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(Victor Davis Hanson) Is There Hope for the 'Dying Citizen'? — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:07good evening i'm pete peterson the very
0:09grateful dean of pepperdine's graduate
0:11school of public policy
0:13and it's a delight to welcome you all
0:15back to the california club for our
0:17first big event in three
0:20years
0:21[Applause]
0:26you know i thought for sure it was two
0:28years ago and then when i was looking at
0:29the video from our last large event here
0:32uh sure enough it was 2019 almost to the
0:35day it was early may of 2019 that we
0:38were
0:40last here and so it's just i've been
0:42looking forward to this night for a long
0:45time
0:47uh last time we were here in 2019
0:50we were joined right in this front row
0:53by the person who endowed and named this
0:56lecture series one dr augustus gus
1:00tagliaferri
1:02dr tagliaferri yes
1:05[Applause]
1:07dr tagliaferri passed about a year and a
1:10half ago and so i think it's always
1:14important to remember him
1:16because this
1:18lecture series and we being here in
1:21downtown los angeles
1:23is really out of the support and
1:25inspiration of gus
1:28he endowed this lecture series five
1:30years ago
1:32with the idea that we needed to host
1:34events and bring in nationally
1:36recognized speakers
1:38that could talk about issues of politics
1:41and policy
1:42from a variety
1:44of perspectives and when we started the
1:46original idea was we would do one of
1:48these in the fall and one of these in
1:49the spring semester
1:51we would always do them on campus and
1:54after the first year of doing these back
1:56in 2017 gus pulled me aside and said
2:00i think we need to bring some of this
2:02into downtown los angeles
2:05and sure enough it was his thinking and
2:07understanding that this wasn't just
2:10a light to be held under the bushel of
2:13our gorgeous
2:14campus at pepperdine but to bring these
2:17kinds of events
2:19down here to los angeles because frankly
2:21nobody else is
2:24we are the only academic institution of
2:27our kind that is going to host events
2:29like this
2:30and it's through the gracious support of
2:32people
2:34like us
2:35a true renaissance man a business leader
2:39an entrepreneur
2:41but somebody who i always enjoyed
2:44speaking with because he was always
2:45telling me about the latest book that he
2:47read that i hadn't read yet
2:50and he said we need to get this person
2:52in as a speaker
2:53and one of those people
2:55that he adored and respected is
2:58tonight's speaker
2:59dr victor davis hanson
3:01before we go any further i want to
3:03recognize the persons uh to whom gus has
3:07passed the baton
3:09i'm so delighted to be joined here
3:11tonight by gus's son michael and
3:14daughter karen please join me in
3:16thanking
3:25the idea about coming back to los
3:27angeles after three years and bringing
3:29dr hanson back
3:31rose in a
3:33conversation over coffee at starbucks in
3:36agoura hills with you michael
3:39last fall and so to be back here tonight
3:43and to realize this
3:45and to continue this work is just really
3:48so great to work with you so great to
3:50work with you
3:52this is our 25th anniversary at the
3:53school of public policy and for our 25th
3:56anniversary year the theme that we have
3:59chosen is based on one of pepperdine's
4:02university's affirmation statements
4:05that statement reads as follows
4:08that freedom
4:09whether spiritual intellectual
4:12or economic is indivisible
4:15at the school of public policy we
4:17believe firmly in america's founding
4:20principles and come what may on other
4:22college campuses
4:24we will stand for these principles
4:27now and for as far as the eye can see we
4:30think it's important to prepare leaders
4:33for politics and policy
4:35that understand america's founding
4:37principles not only as historical facts
4:40but can apply them as being extremely
4:42relevant to today's
4:44policy and politics
4:46debates
4:49thank you
4:50[Applause]
4:54a little bit about the logistics for our
4:56taglia fairy lectures you will note that
5:00uh along with
5:02this uh brochure program piece for
5:05tonight you have also received a
5:08question card after we welcome up dr
5:12hansen to speak tonight
5:14we will
5:16enter into a period of question and
5:18answer
5:19those questions can be written down on
5:21these cards and our help here
5:25melissa and cj will be here waving in
5:28the back thank you melissa to collect
5:30those cards and then i'll be asking
5:33those questions
5:35once we finish after that we'll be
5:37concluding with a book signing with dr
5:40hansen
5:41and uh again just so
5:44delighted
5:45to hear from
5:47professor hanson this evening
5:50dr victor davis hansen is the martin and
5:52ellie anderson senior fellow at the
5:54hoover institution where he leads
5:56initiatives in classics
5:58and military history
6:00he has served as a visiting faculty
6:02member at hillsdale college and three
6:05times as a visiting faculty member at
6:08our school of public policy
6:11he is the author of numerous books on
6:13topics ranging from ancient greek
6:14history to modern day politics including
6:18the book about which we are gathered
6:20here tonight to discuss
6:22the dying citizen
6:23how progressive elites tribalism and
6:26globalism are destroying the idea of
6:29america
6:30without further ado please join me in
6:32welcoming our 2022 taglia ferry lecturer
6:36dr victor davis hanson
6:38[Applause]
6:43the problem with a title like the dying
6:45citizen is sort of a downer
6:49and uh my wife has a name for me it's
6:51called eeyore
6:54so
6:55but i can say in my defense it was not
6:58entitled the dead citizen
7:01so what i'd like to do is um just
7:04outline some of the issues that are
7:06imperiling citizenship and give
7:09some cause for hope but i'd like to
7:11preface it just a little bit
7:14by
7:15examining i think the landscape that's
7:17developing for the 2022 midterm
7:21it's almost as like the left is tied on
7:24a railroad track with its own
7:26ideological rope and it can't get out
7:30and there's a locomotive coming down
7:31called the people
7:34and it's it doesn't know what to do
7:36because it would rather be
7:39ideologically correct and lose than
7:42ideologically incorrect and win
7:45so it's not going to adjust you know
7:47people on fox news you hear well what
7:49are they going to do they're going to
7:50reject they're not going to adjust
7:52they're not going to suddenly say we got
7:54to open ammo
7:55they're not going to suddenly say
7:58let's judge people by the content of
8:00their character not the color of their
8:02skin they're not going to finish the
8:03wall they can't they're incapable of
8:05they're no more capable than the
8:07jacobins who are capable of it
8:09in the french revolution of the
8:10bolsheviks they're hardcore ideologies
8:12that have hijacked the democratic party
8:15and they're terrified because they got
8:17the senate they got the house they got
8:19the presidency they controlled the
8:21judiciary they control all the major
8:24institutions of opinion making
8:26communications silicon valley
8:28traditional media k-12 academia
8:32corporate boardroom
8:34wall street professional sports that
8:36could go on
8:37and but they don't have 51 of the people
8:42and so they don't quite quite know what
8:44to do so you know how what the next six
8:46months are going to be like they're
8:47going to be january 6 january 6 january
8:506 donald trump donald trump donald trump
8:52racist racist racist races beginning to
8:54be and that's about it they're not going
8:57to change and you look at this landscape
8:59that's starting to perform
9:02there's subtle indications
9:04netflix lost 200 000 subscribers
9:08because of its content
9:11c
9:12c n and n plus
9:14went bankrupt
9:17the stock price of disney collapsed
9:21the last three
9:22the last three calls and showed
9:25so-called latinos i mean a lot of
9:27mexican-american people i know don't
9:28like that term but
9:3051
9:32say they're going to vote republican
9:35so
9:37they're starting to look at this and
9:39they think this might not be 2010
9:42or
9:431994. this could be
9:451932-36 this could be a huge correction
9:50and uh
9:51conservatives here
9:52you know all i talk to all of you all in
9:55various media i try to do it as much as
9:57i can and i'd say that
9:58if this was a divide
10:00i'll just arbitrarily put you guys as
10:02old testament conservatives and you as
10:05new testament
10:08the old testament conservatives do
10:10something like this
10:11we're going to take the house
10:13and we're going to take this maybe we'll
10:15get 60. so first thing we're going to do
10:17is impeach that sob
10:20next thing kevin mccarthy is going to
10:21tear up that state of the union just
