Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words

Victor Davis Hanson: Nazi Tattoos Used to Be Taboo—Now They’re in the Democratic Party

81 min
May 7, 202623 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Victor Davis Hanson discusses corruption in Maine politics, the Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner's controversial Nazi tattoo history, the deterioration of blue-state governance, and judicial activism undermining rule of law. The episode examines how institutional standards have collapsed across universities, courts, and government agencies.

Insights
  • Democratic Party standards have inverted: a Nazi tattoo that would have disqualified a candidate 30 years ago now signals alignment with anti-Semitic base and Gaza activism, revealing institutional capture by radical ideology
  • Blue-state exodus is creating a geographic bifurcation of American culture similar to pre-Civil War divisions, with red states gaining population and economic dynamism while blue states decline despite higher taxes and progressive policies
  • Federal judges are making amoral cost-benefit calculations prioritizing career advancement over rule of law, releasing dangerous criminals and punishing free speech to curry favor with progressive networks
  • Universities have abandoned meritocracy by lowering standards to admit unqualified activists, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where mediocre students become angry activists who then demand grade inflation and institutional protection
  • Prolonged adolescence enabled by government benefits and parental support has created a cohort of 20-40 year-olds with no skin in the game, manifesting as entitlement, lawlessness, and susceptibility to radical ideology
Trends
Institutional capture by radical progressives across academia, judiciary, and government bureaucracy using DEI and activism as cover for ideological purgesCollapse of institutional courage: administrators and judges choosing career advancement over principle, enabling lawlessness and destroying institutional legitimacyGeographic sorting accelerating: wealthy and entrepreneurial classes fleeing blue states for red states, creating permanent electoral and demographic advantages for RepublicansNormalization of anti-Semitism within Democratic Party as acceptable political positioning, particularly among younger voters focused on Gaza activismWeaponization of federal courts against political opponents while protecting violent criminals and illegal aliens, revealing two-tiered justice systemDecline of meritocracy in elite institutions replaced by ideological conformity testing and activist recruitment masquerading as diversityErosion of free speech norms on campuses through coordinated disruption campaigns with administrative protection for disruptorsBillionaire class turning on progressive institutions after realizing they are targets, not beneficiaries, of radical wealth redistribution ideology
Topics
Maine Senate race and Graham Platner candidacyNazi tattoo controversy and Democratic Party standardsVoter registration fraud and noncitizen votingBlue state exodus and red state migrationUniversity free speech and Federalist Society disruptionsFederal judicial activism in immigration casesDEI and meritocracy collapse in academiaAnti-Semitism normalization in Democratic PartyProlonged adolescence and government dependencySanctuary state policies and criminal alien releasesTucker Carlson's political positioningSusan Collins Senate recordCivil War reconciliation versus contemporary divisivenessInstitutional corruption and administrative cowardiceTwo-tiered justice system for political opponents
Companies
Starbucks
CEO announced relocation from Seattle amid rising taxes and progressive policies, exemplifying blue-state business ex...
Gateway Community Services
Alleged Medicaid fraudsters partnering with Maine Secretary of State on voter registration and migrant organizing
Community Organizing Alliance
Migrant-run ACORN-style group created by Gateway Community Services, partnering with Maine officials on voter registr...
People
Victor Davis Hanson
Host and primary commentator analyzing political corruption, institutional decline, and cultural bifurcation
Jack Fowler
Co-host conducting interview and providing context on current events and judicial decisions
Graham Platner
Maine Senate candidate with Nazi tattoo history, communist social media posts, and 100% disability status while runni...
Susan Collins
Incumbent Maine Senator criticized by Platner as billionaire-backed despite voting 75-80% with Republican administration
Shana Bellows
Maine official who attempted to remove Trump from ballot and admitted noncitizens are registered to vote
Tucker Carlson
Praised Graham Platner as different from Democratic Party despite holding identical progressive positions
Melissa DeBose
Biden appointee who released Dominican illegal alien with murder warrant and deportation order, preventing ICE re-arrest
Brian Rafael Gomez
Dominican illegal alien with Interpol murder warrant released by Judge DeBose despite ICE detention and deportation o...
Kevin Kline Smith
FBI lawyer who forged FISA warrant documents against Carter Page, received probation from Judge Boasberg with no jail...
Judge Boasberg
Judge who sentenced FBI lawyer Kline Smith to probation for forging court documents in FISA warrant application
Harmeet Dhillon
DOJ official attempting to obtain Maine voter files to prevent noncitizen voting, blocked by Secretary of State Bellows
Hassan Piker
Left-wing activist who justified murder of political opponents, speaking at Stanford while Nick Fuentes banned from s...
Eugene Volokh
Colleague of Hanson at Hoover, commented on UCLA law school's response to Federalist Society disruption incident
Tim Walz
Minnesota governor whose sanctuary state policies protect criminal aliens from ICE deportation
Bill Malugin
Reporter documenting federal judge's release of criminal aliens and sanctuary state protection of deportable criminals
Quotes
"Thirty years ago, if you were a Democrat and you wore a Nazi tattoo for 20 years and people knew about it, that would exclude you from being nominated. Today in the Democratic Party, the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo and he removed it will mean the grandees will explain it away or wink, nod."
Victor Davis HansonEarly in episode
"The left doesn't have principles. It has an agenda, but it's mostly about power. It's a quality, mandated equality of result. And using a huge government as a mechanism to achieve that sort of Marxist socialist equality."
Victor Davis HansonMid-episode
"We are really getting into an 1850 situation where we're creating two entirely antithetical cultures. But the problem is it's flipped from the Civil War."
Victor Davis HansonMid-episode
"What destroys societies is not dirt. It's excess, excess spending, excess government, excess everything. And it takes away the human desire for struggle and to perform and to get active."
Victor Davis HansonLate in episode
"If you don't have courage, I think, you know, Aristotle said none of the other ethical virtues matter."
