Forgetting the Middle Class Is Everything

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Hello, ladies, hello, gentlemen. This is the Victor Davis-Hansen Show.
I'm Jack Fowler, the host. We are recording on Monday, March 28th, 2022.

And this show will be broadcast, put up on the World Wide Web on Tuesday, March 29th. Victor is the namesake star, et cetera, of this great program, which comes a night after the Oscars.

So, you know, everyone's talking about the Oscars this morning, but we're going to talk about fundamental things

that affect that affected. I thought you were going to say we're going to talk about the use of Latinx at the Oscars.

Fundamentals. I still call it Latinx.
I can't get over that. Hey, anyway,

folks know that 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.

So Victor, I think, yeah, as engrossing as what many Americans saw, they didn't actually see it happen live last night because very few people watch the Oscars anymore.

It's another institution through which ideology has marched. Many people have seen the videos and are commenting on it.

I just think one of the funniest things I saw, two things, was a schmack, the best schmachter award, something like that.

That was the headline of the New York Post with a big picture of Will Smith slapping Chris Rock's face.

And then in Will Smith, who won the Oscar for Best Actor after that, he said, I want to be a vessel for love.

Strange way to talk about it. But hey, Victor.
I think we need to talk about the many, many gaffes of Joe Biden. Oh, my God.
I don't have, Jack, I only have 45 minutes an hour. Come on.
Well, be here

five years. Well, let's make a stab at it.
And we'll do that right after this message.

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We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show. So Victor Joe Biden, our president, left the basement in Delaware.
He headed to Europe, to Poland.

And interestingly, when I first, I do not watch his speech as he was giving it, or nor did I see any, I didn't watch a replay of it.

But the first thing I saw was on Twitter, people like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot were comparing Biden's speech to Kennedy at the Berlin Wall or Reagan.

And then what spends, you know, comes out over the next couple of days is just a series of tremendous gaffes.

He called for regime change.

He then talked about, I think this was even prior to the speech, deterrence, right? What were

all these sanctions? They really weren't meant to deter. And then he talked to American troops in Poland as if they were going to see action in Ukraine.
And all these things had to be.

Are you getting into the food too that for the first time in 150 years, we're going to starve to death? I was going to bring up the food

and the way he presented a subcategory of gas.

Well, let's make that a subcategory. Let's talk about national, let's talk about international ones first.

But before I shut up, Victor, because that's people want to hear what you have to say, I do think it's worth noting also, and I say this a little gently, because you lost your daughter, Susanna.

And Joe Biden, we all know, don't we all know that he's lost his children?

Because once again, in his talks in Europe, he had to bring up, up, for whatever reason, about empathy or sympathy, his being the father of, you know, he lost children.

I just find it, I don't know, I find it troubling that this is a constant go-to for him in the midst of everything else. So,

I think that's a good point.

I lost a sister,

was born before me. My mother had German measles.
And my parents, I always followed their,

don't mention the loss of a child unless somebody brings it up. So when some people ask me about it or it comes up or they'll say something about it, I'm happy to, because I think of her every minute.

So I'm happy to talk about her. But once in a while, I'll mention it, but I don't like to bring it up

su espante on my own initiative. And I know what he, I know he's, I feel bad because that was the so-called proverbial good son.
that was lost.

And I know that he had brain problems. It's a larger issue, Jack, because I came, I'll give you one example.
I came from graduate school at 25 and a half right back to the farm.

And one of the reasons I did was the farm needed some help. I had a brother who was working very hard and a cousin, and I wanted to join them.
Times were not so good.

But I also had a 90-year-old grandmother who was living in this house I'm speaking that's, you know, 3,000 square foot all alone with a, you know, completely Alzheimer's.

And so for three years, we took care of her. And I know what that is like to be around somebody who is losing cognitive ability.
It's very sad.

It can be cruel, especially when the person accentuates traits prior to dementia. I was lucky in the sense that my grandmother was a very sweet person and she was a pioneer.

She came to California, you know, in 1899, I think. to my grandfather, married my grandfather.
So we're very poor and she worked at his little apricot, my great-grandfather's apricot farm here.

But my point is this, is that I'm trying to be sensitive to these problems that Biden has, that he, I don't want to make fun of somebody's cognitive decline.

I don't want to make fun of somebody who had a tragedy.

But there's a point when his tragedies, and I think that's your point, Jack, they start to impair the governance of this country and they endanger us.

And so when he starts talking about American troops going into Ukraine, even if it's inadvertently, or even if he's in another world, and you have a madman or a clever man, whichever take yours is, a Wiley SOB coyote or a nut in Putin.

I don't, you know, we can just debate those exegesis, but my point is this.

And he said that he would use tactical nuclear weapons if there were foreign troops in Ukraine formally, and he says they're going to go there.

Or

he says that he, after everybody in his team for for months has said that the sanctions would deter Russia and now he says they have no

I mean and that just tells Putin well they don't believe that they're going to deter me maybe they're going to drop them who knows and when you go on like this it impairs everybody he's not just impaired he's impairing people and he's getting very dangerous as for his megaphones I mean I know I've met these people you're talking about and Look, when Reagan said, tear down this wall, I think that's the point of reference that he was Reagan S.

Of course, they hate Reagan now. They used to love him.
Now they hate him.