10:22like they did with trump on national tv
10:25we'll have nine or ten investigations
10:27we'll just take them put them on the
10:29rack and then we'll have deterrence and
10:30they'll never do that again
10:32and the other new testament say no we
10:35wouldn't want to go down to their
10:36we play by the markets very rules we
10:38want an agenda we want posit and it's a
10:41big fight and i know all of you have
10:43tendencies in your darker moments to be
10:46a little devil on one shoulder rather
10:47than an angel but that's going to be the
10:49big
10:50crisis i think when the republicans take
10:52they don't know which approach to do and
10:54you cannot make arguments for both of
10:56them
10:56but i think that's an optimistic note
10:58that they had they got what they wanted
11:00they had every every level of
11:02institutional
11:04power and prestige and influence they
11:06had the government and what did they do
11:07they ruined their country in 15 months
11:09that's hard to do
11:11it's very hard to do
11:13i wrote a column just out of just i
11:15think
11:16about a year ago how would you ruin the
11:17country in 10 ways
11:19and you couldn't
11:20i didn't know that they would actually i
11:22mean i couldn't imagine
11:27superimposed on this is the idea that
11:29when
11:30this left-wing revolution came into
11:32power the citizen
11:34and constitutional government was in
11:36peril
11:37we've got to remember that it's a very
11:38fragile idea there's 7 000 years of
11:42civilizational history but
11:44citizenship didn't
11:46originate until 2500 years ago it was
11:48very fragile in
11:50the valleys of greece in the 7th and 8th
11:52centuries bc
11:54and it was pretty much over with in
11:56greece with the advent of alexander the
11:58great in the fourth century it
11:59transmogrified in the republican
12:01government
12:02and rome it was over
12:04by the first century a.d it survived in
12:07fragments of bits and pieces and on
12:09through
12:10the
12:11renaissance and the enlightenment into
12:13north america and british enlightenment
12:16my point is it's a very unnatural idea
12:18that hardworking people
12:20who in the pre-industrial age have to
12:22live one
12:27to elect people to audit them to know
12:30which laws will work and which one to
12:32change to moderate to treat people
12:34equally
12:36under the law rather than to favor the
12:38wealthy or to subsidize all the poor to
12:41judge people on the basis of their
12:42superficial that's a very more natural
12:45thing that idea of birds who have
12:46feather flock together that comes right
12:48out of play by
12:49playboy's walls it's an old idea that
12:51people
12:52will like to be
12:55like to associate with people who look
12:57like that but so the idea of a
12:59multi-racial democracy is a radical idea
13:02and today
13:04the only two countries that have done it
13:05in a large scale of brazil
13:08and india they're not doing a very good
13:09job
13:11and they're not doing a very good job
13:12because there are pre-civilizational
13:15internal
13:16pre-civilizational
13:18centrifugal forces that make this very
13:21hard to do and we have to fight them all
13:23the time they are the natural order of
13:25things
13:26and the citizen is the abnormal
13:29exception one of them of course is
13:31most societies don't have a middle class
13:34they have a feudal system sort of like
13:36california isn't it
13:40we have very wealthy people from la
13:41jolla to berkeley on the coast and then
13:44you have everybody else
13:46and the middle class has fled and we
13:48have the highest poverty
13:50highest number of people below the
13:51poverty line of any state
13:54and one-third of all uh entitlement
13:56recipients live here greatest number of
13:58homes i can't get going on i don't want
14:00to stop but you know what i'm talking
14:02about so that is natural but here in the
14:05united states partly because of the
14:07founders and all the free land we had a
14:10agrarian middle class
14:12and it's threatened now it's threatened
14:14because
14:16of a lot of reasons one of them is that
14:19there was not an increase in middle
14:21class income
14:22for 12 years not until 2017 first year
14:26in 12 years the middle class actually
14:28had real wage gain they have wage gains
14:30now but they're outpaced by inflation
14:33there was enormous debt most americans
14:35most over 50 percent of americans died
14:38with a net worth of less than ten
14:40thousand dollars
14:41home particip home ownership was
14:44climbing 61 62 see it's going back down
14:48one of the things that i think is one of
14:49the most striking is the age at which
14:51people
14:52marry
14:53it's gone from 23 to average to 28. and
14:58the number of children just in 2000 we
15:00had 2.1 fertility rate it's down to
15:03about 1.75
15:05and the age at which a family has their
15:08first child has gone from about 28 to 33
15:13which is really disturbing and the
15:15number the age at which people buy their
15:17first home is inching up toward their
15:19late 30s
15:21so what we're doing is what topville
15:22warned about prolonged adolescence
15:25people's most productive years
15:27are being put on hold as they live at
15:29home or they take three units or six
15:31units so they get a job it won't allow
15:33them to be autonomous
15:35and independent and therefore a citizen
15:38that says to the wealthy i don't need
15:40your patronage and says to the poor i'm
15:43not going to be subsidized by the
15:44government
15:45and that was the essence of the country
15:47and so we're in danger of losing that
15:50one of the things i don't believe at all
15:52in cancellation of student debt but one
15:54thing i do believe is that you have to
15:56re-adjust the moral hazard on
15:59student loans once the federal
16:00government
16:01guarantees that universities can issue
16:04loans and they will cover it if there's
16:06a student default then was that any
16:08surprise that the rate of tuition went
16:11up almost twice as much as rate of
16:13inflation
16:15and if the universities had to cover
16:17their own student debts believe me there
16:20would not be a diversity equity
16:22inclusions are on every county they
16:24couldn't afford it because they would
16:26have to pay with those students or if
16:28you told a student this is how much that
16:30unit cost
16:31or you just gave the student the same
16:33rights as you do when you sell a car
16:35they would have to you know this major
16:37pays this much this major some kind of
16:40information but student debt with 1.7
16:42trillion dollars we are prolonging
16:44adolescents
16:46i have a whole family off the record of
16:48nieces and nephews and friends
16:51and
16:51it's tragic to see especially young men
16:53in their 30s
16:55are not marrying them not having
16:56children they're not buying home and
16:58they're sort of circulating around the
17:00periphery of their home
17:02move out move in get a job don't
17:06three units this semester six this half
17:08the people in america
17:10don't finish the va
17:12and those that do take six to seven
17:14years
17:15so middle class is being threatened and
17:17we could we could address it we could
17:18address it by the way that we did in
17:212017 how was that done
17:23we put the
17:26pedal to the metal on supply so we
17:28really worked hard to reduce energy
17:30costs they were at historic lows
17:33we deregulated we encourage
17:35entrepreneurs and we had before well
17:37before colburn we had a balance between
17:41labor supply and
17:43available work
17:44first time in my life you started to see
17:46work wanted help wanted well before
17:49quoted wages were going up faster than
17:51inflation
17:53housing costs we were trying to keep
17:55them down
17:56so anytime america goes through a
17:59process where they say to people we want
18:01you to go out and experiment we want you
18:03to build we're here to help you to
18:04create more roads more bridges more
18:06houses
18:08versus i got mine i have a nice home
18:11you know in santa cruz and i want to
18:14tell that guy we're not going to build i
18:16want you to make sure that your mailbox
18:18is 16 inches off the ground or this
18:21that that retards growth and it hurts
18:23the lower and middle classes who have a
18:25lot of
18:26aspirations and that is one reason by
18:29the way i think that
18:30the left has lost the hispanic vote
18:33because in the central valley they're so
18:35entrepreneurial and they're not given a
18:37chance their costs are too high the
18:39supplies are too high
18:41and the regulations are just elaborate
18:44another thing that's happened is a pre
18:47pre-modern attack on citizenship it's
18:50always been throughout civilization is
18:52borders we take borders
18:54for granted
18:56but if you look at classical literature
