The things people hear on red tribe cable!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2024

Professor Hanson speaks: As far as we know, Victor Davis Hanson is well regarded as a scholar. The leading authority on his life and times thumbnails him as shown:

Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953) is an American classicist, military historian, farmer, and political commentator. He has been a commentator on modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Washington Times, and other media outlets.

He is a professor emeritus of Classics at California State University, Fresno, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution, and visiting professor at Hillsdale College. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush.

You're right! The Hoover Institution is part of Stanford, but it's widely regarded as an independent conservative entity. And of course, Hanson is most visible, in the present day, as a frequent commentator on the Fox News Channel, where we saw him again last night.

What sorts of things do viewers hear while watching the Fox News Channel? Last night, Hanson spoke with Laura Ingraham about Joe Biden's speech in South Carolina. 

Along the way, the pair discussed Biden's remarks about the nationwide protests which followed the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. At times, the formulations were a bit hard to credit, as when Ingraham said this:

"You know, at this speech in South Carolina, President Biden extolled the virtues of the riots in 2020. I think we have a sound bite."

An extremely brief sound bite was played. Needless to say, no one "extolled the virtues" of any "riots" in the brief excerpt viewers were shown.

The professor took it from there. To watch the bulk of this exchange, you can just click here.

We won't attempt to evaluate Hanson's statistical claims about the violence which sometimes emanated from those demonstrations. (As we'll note below, one of his statistical claims was quite clearly crazily wrong.)

In fairness, violence and looting did sometimes accompany, or emanate from, these protest events. The leading authority on those protests offers this overview:

A report from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimated that between May 26 and August 22, 93% of individual protests were "peaceful and nondestructive" and research from the Nonviolent Action Lab and Crowd Counting Consortium estimated that by the end of June, 96.3% of 7,305 demonstrations involved no injuries and no property damage. However, arson, vandalism, and looting that occurred between May 26 and June 8 caused approximately $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally, the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, and surpassing the record set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In short, the large majority of these events were peaceful and nonviolent. That said, a large amount of damage was recorded as these events continued.

That said, what sorts of things do viewers routinely hear on Fox? We'll highlight the most remarkable statement the professor made last night:

HANSON (1/8/24): Thirty-five people died. Fifteen hundred police officers were killed [sic]. $2 billion in damage. Looting, arson, attacks on federal property, as I said.

And then, if you talk about insurrectionary speech, Kamala Harris said these riots and demonstrations would not stop, nor should they stop, she said. They're going to go all the way on to the [2020] election, she said.

I don't know why anyone would take credit. Fourteen thousand people were arrested. The only difference is, in magnitude, it far dwarfed the violence, if there was any, on January 6. 

No, Virginia! Back in 2020, Candidate Harris didn't say that "riots" should continue. 

Nor is it true that 1500 police officers were killed. We're prepared to assume that this mournful fellow simply misspoke at that point.

We've highlighted the astonishing statement which brought us right out of our chairs. In that statement, Professor Hanson rather plainly seems to say that he doesn't know if any violence occurred on January 6!

That's right! According to this familiar savant, the violence associated with the George Floyd protests dwarfed the violence which occurred on January 6—if there was any violence on January 6 at all. 

Yes, that's what he actually said! So the learned professor said, the one who's connected to Stanford.

We often hear blue tribe pundits say that we've all seen the videotape of the violence which occurred on January 6. An understandable type of incomprehension lies behind such statements.

People who watch MSNBC routinely see such videotape—but people who watch the Fox News Channel never see any such videotape at all. Last night, a learned professor, straight off The Farm, told viewers that he wasn't sure if any violence had taken place on January 6 at all!

Ingraham let the comment pass.

These are the wages of "segregation by viewpoint." This is part of the world which comes into being when we allow ourselves to be super-siloed, red and blue always apart.