But that was a careful, considered,

you can read, I think in 1997, Peter Robinson, who was only in his mid-20s, who wrote that line. He wrote a great article in the Weekly Standard, how that came to be.

And when you read the article, I mean, everybody from George Schultz to Jim Bay, all of them didn't want it in there. And they debated and they went back and forth and they talked about it.

And it was deliberate.

it wasn't spontaneous and reagan was a very strong deterrent president he pushing missiles in germany he wasn't an appeaser like biden so the force multiplying effect of we're going to remove you or you're going to be removed or my god when you're weak again that's that corn pop talk with carrying a twig, which is a force multiplier.

It's very dangerous. And it's not anywhere related to Reagan.
Reagan was a tough president. He didn't say, you're going to tear down.
He said, tear down this wall.

And he said it in a way that just opened up. He didn't say anything about the Soviet Union.
He said, your troops that are expeditionary troops forcing the German people to live under your boot.

You know, he didn't say, Mr. Gorbachev, leave the country.
And so there's a, and I think this is really important, Jack. In the Russian mind, there is a periphery.

We don't quite know where it is, a borderline, where beyond that border, whether it's 1920 invasion of Poland or it's going into afghanistan in 1980 or it's going into ukraine in full i'm not talking about quick you know crimea uh just operations like that but i mean full-scale land invasions against determined forces are what we could get maybe back to finland and november of 1939 to april of 1940 the red army the soviet army the russian army whatever manifestation it functions under

depending on its particular, it does not fight well. It does not fight well.
But

if you penetrate a particular border, whether you're Charles XII from Sweden or you're Napoleon on your way to Moscow or your army group north, center, and south going in and Operation Barbarossa, you don't do well going into Russia.

Because there's something about the Russian people, when they feel their space is violated, they act in a very aggressive way.

And so what Biden, unlike Reagan, Reagan was talking what Russia was doing outside the borders. This is my windy point, Jack.

Biden was talking about interfering into the affairs of Mother Russia at its heart in the Kremlin and telling the Russian people that their president, who's very popular now, because they thought at least he was until last week, they're telling him he's got to be removed.

That's insane. Insane.
And so he's dangerous.

And I think what's going to happen, Jack, we're getting to the point step by step moment by moment gaffe by gaff that there's going to be the politicos they're going to call in the wall street guys they're going to call in silicon valley they're going to call in their brothers or wives their husbands they being the biden team that work in the media then they're going to call in a few you know Hollywood people, foundation people, a few bankrupt academics.

They're all going to get together and they're going to say, what do we do about Joe? And then they're going to, and they're going to say, well,

he could get us all killed. Obama will say, I could lose my brand new Hawaiian estate.
It's my third mansion. I don't want to lose that.

And some Jamie Dimon can say, this guy is going to bankrupt my billions. And then Michael Bloomberg can say,

I don't want to lose $70 billion.

And then somebody else will say, how about my China investments, Bill Gates? And so they're going to say, this guy is. going to pull the house down on everybody.

And then they're going to game it out, Jack. And somebody's going to say, well, you want Kamala? I mean, she looks like she would just be worse.

And then somebody would say, well, she doesn't pull as bad as Jack. And I'd rather have somebody who's incompetent and cognizant than dangerously.
And then somebody said, well, what after her?

What if we put her in? And they said, look at Nancy Pelosi, she's next. And then somebody will chime out, yeah, but Chuck Schumer's fourth.

So they don't have a lot of good. good alternatives and they don't have a spiral agno yet.
If right now,

some DA that's pretty much crooked, and I don't want to say all DAs are crooked, but a federal attorney we've seen are highly politicized. That's what I meant by crooked.

Somewhere, somewhere, Jack, trust me, there is a federal attorney looking at Camilla Harris's bank records, everything.

And they're thinking, if we can just get rid of this woman, we can appoint a new vice president, and then we can get rid of Joe.

Victor, let's move on and talk about a piece you wrote last week for VictorHanson.com. Again, I'd like to remind our listeners that there is a tremendous amount of original content you write there.

It's called Ultra. You can read it if you subscribe, and a subscription is $5

for a month, first month, $50 for a year. And you'll also find links there for any number of Victor's books, including The Dying Citizen.

Victor, one of the pieces you wrote, this is part one, part two

has not been published yet. It's called Bidenism Grows Toxic.
Would you like to talk a little bit about that before we move on to talk about food disasters?

Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about this for a year, but it's starting to get cumulative, force multiplying, to use that word again.

And it's toxic. It's toxic, toxic.
Nothing he says has any credibility now.

So when Peace says something like the gaps that you about Putin leaving or we're having troops in Ukraine shortly, they're going to see things, or deterrence does or does not work, et cetera.

Then people have to adjust to that. And how they've adjusted is, I'm not going to listen to that guy.
He's compromised, just not going to listen to him.

And then he's not a sweet, he's not suffering, Jack, from a sweet dementia.

He's suffering from a line dog face pony soldier, fat, junkie, you ain't black dementia. And that's

another force multiplier that he's not nice the way he grimaces almost reptilian like he gets up to that podium and he says hey you're playing a game with me

and that's why everybody uses that that simile of get off my grass you know you and i've talked about that

where when you get old and you lose cognitive functions you fixate on the lawn and little kids that are mocking you you think and you yell come out of your thing and scream at them and they and then they throw grass at you or something i don't know but that's what he is and that decline is now starting to affect everything.