18:59there was this
19:01intrinsic idea that if you don't have a
19:03border then you can't inculcate in a
19:06confined space
19:08values traditions customs civic
19:11education that the more you dilute your
19:14core the less
19:15resident it is so when alexander the
19:18great takes the culture of these small
19:20city-states and expands it all over the
19:22known world to the east it becomes
19:24hellenistic it's no longer hellenic when
19:27rome does the same thing it becomes
19:29imperial rather than republic
19:31and so you know i wonder arkle once what
19:34started wars in the classical world it
19:36was always borders not gold not silver
19:40not few it was borders and when you go
19:41look at these borders they're worthless
19:43they're just wasteland sparta versus
19:46argos wasteland athens versus thieves
19:49wasteland but they were very important
19:51psychologically
19:52this is where athenian democracy starts
19:55this is where even athenian democracy
19:58starts this was where demon oligarchy
20:00began
20:01demarcation they're willing to fight
20:03over
20:04so when you don't have a border like we
20:06don't have a border we have now 50
20:08million people in the united states
20:10legal residents illegal residents
20:12citizens we don't but they were not born
20:14in the united states there's nothing
20:15wrong necessarily if they're legal
20:17residents but that is an enormous
20:19challenge of civic education
20:21to teach people
20:23this is the battle of shiloh this was
20:25the gettysburg address this is the
20:26emancipation proclamation this is the
20:28second amendment all of the nuts and
20:30bolts of the civic society
20:32and when the host doesn't believe any
20:34longer in the civic society how can they
20:36inculcate that
20:38so if we could close the border and go
20:40back to a legal merocratic limited and
20:43diverse immigration and we were starting
20:45to do it finally
20:46in 2019
20:48then we could say
20:50immigration is one of the best things in
20:52the world it invigorates a society as
20:54long as it's legal
20:56but when you have
20:57two million people cross the border and
20:59the first thing they do is break the law
21:02by crossing illegally the second thing
21:04they do is break the law by residing
21:06illegally the third thing they do is
21:08break the law
21:10by finding identification that's
21:11fraudulent to justify the first and
21:14second
21:15then you create a pattern in a person's
21:17mind that the laws are negotiable and
21:19that's one of the great
21:21unspoken dangers of illegal immigration
21:24and it's been it's been terrible and
21:26it's it's it's like the middle class
21:27it's fixable
21:29right now if we would finish the wall
21:31we would stop catch and release we would
21:34tell mexico we're going to reinsta
21:36institute punitive action that were
21:38there by 2019 if you open your border
21:41with guatemala and people can come
21:43across and if we tell employers if you
21:45hire somebody who's here really
21:46delicious
21:47it would vanish tomorrow
21:50and wages would probably go up even
21:52higher for the working classes
21:54the third great challenge from the
21:56pre-modern side is
21:58i guess we would call it tribalism
22:00that's a latin word it just comes from
22:02priebus
22:03it meant
22:04in the roman classical age of cicero and
22:06caesar
22:08and horus that there had been a time
22:10when three tribes ran rome
22:13try
22:14and that was considered primitive
22:16because people
22:18based decisions
22:20on whether who would be a leader or the
22:23policy of a particular tribe on the
22:25basis of their blood kin relationship
22:29i've gone to i think almost all middle
22:31east countries but iran and i always am
22:34curious why they don't work
22:36except for israel i always ask people
22:39why is your country so screwed up
22:43as much as you can in a country like
22:45libya or saudi arabia
22:47but they usually have the same answer or
22:49variation we hire our first cousins
22:53yeah we hire our first cousins people
22:55that we feel comfortable with not the
22:57best qualified
22:59and so that has been the the the dangers
23:01of tribalism throughout that it's the
23:03natural uh human proclivity it's what
23:06ruined the former yugoslavia it's what
23:08ruined rwanda it's what
23:11almost ruined though is ruining iraq it
23:13can ruin us because when one particular
23:15group goes tribal and says i'm going to
23:18judge
23:19people by their superficial appearance
23:21or their similarity to myself it's sort
23:24of like nuclear proliferation
23:26the next tribe says well i better do
23:27that to survive
23:29and i don't understand the so-called
23:31minority marginalized effort to do that
23:34because
23:37if
23:3870 67
23:40are called white
23:42well you would not want them to judge
23:45themselves by white and if you go on
23:47every night and say white supremacy
23:48white supremacy white supremacy white
23:49supremacy
23:51all you're doing is creating a tribal
23:52mentality of the similar to the one that
23:55you have adopted only much greater
23:57because of the demography
23:59so when i see mark milley
24:01or lloyd austin saying one of the key
24:04agendas of the pentagon is to go after
24:07white supremacy in the ranks i'm
24:08thinking oh my god
24:10here comes the da there was no data
24:13there was no data they presented no
24:15doubt at congress and i was thinking
24:16what was the percentage
24:18of people who died in iraq and
24:20afghanistan
24:21that were white males that are being
24:23demonized by the secretary of defense
24:26and
24:26the chairman of the joint chief about 74
24:29of all combat deaths in iraq and
24:31afghanistan were white males nobody
24:33knows that
24:34so what is the logic about taking that
24:37rubric some of these
24:39generation after generation many from
24:41rural america south of the mason-dixon
24:43line say white supremacist white
24:44supremacists without evidence
24:46when they would say okay if you believe
24:48in proportional representation
24:50and you're going to make the military
24:52follow artificial quotas then
24:55when we get up to 30
24:56you know 30 white males are about 32
24:5832-35
25:00when we hit that we're going to pull
25:01back and it's other people's turn to die
25:04you really want a society like that
25:06that's where we're headed
25:08and so we can stop that uh by just
25:11saying no
25:13i'll just finish right here on this
25:14topic we're very similar now to the
25:16neoconfederate idea
25:19if you think about the blue state model
25:22one-party system like the old south just
25:24one party california has no republican
25:27state office holders super majority both
25:30legislatures
25:31governor i think there's only 11 of 53
25:34congressional seats
25:38republican we have a fixation on race
25:41and the old south people
25:43in a racist old south people tried to
25:45pass by one drop rule or 1 16
25:49we have the same fixation you try to
25:51pass the opposite way for elizabeth
25:53warren or ward churchill by one drop
25:56i was very curious about holly berry the
25:58actress she had a recent divorce another
26:01report she had a custody fight with her
26:03boyfriend who was white and she's half
26:05white and she had a child that was one
26:08fourth african-american and they were
26:10fighting over the child and she said
26:12it's my child because the child is black
26:15and i invoke the one vapor
26:18the one drop
26:19with that racist heritage
26:21and so we're emulating the values of the
26:24confederacy we know what happens when
26:26you have a one-party racialized state
26:29and you have population statuses people
26:32want to migrate out of it seems very
26:34familiar if you look at what's happening
26:35to blue states
26:37and
26:38they come stagnated
26:40it has two two classes not three and
26:42that's
26:44california new york illinois
26:47they're starting to resemble the red
26:49states of the old confederacy and the
26:51post buildings there's they're static
26:53societies that are not dynamic and part
26:55of it is because of these racial
26:57obsessions as well as immigration the
26:59lack of a border as well as
27:03this destruction of the middle class
27:05the second challenge is postmodern
27:08these are sophisticated people these are
27:09not organic historical forces and we're
27:12suffering from them and they can be
27:15ameliorated and addressed just like the
27:17others the first one of course is we use
27:19this term deep state administrative
27:21state permit state these are the two
27:24million people in the federal government
27:26that are not elected but many of them in
27:28their highest positions exercise judge
27:31jury and executioner power
27:33or their legislators their executives
27:35and their judges all at once
