China, Baby Food, and Distractions

When empires debase their currency, citizens who hold gold survive the transition.

That's not opinion, it's documented fact.

Trump's economic warning isn't speculation, it's pattern recognition.

The same signals that preceded every major currency crisis are flashing now.

Unsustainable debt, foreign nations dumping our bonds, and central banks hoarding gold.

But Trump's also revealing the solution.

The IRS strategy he's used for decades is available to every American.

It's how the wealthy preserve their fortunes when paper currencies fail.

American Alternative Assets has documented this strategy in their free 2025 wealth protection guide.

It shows exactly how to position yourself before the turbulence Trump's warning about arrives.

Call 888-615-8047 for your free guide.

That's 888-615-8047 or visit victorlovesgold.com.

The patterns are clear.

Make sure you're on the right side of them.

Hello, ladies.

Hello, gentlemen.

This is the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

I'm Jack Fowler, the host.

Victor and I are recording on Friday, the 13th, 2022, Triscodecaphobia Day.

Victor is the Martin and Ely Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wayne and Marsha-Busky Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College.

Victor is an author,

books, columns, essays, etc.

Much of that you can find at victorhanson.com.

We'll talk about that later it just so happens that victor and i are talking we're in the same hotel different rooms we're in wilmington delaware victor is here in town despite the ravages of the recent covet attacks wait a minute i want to tell my listeners that i have taken one pcr test and four antigens and they were all negative and it's been five days since i had a fever

So I am completely

wiped out and completely non-infectious.

Right.

That's a mixed bag description of the wipeout.

If I really feel better and infectious, and I could isolate, I suppose.

I would want you to feel the same.

Well, but we're here.

I'm here anyway because I'm a fan and Victor is receiving an award tonight from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for the Book of the Year, which was the Dying Citizen.

We've talked about that a lot in the past.

If you haven't gotten the Dying Citizen, by the way, go to that aforementioned website, VictorHanson.com.

Order it.

Now, we've got a lot to talk about today before Victor gets all suited up for the big event.

And the first thing we're going to talk about is China, Red China, and the arrest of the retired bishop, Archbishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Zen, the lockdowns in Shanghai, and maybe Victor, too, you might get into some of the pressure of Red China against Taiwan that's percolated in the last couple of days.

We'll do all that and more right after these important messages.

Like you, when I bought my last pair of shoes, I looked for stylish comfort and beautiful engineering.

And that might make you think Italian, but if you're buying sheets, it should make you think bowl and branch.

The colors, the fabric, the design.

Bowl and branch sheets are made with long-lasting quality, offering extraordinary softness to start and getting softer and softer for years to come.

Bowl and branch sheets are made with the finest 100% organic cotton in a soft, breathable, durable weave.

Their products have a quality you can feel immediately and become even softer with every wash.

Plus, Bowl and Branch comes with a 30-night worry-free guarantee.

I've been sleeping like a baby in my bowl and branch sheets, which keep me cool on those hot summer nights, and they're the perfect place for sunrise and morning coffee.

So join me.

Feel the difference an extraordinary night's sleep can make with Bowl and Branch.

Get 15% off plus free shipping on your first set of sheets at bowlandbranch.com slash Victor.

That's Bolin Branch.

B-O-L-L-A-N-D-B-R-A-N-C-H dot com slash Victor to save 15%

off and unlock free shipping.

Exclusions may apply and we'd like to thank Bowling Branch for sponsoring the Victor Davis-Hansen Show.

At a time when Americans are more divided than ever, Connecting America is a place where everyone can gather and express their opinions with no disrespect.

And what better place than a Jersey diner to host this show?

Because where else but a diner can you find a buffet of opinions, ideas, and real connections?

Connecting America, a brand new national program that aims to truly connect everyday people and is dedicated to showcasing ideas and embracing civil conversation.

We'll also include amazing ways to improve your fitness, health, and nutrition, revive your spiritual self, and give your home a makeover.

Connecting America streams live every weekday from 7 a.m.

to 9 a.m.

Eastern Time.

Our program is led by a group of award-winning journalists, including me, Jim Rosenfeld, plus Allison Camerata and Dave Briggs.

We'll also hear from America's psychologist Dr.

Jeff Gardier and former Fox News senior foreign affairs correspondent Amy Kellogg.

Join us wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen show.

So Victor, sad news yesterday, Cardinal Zen, the retired Archbishop of Hong Kong, who I've had the honor to meet a couple of times, have lunched with him once, just a wonderful, pious, holy man.

He was arrested earlier this week by the Red Chinese forces.

He is despised by the government because he is an articulate and persistent foe of the government, and it's cracked down on what little liberty is left, none really in Red China proper.

The hint of some in Hong Kong.

Sad things besides the arrest, he was released on bail, but there's an expectation that he's going to be prosecuted fully and then be jailed.