I have a piece today in American Greatness about the descent into madness. Madness is when you have an ideology that is so rigid, it will bump up against reality.
And then they war.

And the result of it is the solution is sheer madness.

So when the left wants power, and they have to have power, but they're so obnoxious and they're so mean-spirited and their agendas are so toxic that that very advocacy loses unpopular support.

Madness follows.

And I quoted the Bridge on the River Kwai. Remember that movie by David Lee, great movie with Bill Hold of the End? Yes.

Colonel Nicholson tries to stop the British commandos who are trying to stop him from building a first-rate engineering bridge.

It's supposed to show the Japanese that British discipline and morale, even as... prisoners of wars is superior to Japanese.
And then he ends up killing, getting killed, the commandos.

And only by an accident does he fall on the plunger that blows up the bridge. But my point is, it's madness.
I think the doctor in the movie ends up by saying madness, madness.

So this is what we're dealing with. And I'll just give you two quick examples.

If you believe that you have staked your life, your career, your integrity to this green, insane lobby, and you cannot tell Texans and Alaskans and North Dakotans to drill or frack, or you've told Linden agencies, don't give them any money.

No way are we going to have the Keystone XL pipeline. We're just not going to happen.
We're not going to have new leases for fracking either.

If you believe all that, and then you're confronted with the fact that that advocacy has dropped us by 2 million barrels a day in a tight market, and the failure to increase by a million or so barrels in a tight market, and you won't change, and yet you know that that shortage is empowering Iran Iran and Venezuela and Russia and the Middle East.

You know that, and yet you won't change, and you don't know what to do that you've empowered Putin by greenlighting the Nordstrom II pipeline, as Biden did when he canceled Trump's sanctions on it, but you'll cancel Keystone.

and you'll cancel the East Mediterranean pipeline that Israel, Cyprus, and Greeks, who are allies, are trying to bring 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas to a needy Europe, then it's madness.

So what you're basically doing is you're telling your friends in the United States and your allies in the Mediterranean, you

are not going to pump, deliver that dirty, toxic, hot, terrible, filthy, grimy fuel, whether to Europe or to the United States. But that fact alone will lose me the midterms.

So therefore, I'm going to our arch enemies in Venezuela or Iran or Russia, and I'm going to tell the Germans, you've got to import on that filthy, dirty fuel from Russia, and you've got to give them a billion dollars a day.

That's maybe Europe's total tab. And then we've got to tell

these countries, you're going to make a lot of money because we won't get get our hands dirty. That is madness

and

you know we've seen it before and al gore it manifests itself as hypocrisy and al gore lecturing us that earth is in the balance and selling that bankrupt failed cables tv show to al jazeera which is funded by fossil fuels mcgutter or alexander mayorkis you know our dhs remember that he has opened the borders wide open Joe Biden told late last summer, he said to our brave border patrol, some of the most heroic people in the world, when they were on horses as they were trained to ride up and down the shore to deter people from coming, and they have these long reins because anybody's been on a horse when they're splashing water or light hits the water or people are screaming, you need to hit it all down from the back of the horse to the front.

My point is this, without any hesitation, Joe Biden said that these people are going to pay. They're going to pay.
We're going to be just like he did with Jesse Smollett. No

intelligence, no investigation. Mallorca said those people.
Okay.

And now what's happening, Jack? What's happening is we've had 2 million people cross the border. It is the most unpopular of all, even more so than the economic policies of this failed administration.

And guess what? They are massing. They being illegal aliens, they're massing at the borders.
And they're going to come in at the rate of, in February, it was 170,000.

We're going to get over 2 million and they are panicked that this thing's going to hit right as the midterm seats up campaign. So what are they doing? They're asking for those people

and the people he damned, that is the board. Would you please volunteer the DHS? We need more volunteers.
Come on, help us. We can't have a bad optic before the midterm.
We want every DHS support.

If you're retired, if you're on leave, just come in on weekends, maybe. Help us.
Help us process, not help us deter these people. Help us process them.

So when CBS News shows a drone picture, they're all in a long line, five miles long in Mexico, and they've got smiles, and there's this orderly process. That's what madness is.
These people are mad.

Yeah, as you end the article, Victor, and that's, again, that's on American Greatness. It's titled, if I may shuffle my papers here, The Sheer Madness of Today's Left.

And it ends with this, put simply, when ideologues demand power, but cannot maintain it politically because they are cruel ideologues that destroy what they touch, expect more of their insanity to follow.

Victor, we're going to talk about the food crisis that Joe Biden and his policies brought about, and that the president commented on himself. And we'll do that right after this important message.

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We're back with the Victor Davis-Hanson show. We're recording on Monday, the 28th, and this show will be broadcast over just the news.
That is our platform on Tuesday, the 29th.

Speaking of platforms, VictorHanson.com, you should visit that. We thank some of our friends

on Facebook. There's the Victor Davis Hansen Fan Club.
You can also find Victor's Morning Cup. Search for it there.
Victor has his own page on Facebook. If you're on Twitter, at vdhanson.com.

Victor's also on Parlor and Getter.

So look for it. Victor, there's a piece I shared with you.
You read these on your own anyway. Bidenflation.
That's what at Breitbart they're calling it.