27:37out where we live people
27:39you know uh
27:42i had a friend that was telling me that
27:44he had a low spot
27:46the epa california epa also the fed
27:49would interpret that as an inland
27:52waterway and they went on this property
27:53to test the water to see if it had
27:55nitrogen
27:57you couldn't put a boat it was only
27:59there for three days the point is the
28:01epa took a law
28:03on the books and manipulated it and then
28:05fined the person and then adjudicated as
28:08a judge whether he was guilty or not
28:10all the powers that were not separated
28:12contrary to the constitution
28:15we have people who are completely in
28:17this huge versailles or ls corral or
28:21kremlin permanent bureaucracy that are
28:23completely
28:24immune from any consequences of their
28:27action
28:28anthony fauci apparently from his own
28:31email
28:32had communicated his worries that he had
28:35funded through echo health gain of
28:37function research at uh
28:40he said you must not wear a mask you
28:42wouldn't want to go in a cruise don't
28:44work wear one mask wear two masks
28:46anybody who doesn't believe me is
28:48anti-science he said
28:50i had to say that because if i told you
28:53that masks were valuable these idiots
28:55would go out and buy them we would have
28:56a shortage think of that attitude he
28:59said herd immunity will have when
29:00they're sixty percent
29:02seventy percent every time we had a
29:04bearing he said eighty percent ninety
29:05percent hundred percent ask why he said
29:08well if i didn't say that people
29:09wouldn't be vaccinated that's this noble
29:12platonic lie that i am so superior to
29:14you that i can lie to you for your own
29:16good because you're ignorant
29:18if you think of
29:20i was watching television not long ago i
29:22turned on msnbc and cnn i in the space
29:24of five minutes i saw four individuals
29:28and i said to myself wow
29:31they all have one thing in common
29:33they're all senior bureaucrats and one
29:36of the most powerful people in the world
29:37at one time and they all lied under oath
29:40and they all had no consequences there
29:42was james clapper talking again about
29:4550 intelligence officers said hunter
29:47laptop
29:48computer
29:49was rushing this information and that
29:51that that might have been bad bad or it
29:53might have been good but it wasn't as
29:54bad as everybody was saying i'm thinking
29:57you lied under oath and said that the
29:59nsa does not
30:00spy on people and then when caught you
30:03so i gave the least untruthful answer
30:05remember that
30:06next time john glennon was on there
30:08again i thought you lied twice under
30:10health you said that the cia does not
30:12spy on the senate staff computers you
30:14admitted they did and you said no one
30:16had ever been killed
30:17in a drone attack on the pakistani
30:20borders and you admitted they both
30:21watched try doing that to the irs
30:23lie to them
30:25then there was andrew mckay remember him
30:27he lied three times to federal
30:29investigators
30:30and then we'd come to james comey he was
30:32on there too 245 times
30:36he said under oath to the house
30:38intelligence committee i can't remember
30:41i don't know
30:42i don't recollect try that with the irs
30:45and see what happens to you
30:47robert mueller remember bob mueller
30:49senior statesman great american
30:5122 months 40 million dollars they put
30:54him under oath and the two pillars of
30:56that investigation that prompted it were
30:58the steele dossier infusion gps
31:01mr mueller do you want to talk about the
31:03steel dolls i have no idea what it is i
31:05don't know
31:06okay then tell us the role of fusion gps
31:09and glimpse i've never heard don't know
31:12that cannot be true but there's never
31:14any consequences for these people and
31:16they have enormous amount of power
31:19and they're growing
31:21and so what do we do with them and i
31:22think
31:23there's been a lot of you know i don't
31:25think like civil service is a noble
31:27thing but i think there has to be
31:29consequences if somebody lies under oath
31:32to congress they should be prosecuted
31:34like
31:35why do we have to have all of these
31:37cabinets
31:38in washington the department of
31:40agriculture should be in snow
31:42it really the fbi should be in kansas
31:44city
31:45the department of energy should be in
31:47north dakota or maybe anchorage or break
31:50it up so these incestuous groups and and
31:53marriages and siblings are not all in
31:56one place
31:57i mean they're all married to each other
31:58all know each other and
32:00you add the media into them and it's
32:02it's
32:03it's it's dangerous it needs to be
32:06reduced
32:07and remember what the left is doing
32:08they're growing reagan had this idea of
32:11starving the beast remember tax cuts
32:13there would be less supposed revenue and
32:15then the government would shrink and
32:17their attitude is to
32:20gorge the beast
32:22make so many entitlements grow
32:23governments so big that you have to have
32:26higher taxes whether they want
32:28more big government or they want more
32:30high taxes or both or i don't know but
32:34that is one of the great dangers and
32:35always has been is one of the reasons
32:38that everybody asks themselves why did
32:40athens fall
32:42well it had a population of 40 000
32:44people and 20 000 of them were involved
32:47in holding some type of office
32:51in the fifth century it was a great
32:54controversy that you paid somebody to go
32:57to the theater
32:58and you robbed the defense fund for the
33:00theoretical fund in the fourth century
33:03they paid people to vote and they paid
33:05people to participate in government and
33:07finally they
33:08everybody wanted to be paid for
33:10something and everybody was something
33:12and the regulators
33:15outnumbered the people to be regulated
33:17and it imploded i think
33:19one of the great dangers is this
33:21unaccountable
33:22administrative state another one is i
33:24would call them the evolutionaries these
33:26are people
33:27who feel human nature because of
33:29nutrition or maybe video video games or
33:31science but human nature is changing
33:35we're not the same people that
33:36thucydides wrote about
33:39history is bunk
33:41and we're living in a brave new world
33:43and the amendment system is insufficient
33:46for the u.s constitution it's written by
33:47a bunch of old white men that were
33:49farmers they don't understand the modern
33:52human brain
33:53and modern morality therefore we've got
33:55to do quickly get rid of the electoral
33:57college
33:59customs and traditions that follow the
34:01constitution let's get that court up to
34:0215 justices every time we can pack it
34:05let's get two more states to get four
34:07cylinder four senators so we don't need
34:09this 60 year old ossified 50 state union
34:12let's have a national voting law
34:14contrary the constitution let's make it
34:16illegal for these stupid states to
34:18require an id
34:21and this filibuster's 180 years what a
34:23relic get rid of that all again
34:26a symptom
34:28that the left says to itself i have an
34:30agenda
34:32that doesn't work and that people don't
34:34want it and i have only a few choices
34:37i either have to change the demography
34:39of the united states and i'm doing my
34:41best
34:42or i have to indoctrinate young kids and
34:45all sorts of isms and ologies when i get
34:47them in good bolshevik fashion i've got
34:49to change the system
34:51but absent from that calculation is
34:53never
34:54it's never i'm going to appeal to people
34:58with a record of achievement that will
35:00improve their lives and help the middle
35:02class because it's just impossible
35:04for this neo-socialist agenda to do that
35:08what do what would we want to do with
35:10these evolutionaries i think it's more
35:12important than ever
35:14to
35:15make arguments why the electoral college
35:17is good it stops multiple parties as you
35:20see in europe with all these funny
35:22dissolving governments without an
35:23election we don't do that it makes
35:25people go to cody wyoming they would
35:27never go to cody wyoming
35:29they'd never go to fresno
35:30they would go to the
35:32you know go to chicago and this eastern
35:35seaboard and los angeles and the bay
35:37area basically that's where the money is
35:38that's with the population
35:41and
35:42until recently if you read the
35:44federalist papers
35:45it was designed so you would not have
35:48fraudulent elections on a natural
35:51national basis that if each state had
35:53their control of their own election and
35:55they were voting for electors even if
35:57one state cheated it wouldn't throw the
35:59entire election in one national popular
36:02vote
36:03we could debate that
36:05after 2020.
