Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
HANSON (00:03):
And it's empirical. People say the blue
model does not work. It destroys people's lives.
It, it, it determines or it dooms them to a lifeof less material prosperity, less freedom, more
control by government. And the other modelreturns us to the way we were. And so I'm
(00:24):
optimistic about that, that the public at leastsees that now.
CUBAN (00:33):
Yeah,
I thought their hearts were too big when, whenJoe came into office that they didn't know how
many people would cross the border and it gotaway from them.
PROFT (00:41):
Welcome to another episode of
Counterculture, the show that stands at the
intersection of reason and faith in the battleagainst sentimentality. That statement by
billionaire Mark Cuban, that Biden Harris choiceto reverse all of Trump's executive orders on
board security and invite the world to come attheir leisure and on their terms, was nothing
more than a well-intentioned mistake by a coupleof good-hearted people. Maybe the dumbest thing
(01:05):
to be said. Yet in a campaign cycle, featuringcampaign surrogates like Lizzo and Antonio Brown
that's saying something. But the suspension ofdisbelief has been the central feature of both
the Biden and Harris campaigns. The problem forthem, it seems to me, is the majority of
American families cannot afford to similarlyavert their eyes from that which is real if they
(01:26):
wanna survive. However, even assuming a Trumpvictory, what must we win when he wins? To
counter this revolution, America is in the midstof, as historian Victor Davis Hansen argues, if
Americans installed Trump simply because thingsfor them were better under him, then will Trump
2.0 just be another interregnum? As was Trump1.0 in America's decline at the hands of the
(01:51):
dominant elite hedgehogs set, as he calls them,the he is Victor Davis Hansen, senior fellow at
the Hoover Institution. His latest book isentitled The End of Everything, how Wars Descend
Into Annihilation. VDH. Welcome back. Thank youfor joining us again. Appreciate it. Thank you.
HANSON (02:09):
Thank you for having me.
PROFT (02:10):
So I can, can we start from the premise,
do you accept the premise that it is more likely
than not that Trump will be back in the WhiteHouse
HANSON (02:20):
With some reservations, some of the
early voting, why the Republicans have made
amazing improvement over both the 2022 midtermsand the 2020 election? They're still being, as
at this point, there are more absentee, earlyvoting ballot, non-election day ballots for
(02:43):
Democrats. And that's where the problem is forRepublicans. Because as you know, the error rate
in 2020, to take that example, went from atypical five or 6% rejection of ballots. You
know, they didn't match registrars, they hadfaulty and signatures, incomplete names,
multiple ballots to about 0.3 or 0.4 in moststates. So by a magnitude of 10. And that means
(03:08):
that if there's a lot more early balloting, andit means if the same sloppy authentication
process processes are used in these swingstates, many of them which are purple or even
blue, then I think the Republicans were gonnahave to end up on the day before election with
polls that show them three or four points aheadin the swing states. And they're not there yet.
(03:32):
They're getting there, but they're not thereyet. So it's still a toss up, in my view.
PROFT (03:36):
View. Okay. Well then let's play it out
either way. So let's say that Kamala Harris is
able to win this election. I mean, I, Imentioned, and, and you can develop this, you
know, the argument that you make that we're1960s China or 1780s France in terms of a, a, a
cultural revolution that we're in the midst of.And so if Kamala Harris were to win after
(04:00):
everything that's transpired over the last fouryears, and in this cycle in particular, what
would that mean for America? I mean, are you ofthe mind like Elon Musk that if she wins, it's
the last free and fair election, fair electionthat America ever has?
HANSON (04:15):
No, because the half the country will be
in a resistance mode to her, but she will be on
hindered and unbound because in the left's wayof thinking, they will see that there is no
opposition. Joe Biden will be a marginal person.He won't even rule the last three months of his
tenure. She'll go her, her team will go rightin. And they have, they've already said they
(04:38):
have mechanisms not just to have an agenda, butto change the system and the system. By that
they mean to pack the court. If they win theSenate, we've had the same nine person court
since 1869. They want to pack it. They want tosee if they can get around the amendment process
and bring in Puerto Rico, make DC a state to getfour senators. They've, I think they will end
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this if they can win the Senate.