And he is 92, so he'll probably die in prison.

The very tepid and pathetic response of the Vatican, whose

foreign policy leadership there has been sucking up to the Red Chinese government.

So we have that.

And then not necessarily related, but since we'll talk about China, has been the savage lockdown, COVID lockdown of the citizens of Shanghai and just massive oppression and locked in your apartments.

Good luck if you can get any food.

If you get it, it's probably rotten.

So there's that, Victor.

And the Red China Military Air Force was truly pressuring Taiwan this week, also.

So big jump ball there on Red China.

Your thoughts, my friend.

Well, it's a type of monolithic system that is incapable of handling any dissent.

And so any person or entity that's antithetical to the Chinese Communist Party can't survive.

So if you're a scientist at Wuhan and you have a narrative of truth that the

virus originated through gain of function, you're going to disappear.

If you're a Tibetan dissident, you're going to disappear or you're going to be absorbed.

And the same thing is true of Hong Kong.

So communism is an extreme manifestation of leftism.

And remember about leftism, it doesn't believe in the rule of law, believes in its higher moral appeal.

In other words, they are so morally superior, and that being defined as equity or egalitarianism or equality, that they

justify any means necessary to achieve them.

So in their way of thinking, a cardinal or bishop, any official of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong either is an agent of their communist apparatus or he's an enemy.

There's no middle ground.

So to the degree that he represents a dissident voice, they're going to silence him and his age doesn't matter.

The circumstances don't matter.

They're capable of anything at any time, anywhere, to anyone.

I remember that about the left.

Victor, have you ever met, well, two things.

First of all, there are a number of other.

Catholic bishops loyal to the old Rome, not loyal to the patriotic church, who've been imprisoned in the mainland.

So, right, they don't give a rat's ass if you're wearing a red hat or a purple hat, a high clergy official in Catholicism or any religion.

Have you ever met Jimmy Lai, who is still in prison, the Hong Kong businessman?

No, I haven't.

I haven't.

But these people will disappear.

I think that what they usually do is they put them in prison.

in the archipelago.

And then after people forget who they are, they kill them.

so the more you don't hear about a person the closer he's getting to being officially erased in the most literal sense of the word yeah victor any thoughts about shanghai different than what you already said and then any thoughts about red china's pressure military pressure campaign on taiwan well i mean they believe in this thing called zero covet that one COVID case then represents the threat to 1.4 billion people and by sheer force of government and power, they can stamp out COVID.

And they can't because people will always fly in, or there'll be an inexact test that won't, and this thing mutates.

And thanks to them, we're going to have a coronavirus that mutates.

And all we can hope for at this point is it starts to resemble the common cold at some point.

That is, it mutates and mutates and mutates.

And then people who get it three, four, five times develop immunity against it.

So when they get it, get it an eighth or ninth time, it just makes them slightly sick.

But in my experience, you know, Omicron was

worse than Delta.

So

they don't understand that, or they think they can defeat nature and they can't.

And so they're going to use the powers of the Communist Party and kill people, jail them, do everything.

It's going to be, it's like.

trying to have a sword fight with the wind.

It's not going to work.

As far as taiwan they're just watching watching waiting looking at about six factors jack they're saying to themselves what is the international reaction to ukraine and on the plus side they're thinking well of the 8 billion people in the world about 5 billion of them's government is not sanctioning russia

and they need oil and so that's a good thing now do we have oil no do we have goods that the world needs?

Maybe.

And so they look at that.

Then they look at these javelins and these panzer foul modeled 3s and the British versions and the drones.

And they'll say, how would that work in the hands of highly trained Taiwanese teams if we were to invade?

Would they be able to nullify $50, $60 million of artillery platforms, helicopters, even tanks at a shot like they're doing in Ukraine?

Hmm.

Now, how does that?

What I'm getting at, Jack, is that they don't have any moral input in their calculus.

It's just, what does Ukraine tell us about the feasibility, political, financial, economic, cultural, military, of taking Taiwan?

Or vis-a-vis absorbing it and slowly strangling it to death, like Taibet.

You know, I mean, they invaded Tibet, so that's kind of an improper, in precise comparison, but that's what they want.

It's not because they feel that they need Taiwan.

I mean, what do they need another 35 million people for?

But it's wealthy, it's there, but it's an insult to their power.

And they feel that people will be, I don't know, inspired by Taiwanese resistance or Taiwan's per capita income will be always better.

And so as long as it's there, it's an irritant to them.

Victor, let's move on to

talk about baby formula, which is not something I ever thought we'd ever talk about on this podcast or any podcast.

But, you know, the reality is for

many families, millions of families with infants, the baby formula is the food that the baby needs to eat to survive.

And I just don't understand how our economy works sometimes, but to

kind of impose a shortage, I think it seems to me from news reports, a government overreaction and prolonged shutdown of a major manufacturer of this essential product has now caused a shortage crisis.

