1 00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:06,919 Oh bum beast, he's me, sir. Ask not what your country can 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:12,560 do for you, ask what you can do for your country, mister Gorbachev. 3 00:00:13,519 --> 00:00:19,839 Tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and rob 4 00:00:19,879 --> 00:00:22,879 Blog. Yes they're back. I'm Jamis Lylax. Today we talked to Victor 5 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:27,600 Davis Hanson about Henry Kissinger, life, legend and all. Those are the 6 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,440 things that Victor's great at talking about. So let's have ourselves a podcast. 7 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:34,600 Have we been correct in pushing for the expansion of NATO. I was opposed 8 00:00:34,679 --> 00:00:41,280 to taking in Ukraine and Georgia. I believe the position of Ukraine it's so 9 00:00:41,479 --> 00:00:46,320 sensitive. America is a nation that can be defined in a single word. 10 00:00:47,119 --> 00:00:52,920 I wasna foot him. Excuse music. We never get bored. Welcome everybody. 11 00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,880 This is the Ricochet Podcast. It's number six hundred and sixty eight. 12 00:00:56,039 --> 00:00:59,039 Wow, we get that far well. As they say in public radio, 13 00:00:59,079 --> 00:01:02,439 things to people like you. If that is you are a member of ricoshet. 14 00:01:02,479 --> 00:01:04,400 If not, go there check it out. You'll want to join. 15 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:08,519 That's ricochet dot com. You're home for the most stimulating conversations and community on 16 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:11,359 the center right web. Well, the heck on the whole web it was 17 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:15,799 founded. There should be patriotic music and a flag rippling, and should be 18 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:19,519 an eagle alighting on my shoulder by Rob Long and Peter Robinson, who are 19 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:26,000 with us back after a brief hiatus, and welcome Robin Peter. I think 20 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:30,159 we're with us. That's always like, oh, you know, Rob Peter, 21 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:34,239 they're still with us, you know, not doing good. How are 22 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:36,799 they doing? Not good? Yeah, exactly, not good, but they're 23 00:01:36,799 --> 00:01:41,040 with us. They're kind of sentient, Peter, Peter. Peter seems to 24 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,799 know when we enter the room. Yes, exactly. You know. If 25 00:01:44,799 --> 00:01:46,680 I ever have to go into hospice, I want to go into the one 26 00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:49,519 that Jimmy Carter is going to, because apparently that is just a life preservation 27 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:53,000 center. He's been there for longer than anybody else. I mean, for 28 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:57,640 Heaven's sakes, and good for him, although sad for him. Interesting week 29 00:01:57,079 --> 00:02:00,799 newswise of people perishing and shuffling off the mortal coil. We're gonna get to 30 00:02:00,959 --> 00:02:05,159 that a little bit later with the victory Davis Hanson. But first I thought 31 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:08,639 you guys might want to warm over the leftovers from the debate between two people 32 00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:14,000 who are not running for president or you know, you know what I mean, 33 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:16,759 who are not their party fabs. You know, at the moment, 34 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:21,520 Gavin Newsom went up against Ron DeSantis, and DeSantis had a few arrows in 35 00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:25,120 his quiver, the poop map, I love that the father in law who 36 00:02:25,199 --> 00:02:30,199 moved to Florida is kind of a nice line and other things, and people 37 00:02:30,240 --> 00:02:34,800 looking back saying Gavin Newsom looks like the guy that you were like president because 38 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:37,879 he looks like president, or he looks like the devil take a choice, 39 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:43,639 and DeSantis is just not as natural a politician and hence probably won't make as 40 00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:46,080 an impression on the American mind. I don't know. It depends what people 41 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:49,520 are looking for. It's a big country. Depends what do you guys think. 42 00:02:49,719 --> 00:02:52,319 I thought you summed it up beautifully just then, yeah, well then 43 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:53,879 let's move along, right then, Kenery kissing Dred, I know, I'm 44 00:02:53,879 --> 00:02:58,960 sorry, go on, well, I mean, it seemed to me that 45 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:04,560 DeSantis had so much more powerful an argument to make you just keep coming back 46 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:10,159 again and again and again to the notion that people are leaving California and moving 47 00:03:10,199 --> 00:03:14,400 to Florida. That's really the whole debate, right there, it doesn't matter 48 00:03:14,439 --> 00:03:17,960 what. And even at that Desantas seemed to be on the defensive. He's 49 00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:23,199 just let's put it this way, if this debate had any immediate political importance, 50 00:03:23,599 --> 00:03:28,919 it was Ron DeSantis's last chance to light a fire under his candidacy, 51 00:03:29,479 --> 00:03:32,120 and he didn't do so. It was still a better debate than any debate 52 00:03:32,159 --> 00:03:38,199 we've seen. I found Gavin Newsom so smarmy, but of course I live 53 00:03:38,199 --> 00:03:43,719 in California. I'm in a permanent state of agitation against the man. Anyway 54 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:52,599 for two people, for two people who represent just who are the representatives of? 55 00:03:52,639 --> 00:03:57,680 Too completely love the two opposed ways of governing. There was just too 56 00:03:57,759 --> 00:04:03,840 much shouting and smarm and Hannity might not have been the best moderator, And 57 00:04:04,039 --> 00:04:08,240 I don't know. I thought to myself, how could you possibly keep controlling 58 00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:14,280 this debate with Gavin Newsom there determined not to answer questions to talk over. 59 00:04:14,879 --> 00:04:17,040 The only way you could have done that is if both sides had agreed that 60 00:04:17,079 --> 00:04:20,879 Hannady would have the results the right to turn off a microphone, and obviously 61 00:04:20,879 --> 00:04:25,720 the Newsom people refused to do that. So it wasn't the debate that I 62 00:04:25,759 --> 00:04:29,879 was hoping for it was good enough in the sense that it gave people a 63 00:04:29,920 --> 00:04:33,639 fair view of these two different men, and they're two different governing philosophies. 64 00:04:34,399 --> 00:04:39,920 But Gavin Newsom got away with much more than he should have and Ron DeSantis 65 00:04:39,959 --> 00:04:44,120 accomplished much less than he ought than he needed to do. That's sort of 66 00:04:44,199 --> 00:04:46,800 my view of it. Rob. Do you agree, and do you agree 67 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:50,439 that perhaps it doesn't matter if Desanta's takes Iowa because that would change the momentum 68 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:54,600 completely. Oh, I mean, I think he needs a win. I 69 00:04:54,600 --> 00:04:58,480 mean, the political argument and the debate conversation are kind of two different things. 70 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,920 I mean, I don't know to what a extent anybody who is on 71 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,079 the I don't I don't know to the extent that anybody's actually on the fence. 72 00:05:05,759 --> 00:05:08,839 You know, there's just a bunch of Trump voters, and they don't 73 00:05:08,839 --> 00:05:13,920 seem to want to not vote for Trump. My my feeling, my feeling 74 00:05:13,959 --> 00:05:16,199 is they should, they should vote for Trump, that Republican should nominate Trump 75 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,720 and let's just see how it goes. That's what they want to do. 76 00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:23,480 They should, you know, I considered, I think it's a suicide pack. 77 00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:29,360 But okay, that's that's up to them. You don't understand, Charlie 78 00:05:29,399 --> 00:05:31,199 is the only guy who can drain the swamp that is so powerful that it 79 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:35,519 will keep him from winning the presidency. Yeah right, Well, as we 80 00:05:35,639 --> 00:05:40,199 talked before the before the podcast, the swamp, I consider the swamp of 81 00:05:40,319 --> 00:05:44,639 the federal bureaucracy, and I can't imagine any any president, living president and 82 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:48,879 living memory who who who gave up his presidency to more of the federal bureaucracy 83 00:05:48,959 --> 00:05:54,360 than Donald Trump. Donald Trump basically handed over the keys to the country in 84 00:05:54,399 --> 00:06:00,360 the economy, to the to the federal health bureaucrats before that, as has 85 00:06:00,399 --> 00:06:03,360 been demands. Now, we don't to litigate this has been demonstrated. These 86 00:06:03,439 --> 00:06:08,319 vaunted Trump economy pre COVID wasn't great either. By the way, the COVID 87 00:06:08,319 --> 00:06:12,319 economy was his too. Twenty nineteen, the economy shranked because of his stupid 88 00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:16,439 steel tariffs. That's now, you know that's that those are stats we don't 89 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:21,519 have, so you know, that's we don't need to litigate Trump. But 90 00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:28,639 the debate. What was sort of cheering and depressing about the debate was was 91 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:31,800 depressing about it, which just how rusty everybody is at having an actual debate 92 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:36,600 about a actual thing. I mean, if there are two greater choices in 93 00:06:36,639 --> 00:06:41,839 America, then Florida versus California, I can't think of them. They seem 94 00:06:41,879 --> 00:06:46,519 to embody very different ways of thinking about what a government's supposed to do, 95 00:06:46,639 --> 00:06:48,360 very different ways of think what economy is supposed to do, very different ways 96 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:56,920 of figuring out how to like revitalize your economy. Right, we should be 97 00:06:56,959 --> 00:07:00,560 having those debates. That's what the country should be deciding in November twenty twenty 98 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,360 four and so. But the depressing part about it was that everybody seems really 99 00:07:03,439 --> 00:07:09,279 rusty. He was not a very good debate, and we're not going to 100 00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:14,160 hear that again. Actually, we're all going to go and vote in twenty 101 00:07:14,199 --> 00:07:21,519 twenty four and we're not going to have this very very important, thoughtful I 102 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:28,360 don't know what airing out of two very different visions about what kind of America 103 00:07:28,439 --> 00:07:30,720 