Victor Davis Hanson: I’m Not Racist for Saying Somalis Stole a Billion Dollars

In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler take aim at Rep. Ilhan Omar’s trash talking America and how mass immigration without assimilation gives you what you’re seeing in Minnesota.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: I think all of us, we have to just tell the Left be quiet. We don’t care what you say. It’s just true. Somalis stole millions of dollars, probably a billion. I’m not a racist for saying that. You should talk about that community and Ilhan Omar and the message she gave to them. If you’re spokesman is saying, “Something happened on 9/11,” or “Somaliland only for Somalis,” you’re not going to get the leadership you need.

She never said to that community, to take an example, “We are in the most wonderful country in the world. We are so lucky to leave our war-torn, impoverished, torn apart state and be in this wonderful country. I want all of us to work, work, work, work. Some of you will have to be on public assistance, but we’ll confine that to as few as possible. And we want to contribute more and take less from this wonderful government.” That was never there.

It was either, “This is the worst country in the world,” I’m quoting literally. She said it looked “dirty,” and she said that we had a dictatorship worse than Somalia.

So that whole area, what I’m talking about is that classical paradigm of small farms, small communities, close knit, you can still find in America, believe me, in the Midwest that still exist. Hillsdale County is a good example. But it’s gone in California.

There are places in Northern California in the foothills that sort of replicate that, but it was a one-two punch when you let in millions of people, which is fine if you want to integrate and assimilate. But if you don’t, and you suggest that they’re victims on top of that …

The first debate I ever had at the Hoover Institution, I think I told you, was Milton Friedman and I on immigration, and he was an open borders guy, complete. The debate went downhill.

I said, “You’re gonna destroy wages.” He said, “Well, when it gets down to dollar an hour, they won’t come, will they?” And I said, “Yeah, but you’re not gonna be a person trying to get the job when it’s one dollar an hour.”

But then he did say something I’ll never forget. He said, “But you’re right. It’ll never work if you’re subsidizing people who come in from impoverished countries with generous entitlements because you’re not letting the market work.” That’s what he said.

And I think I had another debate with a friend of his. But if you have generous entitlements, and you let people en masse, and you don’t want to acculturate them or teach them in the values of your civilization you’re a Minnesota every year. 

JACK FOWLER: And there may be certain cultures or ethnicities that are less inclined to assimilate into another culture. 

HANSON: If your idea is that we’re coming to the United States for the prosperity, security, and freedom, but we want to keep entirely our own culture in an enclave. 

FOWLER: Yeah, we talked about the oath of allegiance. Those are words that mean something, and it means I am you. I am an American, and I reject all of this. 

HANSON: It’s very different. Where I’m speaking, the Japanese community came in large numbers in the ‘20s. 

In 1965, there was a Buddhist temple and there was a Japanese baseball league and that lasted for three generations. It just disappeared because the immigration stopped. They had one of the highest rates of intermarriage. And they’re completely assimilated.

And they were never separatists though. Those were enhanced cultural enhancements, but they were the most loyal, wonderful Americans. There was nothing like a Dearborn, Michigan.

I don’t know how long Dearborn, Michigan will last. It has to be constantly refueled by immigration because we do have popular culture that can change it. If you want a Dearborn, Michigan, or you want London under Mayor [Sadiq] Kahn or whatever his name is, then the whole idea of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, but single culture democracy doesn’t work. 

And we’re getting close to that right now that it doesn’t work anymore. California’s a good example. 

FOWLER: I consider what’s happening in England a preview. So, folks better prepare. They better well prepare to tolerate it or prepare to stop it.

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