36:08and finally there's there's another
36:10challenge of postmodern that's
36:11globalization
36:13again that's an ancient concept there's
36:15a word for it in greek cosmopolitan case
36:18socrates of all people
36:20i remember i was a graduate student and
36:21there was a
36:23diogenes laertes has an anecdote i don't
36:25know if it's accurate he says
36:27socrates said i'm my citizen of the
36:29world i really got disappointed by
36:31reading that but
36:32what it meant was that there is a
36:34community of like-minded philosophers of
36:37the anointed
36:38and they cannot be confined by petty
36:42notions of nationalism
36:44or kindred ties politically to people
36:46who live around themselves
36:48but they don't
36:50you know they're what some people say
36:52they're the any they're the somewheres
36:54they just wherever they are london paris
36:57it's all the same
36:59i have colleagues where i work and i ask
37:01this kind of cruel little game with them
37:03i say
37:04guy i'm going to london can you tell me
37:06a good restaurant yes yes i'm going to
37:08paris can tell me a good restaurant
37:11i'm going to tokyo where's the place to
37:12go shanghai
37:15hey i'm going to go to fresno or
37:16bakersfield can you tell me a good place
37:19never been there
37:21been seven thousand miles away but i
37:23can't drive 180 miles to south or
37:25sacramento maybe but not fresno or
37:27bakersfield so there's this idea that
37:30during globalization people who had
37:32international skills
37:35us in academia journalism media
37:39entertainment sports law
37:42insurance finance wall street
37:44corporations they didn't have a 330
37:47million person market they had a 7
37:49billion
37:50approaching 8 billion market and they
37:52became wealthier
37:54than any group of people in civilization
37:58and that was basically the culture of
38:00the great universities harbor dale
38:02princeton duke george all of them down
38:04the east coast boston to miami and
38:08stanford berkeley cal tech
38:10the uc system university of washington
38:13seattle de la hoya
38:14that's okay they one had the window on
38:18the asian tigers in china japan the
38:20other on the eu
38:22and then they kind of confused cause and
38:24effect because they said well
38:27capital has to you know find the
38:30cheapest labor and cheapest minerals so
38:32we sort of said well if you're an
38:34assembly or manufacturing
38:36or small farming or timber or mine
38:38that's kind of passe you're muscular
38:40this is now coding
38:42in the brain and they went a little
38:44further and said these people are
38:45deplorables losers greg's chumps
38:47clingers
38:49and we're going to write off the whole
38:50interior and they did
38:52republican party more than anybody
38:55and this global idea globalism is very
38:58dangerous because these people that are
39:01very influential and wealthy are
39:03citizens of davos
39:05or the global league
39:07one of those
39:08scariest things i think i've ever read
39:10was klaus schwab's
39:12davos
39:13the great reset covert and the great
39:14reset
39:15should read it
39:17yeah and he he talks in it about covet
39:20has given a wonderful opportunity to
39:23remake capitalism
39:25and to put diversity concerns on boards
39:28and green concerns on board and no
39:30longer profitability
39:32on boards and all the countries of the
39:34euro of the world will have a uniform
39:36tax policy
39:38and then the
39:40the subordinate ideas are that there's
39:42no certain national sovereignty if an
39:44american's in afghanistan and he shoots
39:46a shell and hits a
39:48civilian then the international criminal
39:50court will adjudicate whether he's a war
39:52criminal
39:53if we
39:55are worried about systemic racism or
40:02then who do we call according to our
40:04secretary of state anthony blinken we
40:05call in the united nations commission on
40:07human rights and they will come into the
40:09united states iran north korea
40:12et cetera cuba venezuela and they will
40:14adjudicate whether we are
40:16are violators of human rights so you you
40:18surrendered national sovereignty
40:21the problem with it is when you look at
40:22all of these countries you don't find
40:24any constitutional government
40:26and even the ones that say they're
40:27democratic are not entirely democratic
40:29we're a very unique country so
40:31globalization
40:33economically socially political is one
40:35of the great threats to the citizen and
40:38i can tell you that
40:41when i uh graduated from high school in
40:441971
40:45[Music]
40:46i came back from my first year at uc
40:48santa cruz and everybody said guy you
40:50know you're really a loser victor
40:53look at we i'm working at the fruha
40:55trailer manufacturing plant in flower
40:58well i'm working on upright harvesters
41:00and we're making lifts for 747
41:03and somebody said well we've got the a
41:05new state-of-the-art refrigeration
41:06center at the libya cannery
41:08and the whole town was these guys were
41:10making seven and eight dollars
41:12an hour which in 1971 they were buying
41:14houses
41:16and by the time i came back nine years
41:18later and started they were all wiped
41:20out all the businesses wiped out all the
41:22small farming today is wiped out
41:25and it's people who were vertically
41:26integrated they had the capital the
41:28know-how the education and you know
41:30that's a not
41:31i'm not just
41:33knocked it it gave
41:35an amazing efficiency of production
41:38people in the amazon basin got
41:40antibiotics under globalization people
41:42in saudi arabia got everything people
41:45all over the world had a harmony or
41:48a unification of culture that's fine but
41:50it was very devastating with this
41:52country and it really hurt the citizen
41:55and that can be addressed too
41:57it can be addressed by policy it can be
41:59addressed by attitude
42:01and one of the things i've tried to
42:03emphasize is that people who
42:05in the united states
42:07who do muscular things are often very
42:09brilliant people i've had the great gift
42:11the last nine
42:13weekends of watching people take a
42:15hundred and fifty year home that's noven
42:17tube dangerous wiring
42:19two electricians that work on saturdays
42:22and they're rewiring the entire house
42:23that i live in
42:25and i tell you that electrical engineer
42:27from stanford could not do it
42:29they know it's just amazing to watch it
42:31and then i've had a septic person who
42:34reeks of sewage on his overalls come out
42:37look at these ancient
42:38irrigation pipes serving as septic tanks
42:41and say this is where this 1500 gallon
42:43goes this is where the leech line here's
42:44the sum and it was like he had a phd in
42:47calculus
42:48so there are very talented people and we
42:50need to readjust our
42:53acknowledgement of it let me just finish
42:54by saying
42:56all of these problems that i outlined
42:57pre-modern have solutions
43:00and i know that trump is a very
43:01controversial
43:03person if you take away the tweets and
43:05everything one of the great mysteries of
43:07the last 10 years is how did
43:10a rather selfish person for most of his
43:13life a billionaire how did he start
43:16campaigning and he used the first person
43:18possessive pronoun power first time i
43:20heard him i said oh my god
43:22he said our soldiers
43:24he's over there saying our farmers
43:27are construction workers and the first
43:30thing i did i called a guy in new york
43:31was kind of a venture capitalist i said
43:33you ever see this guy
43:35he said yeah i do i don't like him
43:37i said what do you know about him i said
43:38well he walks by down below down the
43:40window and he's got a big building go
43:42out and nobody's watching him and he has
43:44this crazy suit and things and he walks
43:46all in the dirt and talks to everybody
43:48so where he got that empathy or who
43:50advised him about
43:52bringing back the deplorables into the
43:54republican party or having a populist
43:57agenda
43:59i don't know who it was but it's
44:00mysterious and we still haven't figured
44:02it out but it's something to remember
44:04that there was a paradigm
44:06for a brief four years how you could
44:08address the erosion of the middle class
44:10how you could regain sovereignty
44:13and a secure border how you could unite
44:16people for someone who was so ridiculed
44:18as a racist by the left why did he get a
44:21larger number of minority voters in 2020
44:24than traditional republicans did
44:27and for someone
44:29who
44:31was supposedly ignorant about our
44:33constitutional system boy he really
44:36tried to
44:38regain respect for the constitution and
44:40for somebody was supposed to be so
44:42insurrectionary he did not
44:45there was no gen there was no james
44:47clapper working for donald trump there
44:49was no lois lerner there was no eric
44:51holder with holding evidence there was
44:53no effort to
44:55spread disinformation none of that he
44:57was accused of all of it but it really i
44:59don't think historians will find any of
45:01it
45:02and i don't think that he was a big fan
45:04of globalization although he profited
45:06enormously from globalization by selling
45:08his name but nevertheless he understood
45:11that if you want to ruin this country
45:13then you
45:14create a class of international
45:17cosmopolitans who have no particular
45:19empathy or loyalty for the very country
45:21they live in and they write off people
45:23by the millions and they have
45:26but that was an optimistic look and with
45:28that i'll take questions if we have time
