Victor Davis Hanson: ‘No Kings’ Protest a Facade for Leftist Virtue Signaling

In today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler described the “No Kings” protests, citing a Daily Mail article by psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert. They said that the event was an “empty expression of caring” where “elderly white baby boomers” sought “validation” through virtue signaling.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jack Fowler: “The ‘No Kings’ protest, from what I’ve seen in person and on TV, it seems to me like a big venting session. It’s almost like a big group therapy. So, people get stuff off their chest, and they feel better in the moment, but it doesn’t necessarily bring about any sort of positive change.” He said that “rather than actually affecting change, many of them are simply craving community or validation,” which he said, “can be addictive.” 

Final thing here. “A lot of times people unhappy in their own lives, they may have anxiety or anger, and they project that onto others. That’s partly what we’re seeing play out in these rallies.” Victor, your thoughts on these rallies and what the psychiatrist said?  

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, we have a rule, Jack. We do not use the K word.  

Fowler: We don’t. 
 
Hanson: The K-blank-blank-blank-N.  

Fowler: Right.  

Hanson: But these are the types of stereotypes by age, race, gender, and income status that I have a little something called the VDH radar. And it’s an early form of radar, so it only has a range of about 40 yards. But when I’m walking somewhere, i.e., a restaurant, a coffee shop, an airport, I have this little bleeper in my brain. It goes, “DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1!” And then this person comes up, and then I see the scowl, and then the pace increases, and then he’s in my circle. “You”—It’s usually you—“you think you know better.” It’s all this talking down to somebody.  
 
But there’s no diversity is what we’re not allowed to say. We’re basically talking about elderly white baby boomers. And for a generation that told us that there was something called disparate impact and proportional representation. In other words, if there are too many tire owners that are white males, then it’s time for the government to come in and bankroll a non-white tire owner. 

It doesn’t apply in reverse. So, if the NBA or the NFL is 60% to 70% African American, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get an Asian guard put on each team in the way that DEI works in the university. And it doesn’t, of course, work with doughnut shops if there’s too many Asian doughnut shops or if Indian truck drivers represent 40% of California’s drivers on the road. That just happens, Jack. It’s just the natural flow. Why would we interfere? But we interfere with everything else when there is a white disproportionality. So, I think they should interfere here.  

And I really do think that if they’re gonna be bused or show up, they’re gonna have to say, “You know what? This corner right here in Washington has 79.3 white people. So, we are not letting any more white people on this corner until we have real diversity.” And then the question is, why that rubric? Why that rubric? Why affluent white [people]? I don’t think you’re gonna find many 7-11 owners there. I don’t think you’re gonna find many tire store owners. 

I think you’re gonna see people who work for the government, who are teachers, and they’re on a guaranteed salary like I had been most of my life, except when I farmed. I can tell you it creates a different ethos once you have a guaranteed salary.  

The other thing to remember is he delved into the psychological reasons why this took place, and I would differ a little bit. I think there’s a certain group of baby boomers, and when globalization hit, they did very well. They’re the upper-middle class, and they came of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s when you could buy a house. They have a house, they have good pension, they’re well off, they’re affluent. And they like it. And they’re in good, nice, safe neighborhoods, and they have good friends. 

They are very guilty, as we saw on Martha’s Vineyard when the “other”—Hispanic, black, non-white—enter their domain, at least, unless they’re like Barack Obama. And so, they’re very skeptical about putting their children or grandchildren in a multiracial public school in a big city. They want solar, high 40 cents a kilowatt, because they live in nice places where the energy’s not too high, but they don’t really care what it falls upon. Same thing with gasoline. Same thing about security and crime. They want to defund the police. They want juveniles out, but they live in areas where that doesn’t affect them. 

So, what I’m getting at is they create a façade of caring performance art, virtue signaling, and they feel guilty. So, they project, and they go out on the street and show everybody how left-wing they are in an empty and feudal expression of caring and left-wing fetes. But when you actually look at their lives and see to what degree they live with the “other,” they go to dinner with the “other,” they have their kids in school with the “other,” they don’t. And that makes them feel really bad.  

So, one of the ways they square that circle is by performance art virtue signaling. If you’re in Martha’s Vineyard and all of a sudden some illegal aliens from south of the border show up, you get some really nice, shiny cardboard boxes. You put your used puff coats in, you deliver them to the center, and then you say, “The bus is waiting for you outside to take you to Harlem. See you, wouldn’t want to be you.” And that’s how they operate. And I’ve seen them my whole life. What’s new is they are the object of ridicule by a lot of people. 

The left-wing, affluent, white bicoastal professional classes who show up at these anti-Tesla, No Kings rallies, and it’s just a mechanism of squaring their own discomfort with their … Their abstract ideology does not match how they live. If you look at how they live, they are some of the most materialistic, acquisitive, status-obsessed people in the world.  

If you see what they say or how they demonstrate, you would think they were neo-socialists. 

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