In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler weigh the four finalists from their Sour 16 troubling issues, with Hanson explaining what they all have in common.
This content was recorded prior to Victor Davis Hanson’s major surgery on Dec. 30.
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
JACK FOWLER: We had 16 issues that were troubling, and we had head-to-head battles between them, and we’re down to four issues. And the out I want to give you, Victor, is maybe consider these things like the horsemen of the apocalypse. There are four of them that are riding shoulder-to-shoulder as opposed to one.
Maybe you don’t want to go that way. Maybe there is one of these—they are the ruin of cities, the destruction of the nuclear family, the ignorance of children following 16 years of education in America, and the growth in secularism or irreligiosity.
Maybe there’s one of those issues that you find most troubling, but are they all sort of equal in your eyes? What’s your take on this?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: They’re all part of the same monster. They’re all components. The lack of education means that things don’t work. And the blue state, blue city ideology politically ensures that they don’t work. And the morality behind that without a divine sanction shows that they’re not going to work.
We could go on to all 16. It’s all part of a component. It’s like the hind legs, the horns of the Revelation beast, you know what I mean? It’s the tail. And it’s a combination in these blue states where the schools do not train the people. The family is completely destroyed. People are atheist.
And then the blue city tries to address those pathologies by giving, giving, giving, and taking from somebody else who’s productive and the productive people leave, and so a [Chicago] Mayor [Brandon] Johnson or Gavin Newsom or Jasmine Crockett or Elizabeth Warren they’re just the same person with a thousand faces. They really are.
They must have a factory somewhere that makes these people because they all are privileged, whether political power or financial power, and they feel that they want to experiment on the body politic like it’s a white rat, we’re lab rats.
Let’s just try, I know, we’ll mandate mileage, and Ford will have to spend $30 billion on the Ford Lightning, and then we’ll tell them to bill it that it’s a wonderful truck, and then people will buy it.
They’ll pay $80,000, and then they’ll discover that when they’re out on the trail, and they’re loading it up with camping equipment and pulling a boat, it doesn’t get 300 miles. It gets more like 100.
And now we’re going to cancel that $33 billion project.
That’s what they’re going to do. And all of these experiments don’t work. The windmills don’t work. The solar panels are not cost-to-benefit efficiently.
And maybe fusion nuclear power will save us. Maybe more natural gas. Gavin says now he’s going to give 2000 permits. What good would that do, Gavin, if you pump the oil, if you can’t refine it. Especially if you can’t refine it to your very, very, very specific unique one-out-of-50 state requirements for gas.
And you’re going to import gas from Japan probably if you shut down these refineries because there won’t be anybody who can make it because no other state makes it because nobody’s state is as crazy as your state.
And so, all this component we’ve talked to is—I’m not trying to be too depressing on Christmas Eve—but it’s all very worrisome.
But what is good about this country is still the majority. And there’s an antithesis to that.
I try to read the letters as many as can from our viewers and they’re just really heartwarming. “Dear Mr. Hanson, my husband and I worked side-by-side in a factory for 40 years. We bought our house. We have 10 grandkids. My son went to the Gulf War. I went to Vietnam. He went to the Gulf War.”
It’s just really inspirational stories about the people who keep the country going. And it is that model. I think they’re finally saying we’re kind of the proverbial sleeping dragon, and we’ve been poked and poked and poked and poked and ridiculed and made fun of.
We’re sick of the late-night comics, we’re sick of the deplorables, we’re sick that people call us garbage, we’re sick of being called sexist, racist, nativist. We’re not going to listen, we’re not going to take it anymore. And I think that …
FOWLER: Yeah, no more fetal position, yeah.
HANSON: No more fetal positions. Make it all go away.
And then there’s one other element to all of this.
[Donald] Trump, whatever people say about him, I’ve said he’s crude and he’s uncouth, but I mean it in a superficial sense because crudity is being mean to people.
I don’t mean rhetorically. I mean depriving them of economic advantages or getting them blown up in Kabul or not protecting the country’s national interest or a 9.1 inflation rate in one year. That’s cruel. That is cruel. And Trump’s not doing that. And all you have to do is look at the Wall Street Journal and look for the adverb unexpectedly.
And you will see unexpectedly there’s 4.2 growth. Unexpectedly, the inflation rate went down to 2.7. Unexpectedly, most of the jobs that were gained were for citizens and most of the jobs that were lost were for non-citizens.
Unexpectedly, there was a record year in military recruitment. Unexpectedly, there is almost no illegal immigration.
So things are getting very good and I have a feeling that when you combine this calculus of 10 trillion dollars in foreign investment with another 10 trillion in nuclear fusion plants and AI and biotech and all these new technologies that are starting to be reified and the deregulation and tax reductions in the Big Beautiful Bill.
And [Secretary of Interior] Doug Burgum, gosh, I mean, he’s going full blast. And 14 million barrels almost. They’ll get up to 15. That’s incredible.
FOWLER: It’s terrific.
He put out a great analysis of the BS of the wind power the other day. Just really, really quite impressive and almost sinful that these lefties with these turbines, each turbine itself, whatever power could actually generate is less than the power it takes to make the damn thing. So why make it?
HANSON: We just drove back from Stanford on Pacheco Pass, and they’re the biggest turbines I’ve ever seen. It was winter and not one was moving. There was no wind. Nothing. Nada.
And then I’m out at my farm, and I have 44 [solar] panels, and we have had an inversion layer prior to two weeks with no sun. We didn’t see the sun for two weeks. And now we have four days of rain.
And I looked, there’s no generation.
I’m talking to you from the grid and for all the talk about wind and solar, they’re not working in California when it’s an inversion layer and it’s raining.
Right now, we’re dependent on one nuclear plant at Diablo Canyon for 20% and the rest is either imported coal-generated electricity from our neighbors or hydroelectric from Oregon or our own hydroelectric or our own natural gas. That’s it.
It doesn’t work, and I think people will find that out, I hope. And I think we’re going to have an economic renaissance in the first two quarters of next year. I think we’re going to have economic growth well over 4%. I think inflation will be down below 2%.
It’s hard to predict, but I think interest rates are going to fall, and we’re going to see a big—a huge—boom. And we saw this in 2019 and then COVID hit.
And I will guarantee you that the Left will think of something. They’ll either try to shut down the government if they win in the midterm. They’ll try to do something.
But they will not enjoy the bounty that their fellow citizens will have.
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