And not only that, you're seeing in many places parents are going to look for food for their child, empty shelves.

They're also seeing reports that the government has taken part of what is there and has shipped it down to what used to be a border, whatever that is, the Rio Grande, and for supplies for illegal immigrants into America so their children can have baby formula, but not taxpaying suckers north of the Rio Grande.

So, Victor, I think that's not a comical topic.

I think it's a serious topic in many ways.

It shows the brutality of the administrative state, the obtuseness of the administrative state, the callousness of it.

Your thoughts, my friend?

Well, we've talked about this.

And remember, they don't care, Jack.

They don't care.

They love humanity so much much that they don't have to worry about humans.

As I said earlier with Sammy, if you're driving down the 99 and you're in a diesel semi and you cannot

live paying $7 a gallon for diesel, they don't care.

They don't care.

And as far as baby formula, whether it's infamil or similac or whatever it is, they feel

every professional woman in, you know, Palo Alto or, I don't know, Atherton or the Upper West Side, breastfeeds.

So who are these people that use artificial formula, even though there's, you know, dozens of formulas and they have everything, you know, and this father of three children, I remember there was lactose-free, there's casein-free, there's all sorts of anti-allergic, there's fortified formulas.

They're all.

tailor-made to particular children that have problems with either breast milk or with just milk or things.

And so it's a real problem.

There's two themes here, Jack.

One is the nonchalance.

They don't care.

Maybe if you have a green angle to it or something, they would care.

But they do care about illegal aliens.

And that means that you have to have pallets in storage.

And they're not going to take, believe me, they won't take those pallets away from those storage because they like illegal aliens more than citizens, which brings up the second thing.

And I'm going to talk about the dying citizen tonight at a gathering.

And the citizen, they don't like.

They like people who are alternatives to the citizen.

And one of them is illegal aliens.

So they feel, you know what, these are noble creatures who haven't been corrupted by the American system.

We can get to them before they're fully assimilated and integrated and ruined.

And therefore, we need every possible help lever for them.

But, you know, the average guy that lives in Des Moines, what the blank do we care about about them?

Go get your baby formula.

That's the attitude that they have.

They really are callous people.

I think people, you can really see that with Joe Biden when people come up and, you know, when the topic comes up, I should say, about inflation or price of fuels, he gets angry.

He starts yelling and starts blaming people.

So much so that even left-wing newspapers and media services are starting to notice.

He gets angry.

He doesn't care.

He cares about Hunter, cares about the family syndicate.

But other than that, he doesn't have a, you know, the FBI, go get my daughter's diary.

FBI, keep that laptop on hold until the election is over.

FBI, make sure that nobody probes too deeply into my financial records.

That's the way he operates.

But other people, I don't care about them.

That's their problem.

He's not good old Joe Biden from Scranton.

So this is not going to be solved by Joe Biden.

It's not as if we haven't had a supply crisis in the supply chain for months on end.

And I guess there was a factory that was shut down and the FDA got involved.

Okay,

but there was no urgency to get it back up, is what I'm trying to say.

You think there would be.

You think there'd be an urgency about inflation or fuels?

You think he'd have a summit and we're going to build Keystone to get 900,000

barrels of oil from Canada right now.

He just canceled federal leases offshore and in Alaska, more leases he did not put up for sale.

He doesn't care.

It's these people.

I've grown up with them.

I've been to school with them.

I know them.

And they're the weirdest bunch of comfortable, leisured, affluent, left-wing, sanctimonious people.

And they don't care about average people.

They feel they're average for a reason.

They're not woke and they deserve what they get.

They're in their proper slots.

They're the losers of globalization.

And, you know, they're red state, irredeemables, chumps, dregs, deplorables, clingers.

That's about it.

Yeah.

Well, Victor, some other important things are happening worthy of your commentary.

I hope and pray.

One of them is the January 6th committee going after House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and some other Republicans.

And we'll get your thoughts on that right after these important messages.

if you're like me, you have a lot of product on your bathroom counter.

Well, I have found the secret serum and it's vibrant Super C Serum.

The ingredients in this one bottle can replace your day creams, eye creams, night creams, neck creams, wrinkle creams, and even dark spot reducers.

Made in the USA with the highest quality ingredients, including vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, vitamin B5, and vitamin E, Super C Serum delivers noticeable results.

Simplify your skincare routine, get a healthier complexion, and minimize wrinkles and age spots with Vibrance.

I just began using Super C Serum last week, and I love it.

My skin feels so much better, soft, moist, and fresh.

And by the way, it smells beautiful like the orange blossoms outside my kitchen door.

Give it a try, and you'll love it too.

And if you don't find it better than your current skincare routine, you'll get a full refund.

Go to vibrance.com slash Victor to save up to 37% off and free shipping.

