did you like long commutes? Yeah, I started thinking in the way home and the answer I said is the only thing that keeps me sane is your home. Yes, the people around here in the San Joaquin Valley, it's just a different culture of farmers and middle-class people. And if I was in an academic environment, I would just be a contrarian, a curmudgeon, a cranky person. I don't like that. I go there, I love being there for a limited number of times. But then it's so much, I'm so happy to get home all the time. Well, it's a beautiful home and as you've talked many times, it's your fifth generation or so. And there's a lot of love and history there. So why wouldn't you want to be there? As opposed to a coffee I'd love to see you at a coffee shop in Palo Alto, Victor. My wife and I go there a lot, but we don't. We stick out. I mean, you don't have nose rings or tattoos. There is one. I won't. I won't. We go to a particular place in Minlow Park. It's a wonderful place. And the owner is wonderful. And it has a lot of traditional Minlow Park people. They're all over 55 and they're an isolated-- I think they tend to be more conservative. I don't know what their politics are. But when we come in, a lot of people come over and talk. They're very, very friendly. And I shouldn't generalize it to people. But, you know, I do know. Okay. Anyway, let's let me read just two comments that I got off of YouTube and the thousands of them. Thanks, folks, for taking the time to share your opinions. Dante Kizongo, 2609 writes, "Some VDH's new book has arrived in Europe. I just received a copy. Deer Victor, I wish you a speedy recovery and great health. I am praying for you in listening to your words. Warm greetings from small, beautiful Slovakia." Wow. And then David Brown, UC4, YV writes, "Whoever said Victor is a national treasure could not be more right." I read VDH on politics. First, when he wrote for what was once the conservative national review, that's not nice, David. It's still conservative. Victor's combination of knowledge, stop-in-fictive. Victor's combination of knowledge, wisdom, the ability to stuff so much into a small space and his quiet, calm, unflappable demeanor, make him utterly unique. Once you tap into Victor, you realize this is what you have been looking for, humility, with every reason not to be. Amen, brother. Victor, you've been terrific today. Thanks, everybody for that. And thanks for all the wisdom you shared. Thanks, folks, for who subscribed to Simple Thoughts, which is one of the things I do for the Center for Simple Society. Go to cypalthauts.com, sign up, and every Friday, you'll get my email of 14 recommended readings. And again, Victor's website, the blade of PerseusVictorHanson.com. All right. Thanks, folks. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode. 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 victorhanson.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Victor Davis Hanson criticizes the Nobel Peace Prize award to Navi Pele, seeing it as a politically motivated move against Donald Trump and a reflection of liberal bias in international academia.
  2. He argues that modern literary awards often favor postmodern, anti-national, and left-leaning works, ignoring classical traditions and conservative values, as exemplified by Ann Carson’s selection.
  3. Hanson condemns the growing influence of politically charged "soft" education curricula in schools, such as graphic sex education for young children, calling it a threat to parental rights and moral development.
  4. He highlights the decline of Western influence, warning that without active defense, the West risks being overthrown by internal enemies and anti-Western ideologies both abroad and at home.
  5. Hanson critiques the lack of political and military preparedness in Western allies, especially among NATO partners, pointing to deteriorating military strength, low fertility, and political instability.
  6. He expresses alarm over the emergence of satanic prayers in public institutions like Iowa’s city council, interpreting it as a sign of cultural decay and loss of traditional religious belief.
  7. He warns of a troubling trend in Canada, including euthanasia programs targeting vulnerable populations and environmental mismanagement, which he sees as a symbolic "suicide of the West."
  8. Hanson emphasizes the importance of Western cultural and institutional resilience, urging a return to classical values, strong institutions, and self-reliance as a counter to global decay.

Summary:

Victor Davis Hanson delivers a sharp critique of contemporary global and cultural trends, arguing that the West is in a critical period of decline due to internal decay and external threats. He condemns the political bias in international awards, such as the Nobel Prizes given to Ann Carson and Navi Pele, as deliberate acts of ideological suppression against conservative figures like Donald Trump and Western values. Hanson highlights a concerning shift in education, where graphic and explicit sex ed content is being pushed on young children, undermining parental control and moral development.

S. allies. The emergence of satanic prayers in public life and aggressive policies targeting vulnerable populations in Canada are presented as symptoms of deeper cultural collapse.

Hanson draws on historical parallels to emphasize the resilience of Western civilization rooted in classical values, free markets, and democratic institutions. He calls for a revival of traditional principles, greater vigilance over national sovereignty, and a recommitment to the rule of law and cultural identity to prevent the West’s collapse. Ultimately, he believes the future of Western civilization hinges on a renewed commitment to self-defense, ideological clarity, and a return to foundational values.

FAQs

Hanson believes the award to Navi Pele was a political move targeting Donald Trump, reflecting a left-leaning bias in international institutions. He argues that such awards often favor figures who support globalist or anti-Israel narratives, especially on issues like the Palestinian conflict, and that the selection undermines the prize's credibility.

Hanson views Carson's win as a deliberate left-wing gesture, noting her Canadian background and alignment with postmodern, anti-national literature. He argues that such awards overlook conservative values and classical traditions, and that the selection reflects a broader trend of bias in international academies.

Hanson warns that this curriculum includes graphic depictions of naked children and explicit content, teaching young students to identify genitalia. He calls it inappropriate and harmful, emphasizing that it is not health education but a form of explicit sexual content pushed on children as young as five.

Hanson argues that the West is in a period of cultural and political indecision, but still holds a preeminent position globally. He believes the West either risks losing the world or will save it by defending its values, institutions, and free-market principles against internal and external threats.

Hanson criticizes Western allies like France, Germany, and Canada for declining military readiness, open borders, and political instability. He argues that these nations lack the resolve to defend Western values, and that their policies—such as refusing to secure NATO bases—undermine transatlantic security.

Hanson praises Rubio's speech for its connection to classical Greek ideals, particularly the concept of 'thumos'—a heroic, passionate drive. He sees it as a call to renew Western strength and confidence, emphasizing the importance of cultural roots in modern political discourse.

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