The Senate filibuster, they're only 61 electoralvotes short right now of this end run around the
constitution of getting rid of the electoralcollege. Not through the amendment process, but
this national popular vote compact where stateslegislatures vote that they will not accept as
the Constitution requires 'em to the, the votetally in their own state, but just follow the
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national vote vote. So they've got a wholeagenda to change the system. I think we'll see
the border reopen radically. So, and I think thenew president of Mexico has made that clear that
we'll see another 10 or 20 million people comein. We we're at all high, 55 million people,
we're not more in the United States, and 16% ofthe population comes at a time when we have no,
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we're not teaching civic education, integration,assimilation, et cetera. So they have an agenda
that will make it very, very difficult forconservatives, traditionalist independents to
restore America to the pre-Obama era. That'swhat I'm getting at.
It'll be Well,
That's very contentious.
Yeah, I mean that's, that's sort of the worstcase dystopian scenario. But even something
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approximating that, do we effectively have a oneparty country where you still have the
Republican party? It still exists, but itdoesn't really, it's not really in a position if
those system changes were to be affected, it'snot really in a position to win national
elections. So it's not really in a position tostop this train.
(06:37):
Well, we, we've lost seven out of the last eightnational presidential votes, and the Republican
party has not won 51% of the electorate since1988 under George HW Bush's defeat. Even George
W. Bush didn't get 51% in 2004. So there's beena problem there. And that will be, you're right,
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it'll accentuate the, the bigger problem is thatthe left, even though it does not control the
majority of the population, and we can see thaton the polls of the various agendas of Joe Biden
that are all under 50, under 40% approval,border crime, Afghanistan energy. But the
problem is they control the academic world. Theuniversities, they control most of the think
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tanks. They control sports, they controlentertainment, they control traditional media,
Silicon Valley, I think they even control thecorporate boardroom. And they can surely control
the bureaucracies, the 2 million person federalworkforce. So all of those agencies, entities
exercise power that it's cultural, economic,social.
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And that means that something that we allthought was just a kind of insane, the idea of,
just to take one example of males competing inwomen's sports. Nobody in their right mind five
years ago thought that would happen, or pregnantwomen flight suits or trans in the, in the Air
force or trans occasions on military bases,trans show. Nobody thought that would, nobody
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thought that would be possible. So the time froman a, a crackpot idea in which these
institutional entities can mainstream it andmake it orthodox and demonize anybody who is
very short. Now it's about four or five years.And so I think we're gonna see, if she was
elected, I think we're gonna see majorinitiatives that she was for. And she's only in
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a 90 day rejectionist period. So for 90 days shebasically said, I reject everything I did. But
whether she wins and she's president or sheloses and she's a lame duck vice president,
she's gonna revert back after election day towhat she wants. And we should remember that was
things like confiscating, semi-automatic weaponsgoing in people's homes to see if they had them,
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abortion, national abortion laws to the momentof birth, an open border
Abolishing ice.
It's going back, yeah, going back, trying to getback in the Iran deal, distancing ourselves from
Iran, Israel, why pouring more money into reallydangerous policies of offensive operations into,
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into Russian soil. So they have an agenda and,and she will go back to it. It's, I think she'll
end horizontal grilling and fracking right away.First thing she'll do. And
I mean, she's, she, she's another, I mean, doyou see her as another cipher for the left, the
way that maybe in a, not exactly the same way,but categorically she's a cipher for the left.
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The way that, the way that Biden was, the waythat Obama was there, she's not particularly
ideological. She's a social climber. She's notparticularly knowledgeable. She's a social
climber. And this is the, this is how she wasweaned from state's attorney to senate to vice
president. So let's stick with it.
Yeah, the left hasn't really had an independentideologue since Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
(10:04):
They were ideologues and they were independentthinkers. But you're right, Biden was almost
appointed in a coup in, in March of 2020 wheneverybody after the South Carolina primary just
dropped out. But JG dropped out. Wa ElizabethWarren dropped out, Bernie, and she was anointed
as the, as they knew he was cognitivelychallenged but didn't bother them. And then she
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was, she never has, it's not that she's neverwon a primary, she's never entered a primary. So
they picked her out in a second coup. And insome ways Biden lived by the coup and died by
the coup. So they just removed him and then theyanointed her. And they didn't do it because they
thought she was an Obama Clinton figure thatthey thought she was a Biden figure, that she
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was cognitively challenged like Biden, maybe notbecause of age, but because of inability and
they could use her to mouth these agendas. Andthat's where we are.