Victor Davis HansonLate in episode
Full Transcript
We have to talk about Tucker Carlson. Here's a headline. Tucker praises main Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Platner. If he says that he would prefer Graham Platner, I guess he does because he didn't say at the same time, he's an interesting person. I want to interview him. But of course I'll also interview Susan Collins because her record, even though I don't embrace it all, has been more representative of my entire life in the conservative movement. He didn't say that. Thirty years ago, if you were a Democrat and you wore a Nazi tattoo for 20 years and people knew about it, that would exclude you from being nominated. Today in the Democratic Party, the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo and he removed it will mean, A, the grandees will explain it away or wink, nod, it will be something that will be of value. Because of the rising anti-Semitism, it sends a message. It sends a message and he's reiterated again and again and again about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, genocide, Israel, Israel, Israel. So that sends a message to the new Democratic-Jakoban party. Well, hello ladies and hello gentlemen and welcome to Victor Davis Hansen. In his own words, we're here on the Daily Signal Network. Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He's a senior contributor at the Daily Signal. He's a man with a website. The Blade of Perseus. Victorhansen.com is the address you should subscribe. Later on, I'll tell you why. And he's the author of The Fourth Coming out in September, but orderable now on Amazon. Book, Counter Revolution, The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA. What's the last word? I'm missing the last word. Movement, chat. Movement. Sorry. Sorry. You're a movement conservative. You didn't know that. I am. I am a movement conservative. I know you are. Thank you. Once upon a time, publisher, what was, well anyway, we got so much to talk about. We're talking on Monday, May 4th, 2026. And this particular episode will be up on Thursday, May 7th. And then following that, Victor, of course, there's two, sure will be two fantastic discussions with the great Sammy Wink. Victor, let's talk about Maine and Plattner and Tucker and corruption in various Democratic joints. And we also have joints, also known as states. And then we have a follow up to the craziness at the UCLA Federal Society gathering and the reaction, the terrible reaction by the UCLA administration. And then we have a Justice Department report out on how the Biden Justice Department was going after Christians and pro-lifers. So we've got lots and lots to get Victor's take on. We'll do all that when we come back from these initial messages. Since the founding of America 250 years ago, many things have changed. But some things never do. The commitment of husband and wife, the importance of passing along our values to our children, the faithfulness of God. Some wonder how we can ensure America will continue to thrive as long as we keep first things first. We've only just begun. America, the beautiful. Hey, folks, we're back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. You're looking good today, Victor. I hope you're happy and bursting with wisdom. You always are. Let's, you know, we had recorded yesterday for us Sunday and there was just a trove of things. So many corruption things I wanted to get to. We're going to get to some of these today. So let's start off with corruption in Maine. And here's this, Steve Robinson posted this on X the other day. Maine Democrats are actively recruiting voters who have never lived in Maine and never paid taxes in Maine. Maine Secretary of State, Shana Bellows, who previously tried to disenfranchise Maine voters by removing Donald Trump from the ballot, has publicly admitted that noncitizens are registered to vote in Maine. She's refusing to give Harmeet Dhillon from the Justice Department Maine's voter files so that the Department of Justice can prevent noncitizens from raiding our elections. And Bellows has partnered with the Community Organizing Alliance. This is a quote unquote migrant run acorn style group created by the alleged Medicaid fraudsters at Gateway Community Services, etc. You know, Maine was once a bastion of Republicanism. It has important elections coming up, Victor. We're going to talk about that separately with Plattenair. But this is that infamous woman who tried to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. And she is a pure ideologue and in a position of power, your thoughts? Well, I think there's two issues here. One is Plattenair and the worry about him. The rumors are, and these are alleged rumors, but I think Mark Halpern mentioned them, is that his long social media history, which is pretty crazy. Women need to wear Kevlar pants if they don't want to be raped. White people, rural people are stupid and lazy. He's a communist. All cops are bastards. I don't know how you can be on 100% disability for post-traumatic stress syndrome and then say you're going to run for Senate because you're disabled. But he's doing that and of course, no one has called him on it. The other thing is, if you have a candidate like that and you're going to nominate him over, she's not very moderate, the governor, but he was going to win. And then once he's in the general, Susan Collins, I know that a lot of true rural conservatives like us, Jack, get irritated with her, but she has to operate in the confines of a main. And I would say, I haven't looked at her voting record, but I imagine it, don't you think it's 75% or 80% with the administration? On key votes, the SAVE Act and things like that, she disappoints, but she gets elected and she's smart and there's no comparison between the two. So the point I'm making is that he's out of the ordinary. He also represents this new strain of elite, very wealthy here in California. Tom Steyer is really off the scale, hard left, but a billionaire. We saw Mondami, his two parents are millionaires. I mean, they're not multimillionaires, but they're very affluent. They're from a very exclusive family in Uganda. And then we go to a platner, went to Hotzkiss School. He's the son of a famous architect. His father was a lawyer. His mother is a restaurateur. So he's among the elite, and yet he keeps yelling and screaming about billionaires and millionaires. His parents are millionaires, no doubt. He grew up as a millionaire. So there's a problem with him. And when you're a Democrat and your heart says, I love this guy, but your brain says he's not going to be electable under normal circumstances, then you opt for the change the system. And the change the system is what they always do. James Carverall outlined it. He said, when the Democrats come in, no more filibuster, no more electoral college with a national voting compact. Solution to that, four more Democratic senators under the Washington DC and Puerto Rico entrance and pack the court. What does that show? He doesn't have confidence in the Democratic message appealing to 51%. They don't have confidence that this guy can win. So when they do that, they either open the border or they try to say that felons can vote or they try to change the system. And that's what they're doing, whether it's off the radar or transparently in Maine because they have a problem. And as I said, Mark Halpern reviewed his problems and apparently, allegedly, there's a lot more to come, Jack, about him, his record. And it's very ironic. Well, not ironic. I should apologize for that. But the Democratic Party made such a fuss about Elon Musk's Nazi salute. It wasn't a Nazi salute. He saluted like we've seen everybody do that. Cory Booker, I think Elizabeth Warren, they all do it. And they've said nothing about this Totenkopp deathhead third Panzer division and also used as the Eizengruppen people at the death camps. And he knew people have said that were in his cohort. He knew what it was. He bragged about it. He's changed his story twice. He said, well, you know, I didn't really know what it was until just I ran for Congress. And then I mean, for Senate, and they told me what it was. And then he's also said, well, you know, I was brainwashed. I imbued or absorbed this toxic marine culture and that made me do it. So he can't tell the truth. And he thinks he's going to win. And he, he, he's a very, put it this way, 30 years ago, if you were a Democrat and you wore a Nazi tattoo for 20 years and people knew about it, that would exclude you from being nominated. Today in the Democratic Party, the fact that he had a Nazi tattoo and he removed it will mean, A, the grandees will explain it away or wink, nod. It will be something that will be of value because of the rising anti-Semitism. It sends a message. It sends a message and he's reiterated again and again and again about Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, genocide, Israel, Israel, Israel, cut off. So that sends a message to the new Democratic Jacobin Party. And it's not the Democratic Party anyway. It's a Jacobin Party, a French Revolutionary Party, and they have institutionalized anti-Semitism. So when a candidate sends those signals and we think they're disqualifying, we're in a time warp. That was 20, 30 years ago. That's not right. Why isn't Dick