and what kind of an American government we should have. It was, now 104 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:33,680 that I think about it, it was more revealing than I felt at the 105 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:40,519 time. And at least one regard Gavin Newsom, Gavin Newsom really did not 106 00:07:40,720 --> 00:07:45,720 make an argument for his model. He was there to attack and smear and 107 00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:51,199 obfuscate. He viewed it as an entirely political encounter. I don't know whether 108 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:55,199 he's studied up on this, but he used the same technique that then Vice 109 00:07:55,199 --> 00:08:01,040 President Biden used against Paul Ryan, the interrupting him, talking over him. 110 00:08:01,319 --> 00:08:07,439 So even Gavin Newsom, the governor of the state of California, demonstrated that 111 00:08:07,519 --> 00:08:13,839 the people who champion that model champion it for reasons of power politics. The 112 00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:16,759 teachers' unions are behind them, certain minorities are behind them. They're not going 113 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:22,240 to make an argument about it because even Gavin Newsom eloquent, may not be 114 00:08:22,279 --> 00:08:26,279 the glib. Let's put it this way. The man is good with words, 115 00:08:26,959 --> 00:08:31,600 intelligent, good with words. He made no care he lacks any conviction 116 00:08:31,039 --> 00:08:35,240 in his own model. That was revealing. Yeah, Also, don't you 117 00:08:35,279 --> 00:08:37,519 feel like that only twenty hours later, don't you feel like, deep down 118 00:08:39,879 --> 00:08:46,240 Gavin Newsom kind of thinks there's a non trivial chance between now and I don't 119 00:08:46,279 --> 00:08:50,720 know, Labor Day twenty twenty four that he is going to be the Democratic 120 00:08:50,919 --> 00:08:58,039 nominee. Absolutely absolutely, he just you could just see it in his smug 121 00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:01,799 little hey look, and this is this is his dress rehearsal all the Democrats 122 00:09:01,799 --> 00:09:05,360 now can see him. Wow. He went into the Lion's Den with Kennedy 123 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:11,559 and and Ron De Santis and look at and he he was insulting and pugnacious. 124 00:09:11,559 --> 00:09:15,120 And no, no, no, it just feels to me like beauty 125 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:18,639 pageant time for him. He reminded me, there was one the one time 126 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:22,279 I sat in the owner's box. I knew a rich guy who then owned 127 00:09:22,279 --> 00:09:28,480 a share of the San Francisco Giants. And when Barry Bonds went to the 128 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:31,919 what was on deck warming up? Nobody looked at anybody else, including the 129 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,639 man who was at home who was batting. He said, he was saying 130 00:09:35,639 --> 00:09:39,279 they were behind. He was saying effectively to the whole and his bat speed 131 00:09:39,399 --> 00:09:43,080 was so much faster than the man who was hitting. At that moment. 132 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:45,519 The crowd looked at him, and it was as if he was saying, 133 00:09:45,639 --> 00:09:50,879 don't worry, don't worry, I'm next. I'm up. That's that's Newsom's 134 00:09:50,879 --> 00:09:58,679 attitude. Now, by the way, quick point on Iowa. The poles 135 00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:01,840 are overwhelmingly in favor of Trump, and so I, like you, Rob 136 00:10:01,879 --> 00:10:05,000 thought, oh, for goodness sake, let's just get this over with. 137 00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:07,320 And then a couple of nights ago. I had a conversation with an Iowan 138 00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:13,000 who has attended Iowa caucuses and he said, no, no, no, 139 00:10:13,159 --> 00:10:16,279 be very very careful. Yeah, the old rule, the old joke in 140 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:20,559 Iowa is that the Democrats hold their caucuses in the gymnasium. They all come 141 00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:24,039 with their minds made up and it's an athletic event. They try to shout 142 00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:28,159 each other into submission. But the Republicans, of course, the idea here 143 00:10:28,200 --> 00:10:31,879 is that they get together in school, local high schools, which they often 144 00:10:31,919 --> 00:10:37,279 do, schools or churches. But the Republicans hold their caucuses in the library. 145 00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:41,360 It's a much more neighborly event. They do try to persuade each other. 146 00:10:41,759 --> 00:10:46,200 And he said, actually, people do come into the Republican caucus with 147 00:10:46,279 --> 00:10:50,799 a sort of notional first and second choice, but they're willing to talk this 148 00:10:50,919 --> 00:10:54,840 over with their neighbors. They're willing to be neighborly about it. Votes do 149 00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:58,759 get shifted around. So in that kind of environment, which is essentially unpollable, 150 00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:03,480 can't you can't pull It's going to come out of a conversation things could 151 00:11:03,519 --> 00:11:07,919 still happen for DeSantis or Haley. Maybe anyway, I put that out there 152 00:11:09,080 --> 00:11:11,840 yeah. I mean, look, I think Iowa because I was always interesting, 153 00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:16,399 I think it's going to be interesting. I mean, full full disclosure, 154 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:22,600 I predicted that Mike Pence would take Iowa. So you know, I'm 155 00:11:22,639 --> 00:11:28,559 not really the best political prognosticator, but I was. I was. I 156 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:33,559 was very not that he's way too conservative for me, but I was bullish 157 00:11:33,639 --> 00:11:37,919 on Pants on Pants's chances. I think he dropped the ball, but that's 158 00:11:37,039 --> 00:11:41,919 you know, I was very you know, evangelical state. They should like 159 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:45,759 a Pence, but I think Pen's kind of tried to have it both ways. 160 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:48,720 Interesting thing for DeSantis to do if he had another run at this or 161 00:11:48,759 --> 00:11:52,000 if the general does indeed turn out to be the two of them, is 162 00:11:52,039 --> 00:11:56,000 to compare the California of Gavin Newsom with the California of Ronald Reagan, because 163 00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,519 I think there's a I think you can probably find a few key differences in 164 00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:03,360 those places, is when it comes to economic diversity and energy and population and 165 00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:07,679 cleanliness and the rest of it. And it would remind people that Reraken came 166 00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:11,840 out of that milieu, and you know, taking California values at that time 167 00:12:11,879 --> 00:12:15,440 to the rest of the country meant something different than it does now. I 168 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:20,919 think everybody kind of gets that that California, while it's always been the land 169 00:12:20,919 --> 00:12:24,320 of fruits and nuts in a place of craziness and experimentation and new beginnings and 170 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:28,440 the rest of it, is now just more or less the poster state for 171 00:12:28,559 --> 00:12:33,919 DEI and various forms of social engineering that are designed to enrich a Norman Cluttor 172 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:37,399 of bureaucrats and not solve any problems at all, which is so olbvious because 173 00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:41,480 the problems aren't being solved that Newsome is more likely to be the sort of 174 00:12:41,480 --> 00:12:45,320 guy to say, we don't want you to be in your car, we 175 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:46,799 want you to be in an electric vehicle if you must, and we're going 176 00:12:46,879 --> 00:12:52,519 to build high speed rail everywhere, to which Decatus could point out exactly how 177 00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:56,320 California has done with high speed for that matter, how California has done with 178 00:12:56,600 --> 00:13:01,840 anything, with anything. I mean, the fact that both states have a 179 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:05,000 Disneyland is probably the only thing that you can draw between them as a parallel. 180 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:09,320 I don't know, but as somebody else was saying, no, you 181 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:15,039 don't go the rob route, nominate Trump, lose, and then quit Donald 182 00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:18,000 Trump for good, because that would be done. 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The 216 00:15:24,159 --> 00:15:28,120 Man Victor he's a senior Fellow in Classics of Military History at Couver Institution, 217 00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:31,559 authored more than twenty books, including most recently The Dying Citizen, and he's 218 00:15:31,559 --> 00:15:37,440 got another one in the Way, The End of Everything, How Wars Descend 219 00:15:37,679 --> 00:15:41,679 into Annihilation. It's set to be released May of next year. If we 220 00:15:41,759 --> 00:15:43,440 get there. We're going to talk to Nick about the book in a little 221 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:48,440 bit. And thanks for joining us. Obviously, the question we want to 222 00:15:48,440 --> 00:15:52,360 ask somebody like you has followed these things and charted rise and falls history and 223 00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:56,960 then like Henry the kay passed at one hundred and I hate to say, 224 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:03,000 but he's being excoriated on Twitter for some reason. People under thirty are really 225 00:16:03,039 --> 00:16:06,399 angry at Henry. Reservoir of hatred there. I didn't know the existed. 