In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler talk about Trump’s hearty welcome by NY construction workers, the F-word in the media, a Lufthansa bounce as sign of the times, gas prices, the medical industry’s paradox of DEI decline meets AI potential, and deterrence is more than money to Ukraine.
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Democrat presidents always ruin feminist progress. After Clarence Thomas, they got Clinton to change the rules of evidence to allow pattern of behavior. Unfortunately for them, Clinton was the poster child for pattern of behavior. That led to Paula Jones, Monica’s dress, the one grope rule, journalists offering to get on their knees as long as Clinton protected Roe vs Wade. It’s really kind of funny.
Feminism is only a means to an end for the Left, just as every other cause they espouse. If they thought that supporting “feminism” would interfere with acquiring and holding political power, they’d drop it like a live grenade and run away from it. To them, everything is about acquiring and holding political power.
Regarding the comments about wearing pajamas out in public has been seen around Seattle for several years now. These people are also seen around Tucson but not in the numbers seen in Seattle or its burbs. Whenever they are seen in public, it always comes across as a symbol of lack of discipline and even slobbishness.
I did not hear it mentioned in the podcast today but what is worse, imv, are tattoos. They are everywhere on men and women alike and are on all parts of their bodies. A female relative even has large eyes tattooed in her armpits. Yikes! Even middle-aged women wear the ink openly and without an iota of shame or embarrassment. It appears to be a proud badge of counter-culture, although there are so many, it may merely be symbolic of being of the herd. Years ago, they often carried a meaning much like certain men wearing certain jewelry back in the day.
Wearing PJs out in public, tattoos, and specific jewelry for certain males appear to some as a kind of symbol of cultural decline.
@14:09, Victor, were you thinking of “Let’s Go, Brandon!”?
Back in the fall of 2021, fans chanted, “F*ck Joe Biden” at various sporting events. It became common (fun?).
On October 2, 2021, at Talladega, as a CBS sports reported interviewed driver Brandon Brown, the reporter heard the crowd chanting it. She said to her audience, “”You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!'”. And that euphemism took off from there.
Victor, an excellent “rant” re our country doing the right things: re-arm, warn the bad guys that they face retribution (not proportional) if they continue to bash us, etc. Excellent.
Reminds me of George Washington’s farewell address, which included words like this: “The best way to be prepared for peace is to be prepared for war”. Would be terrific if we had more like you today.
Your discussion about casual profanity, and the passing of standards of behavior, takes on a theme that Dennis Prager has also talked about his show. It’s a general disappearance of consideration for the others around you.
As you noted, up into the mid- to late 60s, people got reasonably dressed when they went in public. It showed respect for those around you, that you made yourself presentable. But the counterculture attacked that idea-“Who are you to tell me what to do, man?”, “That’s your standard, man, not mine!”, “You’re just an uptight oppresser, man!”.
It’s a sign of erosion. And the people who drove it had no real idea of the eventual destination.
I’m reminded of author Kurt Vonnegut, who considered himself quite the iconoclast, too, for similar reasons. He felt the customs and standards of American society restrictive. He wrote a short story called, appropriately enough, “The Big Space F*ck”. The setting was a future America where profanity had become so common that it lost all effect it ever had. I was interested him to complain in an interview before he died, decrying how coarse we had become. He didn’t see the irony in his contribution to that process.
Ultimately, I think these things are a sign of how childish we have become.
A PS…Vonnegut’s story also had the premise that we had become extremely litigious. No one was responsible for his actions. Children could sue their parents for the way they were brought up, for example. Remarkably prescient.
“sh*t” is a cognate with “schism” but not derived from it. They both go back to the same Indo-European root, that is defined to mean “separate”. “to shed” comes from the same root, apparently.
Yes VDH, wrt civilization “decline”, I believe it is the normalization of deviance. The same thing has been happening with the debt ceiling and national debt.
Yes, the current civilization decline is the normalization of deviance. Same thing that has been happening over the past 30y+ to the debt ceiling and national debt.
Victor – Thank you for sharing your ideas on rebuilding America in a second Cold War. It was encouraging to hear what can be done with the right people leading the country.