So now the flip side, that's Trump wins andmaybe his victory as, as I sort of suggested
things were better under Trump. And, you know,I'm trying to be open, you know, sort of the
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perspective of the average. I, I try to beopen-minded, I wanna be respectful of people,
but things like boys and girls sports, thingslike paying, using my money to pay for trans
surgeries for inmates, that's just, it's justtoo much too fast. It's just way too much, too
fast. We gotta pull the reins on this. But if,if that's how he wins, then does the, does he
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really have the opportunity to reverse courseget back to, as you said, a pre-Obama America?
Well, that's predicated on a couple of things.One of them, if he wins, I think it will be
likely that he'll win the Senate and retain thehouse. That's pretty, I think those are kind of
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joined at the hip phenomenon. And then itdepends on how desperate the left is. And by
that I mean, will Jack Smith or Alvin Bragg orany of these people want to precipitate a
constitutional crisis by actually trying to puthim in jail? And, and I think they will try to
do that if they can get a conviction. Smith canespecially, and Fannie, who knows what Fannie
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Willis will do. So those are certain it whatifs, but otherwise he's got a lot of advantages.
'cause I do think he can win the Senate in thehouse. And this, if he does do that, it's not
going to be a McCain John McCain senate or aJeff Flake Senate.
Most of those people have been dropped out ofthe party. So for better or for worse, it's a
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maga le Congress. The second thing is he doesn'thave to run for reelection, so he's on bound
himself. The third is, he has been the first tosay that he made some terrible appointments. And
he means that in two senses, he, he did theScaramucci Roso kind of reckless people that
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were unqualified that just came in when he ne hewas on inexperienced. And then he picked people
that were professionals like a Jim Mattis atDefense or Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, but they
were not on his agenda. They disagreed with itand they tried to obstruct it. So now he's, you
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know, he's disowned Project 2025, but he hasn'tdisowned the work that went into that, not the
ideological work, but vetting 20,000 people. AndI can tell you just from the scuttlebutt you
hear, there is a mad race for positions in this.
They, and I think that's a mistake to even talkabout it, but they're talking about it, of
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course. And what you hear from people in theTrump circle is they're getting three or four
really good applicants in a way that nobodywanted to work for him in 2016, or they thought
it was a death. Now there's no socialprohibition or career worries. Now everybody
wants to work for him because they all have asense that he is only gonna be there four years
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and they have a once in a lifetime chance to dosome things that no one, I think there's gonna
be really serious reform. If he were to win atthe CIA, the FBI, the D-O-J-I-R-S and the the
Pentagon, I don't think you'll see a wokePentagon anymore. I think you'll see the wall
completed in six, six months. It'll be finished.
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I think you'll be really tough with Mexico. AndI think there'll be, I think there will be
deportations. That'll be the biggest crisis, Ithink, of his administration, because all the
people who felt it was normal, let in 12 to 15million people without vetting will say it's
abnormal that they have to go back and they'll,they'll be CNN to the New York Times, to PBS, to
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NPR every day. We'll have pictures of cryingchildren and Trump is Hitler and et cetera.
That'll be, that'll, that'll be a mark of hisadministration and how he perseveres on that
task.
And so, I mean, a as you think about it, youknow, I I I was thinking about this as I was
contemplating our conversation. I I alwaysremember how Frederick Von Hayek rejected the
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term conservative because he basically said,look, the, the train in the west is always
moving left. And, and you know, I don't wanna bea brakeman on a train that's always rolling
left. And that's what, that's what it is becauseof that institutional control. You were just
speaking up. So how does, how does the Trumpadministration, how does a, a president Trump
and a Trump administration not just serve as abrakeman for the left in terms of what they do
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and what they set up for the next leadership todo?
Yeah, well I think they're thinking of ways toinstitutionalize the changes they make. And what
would that, what would that constitute? TheConstitution says that the states are
responsible for balloting laws, but it does sayfrom time to time, the federal government can
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intervene. And we know that from women'ssuffrage or the 18-year-old vote we can make, so
they can, they can pass through Congress a lawthat says that there has to be election,
election day voting, unless you're sick. Like wego back to the old system of absentee ballot
with proper ID required they can federalize thatover the unit, make a uniform. They can do that.
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I think that's very, very important. Then inaddition to that, on, in terms of immigration, I
think if they pass law, I mean they're trying todo it already. It's already a law that's illegal
to come in here, but some of the courts havesaid it's a civil infraction.