Biden inflation strains food banks as food insecurity rises.

The president spoke about this. not only about the food banks, but yep, yeah, we're going to have shortages.
Kind of a callous way and kind of a non,

here's, I think, where you want some presidential reassurance. Although, we're going to have food shortages because of the policies of Joe Biden.
And God knows what's going to happen weather wise.

I just heard as we talked before the show, thankfully you're receiving some rain there in the Central Valley.

I don't know if it'll be enough, but there are other factors in the world that lead to this. And yeah, this is a brave new world for America.

We grew up thinking the shelves were full. And that's just because of Biden policies, because of, you know, boats floating out in the ocean, a number of factors.
We're facing very different times now.

Victor, you have any thoughts about this

crisis. I do.
And we have rain here finally, but it's not going to be enough to stop the drought. But this governor and the governor before him,

Jerry Brown. and Gavin Newsome have completely canceled the third stage of the tertiary California water project.

So when we get these rare storms, we have 10 million acre feet that this water could be stored at the los banos grandes at temperance flat at the sites reservoir project they were all canceled why were they canceled because these insane people do not want water for recreation they do not want it for power generation they do not want it for flood control and they surely do not want it for irrigation for agriculture what do they want it for they want to let out the Sacramento and to a lesser extent, the San Joaquin Rivers to go in the Delta, ostensibly to save the Delta three-inch smell, but that's not even.

They know now that it's evasive species are eating them or their own sewage districts have spiked the nitrogen content of the bay and the delta.

So why are they doing it for some crazy 19th century dream of $50,000 of salmon going up and then they can go to their cocktail parties in Woodside and Atherton and Malibu and say, wow, this is so neat.

I'm saving the salmon. And then they're going to go pay enormous amounts for food.
And they don't care. They're like Biden.
They have no empathy for people.

And so I never thought we'd have a food shortage. We may not, but the president basically doesn't care.
When he says there's going to be a food shortage, your operative wordjack was nonchalant.

He doesn't care. He's not going to have a food shortage.
You should go into Walmart and see these. When he said that, I went into two big food markets.

And in our community, they have these big sacks, you know, rice and beans. They're very inexpensive and they're kind of bulk purchases, like the kind you see at Costco.
They were sold out.

So I think people took him seriously and they thought, you know what? I need staples. But it brings up finally very quickly another issue.
And I think this is very important for our audience.

As I said before, you can't eat Twitter. You can't drive Facebook.
You can't build a house out of Google Parts. So, this country has been so well served by the muscular classes.

We don't give them any respect.

Farmers, electricians, plumbers, sheetrockers, frackers,

power line people that get up on those polls. They're what make this country and their executives and their corporate people who know how to invest in these very vital industries.

But somehow they were so successful. They put this country on autopilot and then it grew.
And then it takes in 2 million people a year illegally. And everybody said, we're so wealthy, we can do it.

And all of a sudden, guess what? The roads are not fixed. We can't keep up with bridges.
We can't keep up with food. We don't have oil because we don't honor those professions.
We don't sit down.

Governors in blue states don't sit down and say, There are 172,000 people coming from Mexico. There is a 90,000 increase in this population in this county.
Okay, titans of industry.

Okay, government, let's work together and get increased power. Let's get more gas.
Let's get more natural fuels. Let's get, they don't do that.
They just go, eh, that's our birthright.

And whoever these right-wing people are that are polluting the earth, we better shut them down. And then all of a sudden there's no food or there's no natural gas or there's no oil.

And part of it gets back to education, because if you think about it, Jack, half the country, 1.7 trillion and hog, is going to to university.

About 40% of those people are taking worthless majors, sociology, environmental studies, gender studies, race studies.

I'm sorry, they're not very valuable because they do not inculcate empirical reasoning. They do not improve your communication skills, English pro style.
They're therapeutic.

And we're spending a lot of money and taking a lot of young people out of the workforce. And then we come to a situation like this, and we're short people

in every aspect. I just want to finish my rant, Jack, with one anecdote.
So I have a problem.

I mentioned this 150-year house has been completely remodeled, but the innards were not done first because they were so expensive. So I put that off for 40 years.

I'm talking about the plumbing, the wiring, the roofing. That's all being done at once because it's basically dangerous.

And so I had all these plans I drew out about where to bring conduits and where to bring water, new water. And there's a local farmer who's very successful.
And he's a well driller.

He has every aspect of business. He's from India.
He's absolutely brilliant guy. And I was showing him all this.
I swear to God, Jack, he just looked at it. He's a farmer.
He's a business person.

He drills well.

He looked at this and he said, no, this thing goes here. This thing goes here.
This thing goes here. And this can't go.
And he didn't know my house. He didn't know any of it.
He just looked at it.

And just listening to him, he probably saved, I don't know, 200 feet worth of conduit, another 200 Schedule 40 pipe. He said this pressure.
It was like a maestro at a symphony.

It was just clear after he said this. And so I'm getting that when I talk to these people, they're very intelligent.
And when I go to university campuses, I'm afraid to say that they're not.

I mean, not the students, but the professors and the lawyers and the people who were behind the Biden economic plan.

If we put one fracker, one fracking executive into the administration, or we had some of these people, that was why Trump was successful because he may have had bombasts and all that, but he did know how to build things, make deals.