That's Vibrance, V-I-B-R-I-A-N-C-E,

vibrance.com slash Victor.

And we'd like to thank Vibrance for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hanson Show.

So you just got back from summer vacation.

Maybe you might have even had to book two rooms because of your snoring.

Some vacation, huh?

Snoring can be an underlying cause of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and even memory loss.

Here is my advice.

If you want every night to be a true vacation, you need to get yourself Zipa.

That's happy Z spelled backwards.

Zipa is a doctor-designed mouthpiece that not only moves your jaw forward, but is also the only device with a patented tongue seat belt to keep your airways open and the snoring away.

The snoring can stop as soon as the first night.

Zipa was proven in a 600 patient clinical trial and sold over half a million units.

From now until the end of October, show your family you actually care by purchasing a limited edition pink Zipa.

Not only will you save $10,

but Zipa is on a mission to raise $50,000 for breast cancer research and they will donate another $10,000 to the Susan G.

Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Go to zyppah.com and use the code PINC

or text Victor to 511-511.

Put your snoring on a permanent vacation and help a worthy cause with the snoring device we trust by visiting zyppah.com and use the code PINK or text Victor to 511-511.

Remember, Zipa is happy Z spelled backwards.

Text fees may apply, and we'd like to thank Zipa for sponsoring the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hansen Show.

We're recording from the People's Republic of Delaware.

Not too, gosh, I can imagine Victor Victor downstairs from where you and I are both right now.

I assume good old Scranton Joe was doing a good old Wilmington Joe act once upon a time, probably regaling people with just how great he was down in the bar of the Hotel DuPont.

But later on tonight, let's see if we can get any gossip on Joe.

Hey, folks should be reading about what you write about Joe Biden and anything else.

They can find everything you write at victorhanson.com.

Not everything you write, though, can be read for free.

There is a subscription because there's an awful lot of content that you write that is privileged.

It's called Ultra.

It's $5 a month, $50 for a year.

If someone is interested, I want to check this out.

Pen the five bucks, test drive victorhanson.com.

You will like it, and then you should subscribe for the full year.

So that's VictorHanson.com.

As for me, I would appreciate it if you consider signing up for my free weekly email newsletter.

It's called Civil Thoughts, and you can find that at civilthoughts.com.

Hey, every week comes out on Fridays and gives you 12, 13 recommended readings from the previous week.

No risk, your name's not being sold to anybody, etc.

So that's civilthoughts.com, a product of the Center for Civil Society at American Philanthropic.

So thanks for that.

So, Victor, I'm looking at a story right now from the Associated Press,

Washington AP, House panel issued subpoenas Thursday to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and four other GOP lawmakers in its probe into the what they call quote-unquote violent January 6th insurrection.

That's the AP's language.

An extraordinary step that has little precedent and is certain to further inflame partisan tensions over the 2020.

21 attack.

It's investigating McCarthy over his conversations with Donald Trump on January 6th of 2021.

So the people being subpoenaed are McCarthy and then Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama.

Final quote here.

The move is not without risk, as Republicans are favored to capture back the House majority in this fall's midterm election and have promised retribution for Democrats if they take control.

Victor, I'll shut up in 15 seconds to see this story and to see some cable systems reporting odd nauseum on this particular story, as they have on every crumb or

contrivance about January 6th.

Meanwhile, the reality of America being the gas prices, et cetera.

People do not give a rat's patoot about this by and large.

Still the Democrats push ahead.

So what are your thoughts on this tactic here of going after Kevin McCarthy?

Well, it's been two years, hasn't it?

I mean, we're getting into the second year, I should say, since January 6th.

And for them,

the Democratic Congressional Committee dominated.

Remember what they've done.

They have told Kevin McCarthy that unlike every other committee that either

party allows to be formed, i.e., when Republicans are in the majority, they allow Democrats to select their own members.

This isn't going to happen.

So we're going to select and tell you which Republicans can serve on our committee.

And we only have, what, two of them?

And so we're going to try to drag this out as long as we can because there is no other issue that we can run on.

We have nothing.

We don't want to talk about the border inflation, as you said, gasoline, Afghanistan, critical race theory.

crime, any of that.

We have a very small and shrinking repertoire.

We have the fear of COVID and another lockdown.

They've mentioned that lately.

We have the Ukrainian war and Vladimir Putin's price hike.

We've mentioned that a lot.

We've had the democracy dies in darkness fear that if a Trump candidate might win in the midterms, that's sworn.

We have Trump himself that they seem to be running about.

We have a new bogeyman, Jack, called Ultra MAGA.

Kind of think, I'm mad about that because you can get an ultra VDH firewall.

I don't think there's anything bad about ultra VDH.

Is ultra MAGA just mean there's more MAGA?

I don't know, but it seems like a lot of people are going to say, yeah, I like ultra MAGA.

But the point is that that's the context in what January 6th is.