Blumenthal, by the way, Victor, I don't think anyone should not be disturbed by these tattoos, more than disturbed. But I would believe a Jewish United States Senator would have a little more outrage than, you know, Catholic Jack Fowler might. I have complete outrage, by the way. But Dick Blumenthal and other income, where's Chuck Schumer decrying this guy? They are terrified of this new base. They have become so acculturated to having that title and the special exemptions and honors that go with being a senator and the privileges and the esteem that the office, not necessarily the person who holds the office, but the office ensures. And the power, the power, the power, that's the most important asset for them. They'll never give it up. That's why all these guys die in the saddle, so to speak. And they'll never give it up. So in that case, whether it's a question of being elected again and having a nice 75 years to 85 years and 10 more years as this power broker or going home and, you know, reading a novel and nobody knows who you are in a year. It's principles can be easily sold. But it is interesting that both parties were faced with the same phenomenon. On the one hand, the Republicans had this nut, Nick Fuentes, who is a admirer of Adolf Hitler and is a self-avowed anti-Semite. And so did the left, Hassan Piker. Only I don't think, as bad as Nick Fuentes is, I don't know if he endorsed murder, social murder in the way that Piker did with Luigi Menn. He may have. I don't know. He's capable of it. But the point I mean is, I'm trying to make is a roughly comparable. For all practical purposes, no one is going to invite Nick Fuentes. He went to the White House and apparently, Trump wasn't aware of who he was. He came with Kenya West. And neither one of them wouldn't be invited now. But Hassan Piker, he just spoke at Stanford University. He's touring all the elite universities. He had a glowing interview with a New York Times reporter. He's, and I read about him in political the first time. I remember the article, they said he's kind of the he-man. The he-man left us because he works out and he's big and he's tough. That's the image, everybody, that they're trying to manufacture with Graham Platner and these working class, because they've lost the white working class. And they look at this cohort of young people who are disaffected. They can't buy a house. They have prolonged adolescence. They're not getting married, if at all, until their 30s or 40s are not having children. They often are financially encumbered by student loans. And they take three units one year, six, and it just goes on forever. And a lot of them are dependent on their parents and they're frustrated. And Nick Fuentes has a certain message that appeals to some of them. But this guy feels that he, the party feels that people like Piker and Graham Platner can win that white working class back. He's an oyster farmer. He worked for an oyster farmer and then he had outside capital. I don't know where it came from, but he bought the company. But he hasn't been an oyster farmer very long. So he's deliberately trying to manufacture the fact he didn't go to the Hotchkits prep school and he's not the son of very affluent people with privilege. And he does that by saying, you know, white rural people are stupid and that kind of stuff. And then he does the he-man stuff with the tattoo and post-traumatic stress. Post-traumatic stress is real. It's a terrible thing. But if you're a veteran and you're classified as 100% disability and that means you're not able to earn a living, then we in America as a generous people want to compensate you for your sacrifice to us. But that would preclude the idea that you would then go out and get a normal job that would pay $180,000 a year. Double that thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's strange because... She's surely getting benefits as a 100% service. Well, I don't know if he's still on it, but the last I read he was, he would have to make the argument to a board of psychiatrists that he's not able to function in the manner that most Americans are because of the traumatic injuries to his experience and his mental state. He suffered while in Iraq. And that can be absolutely true. But if it is absolutely true, then you don't know whether he would have a problem as a U.S. senator representing an entire state. So, but again, the left, everybody has to remember the left. It doesn't have principles. It has an agenda, but it's mostly about power. It's a quality, mandated a quality of result. And using a huge government as a mechanism to achieve that sort of Marxist socialist equality. And almost anything is necessary to achieve those goals that other people, most people, the majority of people don't want. So, they have a bad message that no, it's not, it's oppositional, antipetical to human nature. Yeah. That's why they do these strange things. Victor, he sounds unelectable, but in given the number of oddities and disturbing factors. But so did Jay Jones, who's the attorney general now elected in Virginia. That's a hard call. He said he wanted to kill his opponent in the Virginia legislature, didn't he? Kill his wife and children, right? And kids, yeah. And still he was elected. So, you know, you wonder if could Platner really end up being United States senator? Oh, no, I think he could. I think he could very easily. And he's very slick. I saw, you know, that tape, he's circulating that Susan Collins, when you say Susan Collins name, she doesn't fit the idea that she's created by Maine billionaire. You know what I mean? Right. She just doesn't. She's a decent, gracious person. And the criticism of her by the Republicans is she's not conservative enough. She is basically a traditionalist. And she has done a good job for the Republican party. Given the circumstances of the constituencies she has to represent. But he gets on there and he just calls her all the billionaire, billionaire, billionaire, I'm going to destroy Susan. All this stuff. And then he says, unlike her, our campaign is grassroots, but, but, but we will take some money. We will take some money. And everybody knows that the billionaire class is predominantly now on the left. We saw that with Barack Obama. He's the one that enacted that transition. Yeah. Well, we have a little more about Platner to get to. We have a first victor for our viewers and our listeners. If you've studied enough history, you start to see a pattern. Nations don't lose their way overnight. 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Tucker praises main Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner. Quote, I certainly appreciate his forging policy views, and I appreciate how different they are from everybody else in his party. I haven't met him yet, and I plan to meet him. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How is he different than anybody else? He's representative of the Democratic Party, isn't he? Other than Federman, I guess so. Yeah. I mean, everything he's right with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and the older guard that has flipped like Nancy Pelosi and Schumer, they're for that stuff now. He basically wants open borders, doesn't care about illegal immigration, critical race theory, DEA, and so on. Waste theory, DEI, transgen, all of that stuff. He can't get elected if he didn't, wasn't he? He's a green guy, no fossil, all of that stuff. And the whole he-man, white working guy, all in the tough talk, and often laced with profanities, all of that is just superficial pablum for, you know, this mythical white working class that'll vote for him because he's tough. It's kind of insulting to the white working class because the people that I see in my neighborhood that are white working class are pretty well informed. But I don't know what Tucker- Oh, you said F, I'm gonna vote for you. Yeah, I don't know what Tucker means, but if he says that he would prefer Graham Plattner, and I guess he does because he didn't say at the same time, he's an interesting person. I want to interview him, but of course I'll also interview Susan Collins because her record, even though I don't embrace it all, has been more representative of my entire life in the conservative movement. He didn't say that. So I assume that he likes Graham Plattner not because his views are at odds. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt with the new hard left Democratic party unless Tucker's gone the whole Bill Crystal route. I don't know if he has or not or Max Boot route. I don't think he has, but he must like him because Graham Plattner has been outspoken in his hatred of Israel, Gaza, Genese, all this stuff. And that, it seems to me that that's, and he says, he's had people on, he has appeared with people who have endorsed, and correct me if I'm wrong, he, I think he's appeared with or he's talked with people who have been classified as pro-Neil. Really, you know, there's kind of the Daryl Cooper, I don't know how you'd revisionist. So is that why Tucker is attracted to this new face and the Democratic party? Because if you look at the totality of what he said, it's no different than the squad or AOC. It really isn't. Yeah. And I thought Tucker's criticism of Donald Trump was, I am a principal conservative and I voted for Donald Trump in campaign form and frequent, frequented Air Force One and Campaign One and I was at Mar-a-Lago, had Bitway a lot. And I did this because I agreed with 90% of his platform. I thought that's what the reason why. I still haven't been enlightened by anybody, Candace, any of them. Why, if you disagree with him on a particular issue, like you classify the 60-day, and it hasn't been 60 days of kinetic activity, it's been 40 days, maybe less, against Iran. You want to classify that as a forever or endless war that he campaigned against. Okay, that's a legitimate opinion. But why would you take one particular issue and then say, well, I thought it over and, you know, I don't like that wall that's growing on the border. I don't like the idea there's no illegal immigration. I don't like the idea we're deporting 500,000 criminals. I don't like the deregulation, the tax cuts. They're all in a domination. No, it's just one, you cross me on one issue and I'm done with you. Unless they can cite others, you know, that you don't like Trump's language, or you feel that his impulsiveness, or he wasn't respectful of the dead with Rob Reiner's passing, or he uses the F-word on his, something like that. But you have to come forward with something that would nullify your whole life's conservatism. It's interesting because one of the criticisms from Tucker was that recent criticisms was that Trump was the Antichrist and then he was interviewed by the New York Times this past weekend and he denied saying it and they showed the video clearly. I saw that. And he said he didn't know what the Antichrist was, so how could he say that? That would suggest that somebody always says things he knows. But Tucker gave an interview with the mayor of Bethlehem who flat out said that Christians have been fleeing his city because of Jewish pressure when in fact one of the destinations they go is to Israel and they're fleeing Muslim intolerance. So you don't need to know everything to say something. He did say that. The Antichrist, you know, he said he didn't know what the Antichrist was. And as I remember in the Bible, I'm just doing this. It's in John, I think. It's in Revelations too. The Greek word for it is pseudo Christos. The pseudo just means false, the false Christ. And I have a feeling, isn't he referred to in acts or letters as the person who, as the end of days come, he's going to be popular and work miracles. But he's not Satan or Lucifer. He's some type of, he's not referred to very much in the Bible. He's some person who's going to emulate Christ and try to deliberately fool people and then rob them of eternity through his sin and they're following his sin as deluded people. And so if he meant that, I don't believe he doesn't, he's very religious. So when he says, I don't know what the Antichrist is when he's talking about Trump as the Antichrist. He said that Trump had used foul language on Easter and that Trump was a very magnetic person. You get the impression he didn't know because he was trying to, I think say that Donald Trump led us in what I thought was a moral crusade, but it was a pseudo crusade. Maybe that's what he meant. I think he did. I just don't believe that someone that aware and well read and familiar with Christian exegesis does not know what the Antichrist is. Yeah. And they are on top of that, that he said it and then said he didn't say it. Yes, that's a better point. That's a much more succinct and better point. You don't lie to people. Yeah. By the way, Victor, before we take a break and then we're going to talk about some judicial insanities you mentioned before prolonged adolescence, which you've mentioned on many occasions. I didn't tell you that bring this up ahead of time. But there was this article in today's New York Post about this about it seemed like 40 or so New Yorkers kids, they're not kids, they're adults, 20s and 30s invaded. There's some TikTok craze. So like invaded this church of Scientology building in New York City and they went in there, they broke in, they disrupted things, they broke things, they hurt security guard, then they left. And this gets me because I think I told you I was at visiting Gettysburg last week and you just see all these graves of all these men that gave their lives. And these are 20 and 30 year olds and they're acting like they're five year olds. And it's just disturbing. It is. And it has so many different manifestations. There's a month ago we talked about that group in LA that just ran into a jeweler's store. Remember, they crashed in and they just looted everything and they went away. And that's happening more and more. And it's really disturbing because the history of this country is one of people 17, 18, 19, 20, 25 being uprooted from their homes and farms and 19th, 20th century and being sent some Minnesota farm or mining his own business, never seen a black person in his life according to a lot of the diaries on the Sherman March to the sea. And the next thing he knows he's, you know, marching toward Savannah. And then he's on his way up from Savannah through the Carolinas to come behind Lee's army. He didn't. He never had a slave, but he sacrificed his life. Same thing in the wilderness campaign on and tea almost horrific places are Guadacanal or Okinawa, Iwo Jima or the Bald or the tootinburg wall for all of that stuff. And they died because they believed in this country would be each generation would have it easier not have to do that. And they were right. We're a time of relative peace. We have deterrence. We have affluence. And yet this generation feels just like we were warned by a whole host of classical authors, juvenile, Livy, you know, the more you are affluent. Remember that there's a line in Contellus upon. He talks to himself, Catullus. He says, Catulli, you know that leisure, what leisure has done to you, it is destroyed empires and kings and look what it's done to you. He's talking to himself. And that's poverty is not the problem. Hunger is not the problem in this country. The left keeps saying it is, but I live in one of the poorest zip codes in the tri-county area of Kings County, Toleri County and Southwestern Fresno County. And I can tell you, when I go into a local supermarket, I would say 75% of the people are on EBT cards, electric bank transfer cards. And I can tell you that I would make a very conservative guess that 65 to 70% of the people are obese. I have never seen one person who looked undernourished. Yeah, where's the food desert? Yeah, so my, and what I'm getting at is we, it's a, what destroys societies is not dirt. It's excess, excess spending, excess government, excess everything. And it takes away the human desire for struggle and to perform and to get active. And so all of these young, prolonged adolescents have found ways to survive and they have some type of support, a shelter, money, a car, so that they can go into the Scientology Building or go into a jewelry store during working hours. Or when you see these ICE protesters, you keep saying, don't you have a job? Right. The society only has a 62% labor participation rate. So 40% of the country who's able-bodied is not working. Right. It's, well, that ICE, there was a, again, New York Post, which I've lived by yesterday, which would have been Sunday, May 3rd. Someone was arrested in Brooklyn all of a sudden within a very short period of time. There were 200 people show up to protest and to block the streets, et cetera. You know what my worry is about all these things that we've talked about this morning and other shows is that there are about three to four million people leaving these blue states. And they're leaving for the reasons we just talked about. And they're going to red states. And the red states are booming. They're getting more affluent. And not all of them have the attractions of some beautiful New England states or California in particular or Washington, Oregon. But nonetheless, people want to go there. And it's not going to stop. So we are really getting into an 1850 situation where we're creating two entirely antithetical cultures. But the problem is it's flipped from the Civil War. And the Civil War, we did that with the Mason-Dixon line for the first 50 years of their, well, actually the first 70 years. These two societies, the South slave-owning, and they just bifurcated until they were unrecognizable. And that's why they went to war. And I think we're getting to the same geographical divide now. Right. You go to, it's even within a state. When I leave and go to Stanford and I look at the Maloo and the people and how they sound and the cars and the titles and the money, Silicon Valley, Stanford, Bay Area. And then I come out here, they're just antithetical to each other. Yeah. And if they're not, and when you and I talked about the redistricting last time, and if that's true, that you might get somewhere among, if we have a redistricting war and the Republicans have the majority of the House Legislature's and they get mobilized, maybe not this election completely, but they could theoretically get 40 seats and they could pick up another 10 or 15 if there's no more racial gerrymandering and they could pick up another 10 or so on the 2030 census. And you're talking about a minority party and the wilderness. And you can see where that's going to lead. They're going to be in the Electoral College as well. Yeah. And