And I cannot stress that enough. This practical knowledge is more difficult, more difficult than theory.
You give me a topic on a book.

I'm writing a book about the end of everything, about how wartime devastation destroys an entire civilization. Thebes, Tenochetlan, the Aztecs' capital, or Constantinople, May 29th, 1453.

I can do that, but you apply those abilities to things that count more.

Like, what's the best way to solve a roofing problem on 150-year-old? Where would you bring the water into a house that has poor water pressure? How do you fix a landscaping problem?

Whether you should have a 220 amp box or 400 amp box, or which that I can't do. And I don't think I'd be very good at it, even if I was trained in those disciplines.

Or if I talk to these guys in business and they tell me how they invest or they do this. It's a dog eat dog world out there.
And it does create people who.

succeed or very skilled. It's not like a tenured professor with a lifetime contract.

I know that I beat that dead horse, but this country will be saved if we can recalibrate our emphasis on our value system and start giving esteem and honor, which are very important in a democracy, a rule of people who have honor.

And we need to really adjust our value system. People who can do things as a person

who can get a sheepskin on the wall. And that's exactly what Barack Obama, he was the first president, if you remember, with his Klinger statement, and then Joe the Plumber and Spread the Wealth.

And

who really, he was a so, what was he, a social organizer or activist? And he had a

community organizer. Yeah.
Rudy Giuliani really tore him apart in 2008. But he was very glib.

He was eloquent. He was charismatic.
He was black. He had an exotic name.
And it all pushed every left-wing button. But you asked that guy to do work and he said, remember he said, my biggest problem?

He was asked, what's your biggest fault? I'm lazy. I'm bringing this up because it showed him the other day at his third mansion, Jack.
Remember, he's got the Calorama, Washington estate.

He's got the Martha Vineyard perched on a ledge over the ocean, which according to Barack Obama will soon be flooded.

Well, he loves these seaside places that global warming, he says, we're going to raise it and you shouldn't live anywhere near. So he's got one in Hawaii, a huge mansion he's building.

And of course, he doesn't care about green laws, or that's for us, stupid people like us and those listening. We're the dumb people.
So the environmentalists are angry about his draining system.

And there's a picture of him. And he's talking to all these people.

And it's Barack Obama, the estate owner. And he's got all of these contractors.
And it's very interesting to watch him. He looks like a fish out of water.

And once, you know, he can guilt trip all of the wealthy people to give him a $50 million, $100 million

Netflix idea contract for his ideas, or Michelle can write another therapeutic book about how life was unfair to her. And that will earn.

And I admire that because they have a way of making millions of dollars on the therapeutic guilt of a particular bicultur elite that likes to pay for penance. That's fine.

But you put them like any other elite out in the real world and they're helpless.

And the way that we're getting this apocalyptic age, we're starting to see people emerge from the shadows that save us and the people we've honored and respected.

When you mentioned the Oscars, when I saw that, you know, it's gone from about 50 million, is that right, Jack? Or no, 20 million, 25 million audience, or maybe it was 40 million.

And I think it was colossal once a year. Yeah, 1979, I think, was the heyday, maybe almost 50 million.
And it's down to what, two or three million at most. Yeah.

And when you see somebody turn that that once you know used to see henry fonda sydney poitier or all these great actors and they were all dignified i'm not that their lives weren't messy i understand that but for that occasion people acted with dignity and you see a guy hitting somebody on the stage and saying the f word out loud or worse and then almost from the clips that i saw almost every single person talked about race.

Oh, it's good to see the Latinx faces and all this. They have just alienated everybody and they've destroyed that institution.
And we're supposed to honor all these people on all this social media.

And yet, I they make crappy movies on top of it all. They make crappy movies on top of it all.
And you know what? Just as I'm going on a tangent, but I had to go to Phoenix this weekend.

I took a taxi. I took an Uber.
I talked to people in the hotel. I talked to people,

baggage guys, and then it just confirmed what I'm hearing and I see every day from people who are now working on the home and all this.

There is a, I don't know what we're going to call it, Jack. It's a tsunami rising.
People are angry. I had a guy in an Uber thing.
I thought he was going to explode.

An immigrant from Albania, wonderful guy. And he was telling me all about the fuel has done to his business and all about the people are on edge.
Something I think you listeners, can't you sense it?

I don't know what it is. I've never felt and seen anything like it.
It's like a collective anger that's going to manifest itself, I hope, peacefully in the midterms.

But people are so angry when you take away their ability to travel, to turn on their thermostat, you threaten them with not being able to have food.

You have a war when your president suggests one day that he's going to remove the nuclear president of Russia. They just can't believe it.
And they're getting angry. I know that the...

We have a right to teach our children how to perform fellatio, you know, these insanities and destroy the family.

And Leah, you know, the idea that if you suggest that a man with a huge muscular skeletal frame that has gone through puberty with plus 800 testosterone level with bulging muscles, who's a mediocre swimmer among males, and you just say, he's taking female hormones.

So he's a woman. That's what he said he is.

And if you don't accept that after 100 years and after all that struggle to give women equity in sports, and then all of a sudden a small minority in the country, this activist group says, if you don't accept him as fully female,

then you are a bigot. You're a monster, even though he's destroying female sport.
This is what I'm talking about, insanity.

And I think people are going to react in a way that the Democratic Party has no idea. I don't mean people like you and me, or many of our listeners.
I'm talking about Hispanic people.