And so it's been around for a year and a half or whatever.

And they're going to keep milking it.

And they have to come up with news.

So they've got Kevin McCarthy, according to a recent book, you know, was very critical of.

Trump and they want to bring him under oath and they want to say, did you say this?

And if he doesn't, they'll say, you know, you committed perjury.

But if he does, they'll say, oh, Kevin McCarthy attacked Trump.

So it's a lose-lose situation for him.

And they'll say he was, you know, but they won't ever quite say he was courageous.

He took on Trump.

No, it's more, you know, to embarrass him with Trump.

And the same is of the other people who were called.

And the next question is: we get back to this thing we talked about: New Testament and the Old Testament, 2023 Republicans.

So what's the answer to this?

Because they're going to lose the House, and I think they're going to lose the Senate.

Is the answer to just say, you know what, we do not want to lower ourselves to the shenanigans and the antics of what the Democrats did well in the majority.

And we refuse to violate the Marcus of Queensbury rules.

We're just not going to do it.

Or is it, you know what, these people don't get it.

that most of the country now has had their belly full of them and they're never going to do this to us again because we are going to impeach Joe Biden for not fulfilling his oath of office by faithfully executing the laws.

He just simply wouldn't do it in the case of immigration.

And we are not going to allow the squad to be on any more committees.

You know what?

They're just too volatile to use Nancy Pelosa's terminology.

We just don't think they can be disinterested.

So we don't want any of those people on committees.

And we're going to maybe, you know, as I said earlier, Kevin McCarthy might just get really angry at Joe Biden and tear up his speech on national television.

That is

more likely to be seen once they do stuff like this.

Tit for tat, tit for tat, fit for tat.

I don't know why they do that.

I mean, I know why they do it, but it doesn't

work.

It's not,

but it's not only tit for tat.

I mean, you're right.

I don't disagree with you, but there is such a thing as righteous anger.

And to put it in not biblical terms, but movie terms, because you and I have talked several times lately lately about movies and, of course, your favorite movie, Shane.

And I wanted to say,

I love the moment in that movie where Shane is getting his butt stomped.

And Joe Starrett

realizes that.

And he goes in and

he grabs the axe handle and goes, they're not going in for Marcus or Queensbury, but there's a fight and we're going to fight it.

Jack, violence never solves it.

Well, I think it solves it sometimes.

No, I know what you mean.

I mean, you didn't like when Jack Wilson

and he says that you low-down Yankee liar.

Right.

So, yeah, well, I think Republicans are going to have to caucus and decide what it takes.

And,

you know, so the Democrats have it all one way.

You know, there's talking, Elizabeth Warren is now talking about packing the court.

We still have the national voter law they want to, you know, resurrect so that you can have no state validating and requiring IDs.

They are still going beating the dead horse of Electoral College.

They still are fixated on the filibuster.

They're fixated on every single rule and regulation that doesn't favor them right now.

And you know,

Republicans didn't like the liberal war in court, but they didn't try to pack it.

Barack Obama filibustered the Alito appointment, but they didn't get rid of the, I mean, they complained about stalling and all that, but they didn't get rid of the filibuster.

You can still have it.

And the same, I mean, I don't think the Republicans would try to get rid of the Electoral College if they won the popular vote and they lost.

It's happened in the past.

So this is a new progressive Jacobin wing.

And that's like, if I don't win,

then we're going to change the rules.

And we have the presidency and we have the House and we have the Senate.

And

we still can't win.

Now, why is this happening?

And so we've got to change the rules.

That's how they look at all of this.

The Republicans are going to have to react.

And this January 6th committee is one of the ways that, you know, I would love to see, Jack, a

Hunter Biden, Biden family committee

in 2000.

I would love to see a

House Special Select Committee on the FBI, and I would like to interview Kevin Kleinsmith, and I'd like to interview Mr.

Sussman and I'd like to interview James Comey and Andrew McCabe and Christopher Wray and all of them and I would put them under oath.

I'd love to see that.

I'd love to see a thing with the CIA where we bring back Brennan or Clapper on the director of national intelligence.

But I don't know to what degree the public has been there, done that.

And that's ancient history, but.

I don't know how you ever make those people accountable because they have this asymmetry.

They feel, you know what?

We are so moral people that they just, they deserve what they get, the Republicans and the right.

And you know what?

Now they're just, when we investigate people, it's for principle.

When they do it, it's just out of retaliation.

And then they infect the media and we go to town with all this propaganda.

And it just,

we know it's coming.

We know what they're doing.

They're going to lose the midterms and they're desperate.

And the thing about Liz Cheney that I don't understand is

if she really believes all this, why doesn't she simultaneously be a loner on that committee?

In other words, she's attacking this new democratic effort to beef up Roe versus Wade.

Or why isn't she demanding answers to Afghanistan?

Or why isn't she worried about critical race theory?