But if they were to go back and, and beef up thefederal immigration law and said it's a criminal
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offense to come into this country and it will,it'll result in immediate deportation and
refugee status has to be, you know, what he did,it took him four years is what I'm saying. And
by the last six months there was zero, basicallyzero illegal immigration. But if he can do what
he did the last six months and institutionalizethat at the very beginning, that will be very
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hard to undo. So what I think they're trying todo is to institute, they have, they have
terrible problems in the military because themilitary, as you know, has been weaponized.
Whether it's getting rid of 8,500 people whodidn't wanna be vaccinated, who most of them had
natural immunity to the woke doctrine, to Millieand Austin, you know, demonizing white males as
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suspicious of white privilege.
And that's, that's who didn't join. That's thedrop off, 45,000 short. So how to get those
people back in the military, how to make it afighting force again rather than a green
lighting social change that, that'll be a bigproblem. But I think they can do do that again.
But it's going to be a search for we only havefour years. We're not gonna have a second term.
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We've learned a lot from last time. We know thatwe're not gonna underestimate the left, we don't
really care about the never Trumpers anymore. Wedon't care what people say about us. We, they're
gonna come in with a combative attitude, notwanna, bew I think came in 2016. They were
utterly bewildered and taken advantage of 2020.They might've done more, but I think now they're
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on their part very quickly is after the lawfair, the five civil and criminal suits after
the 16 states that tried to remove him from theballot after the two assassination attempts. I
think everybody understands that the left wantsto destroy Donald Trump and his his agenda, and
they're, they're gonna never cease. They'llnever stop. And that changes their attitude
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about it. They're not going to try to be likedor approved of by the left or the, in the
mainstream media, et cetera. It's gonna be veryadversarial, antithetical.
Well, right. And, and so maybe they take a pageoutta the left book, which is we are going to
run full speed in pursuit of our agenda and wewe'll risk overreaching and having a correction
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that negatively impacts us. But we wanna put,put that marker out down the field as far as
possible so that if we have a little setback,then we can pick it back up. And we, and we're
starting much further down the field then wherewe we started when we first got there. I mean,
that's, that's how the left is always, you know,lead, leading, moving their agenda down the
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field. Even when they suffer temporary setbacksbecause they perceive them be temporary, they'll
course correct, they'll get back and they'llpush as hard as they can one more time. And so
in that, in that vein, what about theadministrative state? You sort of got to it when
you're talking about reforming some of these lawenforcement and intel agencies, the military,
but I mean the upper echelons of management allgone redu using rif, executive orders,
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congressional authority. If you've gotmajorities to actually reduce headcount, shrink
the personnel, shrink the footprint of the
Federal government. Yes, I think absolutely. Ithink he's gonna have to put immediately a
hiring freeze so that when, and I can think hecan do that without a lot of acrimony. Just let
these things at trite just say people whoretire, they're not gonna be replaced. And when
they reach a critical mass of shortage, thatthat division's gonna be eliminated. I think you
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could probably get rid of the Department ofEnergy and the Department of Education. I think
it won't do any good to come in and say, youknow, the Comey, the McCabe's, the rays, the
Muellers, the Washington FBI hierarchy or theBrennans, the clappers people who've lied under
oath to Congress, both of them, it doesn't doany good to replace them with people who will be
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gone in four or five years if they lose the nextelection. I think they have to have
institutional change.
One of 'em would be to break up the FBI and justnot harm the ability, but say you're gonna go
back to your original intent. So we're gonnatake the anti-terrorism and put it in DOD, we're
gonna take the anti counterfeiting or whatever,we're gonna put that under DOJ, but break it up
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so you don't have that concentration of powerthat's been so abused. Or maybe take the
national headquarters of the FBI and put it inKansas City or break up some of these cabinets
so you don't have this three or 400,000 peoplethat I, I'm a cabinet officer, my, my wife works
at CBS, my daughter works at NPR. We're allintermarried, we all, that is what's destroying
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the country, the unelected. And so you have tophysically and geographically break up some of
it. So you have to do something that will lastbeyond your tenure.