226 00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:11,879 Judge the Man give us an overview failings, successes, and perhaps why he's 227 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:18,320 so hated to this day. Buyser and Cohort, Well, you know, 228 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:23,039 it's very funny. He was probably the most influential American diplomat of the last 229 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:29,440 fifty years, but he actually only held power for eight as Secretary of State 230 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:36,399 and National Security Advisor under Richard Nixon and that brief Jerry Ford period, so 231 00:16:36,519 --> 00:16:42,519 he didn't have ex official power. But almost every president consulted him, and 232 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,480 even the stranger thing is they all felt they needed to consult him, but 233 00:16:47,519 --> 00:16:51,519 they didn't want to publicize the consult that they consulted him. So if you 234 00:16:51,559 --> 00:16:57,039 were a democratic president, you thought that he had illegally he had engineered the 235 00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:03,600 illegal bombing of Cambodia, or he had backed Pinochet, or he had sided 236 00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:07,599 with the Turks, or he had sided with the Pakistanis against India, so 237 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:11,599 he was a war criminal. If you were on the right, you felt 238 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:15,680 that he had opened he triangulated against the Soviet Union by you know, legitimizing 239 00:17:15,759 --> 00:17:21,640 mouths seventy million dead in communist China. And then he didn't want to defeat 240 00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:26,720 as Reagan did the Soviet Union, but he wanted to manage, manage it, 241 00:17:26,880 --> 00:17:29,920 manage maybe their decline. So the right didn't own him. But then 242 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,640 the people on both sides, whether you were Bill Clinton or George W. 243 00:17:33,759 --> 00:17:38,880 Bush or George H. W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama or 244 00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:42,519 Donald Trump talked to him, So there has to be why was that? 245 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:48,200 And he gave you a cold, realistic appraisal of power human nature. It 246 00:17:48,279 --> 00:17:53,519 was a very Fucididian guy that believed that human nature was predictable across time and 247 00:17:53,599 --> 00:18:00,599 space and what people said, and this is very Thucididian with their bosses, 248 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,480 the historian called, it was one thing and the idea, the real motivation 249 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:10,000 was another that's never expressed. And he was a person who understand the real 250 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:15,480 and that the real motivations that came into the Middle East when he kind of 251 00:18:15,279 --> 00:18:22,079 taught us that what the Arab country said about the Palestinian authority or Hamas was 252 00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:26,119 not what they felt. In other words, they would side with them publicly, 253 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:30,400 but privately they would tell us that, you know, Israel should destroy 254 00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:33,599 them. And that was the kind of realistic appraisal that got a lot of 255 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:41,359 ideals, very angry cynicism, I guess, they would say. And did 256 00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:45,079 you like him, Victor? I only met him twice. He had yes, 257 00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,119 only twice. He came to a couple of lectures. I gave the 258 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:53,119 Vista lecture in the Manhattan Institute, and then I saw him at a person's 259 00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:57,960 home once. And he had a habit of writing authors. So when I 260 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:02,839 wrote about thucidity, I wrote the introduction to the landmark These Cities. He 261 00:19:02,839 --> 00:19:06,480 wrote me a long, handwritten letter. And then he wrote me when I 262 00:19:06,599 --> 00:19:10,400 published a book on the Peloponnesian War, a handwritten letter. And he was 263 00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:15,200 very interested in thu cidities and human nature. And I think that dovetail with 264 00:19:15,279 --> 00:19:22,799 his tally rand and what we're going and what about the right wing, the 265 00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:26,000 right wing critique with which I associate myself. Yes, you were an anti 266 00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:30,400 Kissinger person. Well, I was a Reagan person. And it meant it 267 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:34,319 meant View and Kissinger this is a complicated figure, and that he and Nixon 268 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:38,440 felt we were playing a losing hand and that the decline that had to be 269 00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:44,079 managed was our own. And then Reagan came along and said, well, 270 00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:48,400 no, actually we ought to be We have all the cards in our hand. 271 00:19:48,519 --> 00:19:52,680 Let's start playing them. Of course I'm oversimplifying. Then you've got Neil 272 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,960 Ferguson saying, well, the Kissinger detonte was useful. It bought us ten 273 00:19:56,039 --> 00:20:00,799 years and we really needed that decade. How do you what do you make 274 00:20:00,839 --> 00:20:04,680 of all he Let's put it this way. Kissinger never felt comfortable with Reagan, 275 00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:10,279 as witness that in his last book, latest book, and do we 276 00:20:10,319 --> 00:20:15,319 now know? Last book, which was titled Leadership, and he did profiles 277 00:20:15,359 --> 00:20:18,559 of what was it, half a dozen leaders. The contemporary leader he profiled 278 00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:23,960 was Margaret Thatcher. Yes, Ronald Dragan's I think Ronald Dragan's name may appear 279 00:20:25,079 --> 00:20:29,240 twice in the entire entire text of four hundred words. I bought the book 280 00:20:29,279 --> 00:20:33,240 and I read it, and I noticed that. But I think there were 281 00:20:33,279 --> 00:20:37,640 two things about that. One was he had a prejudiced against people outside of 282 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:45,039 the bipartisan establishment. They didn't have the proper curses and norm of education and 283 00:20:45,519 --> 00:20:48,400 building some state department, whether it was the left or the Reagan came from 284 00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:52,920 outside well outside that statues. So in his way of thinking, these were 285 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,359 populous yahoos, and they didn't They weren't sober and judicious, and they didn't 286 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:02,400 understand the intricacies of diplomacy and backroom deals and all this. They were too 287 00:21:02,839 --> 00:21:07,480 over maybe even too trumpion. But that being said, that was one thing 288 00:21:07,519 --> 00:21:11,440 I think, and the other was, you know, he wrote so in 289 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:15,680 his early career so much about nuclear strategy and the use of nuclear weapons, 290 00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:18,440 and then later on he was one of the people who wanted to ban them, 291 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,160 you remember, along with a number of them, and I think, 292 00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:26,599 so, yeah, he was so wedded to the idea that and he was 293 00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:30,480 right. Nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union had so many of them that they 294 00:21:30,599 --> 00:21:33,519 when Reagan came in and said, I want to defeat you know, it's 295 00:21:33,599 --> 00:21:37,599 very simple when they lose. He thought, oh my gosh, this guy 296 00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,759 is a California populist. He's an actor. He comes in and he thinks 297 00:21:41,759 --> 00:21:45,160 that the world of nuclear weapons is sort of like a cowboy movie, and 298 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:47,720 you can win and lose, and you can't. There are no winners, 299 00:21:47,759 --> 00:21:52,279 there are no losers because of nuclear weapons, and that was kind of ironic. 300 00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,440 Se he actually wrote a book about how you could use nuclear weapons in 301 00:21:55,480 --> 00:22:00,319 a limited fashion if you had to. So there were certain prejudices there, 302 00:22:00,319 --> 00:22:03,599 but when you look at his intellect. I mean, there's one other thing 303 00:22:03,599 --> 00:22:07,759 I should say is that maybe you met him, Peter, but William Shawcross 304 00:22:07,839 --> 00:22:14,319 that wrote that book Sideshow about the bombing of he had a spouse that would 305 00:22:14,319 --> 00:22:17,640 go to Stanford Medical and he would come and talk to me. And he's 306 00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:21,359 a wonderful guy. He will Crosswood. Yes, and he wrote the most 307 00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:27,480 damning appraisal if you remember about Kissinger, called sideshow and basically worse than Christopher's 308 00:22:27,519 --> 00:22:30,960 book, than the Hitchins book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, only because 309 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:37,640 it's not a dire tribe like Christopher's. It's But the point I'm making is 310 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:44,640 that he used to visit me at Hoover and he retracted that entire book once 311 00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:47,880 he got older, and he looked at the Cambodian what the Cambodian what the 312 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:52,920 who did the actual slaughter in Cambodi and the genocide and the nature of the 313 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:57,000 North Vietnamese regime, and he kind of I think he even formally apologized to 314 00:22:57,079 --> 00:23:02,240 Kissinger for that book. And I asked Christopher about that, because you know, 315 00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:06,039 Christopher came to Hoover and I'd see him in Washington Christopher Hitchins. Now, 316 00:23:06,319 --> 00:23:11,200 yeah, I'm not saying that Christopher was repentant, but yeah, I 317 00:23:11,519 --> 00:23:15,319 think he would say that. You know how he got had that flirtation with 318 00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:18,799 the Bush administration during the Iraq War, Yes, you know he was. 319 00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:23,359 He was talking to Rumsfeld and all those guys in that in that context he 320 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,920 was he didn't have that animus for Kissinger as he used to that he respected 321 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:34,640 his own right. So the only the only Kissinger anecdote I can. I 322 00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,920 mean, there's tons of witticisms that he attributed, but the only one thing 323 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:42,599 I think was relevant here was that. And I heard this first hand or 324 00:23:42,599 --> 00:23:47,799 secondhand, or but first hand. Somebody was there. I said, uh, 325 00:23:48,319 --> 00:23:52,880 somebody asked, Kissinger, you know you're you're blamed for all these things. 326 00:23:52,079 --> 00:23:59,960 It's an enormous list of specific crimes and things that Kenry Kissinger is responsible. 327 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:03,279 What do you think about that? And Kissinger, I guess, was 328 00:24:03,319 --> 00:24:07,960 in some expansive mood. He kind of laughed and he said, I'm paraphrasing. 