you're going to see, because it's based on congressional representation is electoral, your allotment of electoral votes. So you can see where that's going to lead. The more that the blue model fails, turns people off, the more they leave, the more they double down. And it gets worse and worse. And when this Katie Wilson, the mayor of Seattle said when she heard the Starbucks capital was going to leave and she said, bye-bye. And Mondommi just basically said, well, they want to leave, go ahead and leave. And Kathy Hockel said, we don't want you. Didn't she say we don't want you go down to Palm Beach or wherever? And please come back. Yes. I think crank your wallets with you. I think Andrew Cuomo said that too, essentially. He did. Yeah, he did. Yeah. So they have that attitude and then when they leave and it doesn't work, where are they going to get the money? The Republican administration is not going to give them the money. And these are dysfunctional cities. They're beautiful cities that were built by generations that didn't believe this nonsense. And they're not being rebuilt. I mean, when you go to these blue cities, I don't see a lot of dynamic new development the last 10 or 15 years. I can remember in the 1990s and 2010, all of a sudden I noticed that everybody who was living in the Bay Area suburbs, say from San Jose up to San Mateo, who worked at Stanford, was moving to the, they were moving to San Francisco, Jack. That was where it was at. And I once went to San Francisco for a national review and I walked around that day. I think I counted 25 cranes in the sky, you know what I mean? Building new buildings. It was booming. And then I walked out of those national review regional meetings. I think they ended at 10 and our hotel was about half a mile away. It was lit up. I walked by restaurants that were packed. I remember going into one. I think it was 1030 at night and I got a decaf. Everybody was free. That's dead. Dead, gone. It is. And they're stagnant. And this is a very dynamic country. And so all of that agenda, green, subsidized solar, subsidized wind, high speed rail, homelessness, open borders, illegal aliens with full benefit. It's not sustainable. And people say, yeah, they don't like it. I played you race at Seattle thing because there was an article that Fox News had today. Seattle AI startup founder says he's preparing to leave the city as taxes rise, warning that many entrepreneurs are already heading for the exits. We're out looking for an alternative. So we're looking in Nevada. We're looking in Texas and Austin. We're looking at national and Florida proud men said, and these are climates where the business community is vibrant. These are climates where the government is encouraging entrepreneurship, where they're welcoming people and then they're going to be able to get into the business community. And so we're looking at the government. And so we're looking at the national and Florida proud men said, and these are climates where the business community is vibrant. These are climates where the government is encouraging entrepreneurship, where they're welcoming people and they're not villainizing those who have built something. So the mayor's flippant comment, and I don't think it was flippant. I thought it was truly what she meant about Starbucks has these people already these people, the entrepreneurial class, they're already been heading for the exits. They are and they're following the earlier upper middle class professionals, small business entrepreneur that couldn't do business in these states. Now it's the billionaires are always told us, well, we have so much money that we don't mind California's 13.3 tax because we just want to live a long time and enjoy it. So we want clean air, clean water. We don't really care about whether it's affordable. We don't care about people in, you know, Fresno or Bakersfield. But then it's kind of that old adage. First they came to me and I said, no problem. And then everybody said to them, well, if they're going to go after the doctor and they're going to go after the contract contractor, they're going to go after you too. No, no. I'm Mark Zuckerberg. I gave $417 million to Joe Biden's campaign. No, I'm the Google bunch. No, I'm, you know, I can. And now they're going after you because they're broke. Once your professional classes in the upper middle class leave, you're getting down to 1% pay 50% of the California income tax and they're leaving. And so you've got to get the billionaires and they're leaving. So the bill, they turned on the billionaires as everybody knew they would. They just, another example of that, and we are going to take a break after this, Victor, is again New York, New York Post, they had that famous Met dinner. You know, the Met Gala all the fashion where AOC wore that tax the rich dress a few years ago. Well, the prime sponsor of this is Jeff Bezos and his wife. I think they dumped 10 million bucks on it, which is like couch change for them. But they are now like over the last two or three days just terribly vilified about low class, et cetera. And I think it's just really because they are, he is billionaire and you cannot say something nice about an event which is being funded by a billionaire today. Well, if it's George Soros, you can. Southern probably Law Center. You can say something if they're a racist organization funded by Soros. Yeah, you can say the night all the nice things about that billionaire or Tom Steyer here. He's running and he's talking about the billionaires and every night there's an ad for him now, Jack in California. Yeah. This is a guy who made his fortune. He started by funding Indonesian coal plants and then he offshored a lot of his profits in the Cayman Islands. And he tried to avoid all of the taxes he could, which everybody tries to do as long as it's legal. Right. But don't tell us that we have to tax billionaires more now that you're in the twilight of your life. You sure didn't act that way when you're on the ascendance and trying to get money, money, money and profits, which is okay. But I don't see a cure for it because these people don't seem to think that they think the only thing that works is just to say, oh, they're deplorable, oh, they're irredeemable, oh, they're from, oh, we're going to, I'm glad they shot. They don't realize that they're sinking. And when you add the other element to this whole matrix that all of these studies show that red state fertility and demographics is about 1.7 to 1.9. And blue state is about 1.4 to 1.0. So the left is not having children. They're not. And. Cato. Cato blessings. Sorry. Sorry, Victor. We're going to talk about some disturbing judicial matters or legal matters. So UCLA Fed Sock incident and then a federal judge in Rhode Island doing the crazy ice thing. We'll get your thoughts on this, Victor, when we come back from these important messages. Hey, I'm Bradley Devlin. And just like you, I'm a huge fan of Victor Davis Hansen. Whether it's his long form podcast, Victor Davis Hansen in his own words or his short form content for the Daily Signal, Victor Davis Hansen in a few words. I always leave an episode learning something new. I think they forgot the 1982 Falklands war. And in the age of clickbait and rage bait, that's a really good feeling, right? The media. Thank you. You can leave now. Well, if you agree, you might like my show, the Daily Signals Long Form Interview podcast called The Signal Sitdown. Every week we take you behind the scenes of the biggest battles in Washington, DC, as they happen with some of the biggest names in politics. We explore big ideas and we analyze the policymaking process from an unabashedly and unapologetically conservative perspective. And that's important now more than ever with the Trump administration back in office because in 2024, you sent Washington a message it couldn't ignore. It's your government. And together, we're taking it back. So check us out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you enjoy Victor Davis Hansen or there too. And drop me a follow on X at Bradley Devlin to stay updated with what's happening on The Signal Sitdown. I think it makes a great gift too. Mother's Day is a couple of days. Father's Day coming up. Think about that. VictorHansen.com is the address. Okay, Victor, let's start with the UCLA thing. And you just bear with me, folks. I'm reading from the College Fix, the great website that our friends from the U.S. have been working on. I'm going to read from the U.S. University of Washington. I'm going to read from the University of Washington. I'm going to read from the University of Washington. I'm going to read from the University of Washington. I'm reading from the College Fix, the great website that our friend John Miller has founded. An assistant dean at the UCLA School of Law walked back comments this week suggesting the Federalist Society students could be punished for publicly identifying protesters who disrupted their event earlier this month, according to emails obtained by the College Fix. I have an attorney with a foundation for individual rights and expression, FIRE, described the university's response as unacceptable, etc. I'm not going to read the rest of this. Of course, the law professor out there, the retired law professor Eugene Volok, he was... He's a colleague