I'm talking about Black people. I'm talking about immigrants.
They don't like this. They do not like, because you know why they don't like it? For all the talk about the left, they're people.

And their race ultimately is incidental, not essential to who they are. What's essential to them is, as it is to every human on the planet, four or five things.
Can I get shelter?

Can I afford Romex at $150 a spool? Can I buy a sheet of plywood for $90?

No. Can I get in my car and pay $150 in my pickup? No.
Can I turn the thermostat up to $70 or $69? No. I can't afford it.
Well, can I go to Costco and get all the food I want? No.

Can I buy a nice just once a week, maybe just a ribeye steak or a nice tri-tip? No.

And that means that their life has radically changed.

So, and the green people, when they want an answer for it, some person tells them, remember all these people are telling them now?

And I guess it's these glossy magazines, oh, well, become a vegetarian. Oh, take Uber.
Don't drive, sell your car. And that's from very wealthy people.

And so I think that the middle classes are going to go into open revolt. Right.

And Victor, we have to move on, but I'll add, especially these folks in California, where also your power is going to be turned out intermittently.

I mean, these are the things that were and should should have been thought of as constants in American life. And now they are no more.
And they don't, it doesn't have to be this way.

It didn't have to be this way. And it is this way because of these elites.
But, Victor, we're going to take a little break here.

We're going to hear a couple more messages and then we're going to have briefly, our final topic is going to be about the Marine Corps and changes that are happening there.

And we're going to do that right after these messages.

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We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson Show recording on Monday, the 28th of March. This program airing on the 29th.

Victor, before we get into the Marines, I did want to say that you mentioned the actor.

Actually, his name is James Donald. He was the actor from Bridge on the River Choir who ended the movie with...
Madness, Madness. And it's funny.
He was a doctor in that movie.

And he also played a doctor in a lot of other big Hollywood movies. King Rat, in which we serve.
I loved him as an actor. So anyway, and that was a great movie.

I caught about, I don't know, half of it this weekend on Turner Classic movies.

Victor, quickly, before we talk about the Marine Corps, and again, last night, while people weren't watching the Oscars, some people were watching you on Mark Levin.

I didn't see it, but it did air last night. And you can tell us briefly what, you know, the main points of what you talked about.
And folks can try and find it on YouTube or on Fox News.

Well, Mark divided his show into three parts. He did a 20, really good 20-minute minute, or not 20, but whatever that segment would be with commercials.
Then Newt Ginrich did one, and then I did one.

And it was on two topics. Two-thirds was on Ukraine, and the other third was on.
the Supreme Court nomination, which I don't want to talk about.

Sammy and I talked about it, but I mentioned that it was sort of like Soda My Ear, that it's all about dissimulation, that people have to can't say what they believe because what they believe is at odds with 90% of the citizenry.

So they dissimulate.

And if you try to press, you're a racist or a sexist, unless you're, you know, they'll go after, they really hate people like Comey Barrett or Clarence Thomas, but otherwise you're a racist, et cetera.

And then on, it was on Ukraine. And I think what I was trying to suggest is that there's some peripheral fallout about the Ukrainian thing that we haven't really

digested. I really admire Zelensky.
He's up against the wall. I'm not in the conservative camp that thinks, I think that whole system is corrupt, but he doesn't order people to be killed.
And

when you're down to a war, 51% is better than 40% or whatever the margin of difference between the two sides is.

And I know Russia has legitimate concerns, but the fact is that he entered that country and started butchering women and children. And you've got to get him out.

You being the Ukrainians, we have to help them without.

But my other point was we have to be very careful as well, because Zelensky, in his hysterias, and they're justified, will say things like, you haven't done enough. You've got to have a no-fly zone.

And we have to remember, no, we don't. You're not a member of NATO.
We have no treaty with you. We're giving you billions of dollars in aid.
We have given you billion dollars in aids.

And we're not going to send American pilots over the skies of Ukraine to shoot down nuclear power airplanes. And when all these people talk about a no-fly zone, they're historically ignorant, Jack.

We have never had a no-fly zone against a nuclear power. If you think that Berlin airlift was a no-fly zone, it wasn't.

And the only reason we pulled it off, because it ended in August of 1949, just about the time the Soviets got their first bomb. I don't think we would have done that if they'd had the bomb.

We tried something similar in Cuba, and we had to have a compromise where we dismantle nuclear weapons abroad in places like Turkey to get rid of that crisis.

So, my point is that he has to be very careful. And then, finally, he told Israel, and I mentioned that with Sammy very quickly, but he told them that basically, shame on you, you're not sanctioning.

So, a country of 12 million people is supposed to bring down Russia of 140 million. And more importantly, Syria is controlled by Russian aircraft and Hezbollah operates with impunity.

And Putin worked out a deal with the Israelis. If the guys underneath our airplanes attack you, you can go into the air corridor and reply and have deterrence.

And if they sanction Russia, they're going to lose that. And Hezbollah will go crazy.
And then, more importantly, when we talked about madness, Jack, I didn't bring up the obvious example.

Putin, according to Joe Biden, is the following: a bully, a killer, and a butcher. Okay,

fine with me. They all fit.
Then why in the hell, excuse me, why in the world would you

use him, i.e. Russia, as the interlocutor of the Iran deal? That is, to negotiate a settlement between Iran and us?