329 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:15,279 Hears like, even I don't think that much of myself, which is 330 00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,759 sort of true, right. I mean, there is a kind of a 331 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:25,240 childish I mean, it's probably too a childish attitude, but also if it's 332 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,680 from k Kissinger, but I mean the childish attitude from people thinking that this 333 00:24:27,839 --> 00:24:32,880 one big bad man did all these big bad things. Now you're absolutely very 334 00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:40,559 It was a reductionist, especially on the left, and I think you're absolutely 335 00:24:40,599 --> 00:24:42,119 right about it. The other thing, I do think, though, I 336 00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:47,640 think it did get to him because I know so many people had criticized them 337 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,039 and got a call from him, you know what I mean. They would 338 00:24:51,079 --> 00:24:53,319 he would actually call them and argue with him. And these were pretty out 339 00:24:53,319 --> 00:24:57,359 there people. And I know that William Shawcross and Christopher told me that that 340 00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,839 he had actually talked to them and was angry at them for what they had 341 00:25:00,839 --> 00:25:06,160 written. In a case of Shawcross, he formally apologized once he heard the 342 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:11,279 Kissinger argument. And I think what he was trying to tell everybody that the 343 00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:17,640 United States was I guess he had a deep patriotic love, deserved a pre 344 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:22,400 eminent place, and he was frustrated sometimes that we didn't exercise our power or 345 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:26,960 we underestimated it, and we were not directing affairs global and they weren't in 346 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:30,920 our interests. So when he looked at the Iraq war, he was not 347 00:25:32,319 --> 00:25:37,920 for it originally, but then once it got it went south, he was 348 00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,039 not for losing it. He reminded me a lot of Matthew Ridgeway. Eisenhower 349 00:25:41,079 --> 00:25:44,759 called a Ridgeway, and same thing as Kissinger and said, I want to 350 00:25:44,799 --> 00:25:48,200 go into Vietnam and save the French. And Ridgway said, if you go 351 00:25:48,279 --> 00:25:51,720 in there, it's a mess. And then LBJ came in and said I'm 352 00:25:51,759 --> 00:25:53,799 going to go in there, and Ridgway said, did not do it. 353 00:25:55,240 --> 00:26:00,000 Then four years later, after TET, he called up Ridgeway and said, 354 00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,640 I want to get out. And he said, there's only one thing worse 355 00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,799 than getting in. There's only one thing worse than a stupid war, and 356 00:26:06,839 --> 00:26:11,480 that's losing it, right. And that was kind of Kissinger's attitude about right, 357 00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,400 all of these awkule that was the second George Bush administration. Kind of 358 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:19,119 in a nutshell, yes, and he was horrified. Kissinger said things about 359 00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,680 the I think he was horrified about the Afghanistan at the end of his life. 360 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:27,880 To see that uiliation. I don't expect all the time a Kissener, 361 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,680 but he does seem like he's a like it's amazing when you realize that a 362 00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:40,039 guy is so powerfully engaged, you know, part of the American century that 363 00:26:40,559 --> 00:26:41,599 when he I mean, obviously what he knew is going to die one hundred 364 00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:47,359 years old. But the obituaries are incredibly, incredibly elaborate. I mean I 365 00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:48,839 read. I mean, it took me about twenty minutes to read the New 366 00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,599 York Times of Ittuary today that this thing had been on ice for a while, 367 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:57,400 right right. The what I find striking about Kissinger is that this is 368 00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:03,599 incredibly strong guy, was very very well, you know, educated, thoughtful, 369 00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:07,880 strategic character. In the Nixon tapes, the ones that you could go 370 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,359 and listen to, I've heard a lot of them, he's the worst kind 371 00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:17,880 of obsequious round noser like it's it's kind of shocking. I mean, am 372 00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:22,400 I just being naive? Just the why he was very young and insane person 373 00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,039 is using human grandpa, you know, like there's a wonderful speech with the 374 00:27:26,079 --> 00:27:29,079 president, all that stuff. It's crazy. I think part of it was 375 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,920 that he was a Rockefeller guy, and he was an academic, and the 376 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,480 Nixon people hated academics. So when Rockefeller was out of the picture and didn't 377 00:27:38,519 --> 00:27:42,559 do well in the primary, then Nixon Nixon. He never thought Nixon was 378 00:27:42,599 --> 00:27:45,559 going to call him up, and Nixon called him up, and he was 379 00:27:45,599 --> 00:27:49,519 shocked and he went from Remember he said at the same time, the only 380 00:27:49,599 --> 00:27:56,759 thing, what do you say about academic politics are so vicious because the states 381 00:27:56,759 --> 00:28:00,799 are so small, right, and so he got out of that world and 382 00:28:00,839 --> 00:28:03,599 he never really went back. And then I think you remember the first two 383 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,519 years I think of the Nixon appointment of him as National Security Advisor. Harvard 384 00:28:07,559 --> 00:28:11,720 had a big debate on whether to, you know, not let him come 385 00:28:11,759 --> 00:28:14,680 back, and it was kind of like he put his hands to his mouth, 386 00:28:14,799 --> 00:28:17,039 kind of, oh my god, they're not going to let me come 387 00:28:17,079 --> 00:28:21,680 back. I'm just going to be the only national security advisor and Secretary of 388 00:28:21,759 --> 00:28:25,480 State the same. So I think he and I think he was afraid of 389 00:28:25,599 --> 00:28:32,680 Nixon, and I think he had an enormous, enormous respect for Nixon's intellect, 390 00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,000 and but I think he did not want to get on the wrong side 391 00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,839 of Nixon. And he was an academic that was out of place. Some 392 00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,599 of the weird things about I mean, we dated all those beautiful women. 393 00:28:42,119 --> 00:28:47,279 Yeah, that doesn't jis Ozolboard, Jill Saint John and all of those women. 394 00:28:47,759 --> 00:28:49,119 That was what he was. Yeah, we forget that he was in 395 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:55,960 the paper almost every day. He was in the in the seventies and he 396 00:28:56,119 --> 00:29:00,279 was He's the one thing I did admire about among all the other things, 397 00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:04,720 is when you read that three volume memoirs. He wrote. He wrote that 398 00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:10,319 himself. It was not Guess Woe, and it's beautifully written. The prose. 399 00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:12,799 It reminds me of General Grants memoir. I mean it's he had Harold 400 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,119 Harold Evans edited every word, did he? I didn't know. Kissinger told 401 00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:19,519 me that himself. I asked about it. He wrote it on long hand, 402 00:29:19,799 --> 00:29:22,240 and then it went to Harold got typed up and Harold Evans, the 403 00:29:22,279 --> 00:29:26,319 late editor, the late great editor, Harold Evans. Oh, yes, 404 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,680 no, no, no, there's no doubt about that. All his books 405 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,000 have a certain ear. You can tell that the man had for language. 406 00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:37,119 By the way, on the length of the obituary, yeah, reminding us 407 00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,279 of what a presence he was. I once asked Kissinger, I can't remember 408 00:29:41,279 --> 00:29:45,000 how on earth it came up, But to this day, in any event, 409 00:29:45,039 --> 00:29:49,519 I've never been able to understand why Eisenhower, during the Suez Crisis of 410 00:29:49,599 --> 00:29:56,319 nineteen fifty six cut the legs out from under the British and the French and 411 00:29:56,359 --> 00:30:00,319 the Israelis to help Nasser. And so I asked Kissinger about that, and 412 00:30:00,359 --> 00:30:04,519 he began his reply by saying, well, as I wrote at the time, 413 00:30:06,559 --> 00:30:10,680 nineteen fifty six, and he was already a serious enough person so that 414 00:30:10,759 --> 00:30:15,000 he was publishing on events in the news. By the way, he himself 415 00:30:15,039 --> 00:30:19,880 had no explanation and also said it was a terrible error to undercut our most 416 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:25,960 important allies and the hope of Korean favor with the Arabs. The one on 417 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,559 the SD destroyed Anthony. Anthony Eden was a good guy, and Anthony Eden 418 00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,559 was gone within what six or seven months after that he was forced to resign. 419 00:30:34,079 --> 00:30:41,880 At a dinner at Bill Buckley's house, Kissinger this is nineteen ninety one 420 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,079 or nineteen ninety right after the fall of nineteen ninety two, right after the 421 00:30:45,119 --> 00:30:49,319 fall of Soviet Union, Kissinger stood up and talked about a visit he had 422 00:30:49,359 --> 00:30:55,039 just made to the former Soviet Union, and he had sought out high ranking 423 00:30:55,119 --> 00:31:00,559 former officials in the former country, and he said, to a man, 424 00:31:03,119 --> 00:31:10,359 they said that what broke them was Reagan's strategic defense initiative, so very interesting. 