And that's one of the things they've talkedabout. I'll, I'll, you know, right now if we had
a wall that they're, they're not for all thedemocratic propaganda. They are not coming and
mass through walls right now. They're comingthrough doors or on guarded parts. So that would
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be very important and lasting immigrationchange. So I think they're looking at stuff like
that. They, they, they really are. And foreignpolicy, I think if they're elected, they're
going to say, we have a historic chance to justto eliminate the problems of the last 50 years
in the Middle East. And that's Iran. And so Iimagine the first thing they're going to do is
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coordinate with Israel and say, you, what you'redoing is in the interest of Western civilization
and we're not gonna try to restrain you. We'regonna try to help you. And that could be a norm
if that's not done by the time of January. But Ihave a suspicion that Israel might have to act
sooner than, than later. But that'll be a bigchange. I think they'll see that these things
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that Israel's doing are productive and theybenefit the west and they're not something that
you try to hamper and leak about and underminethem.
You know, you wrote this really interestingpiece that I sort of mentioned at the outset
when I talked about the elite hedgehogs that nowrule America. I just want you to develop that.
What, what, what is it the elite hedgehogs whoare the elite hedgehogs? What does that mean?
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Well, these are the people that, they're not fofoxes. They, they have expertise in one area and
so they get narrow. They're like academics. Theyget narrower, narrower, narrower so that they
can't be challenged and therefore they're theexpert on Iranian security. Or I'll give you an
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example. So Kamala Harris Plagiarizes, they findthe New York Times tries to find the world
expert on plagiarism. Well, the guy that cameout just completely embarrassed himself, just
like the, they want to, they want to use thelaptop against Trump and say that it's Russian
disinformation. They get 51 intelligenceauthorities and they print their credentials,
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their degrees and all of their resumes andtitles. But the problem is that all of these
people, so-called are one, they want to diseconomic platform or as national security ideas.
They get, they bring in these people, they signletters and they've all been in government and
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they don't know very much.
They're, in other words, they're, they get, theygo right to the university, they get a degree,
they're a national security expert. They're notan Elon Musk, they're not a Renaissance person
that, you know, he, he can do space, he can doTesla, he can do x, he can do artificial
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intelligence, he can do neural link. And they'renot people in the private sector that have all
of these different skills. They're not Trump.How none of these people could go into downtown
Manhattan and build any building and deal withcrooked environmental groups, community identity
politics groups, unions, politicians. And sowhat we're we've done is we've turned over
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control of our lives to these federal employeesand these quasi contractors who are very
limited. They go to the same schools, they go tothe same social economic ews, they live in the
same zip codes, bicoastal elite.
And they have no practical knowledge. They don'tknow the consequences of their own ideology.
California, we have a coastal elite that livesin La Jolla to Berkeley. I'm, I'm generalizing,
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but they mandate things. We're gonna have 35cents a kilowatt hour that will cut back on
carbon emissions and new people down in Fresno.That's 115 and you're poor. Well then you can't
afford the elect. You go to Walmart and sitthere all day and get free air conditioning.
That's their attitude. Let them eat cake. Andthat's, that's what they all do. I mean, Comey
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goes before Congress, I can't remember 245 timesMcCabe says, yes, I lied four times the federal
and guest raid. So what Brennan says, well Ilied. I I lied about drone hits on the Pakistan
border. Yeah, I lied about, we did tap into theSenate computers when I was the head of the CI.
So what, what are you gonna do? And Clappersays, I told the least, the least lie I could
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when I testified before Congress. And there's noconsequences to any of these people. There's no
consequences whatsoever. There won't be anyconsequences to the person who leaked the
Iranian, the Israeli plan to hit Iran. So whatI'm getting at is who are these people? And
they're people that come from the same as Isaid, the same social class, the same economic
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class, the same cultural class. They go togovernment, they go back to corporations. If
you're on the left, you go back to SiliconValley or you're James Baker, head counsel for
the FBI, you make 150,000. You tell Twi the oldTwitter and ex, Hey you guys, we need to spy and
suppress the news about the laptop right beforethe election. Yes, we did that. Okay, James, go
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back to Twitter and you'll make $7 million asTwitter's chief legal counsel.
The revolving door, I won't mention names 'causeI know a lot of people, but if you're in the
military, you're a four star, what do you do?You go right into Raytheon, general Dynamics,
Northrop, and then what do we have? We have $175million airplanes when the world is producing
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$5,000 drones. And it, it's, it's run by thesepeople. And so you've gotta you've gotta stop
that somehow either through legislation orcultural condemnation. And that's why Trump is
so despised. And I mean, when he's bringingpeople around him, Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy,
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Tulsi Gabert, all, it's kind of an ecumenicalgroup. Rand Paul, all these people, and they
have one thing in common. They are veryoutspoken about where we, what what, what's
threatening the United States and their commonenemy is the private public nexus. What
Eisenhower in the military context said themilitary industrial complex. But it's more than
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that. It's the corporate government, utopiansocialist, complex boutique socialism. I I don't
think they're really socialists. It's a boutiquebrand.