Is it because you have no foreign policy achievements and you want something before the midterm? Yes.

Is it because you want to fulfill Barack Obama's hysterical, crazy, nutty dream of a Shia, Persian, Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas Crescent from Tehran to the Mediterranean to balance our allies, like the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Jordanians, and the Israelis?

Yes, it's crazy. But when you use Russia as our diplomat, and that's what they're doing, after you've said that they're horrible people and they're killers, well, what does that mean?

And more importantly, all you're doing is just like Obama did in 2012 and 13 and 14, 15, when they turned the Middle East over to Russia. They hadn't been there, Jack, in 40 years.

And all of a sudden, John Kerry, I don't know what to do with WMD. Oh my God, we gave a red line.

But everybody knows that Obama's a fraud when he gives, well, you start moving that stuff around, that chemical. That's a red line for me.
And then they did it. And he didn't do anything.

And then they thought that they were going to do something. And, you know, Susan Rice was saying, oh, we took care of the problem.
They didn't. So they brought in Putin.

And he was supposed to do our dirty work. Well, he did.
He just went into Syria and flattened Aleppo and took it over. And now he won't leave.

But my point is that when you bring in the Russians to the Middle East, they control things. So now the Israelis must be thinking the following.

Okay,

these crazy Americans, after demonizing and raging Putin, have put him now in Tehran as the guarantor of Iranian oil and sanction-busting commerce.

And they have 7,200 nukes.

So Iran or Russia, if we sanction them, if we sanction Russia, Putin will call up Bennett and he will say the following, okay, sanction me.

But this nuclear stuff, these stupid Americans were dumb enough to trust me. They're going to get a bomb.

And I want to tell you that if you try to preempt, I can't guarantee what will happen to your capital. That's what they're dealing with.

So when Zelensky starts to lecture the world about Ukraine, I agree that this should do everything without starting World War III, but I do not want to start World War III.

And he says things and he makes accusations that have implications for hundreds of millions of people. And he's got to be very careful.
I wish, I wish, I wish.

to quote Denzel Washington and Man on Fire, I just wish we had more time, Mr. Zelensky, but you didn't.

And you could have been getting stockpiling more and more weapons in September, October, and November. And you should call up the Biden administration, who was very close to Ukraine.

Remember, your Ukrainian ambassador in 2016 had attacked Donald Trump in an op-ed. And Mr.
Vinman was very busy impeaching through the whistleblower, helping to impeach Donald Trump.

But you have connections in Washington. You could have said, sell us, sell us, give us, give us.
This didn't have to happen. You could have had a determined.

I'm not blaming Zelensky, but I am blaming the Americans in the West for not supplying him and him for assuring them that Russia was not going to invade.

So that's something to keep in mind when he tells the West they should be ashamed of themselves. Germany's not going to be, because it won't frack or it won't drill or it's got green insanity.

It's not going to be warm. It can't drive.
It needs fuel.

And Israel needs its protection. And the United States has interests that are not absolutely identical with bringing back all of Ukraine at the expense of a nuclear war, if that's what it takes.

Victor, if there is a war, and we only have about five minutes left here, but no matter what war we would have, one would expect the United States Marine Corps to be involved in it.

And of late, there's been some articles percolating about how the Marine Corps as a division is being transformed.

Tanks will no longer be part of the, I think it's a 2030 plan. Big West, our friend Big West has written about this in various places, so have others.

But there are big changes coming for the Marine Corps, probably already enacted, which will for my quick reading of stuff, depleting the actual manpower, not only the number of divisions, but the Marines in each division, no tanks.

It's troubling a lot of people. I don't, I can imagine, you know, folks who've served a career in the Marine Corps, nobody necessarily appreciates radical change.

But to me, it sounds like radical change that is troubling for the defense of America. What are your thoughts about what's going on with the Marine Corps? Well, I think it's terrible what's going on.

And we got to remember the history of the Marine Corps, Jack. The reason that the Marine Corps insisted on an independent air arm, and they have these large carriers, I think there's nine of them now.

Maybe there's 10, 30 to 50,000 tons, 40 at, maybe it's 45 that have vertical takeoff and landing Marine aircraft. And they do have their own tanks.

I mean, they were the last ones, I think, to get the Abrams. They had the old upgraded patent tanks.
But my point is, that has a history behind it. When they were in Guadalcanal

and a series of the five battles of the Java Sea, except off Guadalcanal, there were moments when the Marines needed to be supplied and they had their backs to the wall and the U.S.

Navy was not able to do it or felt that they couldn't do it or felt in a cost-benefit analysis, it wasn't wise. When you look at Tarawa and

troops that got off too early that were dumped in the tides, or when you were looking at Okinawa and there were complaints about Army command over the Marines and their lack of air support in key places, or they wanted to have amphibious landings around the Shuri Line in Okinawa or go to the Choison Reservoir and Marine divisions that were put under Army command by General Allman.

It should be seamless.

But the point I'm trying to make is the Marine Corps, because it's such an expeditionary force and it's so autonomous, they don't feel they, for the last 70 years, don't 80 years, don't feel they can rely on other services because it's not a uniform, seamless military.

It never was. Each service branch has certain initiatives and responsibilities and self-survival instincts.
So they feel that when they get in a jam,

they can't count on the calling up the army and say, can you bring some Abram tanks? And they say, no, I'm sorry, we're fighting over here.