425 00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:14,200 He never felt comfortable with Reagan and ignored him in this last book on 426 00:31:14,319 --> 00:31:18,880 leadership. But he understood Reagan's achievements there. Don't you think he was? 427 00:31:19,119 --> 00:31:25,680 You know, they make fun of in realist foreign policy, they make fun 428 00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:27,759 of what they I guess they used the word they use that left wing word 429 00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:33,440 intersectionality. But what happens in one place affects the other. And he was 430 00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:37,440 a person who really said he would say, and he wrote, if you 431 00:31:37,519 --> 00:31:44,200 get humiliated in Afghanistan, then the Putin will go into Ukraine. If you 432 00:31:44,359 --> 00:31:48,359 let up Chinese balloon go across the United States, then they will start threatening 433 00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:55,079 Taiwan. And the people had so discredited the Domino theory that when he started 434 00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:59,839 talking like that in the seventies and eighties, and he said that about to 435 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,960 George W. Bush, I know that for a fact when he said you 436 00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:10,480 should not leave Iraq without it being stabilized because da Iran right and all the 437 00:32:10,519 --> 00:32:15,559 others. That's pretty accurate. But we've kind of gotten away from that now. 438 00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:20,799 So Victor, what do you make of the Neil argument that the Nixon 439 00:32:21,319 --> 00:32:29,440 Kissinger achievement was to biaus time and that we needed that time. One sub 440 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:30,960 element of this, but it's a really important one, of course, is 441 00:32:31,079 --> 00:32:37,519 Vietnam. Yes, we lost in Vietnam, but they slowed down the law. 442 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:44,920 Kissinger and Nixon slowed down the loss and preserve Vietnam in such a way 443 00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:49,279 that other, Thailand was able to rise while we were fighting. In other 444 00:32:49,319 --> 00:32:52,519 words, the dominoes, the dominoes didn't fall. We lost one big domino 445 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,839 and then Cambodia went, but other dominoes that might have fallen. What do 446 00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,559 you make of the argument that was taken from you? Remember the National Review 447 00:33:00,559 --> 00:33:04,480 writer, he was right wing and he turned left wing. He wrote the 448 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,359 book The Necessary Vietnam, The Necessary War, Michael. That was taken right 449 00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:13,440 out of that. Remember, he made that exact argument that Vietnam had given 450 00:33:13,519 --> 00:33:20,640 us time and that we had stopped the onset of Southeast Asian Soviet dominance. 451 00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:25,160 So I don't buy it. You buy that. I'd kind of buy it, 452 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:30,519 but only in the sense that I think what they meant was and I 453 00:33:30,559 --> 00:33:36,319 don't think they meant I don't think they understood quite. But when Reagan took 454 00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:42,599 on the Soviet Union, it was a multi faceted economic, cultural, social 455 00:33:42,799 --> 00:33:46,200 revolution. He was saying, I can take on the Soviet Union now because 456 00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:50,720 I'm going to have massive tax cuts, I'm going to unleash the economy, 457 00:33:51,079 --> 00:33:54,640 I'm going to bring back a traditional love of America. And I think I 458 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:59,079 don't know if those people are explicit or avert. But in that period of 459 00:33:59,119 --> 00:34:02,559 the sixties and seven, when we had a regulated economy and we had the 460 00:34:02,599 --> 00:34:07,159 campuses and the civil rights and the whole thing, I'm not sure that we 461 00:34:07,159 --> 00:34:10,480 were capable of doing what Reagan did. I think for Reagan to have the 462 00:34:10,559 --> 00:34:15,679 confidence to marshal the country, because even when you were there, we were 463 00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:17,800 doing it. Remember they had all those Hollywood movies the day after and about 464 00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:22,360 yes, And I don't think that the country was able. It didn't have 465 00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:29,119 the confidence after Vietnam. It didn't have the economic wherewithal. So Kissinger and 466 00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:32,199 Nixon really did have a weekend and they really did plant as well as they 467 00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,920 could have. They had a lot weaker well, they had a weaker hand, 468 00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,960 but they were partly implicit because after all, Nixon gave us waging. 469 00:34:40,079 --> 00:34:45,440 We won't mention the architect of that, but they gave us wage and price 470 00:34:45,519 --> 00:34:50,440 control, and they did not on leash and Richard Nixon created a lot of 471 00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,760 bureaucratic bloat. But when Reagan came in, it was sort of we're going 472 00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,920 to re examine everything, and we're going to do it on the basis of 473 00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:04,840 what makes America powerful again and wealthy and united and proud, and part of 474 00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,880 that agenda was obviously standing up in the Soviet Union. And I don't think 475 00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:14,320 I don't think Reagan could have done it if he had continued with the Nix 476 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:19,039 and Jerry Ford, Jimmy Carter economic policies, and I just don't think he 477 00:35:19,079 --> 00:35:21,480 would have been able to get the people behind him, or you wouldn't have. 478 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:24,920 I mean, when you get seven eighty four, the third half, 479 00:35:25,079 --> 00:35:30,480 the last three quarters of eighty four was an aggregate seven or eight percent increase 480 00:35:30,519 --> 00:35:32,599 in GDP, you can do a lot when that's happening, Yeah, you 481 00:35:32,639 --> 00:35:36,280 can. And when he said crazy things like I'm going to have a six 482 00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:39,519 hundred ship navy, I'm going to bring back the New Jersey and the Iowa 483 00:35:39,559 --> 00:35:43,360 and the Missouri, all these crazy things, everybody thought he was nuts, 484 00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,800 but he did, and I think the Soviet Union were freaked out by it. 485 00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:53,000 I really do. There's a story that Reagan's at one point his erstwhile 486 00:35:53,199 --> 00:35:58,840 political advisor, Stu Spencer, and then his hit The Return of Stu Spencer 487 00:35:59,039 --> 00:36:06,000 in nineteen eighty says on his way flying to Detroit to the RNC, and 488 00:36:06,039 --> 00:36:07,800 he had just been brought on. I mean, he had been in the 489 00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,639 deep breeze, the Nancy Reagan you know, tundra for a while, and 490 00:36:10,679 --> 00:36:14,039 he'd just been brought back on and he walked to the front of the plane. 491 00:36:14,559 --> 00:36:15,960 You didn't meet the talk to the governor again, had talked to governor 492 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:20,320 in tenureds right close to that, and he said, of sat and said, 493 00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:23,920 so help me out, governor. Governor Reagan. So, of those 494 00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:28,239 of you under ninety on this podcast, that's Governor Reagan. He was governor 495 00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:32,920 of California before Gavin Newson. He says, So I got to ask, 496 00:36:35,599 --> 00:36:39,480 why do you want to be president? This is nineteen eighty. So there 497 00:36:39,519 --> 00:36:44,719 were hostages in Iran, and there was stagflation, and there was a malaise 498 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,400 in the country, and there was a defeat in Vietnam, and there was 499 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:51,920 a general sense of a decline in the American century. Maybe it was over. 500 00:36:52,199 --> 00:36:54,320 And Reagan didn't even hesitate. He just turned his stud and said time 501 00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:59,559 to win the Cold War. STU, just like that. And so there 502 00:36:59,599 --> 00:37:01,760 was a spencer says, there's nothing to say. So it got up and 503 00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,599 said, okay, well I'll see you on the ground, Governor. And 504 00:37:05,639 --> 00:37:10,239 then then there was a march to victory. But in the midst of decline, 505 00:37:12,639 --> 00:37:15,360 when all the news was bad, all the lights were red or yellow, 506 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:19,039 there was one guy on that plane saying, no, no, no, 507 00:37:19,599 --> 00:37:22,079 no, we're going to win and here's how, here's what we're doing 508 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,239 right. And you know, for somebody it was and it was as as 509 00:37:25,519 --> 00:37:29,280 it was multifaceted. We're going to win on the economy, we're going to 510 00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:31,320 win the culture wars, we're going to win. The Republican Party is going 511 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,920 to be back, and we're going to get a dominant Republican Party again. 512 00:37:36,639 --> 00:37:39,000 And that was part of that whole package. But I think if you look 513 00:37:39,079 --> 00:37:44,559 back, and I read some of the obituaries that were pretty cruel. But 514 00:37:44,599 --> 00:37:46,480 these people, if you look at a guy who comes from a German jew 515 00:37:46,559 --> 00:37:52,400 who leaves in thirty eight, right before the last possible moment, and then 516 00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,719 they come with nothing, and then he goes to New York guy City College 517 00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,239 for a while, or he's going to counting or something, and then he 518 00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:04,880 goes into the army and then he comes back and somehow that guy comes out 519 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,119 of Harvard. It's Harvard that makes him, yes, and then he's a 520 00:38:08,159 --> 00:38:12,760 brilliant guy. And then he goes to work as a left wing academic. 521 00:38:13,559 --> 00:38:17,800 He's intellect is such that right wing people want him, and then he kind 522 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:22,840 of really guides, you know, the Nixon administration. And then it's pretty 523 00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:28,920 amazing that a person had that spoken ability, written ability, analytical ability, 524 00:38:29,039 --> 00:38:31,760 and energy. And I was just thinking, you know, when I fly 525 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:37,119 overseas, when that guy was in his sixties and seventies and eighties, and 526 00:38:37,159 --> 00:38:44,519 he was still flying all over the world. And so the last time I 527 00:38:44,559 --> 00:38:47,239 talked to him, I was at a private club in North other in California 528 00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:51,760 whose name will not be mentioned. But he was in a wheelchair and he 529 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:57,360 was giving the keynotes and I was keeping away from him because people were swarming 530 00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:01,360 him. And I was walking in maybe ten weeks, and he was all 531 00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:05,440 crumpled up. He kind of shrunk, you know what. And he turned 532 00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:09,199 his head to the right and said, and I loot that Thucididus book you 533 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,280 wrote. And he didn't say hello, he didn't say I don't know if 534 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,159 you knew who I was, but he said that, and so he had 535 00:39:15,199 --> 00:39:20,400 a twinkle in his eye. And I think they get I think he were 536 00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,320 better off. The country's better off for having him. But I also think 537 00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:28,719 that in a weird way, I think he helped Reagan because Reagan used him 538 00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:30,920 as a foil. You remember, you remember this is to me. This 539 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:36,599 is the lowest moment for Kissinger. For me. You can do with what 540 00:39:36,639 --> 00:39:40,519 you will with it, Victor. But you remember that Gerald Ford refused to 541 00:39:40,639 --> 00:39:46,559 receive at the White House a visiting Soviet dissident author and that author's name was 542 00:39:46,599 --> 00:39:53,159 Soljan Needson, and that was on the advice of Henry Kissinger. That's appeasement. 