of mine at Hoover. He's a very bright guy. Right. Well, they had this disrupted speech. We talked about it on previous episode. Disrupted and vulgarly, if that's a word, disrupted. And, oh, now we have to protect the students who are on video. Eugene's shown a sign, you know, suck Trump's blank, you know, etc. Yeah. Why shouldn't a name be put to the face? These are going to be your personal attorneys, your district attorneys, your public defenders, the judge, Brosebergs of the future, right? The judge, Mershan, the judge, Kaplan, all the people we saw in the law fair, these are the next generation of them in these law schools. Same thing happened at Stanford. Federalist Society, judge came, wonderful guy, tried to give a talk, same type of people disrupted the entire stock. He had to be stormed out. They've shouted obscenities to him. The DEI law representative hijacked the lecture and she knew what she was going to say in advance. She read it off and there was no repercussions except the dean of the law school did discipline her and I guess she was left. And that made her, that fact alone gave her the provost of the university because people were so frustrated that if anybody showed even a modicum of normality, then they were needed or the alumni were going to walk in droves, many of them. And so it's, or well in when you think that a person comes to speak on campus. And these are campuses, as I said, that host Hassan Piker who has justified the murder and he has said everybody knows it has to be done in reference to killing Donald Trump. But just to say it, everybody knows what I mean. So you have somebody like that on campus, then you get respected lawyers, judges, legal out of the community, then they speak at a law school and you have these obscened outbursts that try to destroy the lecture. And the attitude of the university in the form of the dean of the law school is you're worried about the people who trampled on the guest First Amendment rights and disrupted because some of the other law students that were so appalled said this is now in the public sphere. There was videos, it's on the internet, we're going to tell everybody who these people are and they should be accountable. And then they were being threatened by the law school. It's the whole world is upside down. And this is not Stanford, a private institution. This is our taxpayer supported university. And somebody's going to say to me, yes, Victor, and 60% of the population in a democracy voted for that. And they approve of that. They don't believe in free speech. They think these people are fascist and racist. So more power to the people who shouted them down. And you're going to see, I don't know, I just, you're going to, this whole idea, there's one factor that we all forget that these people are 360 degrees 24 hours a day. You name it. They're enthused. They're activists. They are DEI and they're not doing their job. You can't do that. I went to graduate school and got a PhD and I had to study 10 hours a day, whether four hours in class and six hours at home. And I could bear, you know, you can't get these types of degrees and achieve a modicum of excellence and spend your time going to lectures and shouting people down and being activists. It just, it doesn't work. It does work. It does work. Pause, pause. If 80% of the people are getting A's and 20% of the people flunked the bar in their first attempt. So if you lower the standards, yeah, you can do this. And that's what's happened. And so it's a self fulfilling prophecy. You bring people into these universities that are not qualified and then they get angry and they get activist. And then you have to do something. So you give them A's and then the quality of the graduate grading class is not what it was and people understand that. Well, they were nasty, violent. But when they're held to accountability, maybe we'll put a name to your face. Yeah, they're like add-ons. They get into the fetal position immediately. Start sucking that the mommy helped me protect me. And mommy's mommy administrator does. People have sent me all these videos. I didn't even know existed. I mentioned to last year this, I guess YouTube phenomenon of police pulling a person over. Yeah, sure. And sometimes they're black women. Sometimes they're white, Karen's. They're all different. But they all have one thing in common. They feel entitled. And when the police officers awfully polite because you never know who's going to be crazy. They either roll up the window and throw a tantrum or they won't get out of the car or they push them or they shout obscenities. Want to talk to your supervisor? Yes. Yes. And they've all been taught that. And all. I mean, it's not just women too. It's males too. And it's like a little adolescent that has never been disciplined. And then when they get disciplined. I was at UC Santa Cruz a long time ago. And this is when it started. And one girl ahead of me had been writing checks that she found in a checkbook. And they knew she came in there and did it. And so they knew who she, this is before surveillance. And they just, they said just a minute. I was behind her and then the security came. And the first thing she said, I can't believe this is happening to me. This is, this can't be happening to me. Yeah, it was happening to her. And that's the attitude that we have. And I think everybody recognizes that it's a mediocre cohort of people that have been so coddled. And they think the rules don't, and they're so victimized. And they're always looking for a vanishing number of oppressors for their oppressed cast that they can't find enough. A first cousin of those traffic stop videos are the caught shoplifting videos in Walmart's or Target's where they're detained. And then of course they deny that they've taken anything. Well, some people say, I'll just pay for it now. And let me go. Like, no, it's too late. What would they do just as a thought experiment if say UCLA and Stanford said the following. We stand behind our students to express themselves under the protections of the First Amendment. However, when we have invited guests and we have formal lecture organizations, if a law student who's dedicated to learning and enforcing the law, disrupts that speech or that visit, and we will have a hearing and he's found guilty of doing that. He's going to be expelled for one year. One year, he's out and forfeit all of his tenure monies that have been paid, et cetera. Do you think that would happen to turn? I do. I think the first thing they do is try to find a federal district judge like a Bostberg and say they were victimized. But if they've enforced it, I think you'd stop it in two seconds. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about a federal district judge in a second. But first, to our listeners and viewers, everything we carry today is broadcasting a signal, your phone, your laptop, even your car key fob. Most people don't realize it, but these devices are constantly sharing location data, identifiers, and wireless handshakes with networks all around you. That signal could be tracked, collected, or intercepted, making you and your data vulnerable. That's just the reality of the world we live in now. That's why you should start using silent. You don't want big tech to government or anyone else knowing your every move you want control over when you're connected and what you share. When you place your phone, laptop, or key fob in a silent Faraday bag, the signal instantly stops. No cellular, no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no GPS. Your device is disconnected from the grid. And here's the part that really got our attention. Silent has been awarded nine military contracts. This is the same type of signal blocking gear used to help protect our soldiers from GPS detection and electronic threats. And now that same technology is available for everyday people, including listeners and watchers. I'll Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Almost said the old show's name. I should get punished for that. If you want to check it out, sorry, Rob Bluey. If you want to check it out, go to silent.com.vdh. Now let me spell that. That's silent. S-L-N-T. I'll re-spell that. S-L-N-T.com.vdh to say 15% plus reshipping on qualifying orders. Again, that's silent. S-L-N-T.com.vdh. And we thank the good people from Silent for sponsoring Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. By the way, Victor, do you think a, who would be more apt to yell at a, or mistreat a lecturer? Would it be a law student at a college? Or would it be an engineering student? Can you imagine engineering students hectoring a lecturer? No. Who would be, let me ask you another thought question. I think all of our listeners who have children are thinking of going to a university next year, or in the years forthcoming. If you brought a leftist speaker, let's say Elizabeth Warren to the following campuses. The Pepperdine School of Public Policy under our friend Pete Peterson. Hillsdale College under our friend Larry Arndt. Or, I'm not going to say St. Thomas Aquinas College. And would they be treated better than if you brought, I don't know, Ben Shapiro to Stanford, or you brought Victor Davis Hansen. Yeah, well, I've had problems. I don't go to universities, not out of timidity, but it's just a futile. It's