Or why isn't she hammering them on crime or defunding?

Why is it just this thing?

That's what I don't understand.

And actually, Jack, about the whole Never Trump, I don't think that word even exists anymore.

Never Trumpism is over with.

It's basically an ossified term that means that you were basically a progressive and liberal, but there wasn't enough money in it, or there wasn't enough careerism, or you made the wrong career choice a few years ago, and there was an opportunity to get back and raise a bunch of left-wing money as a phony conservative.

And now

you're where you always wanted to be.

You're a left-winger, and you can still use this never Trump conservative just to melk out a few more dollars, but otherwise you're not conservative.

Yeah, if you look at you look at Bill Crystal, Victor, and his tweeting, and I've heard Bill Crystal, once upon a time, through the Weekly Standards, strong on opposition to Roe v.

Wade, and he's the pinup boy for this.

Not a single thing that he never was.

He never did believe that

Roe versus Wade was an overreach of a court, should have been in the States.

He's always, Jennifer Rubin, Max Booth, they're all where they all wanted to be.

They always wanted to be here.

And the problem was that

they couldn't leave the conservative movement because it was very lucrative.

They ran magazines, they were on TV, they had speaking gigs.

And for them, it was just ink incorporated.

And then Trump came along and they thought, you know what?

In our infinite wisdom, we'll just declare him persona non grata and he'll disappear because we are so gifted and anointed and powerful.

And they did.

And suddenly, Donald Trump didn't know who they were.

And

it didn't matter what they said.

And it was like

the emperor has no clothes.

The curtain is pulled on the Wizard of Oz.

It's just a bunch of gears and levers.

And once that was taken away,

then the question was,

well, are they going to write incisive books?

Is Bill Crystal going to come out with his magnum ultus?

Not to say that some of them didn't.

Max Boot wrote some very good books, but is he going to continue to do that?

And the answer is probably

what else is there?

There's no there there.

And that's what they're very frustrated about.

How do we get back as players in the political media scene?

We married right.

We live in the right zip code.

We're where the action is.

And they took the action away.

And it was that damn Donald Trump.

And he hijacked that party and he turned it over to a bunch of yokels.

Now we need to get it back and they're not going to get it back.

So now they say, well,

I really didn't want to be part of that anyway.

and I feel much more comfortable with left-wing bicosta professionals of which I'm a member.

Yeah, well, they click their ruby red slippers together, and they are home and happy, happily so it seems.

Well, Victor, I know you're a little beaten up, so we're gonna just talk about one more short thing of today's program.

We'll do that right after this important message.

If you're a homeowner, you need to listen to this.

In today's AI and cyber world, scammers are stealing your home titles and your equity is the target.

Here's how it works.

Criminals forge your signature on one document, use a fake notary stamp, pay a small fee with your county, and just like that, your home title has been transferred out of your name.

Then they take out loans using your equity and even sell your property.

And you won't even know what's happened until you get a collection or foreclosure.

notice.

So, when was the last time you checked on your home title?

If your answer is never, you need to do something about it right now.

And that's why we've partnered with Home Title Lock so you can find out today if you're already a victim.

Go to home titlelock.com/slash victor to get a free title history report and a free trial of their million-dollar triple arc protection.

That's 24-7 monitoring of your title, urgent alerts to any changes, and if fraud does happen, they'll spend up to to $1 million to fix it.

Please, please don't be a victim.

Protect your equity today.

That's home titlelock.com/slash Victor.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show recording on Friday the 13th, 2022.

We're in Wilmington, Delaware.

I have a feeling that Intercollegiate Studies Institute will do something related to your speech, Victor, probably tape it, YouTube, so it'll eventually find its way into the World Wide Web.

But folks should check out ISI, as it's known, isi.org.

It's a great institution.

It's been around for 70 or so years and has been really done wonderful work in the academy, fighting, overmatched, but still punching.

So, Victor.

Well, speaking of the academy, a good friend died earlier this week.

He was a friend of mine.

I know he was a fan of yours, John Leo.

John was beyond 85.

He's been ill the last couple of years.

If people remember U.S.

News and World Report,

the weekly magazine, they'll remember John.

Oh, he did.

Yeah, it was a terrific, terrific column.

And I actually reviewed a lot, and I looked back in 1994, review of a book John had written.

It was a collection.

It was called Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police.

And one of the great things about John Leo was that he really was one of the first people out there who had the number on this political correctness and the culture war was going on.

He wrote about it regularly in a major magazine that a lot of people read.

And then after he left U.S.

News, he ran through the Manhattan Institute.

He ran the organization Minding the Campus.

So he was very.

very concerned about what was happening in the academy.

A good man passed away.

Rest in peace.

Victor, I know he'd written about you in defense of you.

In fact, some attack on you about 10 years ago.

Anyway, you have any thoughts about John?

Yeah, he would write me once in a while and he'd send me things.