543 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,119 Don't get me really, there's just no other word for it. When 544 00:39:57,159 --> 00:40:00,840 we won't president won't. Yeah, yeah, don't get me started. Because 545 00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:04,840 there's two low points for me. And one was the youm Kipper war when 546 00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,800 he went golden in the ears, said they're going to attack us in twenty 547 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:13,360 four hours and we're not going to be fully mobilized, and if we preempt 548 00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,639 like we did in sixty seven, we have a chance, and Kissinger said, 549 00:40:16,679 --> 00:40:22,320 no, you have to have the guilt on them. And then when 550 00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:25,039 they were trying to resupply them, remember they were playing cute games like Biden 551 00:40:25,159 --> 00:40:30,920 kind of about resupplying this and Nixon FINII lost his temper and said get anything 552 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:34,559 that flies and send over there. That was one thing their thing is. 553 00:40:34,639 --> 00:40:37,119 I was in Greece during the invasion. I had gone to Cyprus. It 554 00:40:37,159 --> 00:40:40,519 was a beautiful Bela Pies, the Northern Cypress. I was a student in 555 00:40:40,559 --> 00:40:45,840 Athens and seven give us the year seventy three, seventy four, and they 556 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:51,559 invaded. The Turkeys invade, Turks invaded Cypress. They killed twenty thousand, 557 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,760 eighteen thousand people were missing, maybe three or four thousand Greeks were slaughtered. 558 00:40:55,960 --> 00:41:01,119 Two hundred thousand people were ethnically cleansed. This was our two NATO wild eyes. 559 00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:07,679 Greece had just been liberated from the dictatorship Passock, Socialism and the Greek 560 00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:14,360 people were saying to Kissinger, stop the Turks immediately, and we had the 561 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,119 power to do that, and we didn't do that. We knew they were 562 00:41:16,159 --> 00:41:22,920 coming in, and the attitude of Kissinger and the Nixon administration was, if 563 00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,599 you look at the assets of Turkey, and you look at the assets of 564 00:41:25,639 --> 00:41:31,400 Greek and you look at the pass Passock angry because of our dictatorship support, 565 00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:36,920 They're angry. The Turks have a dictatorship. Basically, that's friendly. There's 566 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:40,559 no it's a no brainer. All of the assets political military on the Turk 567 00:41:40,679 --> 00:41:45,599 side. The Greeks don't write we don't want to we don't want to ostracize 568 00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:49,159 or a and eight. The biggest army in NATO, and the Greeks were 569 00:41:49,199 --> 00:41:52,360 just wild men that started it anyway with the n O system was crazy and 570 00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,559 they just let them take it over. And it was very anti Semitic. 571 00:41:55,639 --> 00:42:00,000 I was really upset because the Greek I think it was Taunay, I remember 572 00:42:00,119 --> 00:42:07,360 were they had the headline jo Hebreos Kissinger, the Jew Kissinger, and it 573 00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:14,519 was so the hatred in Athens was really venomous, antisomitic and angry. But 574 00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,039 I remember trying to defend him to Greek friends in my age. I was 575 00:42:19,039 --> 00:42:22,639 only twenty. But I think we really missed that. We should have been 576 00:42:22,679 --> 00:42:25,440 on the side of the Greece for a lot of reason. And you can 577 00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:30,159 see that today more than ever given their subsequent trajectory. So there's a lot 578 00:42:30,159 --> 00:42:36,000 of things to criticize, but if you look at the Ledger at one hundred 579 00:42:36,119 --> 00:42:39,599 years, I think there's more positive than negative, if I if I can 580 00:42:39,639 --> 00:42:43,679 grind the Gears here for a second. There's a new Napoleon movie out apparently 581 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:45,920 While it's well shot, well shot and beautiful to look at, it completely 582 00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:50,440 misses the character of Napoleon, misunderstands the age, gets a lot of things 583 00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:52,800 wrong, and is very sort of incomprehensible. And I'm wondering if it's because 584 00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:57,760 as of people now, we've just no concept of the nineteenth century. We 585 00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,119 don't find it relevant at all, But it is it, especially the Crucible 586 00:43:00,119 --> 00:43:04,920 out of which Napoleon came. A movie about the terror about It's seventeen eighty 587 00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,320 nine, about the Jacobins, would be tremendously relevant to these days. And 588 00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,920 at the time it must have seemed to everybody as if the old world was 589 00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:15,360 completely falling apart into annihilation and chaos. Which brings us to your book. 590 00:43:15,199 --> 00:43:17,880 We briefly, since I know that we have about forty seven seconds left, 591 00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:21,960 if you could sum up, I know Peter is going to be doing an 592 00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:23,920 interview with you later that is going to be absolute must listening to. But 593 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:29,360 your book is the end of everything. How wars descend into annihilation and it's 594 00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:34,880 coming out next may just give me the odds on us not descending into annihilation 595 00:43:35,079 --> 00:43:37,440 by then, And what might be if we did, what might it be 596 00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:42,360 from Well, they're very rare that a war usually ends, could be in 597 00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,159 a humiliating defeat like Nazi Germany. But the idea that an entire losing sight 598 00:43:46,679 --> 00:43:53,159 as Carthage or classical Thebes or the Aztecs or Constantinople, loses their religion, 599 00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:59,760 their culture, their people. They're either wiped out enslaved ethnically. It's very 600 00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:04,000 rare, but it happens. And so in the epilogue, I look at 601 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:12,199 the traits that allow these to happen. Naivete over confidence, appeasement, stupid 602 00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:15,159 resistant. I talk a lot about the Median Dialogue and the city the same 603 00:44:15,199 --> 00:44:20,199 thing. They're annihilated. But my point is that I have a long epilogue, 604 00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:24,400 maybe too long, about certain vulnerable peoples, the Armenians three million, 605 00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:30,920 the Israelis ten million, the Kurds and the Greeks. They have fifty thousand 606 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:36,800 square miles and there's only ten million, and they've got this existential hatred of 607 00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,480 the Turks who. So my point is that I try to give you a 608 00:44:40,519 --> 00:44:46,679 paradigm how it could happen, especially in the age of bioweapons or nuclear weapons. 609 00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:53,400 Well, naivite, cultural decline, appeasement, good good thing, we're 610 00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:58,000 not suffering from any of those. Yeah, So I try to. After 611 00:44:58,039 --> 00:45:00,159 I do the four case studies, I give you a paradigm how it happened, 612 00:45:00,159 --> 00:45:04,800 it cost time and space, and then I apply it to some vulnerable 613 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,199 areas today that could happen. It could happen again. But it's otherwise, 614 00:45:07,199 --> 00:45:12,880 it's pretty rare. It's hard to wipe out entire people. Hernan Cortes did, 615 00:45:13,199 --> 00:45:15,960 and so did Memo the Second, and so did Alexander the Great, 616 00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:22,280 and so did Skippio Emilianus. One thing I'll just finished with all of them 617 00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,559 who did that said they were men of letters and philosophers, and they all 618 00:45:25,599 --> 00:45:29,719 said later in age they regretted it. Alexander, I didn't mean to do 619 00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,719 that. Skippy o, oh, maybe some day it could happen to us. 620 00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,920 Cortez, I never really wanted to destroy to notes Itlan. So that's 621 00:45:37,119 --> 00:45:40,800 Memet said, we could have used it. We didn't. I'm the new 622 00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:45,199 Caesar, and so they all had. They were all men of letters. 623 00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,800 So it's kind of a scary that people who consider themselves intellectuals are enlightened. 624 00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,480 Military leaders are the most dangerous. Alexander in his ripe old age Victor, 625 00:45:53,519 --> 00:45:57,079 thanks for joining us today. We may get you guys somewhere and run and 626 00:45:57,119 --> 00:46:00,960 it's always been a pleasure and we hope to talk to you a sap about 627 00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:05,400 things in the world in your next book. So it sounds great you guys. 628 00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,480 Fictor used lots of sunscreen down there in Palm b Yeah, careful, 629 00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:15,840 I'm called a black sweet Peter. That my family was that it was dark 630 00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:22,320 sweetish, so I don't have that problem as you Anglo Saxon. There's so 631 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:27,920 many ways to unpack that, Ictor. Okay, okay, bye, And 632 00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,320 just a reminder, Peter, you are going to be speaking to vh on 633 00:46:30,519 --> 00:46:35,920 uncommon Knowledge about his book and going into depth fit for forty five minutes for 634 00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:37,159 an hour or so. Again, we'll post a link to that when it's 635 00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:43,440 up in Ricochet and ricochet dot com is where you ought to go. Well, 636 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:47,079 since Rob's back, that means he's going to do his usual accounting of 637 00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:52,159 the places where Ricochet members meet in real life. Yeah, and the last 638 00:46:52,159 --> 00:46:55,079 time I did this a few weeks ago, we were talking about maybe the 639 00:46:55,119 --> 00:47:01,920 spring. But of course Ricochet members do not wait for There's one tomorrow a 640 00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:07,559 meet up Ricochet members tomorrow in the Seattle area. Rush Bay forty nine is 641 00:47:07,559 --> 00:47:10,360 putting on her annual chili party. Go to ricochet dot com into the member 642 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:16,800 of section and look that up. Flicker as fielding suggestions for places to meet 643 00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,960 while he visits a Georgia the Peach Day. So if you live around there, 644 00:47:21,119 --> 00:47:22,719 see if you can splay some Ricochet members to head your way. It'll 645 00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:27,800 be late December early January. So those in the Georgia area let's get together. 