45:30thank you very much
45:32[Applause]
45:45all right we're here collecting
45:47questions and so if you have those write
45:49those down and
45:51uh cj and melissa are collecting those i
45:54will take dean's prerogative dr hansen
45:56and ask the first question
45:59um
46:00each of the different elements you
46:02mentioned and have described in your
46:04book so well as being challenges to
46:08citizenship
46:11i wonder to what degree you think that
46:13they are luxuries of what might be
46:16called the pax americana
46:18and that as americans especially over
46:21these last couple of years especially
46:23through
46:24the presidency of president trump have
46:26understood
46:28the rising threat of china
46:31whether as they continue on their path
46:34and americans become newly aware
46:37that ideas have consequences and there
46:40is a rising threat
46:42that
46:43some of these issues around tribalism
46:46and metropolitanism in particular
46:49uh might be transformed into patriotism
46:52again i'm very optimistic one of the
46:54reasons i'm optimistic is that it was
46:56announced yesterday that joy reid at
46:59msnbc has the lowest
47:01audience he's ever had
47:04ever
47:07and
47:08jon stewart who went on to return
47:10remember john stewart he's back and he
47:13has nothing but race race race race rate
47:16and he's got terrible ratings people
47:18don't want to listen to it
47:20i think people are saying
47:21okay we're not saying the country is
47:23great the united states can be
47:25good without having to be perfect in
47:27fact it all has to be is better than all
47:29the alternative much more modest idea
47:32but i'm very confident that people
47:34have looked at the have looked over
47:36there and they said we know where this
47:38pathway goes it goes to rwanda or it
47:40goes to yugoslavia i'm not going to go
47:42down
47:44and
47:45i i think part about i don't want to
47:48very quickly i want to get to the
47:50questions but i think a lot of it
47:52my friend thomas solis is off the record
47:54i hope
47:55he's once said to me the most dangerous
47:57person in
47:59the united states
48:00is your wealthy white liberal
48:04he didn't mean that in a racial sense
48:06what he meant is that
48:08they use their supposed professional
48:10success or education
48:12uh to dictate all of these utopian rule
48:15minds that they're never subject as soon
48:17as they say you're going to do this and
48:18you're going to do that then they always
48:21flee to the refuge of their money and
48:22their prestige and their influence and
48:25so
48:26you know
48:27john kerry
48:29you've got you've got to you can't have
48:31that big monster truck but i have my
48:33private plane that kind of thing
48:35so i'm very optimistic i think people
48:38we've come to the
48:39the point where if you go any further
48:41it's not sustainable people are pulling
48:42back from the brain i think there's
48:44going to be a big change
48:46maybe somewhat related professor uh
48:49comes this question about uh your
48:52prediction for the outcome of the
48:53ukraine conflict
48:56well
48:57i think everybody kind of knows the
48:59script that
49:00vladimir putin
49:02scanned our afghan experience and he
49:06thought you know what
49:07these guys gave over 80 billion dollars
49:10to terrorists
49:11they turned over a billion dollar
49:13embassy they gave away this big air base
49:16that had a 300 million refit and they
49:19fled
49:20they're not going to do anything and
49:22they looked at the eu and he said
49:23they're begging me to buy gas
49:25the germans are and they've got this
49:27crazy wind and all that in their
49:29post-modern softies
49:31and then he said you know what when i
49:33my guys hacked the united states biden
49:36came over in january he said please
49:37don't hack these 16 companies please
49:40remember that and then he said pump more
49:42oil so you know putin thought of all
49:44this we thought this will be a shock and
49:46awe go in
49:47take kyo take everything from the east
49:50all the way everything to the east to
49:52the border we'll have half of ukraine
49:54they'll give up and then we'll just sit
49:56there and digest it and then i western
49:58ukraine and say this is next
50:01make them
50:02and so he had no idea how well the
50:04ukrainians would fight he didn't know
50:05that we had already started to give
50:07weapons as early as a trump
50:09administration
50:10but we forget that not only did obama
50:13not sell them javelins biden canceled
50:15that contract when it came about
50:18so now they're being flooded with
50:20weapons they're fighting very well
50:21they're going to have more weapons they
50:22know what to do with
50:24and i think his
50:27his change strategy is
50:29i'm going to annex the russian-speaking
50:32borderlands
50:33in a ring all the way to
50:35crimea and then i'm going to destroy
50:38everything from kiev
50:40wasteland sort of
50:42what tacitus said make a desert and call
50:45it peace
50:46and so then he's going to tell people
50:49this is what happens to belarus this is
50:51what happens to lithuania if you are a
50:53former soviet republic and you european
50:56eyes are western eyes i might not be
50:58able to get all of the area back i will
51:01get the russian-speaking areas but i
51:02will destroy the rest of it and make a
51:05buffer if you don't give me a buffer i
51:06will make it so the question we have is
51:08how do you deter that
51:11and then his second his third strategy
51:13is to talk
51:15nuke trash
51:17you know it's well i might nuke you i
51:19magnu i got more i'll let off a missile
51:22and so we've got to be
51:25deterrent i i think i'm a little worried
51:28that people on the left and the right
51:30want to go right in the middle of that
51:31and have u.s pilots and no-fly zones and
51:34that i think would be dangerous but
51:36arm the ukrainians to the teeth
51:39and
51:40deter putin
51:41and show the chinese that they tried it
51:43in taiwan it won't work that's i think
51:45that's our strategy that we're coming
51:47together so i think
51:48it'll be it'll it's just a question of
51:50how many how much damage can ukraine do
51:54to the russians in the next six to eight
51:56weeks with all of these new weapons that
51:58are pouring in
52:00and they're getting a lot more people
52:01joining the army
52:02and they've got more tanks now than when
52:04the war started they've got more
52:06javelins they've got more sounds they're
52:08giving patriot missiles and then how
52:10well can we corral the nuclear strategic
52:13threat of russia we have to tell them
52:15that
52:16if they were to go that route they would
52:17regret it
52:18it's sad that we dismantled missile
52:20defense in the czech republic in poland
52:22but we did that under that hot might
52:24call if you remember
52:28one of the other topics that you address
52:31in the book uh as con
52:34contributing factor to tribalism in
52:36particular
52:37uh is the state uh the sad state of our
52:41education systems particularly higher
52:43education
52:44and so i wanted to
52:46raise this question from someone in the
52:49audience what advice do you have for a
52:50young conservative american history
52:53professor
53:01well i was one of them so i know
53:05um
53:06i'd say that each week i get five emails
53:10or phone calls
53:12and they're they're like this hello
53:15i know you don't know me but i got can
53:17you help me i said what's the problem
53:19i am at this university and i'm going to
53:22have my orals or i just did my orals and
53:24they're all left-wing
53:26and they have a suspicion i'm
53:27conservative
53:28and
53:31my school is not the top rank am i going
53:33to get a job
53:35and how what do i say do i just always
53:37lie to myself and don't let them know
53:39that i'm conservative and then do i get
53:40a pattern in my whole life or do i speak
53:43out now and destroy my career
53:46and you want to say
53:47no you fake it until you get tenure then
53:50you speak out
53:52or you you try to there's only so many
53:55hillsdale colleges but
53:57it's it's it's
53:59we're having this big fight at stanford
54:00now and some of us at the uber are
54:02trying to offer a
54:04corrective to their history department
54:05but
54:06it's hard to advise someone to take a
54:09sword and shield and go out and die on
54:11it because they're outnumbered so you
54:13try to give
54:16i always might i come down to always say
54:20you have to write twice as much as they
54:22do you have to be twice the better
54:24teacher
54:25you have to be twice the better
54:26colleague and if that if you do that
54:28eventually you'll bump into somebody
54:30that will be empathetic to your record
54:33of achievement
54:34one thing we don't understand that when
54:35you're a majority of 93
54:37and you get lazy
54:40and you use ideology everybody says well
54:42they're all ideologues well they are but
54:44they're mostly lazy
54:45because they go in and go off topic and
54:47talk about themselves or you know they
54:49talk about this group of that group but
54:51they're not it's that's easy to do
54:54it's not easy to teach you know greek
54:56grammar or
54:57uh us foreign policy of the last 50
55:00years and they won't and so i think a
55:02lot of it is a cover for being
55:04intellectually lazy and incompetent
55:09the babylon b recently had a headline
55:11that read eccentric billionaire does
55:13more for the first amendment in one
55:15afternoon than republicans have in
55:16decades
55:19well i'm a fan of
55:21uh elon zeal for freedom of speech
55:23absolutism