And I was thinking about that.

I liked him.

I think he had been early on, am I mistaken, kind of a liberal or man of the left?

He was a kind of a lefty Catholic.

He wrote for that Catholic magazine, Common Wheel, but he moved.

Maybe he's one of those early, you know, I stood place and everything else moved left while I stayed where I was.

But yeah, he was of the left.

Yeah.

And so, and then he saw that there wasn't a left anymore, that it was a hard, hard, hard progressive Jacobin party.

And I think that bothered him.

He wrote a column, and I'm just doing this from memory, but it was on rap music.

Anyway, he wrote a couple of columns.

And I'm just thinking that this was probably

maybe right about the time of Al Gore's wife, Tipper Gore.

Remember how she was talking about Hollywood?

I'm just remembering that because there was a time in America that African-American leaders and liberal Democrats said this kill the bitch, kill Pop Po, Popo, all of that.

Kenrick Lamar, remember, had that Pimpa Butterfly album where he went to the White House and he talked one of the songs that Obama was so gaga about had that kill Popo,

President of the United States.

honoring somebody who's lyrics talked about killing police people.

But my point is this, is that all of that just, it doesn't exist anymore.

You couldn't do that today.

You couldn't say, I'm really worried about the effect of rap music and gangster rap on the treatment of women and the sanctity of the police and crime in general.

You just couldn't do it.

And will there become a time when you can do it, when John Leo's common sense advice will be taken seriously?

See, I think we're going to get to that point, Jack.

And like the Jacobins that disappeared very quickly, I have no need to remind people how they disappeared.

I don't think these people have any popular support.

And there's a lot of people who are just saying, you know what?

We're not going to allow that critical race crap in our books.

I am sorry.

And you know what?

You're not going to run out of town, Dave Chappelle.

He's just too valuable a comedian.

Even Netflix, I think, flip now and they're giving these little soapbox speeches about, oh, we protect integrity and free speech.

They looked at the bottom line and thought, uh-oh,

who

cost us 200,000 subscribers and Dave Chappelle is standing.

We're not, we better flip.

My point is they have no independent judgment.

It's all about the majority.

And when you're in the corporate world, it's about money.

And so I think at some point, if all of us just say, I don't want to say this because you'll think I'm Corey Booker, but I am Spartacus, I am Spartacus, I am Spartacus, and it'll disappear.

And I try to have that attitude of contempt for these people because they're opportunists and they're just so many of them in their late 20s and early 30s.

And they write these little blogs or columns.

They have no knowledge.

They don't write books.

They don't do research.

They're not intellectual at all.

And it's just so boring.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, diversity, equity, inclusion, diversity, equity, inclusion.

There's a person of color.

And they can't talk about an idea without self-identification.

And I think everybody's trying to say, you know what, I'm just a comedian.

I'm not a black comedian.

That press secretary, you know, gosh, we had to hear all of the identifications that she has.

She's the first gay woman.

She is the

first black, gay, black, gay woman, press secretary.

I mean, how many, but it was never, she has a distinguished record of journalism or publications, or she has a long, no, she's a person that, you know, just would get fly off the handle and say foxes, liars, or you know, Casey Abrams just won the election.

So she was a crackpot, and somebody needs to say that.

There's a hierarchy, though, right?

You got the deacon, the priest, the Monsignor, the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal, the pope.

And the more of those you can pull out on black, gay, etc., etc.

The whole intersectionality thing.

I don't know, Sam.

I remember

Pierre woman.

I remember this person, John Pierre.

I remember Saki left.

I was in a car and I heard her say, and she brings her brilliance to the job.

Well, what was that brilliance?

Just tell me what it was.

What was it?

What charge did she make that was substantiated?

Did Hillary Clinton really win the 2016 election?

Is State Abram really the governor?

Is Fox News, you know, full of liars?

Tell me who lies.

Tell me exactly.

compared to MSNBC or CNN.

Just tell me the proof, but don't say she's brilliant.

And then go off into this, you know, sex, gender, stuff, stuff, sexual, I don't know what it is, but everybody's just tired.

People are people.

They don't need to have all this self-identification.

It reminds me again, I talked to Sammy about that.

It's like the old South where you have to identify as a white plantationist, and we're going to find out if your great-great-grandmother was black.

Well, now it's we're going to find out whether your great-great-grandfather is black because it's

inverse, it's valuable.

Whereas before, it was still racist either way.

Yeah, well, one 1024th Cherokee, you know,

how long can you milk that kind of stuff?

Well, Victor, we're right.

Lauren milked it all the way to a Harvard professorship, right?

Yeah, I mean, she, what a freaking phony, but she had high cheekbones

and she knew something, some recipe.

So, Victor, you bring your brilliance.

She stole some recipe you mean.

She found it.

Yeah, well, she found it on the trail of tears or something.