How, how, how important do you think Musk isMusk's entrance into this race and all the
support he's provided Trump and what he'ssaying, the stories he's telling too, this the,
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the stories about the re the regulations that hehas faced so he understands what, what people
are going through these stultifying regulationsat the federal level, when you're trying to
build a business, you're trying to to to, youknow, do what NASA can't do, which is advance us
in, in the area of space travel. I mean, is isthis, is, is is Musk and some other Silicon
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Valley titans that have come Trump's way, dothey represent the beginning of a paradigm shift
that could,
I think they do, could extend beyond Trump? Ithink they're saying, I, I think they're
important for three reasons. One, they'rerealist and they're saying to the country, it's
socially acceptable to vote for Trump. Notbecause you like him or you, you're not offended
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by his tweets or whatever, but that we're at the11th hour and he is going to save free market
capitalism. An open market that makes uspreeminent and the other people are gonna slowly
destroy it. And the set, the, the thing aboutMusk second is that he's a little different than
a Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs, or evenJeff Bezos. He's kind of a i'll, I don't wanna
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sound obsequious, but he's a Florentine from the15th century. He is a Renaissance man. I mean,
if you had said 20 years ago, we're gonna have aguy come on the scene and he's gonna build the
biggest rocket in the world history and he'sgonna build a contraption that can catch a sta
the returning stage with a mechanical arm whilehe's the only person to break into the Chrysler
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GM Ford Monopoly and build a car, electric carthat is better than any of their electric cars
and almost has as much market share as some ofthese countries by, at the same time risking a
great deal of his fortune to buy a money losingTwitter and turn it into a free expression and
revolution.
Nobody would believe you. So he's done all ofthat and he's, he's a renaissance person. So to
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have him, you know, it's one thing for Elon Muskto say, you know, at this time, I, I kind of
vote for Trump that there's people in SiliconValley that say that. But for him to be active
is quite, is quite important. And the thirdthing is he represents, he accentuates the Trump
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brand of can-do build things. It's not just, Imade my money in hedge funds. I made my money in
media, I made my trafficking of knowledge orinvestment. He's saying to the country, I build
things, I build new things. I make your lifematerially different with starlink. And I'm, I'm
speaking to you right now from a farm where I'musing Starlink. My wife, we're not, we're very
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conservative, but my wife loves her Tesla.
She drives to work with it 35 miles each way.She's got 30,000 miles. It has not had one thing
wrong with it. And he did that, he did thisinterview. I, I had never had good inter
internet service to, in to Starlink. And when Isaw he gives people a pride in the country,
(31:29):
NASA's complete, NASA's become like Boeing, youknow what I mean? They're emblematic of ossified
past assumptions. This guy comes out of nowhereand says, I can do better than both of them put
together. I can save them from themselves. Andso that he's, that's very important that he, he
gives people confidence. And I think thataccentuates Trump, he's saying to the country
(31:50):
that, yes, Trump is a wheeler, dealer trump'sthis and this, but you try to build a skyscraper
in New York and see if you can do it. And he didthat. And, and so that, that gives people
confidence.
And Elon Musk's a a answers more questions fromvoters than Kamala Harris does at town Hall.
Absolutely. So, I mean, he kind of doubles downon Trump's strengths. Trump will talk to about
(32:15):
anything sometimes to his detriment. But he willtalk to anybody anytime, anywhere about
anything. A stranger comes up to him. There's nohandlers, there's no script, there's no actors.
And Musk is the same way. His attitude is, if Isay something stupid, people are smart enough to
know that that's a minority of what I say andeverybody slips up. But the cost of censoring
(32:39):
myself is too high. I'm not gonna do it. So hespeaks extemporaneous and people want to hear
that. They really do. And I, I live in a, acounty with underprivileged people. It's about
a, a, a small town that's about 95% Hispanic,mostly Mexican American, and they are going, at
least males over the age of 40. You can, Ihaven't met one. And that's the people I see all
(33:03):
day long. I grew up with 'em, they're myfriends. They're, they're not voting for Trump.