646 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:36,719 And of course Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is January fourteenth. Meet Up 647 00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:38,559 King. That's great. This is we have to call him meet up King 648 00:47:38,559 --> 00:47:42,639 because he does I don't know how many. I don't know how many of 649 00:47:42,639 --> 00:47:51,159 these he's arranged. Randy Wivoda in Chattanooga is trying to to start a meet 650 00:47:51,199 --> 00:47:54,440 up on January fourteenth. If you have not been to Chattanooga, and I 651 00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:59,199 of course have been to Chattanooga, you should go to Chattanooga. Chattanooga is 652 00:47:59,199 --> 00:48:04,480 one of the most interesting, like it's like the it's not even it's like 653 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,039 the fourth biggest city in Tennessee. Tennessee first of all is enormous, but 654 00:48:08,119 --> 00:48:15,239 there are four great cities in Tennessee well three in Memphis and Chattanooga. When 655 00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:16,880 Memphis is a great city, but it's not you know it, it's got 656 00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:22,800 issues. But Chattanooga is unbelievably beautiful. And then when you go there and 657 00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:30,639 you realize just how vibrant and powerful and alive the Mid South was for hundreds 658 00:48:30,639 --> 00:48:35,960 of years, and I mean even post Civil War. It's a great city, 659 00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,199 really interesting and great architecture too. So chennumy fourteenth Chattanooga, Well, 660 00:48:40,199 --> 00:48:45,360 it sounds like a fantastic idea. Anybody wants to come to Minneapolis. Of 661 00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:47,480 course I've got some recommendations, and I might even show up now. Of 662 00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,519 course I'll show up. That's what Ricochet is all about. I love the 663 00:48:50,559 --> 00:48:52,760 fact that Rush Bay forty nine is having a chili party. However, many 664 00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:57,880 podcasts you listen to from the large institutions that claim to be your friend, 665 00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,480 how many of them actually invite you over that? What said that it is 666 00:49:00,519 --> 00:49:06,079 the Bricochet difference. Well, there's a different wind blowing in various political cultures 667 00:49:06,119 --> 00:49:12,280 around the world. Argentina and Dutch people comes to mind too. Javiier Millay, 668 00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:16,239 Do I have that pronounce correctly? Is it mil mil Milay? Actually, 669 00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:22,880 you've got have the first name I would be I'm sure I think it 670 00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:29,960 is Melea, although it might also be Mila Mila, yes exactly. I 671 00:49:30,079 --> 00:49:32,400 like the way he shouts. I like his anger. I like the way 672 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:37,639 he talks. And it's very it's very chunky, and it's very forthright, 673 00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:42,320 and it's smart and it is angry, but it's not angry in a sort 674 00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:45,320 of mad, puffed up Howard Rourke. I'm not going to take it anymore. 675 00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:46,119 Oh, it's got a little bit of that too, but it's meat. 676 00:49:46,199 --> 00:49:50,920 He's get what he says, there's truth to it, and all of 677 00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,320 these pithy little eyes. So of course we all know that people like this 678 00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:59,679 get elected and then are instantaneously stymied because there's so far outside of the bureaucratic 679 00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,719 norm that nothing can get done. But we're rutting for him, aren't we, 680 00:50:04,159 --> 00:50:06,760 aren't we? Guys? Oh? I think so? I think so? 681 00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:10,000 Yeah, kidding me, Yeah, Archie, he wants the Falkland. 682 00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:17,719 Well, if he can, if he can turn he can have. Yeah, 683 00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:22,840 that's mandatory for an Argentine politician to say that. But I don't think 684 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,320 he's going to be in a position to do anything about it, nor well, 685 00:50:25,559 --> 00:50:34,920 any he is, He reminds me, he is what Margaret Thatcher would 686 00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:39,760 have sounded like if she were on some some sort of drug that suppressed all 687 00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:47,519 inhibitions, right, because we know Thatcher writes in her memoir that she realized 688 00:50:47,639 --> 00:50:52,559 when she became Conservative leader and had people briefing her on how to fix this 689 00:50:52,599 --> 00:50:54,280 piece of the economy, do this with the educator, she said, she 690 00:50:54,400 --> 00:51:01,480 realized that all the failures of Britain were now so interconnected that you couldn't reform 691 00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:08,639 anything without reforming everything. That's a fairly close paraphrase. James made the point 692 00:51:08,679 --> 00:51:12,880 that this is the kind of figure who gets elected and then immediately finds that 693 00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:17,880 he's thwarted. Perhaps so, But what the election itself indicates is that the 694 00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:24,199 country of Argentina, the people of Argentina, realize that something big needs to 695 00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:30,079 be smashed. Whether this is the man to pull it off, I don't 696 00:51:30,079 --> 00:51:34,960 know, although I do know I do have friend here at Stanford who's from 697 00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:43,800 He's from Chile actually, and Malay is known within economists as a serious libertarian 698 00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:46,360 and an informed man. And now we know that he's also a performer and 699 00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:52,239 a very successful politician. We shall see but yes, the answer is we're 700 00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:53,880 rooting for him. He also looks like he should be a member of the 701 00:51:53,920 --> 00:52:00,440 British graphic design firm Hypnosis in about nineteen seventy two. Yeah, look, 702 00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:04,840 I mean, what are their choices? You know, they've tried everything else, 703 00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,920 so they mas will try you know, sound Ludwig van Mesian, you 704 00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:15,760 know, Milton Friedman economics, what what what if that works? It's worked 705 00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:19,719 before. Also, look a look, I think a lot of these countries 706 00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:21,639 are at a cross roads. I think you know, I think Holland is 707 00:52:21,679 --> 00:52:25,440 in the Netherlands with a cross road. I was there last week. You 708 00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,199 could either have it. You were there. You were there when the election 709 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,519 results came. I was not there when the election came in because I had 710 00:52:32,599 --> 00:52:36,719 already I left the day before. But I was talking to Dutch people and 711 00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:40,559 they tell do tail do tell well, look you can. I mean, 712 00:52:40,599 --> 00:52:44,920 it's it's it's a it's a it's a question that we have here, right. 713 00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:51,480 You can either have a very generous social welfare system, which Holland has 714 00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:57,039 had for years, that's been held together by a willingness to understand what Dutch 715 00:52:57,079 --> 00:53:01,039 society and cohesive Dutch society should be something that we in the United States would 716 00:53:01,039 --> 00:53:07,199 not accept by the way, we would find it too restrictive, but they 717 00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,559 like it. You can either have that or you can have massive immigration from 718 00:53:12,079 --> 00:53:17,480 non Northern European countries. You can't have both. You just can't. It's 719 00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:22,840 the same thing that a more honest governor of California would say. Certainly it's 720 00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:28,760 something that the mayor of New York City understands. You can either have a 721 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:36,679 very generous welfare state or you can have essentially open borders. You cannot have 722 00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:42,320 both. You cannot afford both. You have to choose, and all Gered 723 00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,239 Bilders is a good Villains is what we would consider to be a very liberal 724 00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:49,320 democrat here. He's not talking about shrinking the state. He's just talking about 725 00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:59,880 closing the door and recommitting the Netherlands to the Dutch identity, which sounds grim, 726 00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:02,320 you know, it sounds scary, sounds like you know not you know, 727 00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:07,079 national socialism. But what it really means is that they have a very 728 00:54:07,119 --> 00:54:12,440 specific kind of society that that we we don't want to emulate in this country. 