55:25i wonder i would be remiss not to place
55:27grave concern at the rise of oligarchs
55:30in our country over the power of the
55:32constitution where do you place
55:34oligarchy in your concerns for a free
55:37citizenry
55:40well aristotle you know he had a
55:41typology of four types of oligarchy and
55:44four types of
55:46democracy and he came and
55:49he didn't like any of them he just said
55:50you should have something like a
55:52property qualification he'd call it
55:54polite
55:55but
55:56i guess
55:57just getting back to elon musk did you
55:59know that all of a sudden
56:01jinsaki said the other day well twitter
56:03is just for wealthy white people that
56:05are kind of i thought
56:07so you were all these years of racist
56:08and now you're telling us that it's a
56:10bad medium
56:12and then they're saying well you can't
56:13have oligarchs controlling i thought who
56:15owns the washington post
56:18and who owns atlantic magazine doesn't
56:21lisa jobs steve jobs widow apple money
56:24so that's what the left do i think what
56:26they're terrified is
56:28they thought the right would never do it
56:30and i don't think they're just mad about
56:32twitter after all facebook is a two
56:34billion dollar market capital uh market
56:36company in revenues and twitter's 275
56:39million
56:41and they've got
56:42it's much bigger so why are they
56:44paranoid about this relatively small
56:46company i think they think
56:49it's sort of like a german about 1989
56:52with a sledgehammer hitting the wall
56:54and all of a sudden if he breaks it open
56:57they've lost their monopoly and
56:58everybody being cheap will go and open
57:00the platforms up and you'll have freedom
57:03in silicon valley that's why
57:06i know he's an oligarch but i kind of
57:08like his deviousness
57:10and recklessness and he he reminds me of
57:13that apple commercial some of you don't
57:14remember because you're not ancient
57:16remember the 19 was that 19 1984
57:20runs down the aisle and throws that
57:21thing into the screen and the orwellian
57:23character
57:25explodes i think he's watched that
57:27commercial so i i i'm delighted and i am
57:31worried about oligarchy because
57:34uh if you look at california it's got as
57:37i said 21 of the people live below the
57:39poverty line
57:40one-third of all the welfare recipients
57:42yeah we have the greatest number of
57:43billionaires and the most affluent zip
57:46codes in the
57:47world
57:48these are very left-wing marxist people
57:50who are so wealthy that's an odd
57:52combination i'm going to stanford campus
57:54that guy drives in with a blm sticker
57:56and he gets out of it 150 000
57:59and we're setting a sports car kind of
58:00jar harvey
58:03we have several questions uh related to
58:06uh just as a segue on on california
58:10uh there are drops of blood on some of
58:12these question cards because there's
58:14such
58:15uh or maybe they're tears of sadness at
58:18the state of california um but people
58:21just desperately loving this state
58:24and
58:25did you say loving or leaving
58:26well
58:28i think both can be true two things can
58:30be true
58:31um
58:33is there
58:34hope for the dying california
58:38i think you're
58:39i'm trying to be optimistic did we talk
58:41about this i think you suggested i
58:42should be optimistic yes
58:45let's finish strong here dr hanson
58:49your dean is a very persuasive person
58:51uh i am because um
58:55where did how did we get here
58:57there were three things that got us here
59:00the first was that this thing called
59:02silicon valley has a developed a six
59:06trillion dollar market capitalization so
59:08we created them the wealthiest group of
59:11people in the smallest area in the
59:13history so they run the state used to be
59:15la la they don't mark zuckerberg put
59:20419 million dollars to absorb the
59:23registrars in key swing precincts in the
59:262020 election they have enormous power
59:30and they were flip-flopper i mean they
59:32were flip-flops tie-dye remember they're
59:35cool they're not
59:36they make they make
59:40well they make rockefeller and uh
59:43the robber barons of late 19th century
59:45look like pikers they really do they're
59:47monopolists and i think people have
59:49turned on them they don't like them they
59:51detest them not that they don't do good
59:54but i think that's good public opinion
59:55is swayed against them
59:57and we lost uh about eight to nine
1:00:01million people the last 40 years and
1:00:03they were
1:00:04tended to be more white than not but
1:00:06mostly they were entrepreneurs middle
1:00:07class and they went to you know where
1:00:09they went florida texas nevada wyoming
1:00:12montana and they went because
1:00:15for the amount of the money they were
1:00:17paying in sales incomes and gas tax they
1:00:19were 49th in the country according to
1:00:22fortune on the infrastructure
1:00:2442nd was school test scores crime they
1:00:28were paying a lot and getting nothing
1:00:30so they left and then we had half of all
1:00:33illegal immigrants
1:00:35so for anything to get better they would
1:00:37have to change and i think what's
1:00:39happened is
1:00:41we are creating a entrepreneurial
1:00:44mexican-american largely middle class
1:00:47and they are now paying through the no's
1:00:49with taxes and they have uh social
1:00:53institutions and entitlement
1:00:54institutions they've counted on
1:00:56and it's being flooded by illegal aid
1:00:59so if somebody works
1:01:01as a plumber and he makes 70 000 a year
1:01:05his mother needs dialysis treatment all
1:01:07of a sudden there's 20 people from
1:01:09oaxaca there and he can't catch his
1:01:11mother
1:01:12or he's filling up his diesel pickup and
1:01:14paying seven dollars a gallon
1:01:16or he's buying romex wire that was 39
1:01:19he's paying 182
1:01:22and he wants to know why that is so he's
1:01:24not thinking the way the left wants him
1:01:26to as a tribal as he's thinking as
1:01:28anybody would and that's happening at a
1:01:31electronic speed i think you're going to
1:01:33see a a
1:01:35i don't know if it's going to be 51 of
1:01:37the latino vote will vote republican but
1:01:39i think it's higher than it ever has
1:01:41been and i and i think there's something
1:01:43that the pollsters are not
1:01:45catching
1:01:46and i pick it up by talk most of the
1:01:48people that we see in our community that
1:01:50we live in it's about 90 about mexico
1:01:53and one of the topics that comes up
1:01:55again and again i know you'll recognize
1:01:57it is that
1:01:59when you hear a leftist intellectual on
1:02:01the coast in politics they have that
1:02:03whiny
1:02:04talk down you're going to do that sort
1:02:07of karen idea that really strikes people
1:02:10as arrogant and don't talk down to me
1:02:12especially proud people who are upwardly
1:02:14made one they don't like that
1:02:16i know when i go to stanford each week
1:02:18some of my friends i have said how do
1:02:21you like those people how can you stand
1:02:23them and i said i don't stand them
1:02:25that's why i'm here
1:02:27but i don't mean necessarily the poor
1:02:30i'm talking about the larger we're going
1:02:31to tell you how to live your life and
1:02:33people don't like that so that's
1:02:35changing and i think the public opinion
1:02:38is is going against silicon valley and i
1:02:41think you'll see fewer
1:02:43a lot of our people have left
1:02:45but i think the people who are going to
1:02:46stay are going to stay i hope
1:02:49but we all have to do each according to
1:02:50our station to try to say it's such a
1:02:52beautiful state and we all have memories
1:02:54of all these people that are dead
1:02:57my god they've created that california
1:02:59water project was the most ambitious
1:03:00thing in history we
1:03:02created the freeway system they had
1:03:04these wonderful airports they built the
1:03:06uc system
1:03:07and we ruined them and we owe it to them
1:03:10to stay and try to restore it i think we
1:03:12can
1:03:13but we have to identify the culprits
1:03:15first and make them pay
1:03:18last question dr hansen and it was on
1:03:20several of these cards
1:03:23you touched on this in your remarks but
1:03:27as we think about
1:03:29prospect for the dying citizen
1:03:32um your thoughts on the
1:03:35upcoming 2022 elections
1:03:39midterms i'm not going to wait into the
1:03:41trump defense debate first things first
1:03:46well i mean
1:03:47when you look at
1:03:49recent uh 50 to
1:03:5260 seat changes
1:03:54in 2010 the tea party and rebellion
1:03:58against obamacare and the debt and the
1:04:011994 against clinton
1:04:05the republicans started down and then
1:04:08they had they went up but they're even
1:04:09now so
1:04:11the punditry says well it can't be more
1:04:12than 20 or 30 seats
1:04:14you couldn't get 40 50 60 seats but it's
1:04:17almost even but i think you could
1:04:18because
1:04:19i think everything is negotiable now
1:04:21everything is negotiable because
1:04:25it's not just a political debate anymore
1:04:27it's an existential
1:04:29terrified worry
1:04:31about the stuff of life you have people
1:04:33saying i don't know if i can fill up my
1:04:35pickup i got to go i fill up i have a
1:04:37diesel pickup i can go and somebody will
1:04:39say well where'd you you have two credit
1:04:41cards you can't fill up it's a hundred
1:04:44dollar limit so you've got to go around
1:04:46and fill up somewhere else or pull out
1:04:47another they've never had that
1:04:49or you'll see stuff like
1:04:51not a very good cut of a little t-bone
1:04:53steak for 17