either they try to stop you from speaking, that my worst was at University of Oregon when they tried to disrupt the entire lecture. And they had all these reserved things that said reserved. It was really smart what they did. The first two rows were reserved, reserved, reserved, reserved, reserved. And then I got up to speak on illegal immigration. And then the LaRosa department walked in down the middle of the hallway and everybody had a reserved. And then they flipped over the reserve and it was a picture of my book and me with a cross out, you know, like this. And then they got up and they did this like, you know, when people shoot free shots, you can't see the audience. So I couldn't see the audience at all. And so I saw the pro assistant provost who had walked me over there and I said to him, are you going to stop this, this harassment? And then he said, he didn't say anything. I said, well, I did get my check. So I'll be leaving after this. And I didn't go to the dinner or anything. But as I remember, and something about a college administrator on the left, not right. You have to be very brave to be a conservative college administrator. And I've known some really great ones. We talked about Max Nikias, Larry Arndt, Pete Peterson. They're just superb people, but they have to be, that's because they're courageous. If you don't have courage, I think, you know, Aristotle said none of the other ethical virtues matter. And so when that's, he made a complete, that D that UCLA made a calculated cost to benefit analysis. He put his hand up like this and he said, now, let me think about this. The virtuous legal and right thing to do is to expel or punish the people who were so insulting and tried to disrupt a visitor. However, the smart thing to do that would make me more popular and ensure either a promotion at another university or within the UCLA hierarchy would come out with a statement that the people complaining that their guest was harassed are being harassed. Are now doxers and they may face punishment. When I do that, that will ensure me, even though the right wing and the garbage people as Biden put it will get angry. And that's what he did. He made that choice. And then he, being a college administrator on the left, he's completely timid and vertebrate. Then he backed a second time down by saying, well, now the federalists, the college fix, they might want to bring, you know, legal or something. Well, I didn't really say that. You know how they are. They got to where they are because they don't believe in anything other than their own advancement. Well, we believe in the, what is the motto of some of the colleges, famous colleges, Veritas truth. And they believe in Saul Alinsky tactics to disrupt the pursuit of such. They believe in Veritas maya, my truth. Remember, they use that term, my truth. My truth. Yeah. Well, my truth. My truth is the earth is flat. Yes. Well, Victor, let me mention, we mentioned a local federal judge. Here's a headline of the story. Well, here's from an ex-post by, from a Bill Malugin. I'm told by federal sources that a Dominican illegal alien with a deportation order and Interpol red notice arrest warrant for murder in his home country was ordered released from ICE custody on Tuesday. That would be the one of the last days in April by Rhode Island federal judge, Melissa DeBose, who was a Biden appointee, told the International fugitive, his name is Brian Rafael Gomez was arrested by ICE in Worcester, Massachusetts on April 4th. He'd been detained in a facility in Rhode Island where he was issued a deportation order on April 28th by an immigration judge. On Tuesday, DeBose ordered Gomez be released from ICE custody on the grounds of quote, continuous unlawful detention and quote, while ICE argued that Gomez was subject to a mandatory detention due to having an international arrest warrant for homicide. Last thing here, I'm told Gomez was released is now roaming freely again and ICE can't rearrest him due to Judge DeBose's order. Victor, I think Judge DeBose is the kind of, you've actually become a judge, but at some point Judge DeBose may have been akin to the students at the UCLA law school. Yeah, there's two things that guide her decision. Number one, Mr. Gomez is not going to turn up in her neighborhood. Not going to do it. She's got a nice zip code and probably a nice wall around her home or she's with a neighborhood watch group. And number two, if she's a federal district court judge, then she always wants to be a federal circuit court judge and appellate court judge. So what she will probably do when the next Democratic administration comes in and there's appeals, she'll say, I let out a person of color, illegal, a person who was an undocumented migrant who was fighting for his freedom against ICE. And that will be a recommendation to be promoted. So it was a smart move on her part and her way of bankrupt, amoral thinking that there's a logic. There's always a logic to all the things that these people do. It's just an inverted logic. And, um, well, I have one other little ice fact and this is just like, who are they actually taking off the streets? And again, this is the same Bill Malugin on X, who's reporting on a Fox news story. They got a list of some of the most egregious criminal aliens who have been picked up in this, the infamous sanctuary state of Minnesota. And it's a very long list, but here's just a few of them. Chang Vu, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of a strong arm rape of a 12 year old girl kidnapping a child with intent to sexually assault her with a deportation order since 2004. That's over 20 years. Ji Yang, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of a strong arm rape, aggravated assault with a weapon, etc., etc., deportation order since 2012. Pao Zhang, a Laotian convicted of rape and child fondling, deportation order since 2003. These people have, this list goes on and on and on and on. And these are the people that ICE is taking off the streets. So these are the people that the protesters and Governor Tim Walz and the attorney general there, etc., are trying, are making superheros. And the thing about this, that the federal court system is so overburdened with normal jurisprudence that people, you know, they're in civil suits, they're in trials, they're in divorce, all of these things. And yet they're spending all of their time trying to get headlines by letting out people who should have been deported years ago. And that's the, when we use it, I don't think it, I'll ask my audience. Did any of you know, did you hear the term federal district judge very often say five years ago? I didn't. Federal circuit? No, I didn't either. I only heard it in conjunction with two contexts. They were heroic, iconic figures because Judge Kaplan in the Eugene Carroll case, Judge Mershan, I think it was a Latina. Judge Mershan was the Alvin Bragg judge. And then there was Judge Arfaveret in Goron. He was a Latina with the real estate. And all of them, we learned about the federal district judges and the state's judges. But we didn't hear much about it. We heard about it in law fair and we heard about it in illegal immigration. And all of a sudden, that's what they wanted. Now their iconic figures are everywhere in the news. I didn't realize it, Judge Brosberg, is that the pronounces? Yes. He was the one, I think, I just thought of this, but I didn't realize this. When Kevin Kline Smith, the FBI lawyer during Andrew McCabe's internship, applied, when Andrew McCabe applied for the FISA warrant based on the bogus steel dossier information, and they had emails about Carter Page, I think maybe from Carter Page as well, he forged them, you remember, and made them the opposite. So here you have an FBI lawyer who tried to destroy an innocent man by forging a court document and he came before Judge Brosberg. And Judge Brosberg said, these are very serious penalties. These could be 10 years of incarceration. Mr. Kline Smith has never given any evidence that he would do this again. And it may have been a miscalculation, but we're going to give him probation. No jail time, nothing. So he goes way back, Judge Brosberg. So it's kind of southern judges in the, in the, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s. If you're a white guy, you're not going to jail. Yeah. Yeah, Judge Brosberg should ask himself, which is more deleterious to the Republic? The person who walked around the rotundi, committing a misdemeanor when he walked in on January 6th, and the doors were open. So he walked, he didn't take anything, he didn't do anything. Once he saw that what people are doing, he walked out. And he got what, two years, three years, four years, or maybe five if he had not been pardoned. Or what a man did by destroying the reputation of the FBI and harassing an innocent U.S. citizen and trying to destroy that person's life. He got nothing. Yeah. So, well, Victor, we've come to about the end here. I do want to say on a personal note, if it's okay, I mentioned before I just visited Gettysburg and I did it with my sons, my three sons and my son-in-law. And I want to recommend to anyone who's kind of proximate island in Connecticut. So, I mean, it's a five-hour, six-hour car, right? I know if you're living in New Mexico or Pennsylvania, it's not all that close. But I heartily recommend. Every time you go there, I've been there, I think, three times when you look at Cemetery Ridge and you think that, my God, what were they thinking? You know, it's just, I mean, Lee had tactical strategies. Not strategic, but he had supposedly tactical brilliance. Even in the last siege of Richmond, the Union Army couldn't take it. They surrendered before they took Richmond. But when you look at that hill and you see where the northern troops were assembling there, what was in his mind when Longstreet suggested maybe you can go around and come into the back of an undefended Washington and have you between the Northern Army and the capital of the north? So, it was a bloodbath. Yeah, it's a tremendous place, truly inspiring. And it reminded me while I was there also thinking, okay, the New Confederacy, as you've written about it, we're not supposed to, we're taking the names of General Hood and Lee and we're taking down their statues and removing their names from forts and Bragg, et cetera. But we are ourselves the left. We are the New Confederates. You know what's weird about that? Just to add, in the 1940s and 50s and 60s and even into the 70s and 80s, very left-wing people, and I'm talking about almost all the directors in Hollywood, even John Ford, who, he was leftist. He started that way. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. And, you know, when he did Henry Fonda as Tom Joed, that was a pretty leftist movie. So my point is, when you look at all of those westerns, whether it's Shane or the searchers, the Confederate person is always what? Sympathetically treated as kind of a Sergeant Tyree. Sergeant Tyree, he's kind of a tragic figure that he's fought for the wrong side, but the whole point I'm getting at is reconciliation because of this horrible wound. You have to reconcile and say that these outlaw Josie Wales, remember that, Clint Eastwood? He couldn't make that movie today. Ken Burns, that brilliant movie he did, The Civil War, he could not make that today. He couldn't make it, or he wouldn't make it. Well, he wouldn't make it because he couldn't make it. Nobody would show it. But the point I'm trying to make is, you're right, that the point was that 100 years after the Civil War, for all of the sins of slavery and self, people realized there had to be some forgiveness. And they were trying to show that the southern, there were a lot of southern 95% of the South didn't own slaves, and they looked at the war in a different way than the slave owner class. Maybe they benefited from it, but I think economically they were hurt by it. And not today. There's no sense of forgiveness or reconciliation. It's just the opposite. They want to relive every single wound and widen it, salt it. There's a beautiful scene in, I'll say it's beautiful. It's touching. She wore a yellow ribbon where John Wayne and the regiment relieve that group of guys who had been, men who had been faced a standoff with some of the Indians. And a former Confederate general is a private Indian army and he's dying, and they have a funeral service for him, and they sew stars and bars for him, et cetera. And no one thought of it as, you watch it, you're not thinking of it as glorifying the South. You think of it as that, as reconciliation. The same thing with the horse soldiers. Another John Ford movie. Remember when William Holden sees this southern guy, he went to the medical school or academy with, and he sees them there. Before the war, they were intimate friends, and he's dying, and he's, and the guy's, you know, he's an unapologetic Confederate, and Bill Holden knows that, but he's trying to be, you know, he's trying to offer medical assistance. And that was the whole idea that you try to forgive people. But not this generation, man. It's just hardcore Marxism. Let's take every possible wound and put salt in it and reopen it and use it for more divisiveness and acquisition of power and everything. Yeah, I just have to add, John Euston in the red badge of courage at the end there with the battle scene and the battle's over. And the, you know, it kind of begins immediately. The forgiving of the sense of brotherhood. Not brotherhood's the wrong word, I think, but, and also the, the, the, um, Audie Murphy holding the, as the flag is blowing in the wind over the dead southern flag bearer. It's just something, again, about forgiveness and, and trying to restate America as a union. And I grew up with it. My maternal, my father's family were from Sweden, but my maternal grandmother was from, she was from New Mexico. She met my grandfather in this house in which I'm speaking right now. But in 1911, they got married, but her family came from Alabama and moved to New Mexico. And her grandfather, excuse me, her father was a, in the Confederacy, but when she came to California, my grandfather, their family had come from northern Missouri and had been involved in the border war, you know, bleeding Missouri. And that's why they went, came to California after the war because they were Northerners, very strong union. And so I grew up with the, but the majority in this house were people who were very strong union, especially my mother and everybody, you know, when we saw the blue gate, blue gray football game or the north south football game or with Alabama played Michigan in 1962. We were always for the north. But my grandmother would see, you know, and she'd always, when she had a moment, she had kind of a weird accent. It wasn't quite southern, but it was a mixture of southern and New Mexican from New Mexico. And she would, she'd say, well, you know, Sydney Johnson died at Shiloh and my family is spelled with a T. And he was Albert Sydney Johnson was a beautiful man. And I said, well, he was, and I knew I was reading a lot about this. I, well, he got killed and he lost a battle of Shiloh. And that was her hero. And I was supposedly a distant cousin of her family. And, but there was always kind of a reconciliation, kidding about it. And she was on the wrong side, but don't make fun of her, you know what I mean? Don't make fun of her family. And she had 11 brothers and sisters. And I don't think one of them was over five, five. And my father, who was six, four said, I said, what, what was the first thing you saw when you saw Uncle Bill? And he said, I walked up to him, Victor. And I said, you're the smallest man with the biggest gun I've ever seen. He said, you've got a long barrel, 45 revolver. He carried it. He was the, he was the sheriff of Magdalena, New Mexico, Bill Johnston. They were all that way. They were all horse riders, but they were. Was, was, was grandma's brother famous uncle Tango? Yes, that was a little bit. Yeah. Tango. And he, when he would, he didn't get along with the family, but my father was always a really good guy. I mentioned this in a thing on Rod Serling. I have a piece on the ultra that he came and my father said, you know, he kind of, he went off topic and around on Vietnam. And we wanted to hear about Twilight Zone, but he was a decorated veteran. And he said that something like that about Tango, when we were all making fun of him, you know, he was five, four, and he had these big cowboy boots and big cowboy hat. And it made him look like five, eight. Yeah. And he, you know, he'd come in and he had this attitude, this cigarette out of his mouth. He lived to be 98, by the way. Cigarettes and whiskey. I thought about that when he drank whiskey and cigarettes. And I thought about that when they asked me at Stanford, have you ever smoked this that I wish I had of because I might not have got lung cancer. But anyway, just to finish, he, I said, you know, he really gets, I was about 15 of my dad's. That's it. Stop just a minute. That man's family went broke and they moved here with nothing. And they came out and your grandmother was 20 and she met your grandfather and they married. And then the whole bunch of them lived in the barn and the water tower. They had nothing. And they sent Tango to go get their horses and they didn't have a money to ship them. So he took the train all the way to New Mexico when he was 13 years old and he rode with three or four horses all the way back to California by himself. Yeah. In about 1913. I couldn't do that when I'm. Yeah. I couldn't do that in a car. Right. The way I feel. So my, my dad was always looking for a redeeming feature and it was usually something about courage, you know, or service. Yeah. Well, that's what we saw. Absolutely. Anyway, got off topic. Sorry. No, no, that's, that's perfect. Victor, you've been terrific and I want to encourage folks to again to check out Victor's website, The Blade of Perseus. Go to the Daily Signal also our sponsor, Happy Home here. And for me, Jack Fowler, I write civil thoughts free weekly email newsletter for the center for civil service. I write for civil society and you can go to civilthoughts.com, sign up easy peasy. It comes out every Friday, 15 recommended read, 14 or 15 recommended readings and it's, we're not selling your name. We are not doing anything. Just being nice. So I know you'll love it. So do subscribe. Victor, thanks for all the wisdom you shared and we will be back soon with another episode of Victor Davis Hansen in his own words. Thanks folks and bye bye. Thank you everybody for listening and viewing. We'll see you next time.