729 00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:15,719 We're much more free, we believe in much much greater opportunity, individual 730 00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:22,280 opportunity, and he wants to protect that, and you can't do that when 731 00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:28,159 you have massive immigration from non Northern European countries. You couldn't. And people 732 00:54:28,199 --> 00:54:30,679 have been focusing entirely on what he's saying about Turks and about Moroccans and the 733 00:54:30,679 --> 00:54:37,519 people in North Africa and Muslims. But if you wanted to bust up Holland, 734 00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:40,880 you could just import a lot of Italians. Italians don't want to Holland 735 00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:46,800 either, Like so, it's not quite as dire as people mention it or 736 00:54:47,079 --> 00:54:54,880 people are painting it, but that the the the response is sort of the 737 00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:58,960 same. It's been the same about Trump. There's there are too many parallels 738 00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:02,679 between builders and trust being made. They're not really that very similar. But 739 00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:07,480 the idea is that this has been this has been an alarm bell for the 740 00:55:07,599 --> 00:55:13,199 establishment, and you what most people think of in the New York Times and 741 00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:17,320 in the al Chamane dac Blot or whatever it is there the Volkskron or whatever, 742 00:55:17,679 --> 00:55:22,719 what most people think of that now we're alarmed at how large the right 743 00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:29,159 wing is getting, whereas the alarm really should be we should be alarmed how 744 00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:36,559 far away we are from people and their immediate concerns. So when you hear 745 00:55:36,639 --> 00:55:39,519 liberals in the United States talk about this is alarming all these like the alt 746 00:55:39,639 --> 00:55:44,559 right in America, this alarms that that's something that they feel like they need 747 00:55:44,599 --> 00:55:49,280 to squash, whereas the alarm actually should be telling you, well, where 748 00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:52,400 how far away are we from these people? Now? We're very far away. 749 00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:57,880 And I think that's that's what they essentially Dutch establishment discovered last Wednesday was 750 00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:01,760 that they are very far away from the Dutch voter, which is which must 751 00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:07,360 be very disconcerting in a country where you know, there's a huge amount of 752 00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:14,880 social cohesion, there's a huge amount of of intras inter class social class cohesion. 753 00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:17,880 The Dutch people are Dutch people are Dutch people. They are very very 754 00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:22,119 similar. And I mean that with all due respect. You know, I've 755 00:56:22,119 --> 00:56:23,480 lived in Holland as a kid, so I'm not not you know, I'm 756 00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:30,400 not no shade. But in the United States when politicians are out of touch, 757 00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:32,199 like yeah, yeah, you're out of touch. It's a big country, 758 00:56:32,199 --> 00:56:35,559 you're not you're going to miss stuff. In Holland when you're out of 759 00:56:35,599 --> 00:56:40,519 touch, so what how far off are you? And you know, that's 760 00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:44,960 just a different way of looking at the obverse. The other thing, The 761 00:56:45,039 --> 00:56:47,960 other thing that strikes me is how small these countries are. Population of the 762 00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,159 Netherlands a little under eighteen million, population of Hungary little under ten million, 763 00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:58,320 Norway five million, Denmark seven million, Sweden ten million, And what do 764 00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:05,559 we know. Population trajectories are very hard to predict, but all the predictions 765 00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:12,559 are that by twenty fifty the population of Africa will have increased by a billion 766 00:57:12,599 --> 00:57:17,239 people a billion people, and the population of all those European countries will have 767 00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:22,880 shrunk. Well, there's going to be some empty villages in the Netherlands and 768 00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:29,760 France and Italy that look very appealing to some of those billions in Africa. 769 00:57:30,239 --> 00:57:34,679 And it's just astounding to me. At least you can tell me what I'm 770 00:57:34,679 --> 00:57:40,199 missing, but it seems astounding to me that the people who run Europe have 771 00:57:40,559 --> 00:57:45,800 few If you're Dutch and you look at these two, we're a very small 772 00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:47,960 country. We could lose our we could be overwhelmed, we could lose our 773 00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,800 identity extremely easily, and we can already feel it happening from the number of 774 00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:57,559 immigrants we've already accepted. In the next twenty five years. We could simply 775 00:57:57,559 --> 00:58:04,760 be what politician looks though he's at least grappling. It just seems to me, 776 00:58:05,199 --> 00:58:08,559 it just seems to be an obvious question for any voter in any of 777 00:58:08,559 --> 00:58:13,840 these countries to ask to look Victor Orbont, He's the only one addressing what 778 00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:17,840 seems to me, as a Hungarian perhaps the major problem of the next generation. 779 00:58:19,239 --> 00:58:22,760 He's the only one who's addressing it. That's just a political system working 780 00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:29,159 the way it ought to, and that this elicits shocks of howls of outrage 781 00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:34,840 is astonishing to me. It presumes that the leaders care about maintaining a Dutch 782 00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:38,760 identity, it cares that they presume about any sort of you know, national 783 00:58:38,880 --> 00:58:45,760 character at all. Why would they when they can be part of a transnational 784 00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:51,159 apparatus that is well paid for and well taken care of and manages the decline. 785 00:58:51,159 --> 00:58:54,960 They're not interested, particularly in national ideas, because if there's anything we've 786 00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:59,960 learned from the Progressive Project, it's that the the the idea of ethno states 787 00:59:00,039 --> 00:59:02,719 in Europe is prima facia, a bad concept, an evil concept. They're 788 00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:07,079 the only ones who are not allowed to have their own little cultural on c 789 00:59:07,119 --> 00:59:10,119 lives. Everybody else in the world can have it. Nobody's looking at Somalia 790 00:59:10,199 --> 00:59:13,519 and saying, you know, the problem with you guys is that you're all 791 00:59:13,559 --> 00:59:16,000 Somali. You should be seventeen percent Dutch. It was an absurdity on the 792 00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:20,119 face of it. People's self segregate. They've they arranged themselves as they do, 793 00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:27,199 but they've redifind they're so poisoned by the idea that that national identity within 794 00:59:27,320 --> 00:59:30,199 language and culture and history and folk ways and the rest of it is somehow 795 00:59:30,239 --> 00:59:32,480 about one half of a goose step away from the rise of of the Fourth 796 00:59:32,519 --> 00:59:37,159 Right, that they've just decided to abandon the whole thing forever in the name 797 00:59:37,199 --> 00:59:42,920 of Europe, which means a set of values and ideas that are completely to 798 00:59:43,079 --> 00:59:47,400 them, divorced and uprooted from the cultures that produce them. So they were 799 00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:52,559 handed down by the you know, the tablists, by Moses and God. 800 00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:54,119 One thing before we got to go rob because we know you have a hard 801 00:59:54,159 --> 00:59:57,960 out, as we like to say here, so finish up and then we'll 802 00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:01,480 leave. Oh. I was going to say that the only issue here with 803 01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:06,559 with the with the Northern Europe and the Europeans is that they they don't like 804 01:00:06,679 --> 01:00:09,960 change. They never have like change, and so they but they convinced themselves 805 01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:14,000 that if they just hunker down that things won't change. And the reality is 806 01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:16,840 what they need is they need more in Italy. They need more Italians, 807 01:00:17,039 --> 01:00:21,679 they need to have more kids. They're upside down on their population group in 808 01:00:21,719 --> 01:00:25,000 how they need more Dutch people having children. And they probably need to create 809 01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:31,000 a slightly bigger, broader opportunities society for themselves instead of the regulatory states that 810 01:00:31,039 --> 01:00:37,079 they have because you can't you know, you can't pass the tax to or 811 01:00:37,159 --> 01:00:42,079 pass a law to outlaw tomorrow it's going to happen. And had they what 812 01:00:42,159 --> 01:00:45,119 they they're now, they're they're dark. Theory is well, you know will 813 01:00:45,159 --> 01:00:49,360 be in charge and but we just import a bunch of people and they'll do 814 01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:53,440 all the work. That doesn't really that you have to be willing to shrink. 815 01:00:53,559 --> 01:00:55,559 If you can do that, you have to be Japanese to do that. 816 01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:00,280 The Dutch can't do it and the Italians can't do it. What they 817 01:01:00,320 --> 01:01:02,920 need is they need to they need to create a vibrant, growing economy that 818 01:01:04,039 --> 01:01:07,800 encourages people to have children right and to move out of cities and to do 819 01:01:09,199 --> 01:01:15,320 economic opportunity activities that you know, grow an economy rather than just sort of 820 01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:21,079 hold it steady while you import people from the global South to I don't know, 821 01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:25,400 make your bitter balling in your you know, Kaiserschmarn somewhere else. Right 822 01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:29,239 then, when you wake up like Ireland and you find it's time to talk 823 01:01:29,239 --> 01:01:31,159 about these things, they've made it illegal to do. So it's been fun 824 01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:34,840 to talk about this again more next week and for the weeks to come. 825 01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,000 Peter rob always a pleasure. You the listener can go to ricochet dot com 826 01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:40,719 and sign up. You can go to Apple and give his five started reviews 827 01:01:40,719 --> 01:01:44,639 in the podcast, and you can go to Fume Fum try fume for that 828 01:01:44,679 --> 01:01:46,559 wonderful little product. Thanks to everybody who's been listening, and we'll see you 829 01:01:46,599 --> 01:01:52,480 all in the comment, said Ricochet. F point Oho next week. Next 830 01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:59,039 week Ricochet join the conversation