Or they can't call in the Air Force and they'll say, I'd love to give you support, but you know what?

There's too much radar there and their air defenses are just not going to do it so they want to be able to bring in marine armor and marine planes and they will do everything to protect their own that's sort of what we're getting at and so when you say to them you're going to dismantle that autonomy and that's what we're talking about I just think it's very dangerous.

And somewhere in all of this, Jack, is this wokeness as well when you start looking at any time in the current Pentagon when there is a move to reduce the potential for lethality, firepower, muscularity, then there's an agenda behind it.

And it's usually a diversion of resources to particular types of training that are added to that's more of a social justice than a military efficacy and deterrent.

Victor, is the current commandant of the Marine Corps of a type like the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Mark Milley. Mark Milley.

Can I just interrupt really quickly, Jeremy? Yeah. Yeah.
You think Mark Milley is calling up his Russian counterpart right now and saying, you know what?

If our commander-in-chief threatens in any way that could cause a nuclear war, we're going to have challenge, and I'm going to tip you off.

So if Joe says he's going to send troops into Ukraine, I'm going to call you and warn you.

I guess he is. He did.

That's a great point, Victor. That is a great point.
Well, anyway, I mean, a quick analysis of the Commandant of the the Marine Corps. I don't know much about him.
And I've known commandants before.

I know, you know, I've known Jim Mattis. I know people disagree with him politically, but I have had the highest respect for him.
I think he's a patriot, a warrior. And

all the Marines I've met. I taught at the U.S.
Naval Academy for a year. Gosh, I had students like.
Alex Martin, second lieutenant. I mean, they went through hell in Iraq.

I have a lot of former students. I'm named after Victor Hansen Jr.,

who was killed on Okinawa. He was a corporal in the 6th Marine Division.
I wrote about it in Ripples of Battle, that battle at the Sugarloaf Hill.

And I grew up with the idea that the Marine Corps was a pretty wonderful place.

My grandfather, who was Swedish, you know, he had a very thick accent.

And he was kind of Victor's father. Victor's father died at birth.
And he said, you're very lucky to be named after him. Don't disappoint us.
And he died on Okinawa. He was very angry about it.

I don't want any of you ever going to fight in the Marines.

But that was supposedly acknowledgment of how effective they were and dangerous and lethal they were and how much sacrifice they gave the country.

So I don't want to criticize any of the particular people who make the decision. I'm just saying historically it's a bad idea, a terrible idea.

And the Marine Corps needs all of the support and autonomy and independence and firepower possible.

And everybody I've met, everybody says it's a brutalizing experience, but all the people, and we have a huge number of Mexican-American people who fought in the Marine Corps, some of the bravest people in the world.

And every one of them that I've grown up with that has been in the Marine Corps, I think has been a positive experience for them. They're very patriotic and they're very

proud to have been a Marine. Victor, we've just about run out of time.
Let's end this. I just want to encourage our listeners to visit thecenterforcivilsociety.com.
That's where I hang my hat.

I'm the director of that. We are trying to strengthen civil society.
And also, if you go to civilthoughts.com, sign up free.

I write a weekly email newsletter that sends 12 recommended readings, no strings attached. Again, victorhanson.com.
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And then you'll be able to access the many ultra articles Victor writes.

And on the ultra, that was Sammy Wink's idea. And she did a lot of investigation.
She wanted to do something a little different. So she thought that a $5

paywall donation per month would be less than other websites.

And then she said to me, being Sammy, instead of using the usual eight to a thousand words of material that you pay for, a special ultra content, why don't you try to do 24, 2,500 words?

So we try to offer, I try to write three, 800 word columns behind the paywall for $5. So our effort was to try to give the reader who's been so loyal to us a lot of value.

And if it is valuable, but the idea that there's much more behind the paywall than there is in front of it. I have two articles per week in front of it, but three that are behind it.

Actually, it's about the same amount of words, about 2,500, sometimes longer. I think this week it's longer.
And then $5, I think, is competitive with other news groups. So we're trying to do that.

And if anybody wants to help out, they're welcome to pay more, but that's not necessary. Well, Victor, thanks for that.

And for those who listen to the show on itunes, consider leaving a five-star rating because of the wisdom Victor shares. We do read all the comments, and here's one.
Hey, Victor's father was right.

That's the title of this comment. Dear Mr.
Hansen, your father was right about Swedish steel. In 1974, my father bought, used a Husky 22.

For those who don't know what that is, it's a Huskevarna chainsaw. My late father said that saw would outlive us both.
Well, we're halfway there. I'm now 64 years old, and I can't kill this saw.

A fresh sharp chain, every quarter of wood, you're good to go. If it's still running after I pass, my son wants to send it to the factory headquarters in Stockholm with his grandpa's story.

Ah, a father's wisdom and ah, that Swedish steel. From your number one fan from the great state of Maine, God bless Mrs.
Cochise Vet U.S. Army.
Thanks, Mrs.

Cochis, and thanks for vindicating Victor's father's

preference for Swedish steel. Thanks, Victor, for sharing all the wisdom today.

And we will be back soon with another episode of the Victor Davis-Hansen Show. Thank you.
Thank you, Jack, and thank you, everybody, for listening.