1:04:55people can't buy it
1:04:57and they say that or
1:04:59i i bought some wire at home depot
1:05:02last week
1:05:04and i went there and it was locked up it
1:05:06weighs 30 pounds spooled it and so i
1:05:09called innocent
1:05:11they said well
1:05:13we have to unlock it for you i said well
1:05:15this used to be 39 it's 182 i said okay
1:05:19that's not 10 annualized inflation
1:05:23so then she said to me
1:05:25but are you going to buy anything else
1:05:27i said yeah i am
1:05:29well then you have to come get me later
1:05:31because you cannot
1:05:33put this in your car you have to walk
1:05:34with me out with it
1:05:36so i had to carry it out
1:05:38and she walked with me and checked me
1:05:40out no sooner that get out of home depot
1:05:43and three or two two people came up to
1:05:44me and tried to buy it from me
1:05:46i thought they're gonna love it
1:05:49this is wire
1:05:50this is america so i think when people
1:05:52look at housing building materials food
1:05:56gasoline electric costs they say this
1:05:58can't go on because we're losing it and
1:06:00that's different from
1:06:02what they want you to talk about the
1:06:04second amendment
1:06:06uh they're going to cut off all radical
1:06:08abortion
1:06:09transgenderism athletes that stuff is
1:06:13what they're trying to deceive and
1:06:15distract people with but
1:06:17they have really done something that no
1:06:19one on the left we haven't seen anybody
1:06:21like mcgovern was like this
1:06:23and he imploded and
1:06:25it used to be a rule didn't it if you
1:06:27since john f kennedy to obama if you
1:06:29were going to be a democratic president
1:06:31you had to have a
1:06:32southern accent
1:06:34i mean every single one of them that ran
1:06:36that won whether it was lyndon johnson
1:06:38or jimmy carter or even al gore who won
1:06:40the popular vote or bill clinton had a
1:06:42southern accent that was to reassure you
1:06:44that he wasn't a communist
1:06:46and
1:06:48they went off to the left with obama and
1:06:50they kept going and so i think people
1:06:53feel if you these people hate us they
1:06:55don't like us they talk down to us and
1:06:57then when you have a situation
1:06:59politically like that you look toward
1:07:02the corrective of the president and the
1:07:03vice president their personality
1:07:05whatever you say about obama he for a
1:07:07lot of people he was charismatic so was
1:07:09bill clinton and he could alleviate the
1:07:11damage that his issues we're doing when
1:07:14you look at joe biden he's he's
1:07:15non-compost minted he's not there
1:07:19and when you look at carmela harris it's
1:07:21an adolescent gibberish
1:07:23so
1:07:24they are forced multipliers of the
1:07:26unhappiness so if the issues are not
1:07:29popular and the issues are the stuff of
1:07:31life and
1:07:32the purveyors the emissaries of these
1:07:35issues are even
1:07:35[Music]
1:07:37less popular i don't see how they get
1:07:39out of this
1:07:40i just i just don't see how they do it i
1:07:42just don't think they can correct
1:07:43themselves as i said earlier they would
1:07:45rather
1:07:46be wrong i mean
1:07:47the petroleum reserve's not going to do
1:07:49it
1:07:50and uh they're finding these little
1:07:53these little mini issues that people
1:07:55don't care about
1:07:56we're going to have another this summer
1:07:58we're going to have a million people
1:07:59come across the border
1:08:01and
1:08:02the dying citizen was told they had to
1:08:04wear a mask for two years they had to be
1:08:06vaccinated and they have to be tested if
1:08:09they are a public employee and you're
1:08:12saying to this dying citizen
1:08:14you do that but two million people do
1:08:16not have to be vaccinated they don't
1:08:18have to be masked and they do not have
1:08:20to be tested that's not
1:08:22sustainable so i think there's going to
1:08:24be a tsunami
1:08:26please join me in thanking dr hanson
1:08:31before we adjourn just a couple
1:08:35notes um we are as noted in your
1:08:39invitation we do have
1:08:41uh dr hansen's book the dying citizen
1:08:44for sale outside in our
1:08:46reception area we hope you join us for
1:08:49that
1:08:50uh also uh in your brochures you saw saw
1:08:54some of our upcoming events
1:08:56uh in particular i direct your attention
1:08:59to may 23rd which is our free speech
1:09:022022
1:09:04conference
1:09:06on our malibu campus
1:09:08delighted to welcome
1:09:10noted scholar dr robbie george who also
1:09:13serves as our reagan
1:09:15visiting professor he will be keynoting
1:09:17that
1:09:19followed in june by our local america
1:09:21conference in which we're partnering
1:09:22with the manhattan
1:09:24institute
1:09:25and save the date
1:09:27our 25th anniversary gala
1:09:30is set for february 11
1:09:332023
1:09:34at the reagan library now before
1:09:37we finish
1:09:40i wanted to let you all in on a little
1:09:42secret
1:09:44or as our president would say i want to
1:09:46let you in on a little secret
1:09:53outside we have flyers noting
1:09:57a historic announcement
1:09:59that the school of public policy will be
1:10:01making next tuesday
1:10:05so if you can just keep this between us
1:10:10in the last couple months the school of
1:10:11public policy has received a an
1:10:15endowment gift commitment of 10 million
1:10:17dollars
1:10:19to endow an institute for liberty and
1:10:22the american project at the school of
1:10:24public policy
1:10:26this is set to be the leading academic
1:10:29center
1:10:30for the application of america's
1:10:32founding principles to today's policy
1:10:34issues
1:10:36in the united states
1:10:40the couple who has made this gracious
1:10:42commitment
1:10:45further said that their name did not
1:10:47have to be on this institute
1:10:49their name will be on the endowed chair
1:10:52of the faculty member who will lead the
1:10:54institute
1:10:56this led over the last several months to
1:10:59a series of conversations both with the
1:11:01donors and others
1:11:03to think about a name for the institute
1:11:05that would align closely with the
1:11:07mission of this
1:11:09center for liberty and the american
1:11:11project
1:11:13is connected to the history of
1:11:15pepperdine in the school of public
1:11:17policy
1:11:18and is connected to
1:11:20the history
1:11:22and politics of california
1:11:26you will see outside this flyer
1:11:29noting that on tuesday of next week we
1:11:32will be announcing the launch
1:11:34of the ed meese institute
1:11:37for liberty and the american program
1:11:39[Applause]
1:11:46this again is just part and parcel of
1:11:48our 25th anniversary year
1:11:52and
1:11:54i couldn't be more excited to be a
1:11:57leader of an institution committed as we
1:11:59are
1:12:00to the principles that we all hold dear
1:12:04not only for the state of california but
1:12:06also for america
1:12:08and the chance to prepare
1:12:10that next generation of public leaders
1:12:13in fact i know we have some of our
1:12:14students and even recent
1:12:16graduates here tonight some of you if
1:12:19you could just raise your hand
1:12:22the back row and some up here in the
1:12:24front
1:12:25[Applause]
1:12:29these are the kids and yes i will call
1:12:31you kids
1:12:34that get me up in the morning
1:12:36there's so much in our nation today in
1:12:38our world and our politics so much of
1:12:40what dr
1:12:42hansen has outlined
1:12:44so clearly
1:12:46that could get one depressed about where
1:12:48we are as a nation but i have to say
1:12:50that at the school of public policy we
1:12:52are preparing leaders who definitely and
1:12:54deeply understand
1:12:57the importance of civic virtue
1:13:00the american founding
1:13:02and the importance of these principles
1:13:05not again as just historical facts
1:13:09but that in realizing them again and
1:13:11anew
1:13:12this is our only way forward as a nation
1:13:17and more than just simply making these
1:13:19arguments in the media and the press and
1:13:21in research and
1:13:23writing all those things are important
1:13:26we need to be
1:13:27thinking about how we're preparing
1:13:29leaders
1:13:30to engage human beings what are our
1:13:33force multipliers
1:13:35as an institution
1:13:37and i can say again on this 25th
1:13:39anniversary year
1:13:41that we are perfectly positioned
1:13:44with gifts like this and others that we
1:13:46will be announcing
1:13:48in the weeks ahead
1:13:51to be america's leading graduate
1:13:54public policy institution
1:13:56and so for those of you here tonight
1:13:58that would like to learn more about our
1:14:01plans
1:14:02i certainly welcome that
1:14:04conversation
1:14:06but i have to say as just this last note
1:14:09somebody came up to me before stepping
1:14:12on the stage here to say that there's a
1:14:14great buzz in the room
1:14:16that
1:14:17there's something just about being
1:14:18together in person with like-minded
1:14:20people
1:14:22here in los angeles
1:14:24that is
1:14:26[Applause]
1:14:32that is important to keep doing
1:14:35right
1:14:36and uh
1:14:38again to
1:14:40uh michael and karen um we know that uh
1:14:44gus and patricia always will have the
1:14:46best seats in the house for nights like
1:14:48tonight
1:14:50and uh again we look forward to
1:14:53seeing you all together again at the
1:14:55next event we are going to be hosting
1:14:57and staying in touch with you
1:15:00as we build what i know
1:15:02is going to be something very special
1:15:05thank you all
1:15:07please join us for the reception outside
1:15:10god bless you and good night

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