And that was not true in 2020 and 2016. So it'samazing that somebody who is branded a racist by
the left, the left then doesn't explain yes,he's a racist and he is a racist because he's
(33:24):
going to get a higher number of Hispanics andblacks than any other Republican candidate They
can. That's where the disconnect fall. How, whyis that possible? They just avoid it entirely.
Or they say that black males are suffering fromMarxist false consciousness or something.
Anyway,
I I wanted to but one, one more thing before Ilet you go too, just, you, you were talking
(33:47):
about Trump and reestablish, if he's elected,reestablishing real ties with Netanyahu in
Israel and thinking about the Middle East. Imean, I I just thinking about this, trying to be
a little optimistic, and maybe these are dotsthat don't connect yet, but maybe they could. I
think I think about Trump in the White House, Ithink about maybe Pev replacing Trudeau in
(34:10):
Canada. I think I I we're watching as I know youare what Millet is doing in Argentina. And then
you think about Bebe's, I I would argue almostChurchillian management of the war against Hamas
and Hezbollah and, and effectively Iran. And yousay you, you've got, and Bibe actually may be
close to one of those Renaissance men thatyou're talking about, but you, so in the West
(34:35):
you have a couple of people in place and, andpotentially more in the offing of people who
really do believe in Western civilization andentrepreneurial capitalism. And maybe that that
provides the basis for not just going back topre-Obama America, but really reestablishing
(34:55):
sort of our foundation in the West as people whoappreciate and seek out the beautiful things in
life and search for truth and understand ourrole relative to government, but also relative
to God. Maybe, maybe almost like a, a like agreat awakening.
Yeah, I think so. And there, I think so becauseof two reasons. The first is these rare people,
(35:21):
when they do breakthrough and they have to breakthrough the, the corporate political media,
government walls, they do very well. So Mely isdoing very well. He is not failing. He's got a,
he's gonna have a trade surplus. He's reallyturned Argentine around. Bibe has redefined the
whole Middle East in the, what he's done toHamas, Hezbollah, and, and with Iran and the
(35:44):
other, and Trump's four years. Every, we knowthat Trump's four years were more successful
than Biden's because Senates candidates andpurple states are running on the Trump agenda
and Harris is adopting it. So that's defacto andadmission. The other ha side of the coin is that
every, the left as it in its presentmanifestation, everything, it has kind of an non
(36:06):
Midas touch.
Everything, it turns, turns a draw. So Canada isa mess. Everybody understands that Europe is
ossified, it's failing people in Hungary, peoplein Italy are trying, and Holland are trying to
fight back against it. But they understand theEU is going to be doomed unless it's saved. It,
it's on a downward spiral. The Biden tenure wasdisastrous. Every blue state that is
(36:33):
authentically blue, California, Illinois,Minnesota, New York is losing population. Red
states are gaining them. Even blue voters go tored states. The cities that we have are all run
by blue mayors and they're all disasters.Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago, New York. It doesn't work. And so Ithink a lot of people who were not ideological
(36:56):
or not even political are saying, you know what,when these guy, when these guys take over, they
ruin everything. 'cause they're ideologues,they're not empirical.
When the other guys take over, they restore lifeas we used to remember it. And every once in a
while, we get a little bit of a nostalgia. Weunderstand what it was like. The Trump years
were just starting to remind us we're not overyet merely saying this can still happen. And so
(37:21):
that I am optimistic, but, but my God, they,it's not just the government. They have to
reform and they've gotta look at theinstitutions. They've gotta get people
interested in going into the media, going in thecorporate world, a lot of, and getting engaged
because these institutions have been lost andthey're very powerful and they're kind of like
(37:44):
a, a sleeping, I don't know, a sleeping viper.You think that they're extinguished and then
they're there and you have to combat them.That's, that's why I think it was so important
that Elon Musk saw that and went in andpurchased and changed Twitter into X And that
did a, a lot of good. And I think these blogsand podcasts people, I don't know Megan Kelly or
(38:09):
Joe Rogan, all these people are developing hugeaudiences in a way that, that challenges are
left. And so, yeah, I think you're right that,and it's empirical. People say the blue model
does not work. It destroys people's lives. It,it, it determines or it dooms them to a life of
less material prosperity, less freedom, morecontrol by government. And the other model
(38:35):
returns us to the way we were. And so I'moptimistic about that, that the public at least
sees that now
As Eminence Victor Davis Hansen, historian,classist Senior fellow Hoover Institution, the
end of everything. Latest book BDH. Thanks somuch for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank
You. Thank you for having me.
(38:59):
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