So,

you know, I think it's now four times a week.

And folks, it may soon be six times a week.

You bring your brilliance, but I have to say, I have brought a fundamental unbrilliance weekly.

Now, I want to, every week at this point in the program, I thank people for listening.

And since we've been on national review back in the day, thank you.

If you listen on Google, Stitcher, et cetera, iTunes, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I got an email the other day.

I have to read this from James White of Rockledge, Florida.

Dear Mr.

Fowler, I enjoy your podcast with VDH.

However, you often refer to iTunes and ask for five-star ratings.

Apple moved away from iTunes as a product about two years ago.

The Apple product was renamed to Apple Podcasts for podcasts and Apple Music.

for music respectfully it makes you sound out of touch especially for a younger audience, to persist in using the itunes product name.

iTunes is a product that no longer exists, even on my obsolete MacBook and iPhone.

Sincerely, James.

So, thank you, James.

I appreciate you saying me straight, educating me on this.

It's greatly appreciative.

So, I will say, if you listen on Apple Podcasts,

please consider leaving a review.

Disregard the host, just Victor.

He deserves five stars i hope you will consider that so victor also

we do read the reviews that people leave on apple podcasts here's one i'd like to share it's from j l d sar who writes i became acquainted with bdh years ago on trips to greece and rome his scholarship never ceases to amaze but he is more than a scholar he is a reluctant hero just as in his favorite westerns vanquishing the forces of evil and ignorance with spoken and written word rather than a gun.

Never too long for me.

And you can tell he means it when he signs off with a gentlemanly thank you for listening.

And if I may, one other comment.

This is left by 32 Nash.

Common sense, it's titled.

As an auto mechanic and fleet manager, I am required to work within the bounds of reality daily.

None of the elite's esoteric ideas can be applied here, obviously.

Yeah, that's a good point.

It is so refreshing to hear Mr.

Hansen point out the lack of realism and practical application in the left-wing ideas.

The best of the best, thank you.

32 Nash.

Thank you, 32 Nash.

I think he means that he pulls up a strut and he can't say, this is just a mere construct of a capitalist exploitative society.

It has no real meaning or existence.

Or he can't say, okay, I've got to get this transmission out.

How many people have taken it out this week by race, class, and gender?

And I've got to, he can't do that.

And the people who can do it apparently do it, is what he's saying.

And the funny thing about it is that when the people who do these things need their car, they never go to his garage and say, Well, you know, I want my transmission fixed, but I want to know the race and the class and the gender and the proportional representation of your mechanics.

And before you do that, I want to know your fossil fuel footprint.

As you're doing this, I got to know.

They never do that, do they?

They know the social security status of the illegal domestic they've hired to be the nanning for their kids.

It's strange.

It's all these double rules.

There's rules for all of us, and then there's rules for these people who make the rules.

Whether it's masks or super spreader events or Joe Biden using the fbi as a retrieval service for his wayward progeny my god well that's it comes with the territory right bill de blasio you know does he owe a lot of money to new york city for he does he does usual you know the cops had to go get his laundry or when he moved i thought left-wing people didn't do that i thought they were they loved doing tasks of the proletariat they were men of the people you know it's it's so funny about these people they really i would remind everybody listening that remember remember one thing.

If we try to communicate any idea today,

that for a great majority of the left, progressive ideology, virtue signaling is a psychological mechanism.

It comes out of guilt or tries to square an impossible circle.

It is people who do not feel comfortable with average people.

people who look down on average people, people who even feel guilty about looking down on average people.

So they want to continue their privileged, elite lifestyle, and they build an enormous facade of progressivism and damage millions of people so that they feel good about themselves with one proviso.

These never,

my ideological constructs and pernicious laws, protocols, programs never apply to me or my own family.

And that's all you need to know about the progressive mind.

amen i discovered that about

at 25 i had a professor that told me that i was at uc excuse me about 19 i was at uc santa cruz and i said wow this professor is telling everybody that this is society is falling apart and we need to go out and protest and destroy it and have sex and drugs and he's got three volos

and the professor said to me and he lives at pasta tiempo golf course

And I said, well, how can that be?

And he said, how can it not be, Victor?

Come on.

And so that was my introduction to the world of left-wing hypocrisy and paradox.

It's alive and well, but will be stomped in short order.

Victor, that's all the time we have.

You need to go take a nap.

That's my medical advice.

Oh, good.

I'll take a COVID post-COVID.

Post-COVID dude.

That just wiped out.

I don't know what you call it.

I don't have long COVID yet because I'm just typical.

I haven't hit the two weeks yet.

You share pretty solid wisdom, even in your state of funk.

So thanks for that, for everything, Victor.

And thanks to our listeners who are listening.

Thank you for listening,

I appreciate listening to us.

I hope it's still at a level that I'm capable of.

I'm trying my best.

Thank you for it.

Bye-bye.