The Real Victims of Biden’s Border Crisis

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

Jack Fowler: This Antifa punk, who was caught on video yelling at an [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officer, said, “I’ll kill your whole effing family, your children, your wife. All dead. I have your face.” 

This is why ICE agents wear masks, because when they don’t, they’re exposed. 

This guy is Nicholas Matthew Scelfo. He’s 27. He’s from Brooklyn, and he’s been arrested by the FBI for threatening to kill a federal agent. Scelfo was a participant in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and, more recently, in “No Kings” protests. 

He is an oddball, I think, Victor, but a violent one. Your thoughts on what our ICE officers endure? 

Victor Davis Hanson: Well, that’s what Voltaire said of Admiral [John] Byng. The British have a strange habit. Every once in a while, they hang an admiral, pour encourager les autres, so they can encourage the others. 

They need to make an example of people who do that. 

It’s very ironic because I’m sitting here in California, where [Gov.] Gavin Newsom will sign into law a new statute that makes it illegal for people like [Nick] Shirley to photograph, you know, just because that’s supposedly intimidating to immigrants or something. 

Fowler: “Learing” center employees. 

Hanson: Yeah, “Learing.” 

And here, for months now, these ICE demonstrators have gotten into their faces. They’ve threatened them, and nothing. No repercussions. None. 

Basically, we are in a situation in America where a federal officer is trying to rectify the lax enforcement of the past and return people to their home country who came here illegally, the majority of whom—60% to 70% of whom they’re after—are still criminals. 

We have an active resistance that’s threatening them all the time, sometimes with violence. 

And the reaction of blue-state America is, “We’re going to make it illegal to do something they used to celebrate on ‘60 Minutes.’” 

Remember the ambush interview where all of a sudden Dan Rather would pop out of a doorway when he’d see a corporate CEO walk by, then stick a camera in his face and a microphone and say, “Did you or did you not know about that carcinogen in your assembly?” 

That’s what they did all the time, and the Left thought this was the greatest thing in the world. 

But the Left is adolescent, so anything they feel adds to their power and influence—any means necessary—is OK. Then, when it’s used against them, they get paranoid. 

They’re all mad at E. Jean Carroll now because everybody knew she’d lied under oath when she said Reid Hoffman didn’t fund her lawsuit. That was a complete lie. He funded almost all of it. 

Now they’ve decided to do something nobody does: enforce the perjury law. 

And they say, “Oh, this is lawfare. This is vindictive.” 

Her whole case was a bill of attainder that allowed her to have a suspension of the sexual harassment statute for one year, written specifically for her, so she could get [President] Donald Trump. 

So, it’s really demoralizing to see what these young punks do. 

I said to Sami the other day that 45% of them, Jack, are Mexican American middle-class people. 

And nobody in the Mexican American community is doxing them or exposing them. 

We’re talking about— 

Fowler: The ICE officers. 

Hanson: The ICE officers. Yeah. 

They are celebrated because when 12 million illegal aliens come across the southern border, they do not go to Martha’s Vineyard. They do not go to Atherton. They do not go to Palm Beach. 

We know they don’t go to Martha’s Vineyard. We know they don’t go to Nantucket. 

They go to Hispanic communities like mine. 

The result is that when you go to the emergency room, you can’t get served. Or when you take your mom for dialysis, she can’t get served. 

Or you go to the store, and somebody is not speaking Spanish, they’re speaking an Indigenous dialect, and no one knows what to do. 

Or you have truck drivers who can’t read English and are killing people with fake licenses. There was no requirement they had to meet to get them. 

So, that’s the problem. 

This is a class issue. 

These are wealthy, upscale young punks and middle-aged retirees, mostly from the white and Asian elite of this country. They go out as a sort of sporting event, then disparage, slur, smear, and try to attack largely middle-class Mexican American officers. 

No one talks about that, but that’s the real subtext of the entire thing. 

Fowler: This is interesting on the elitist side. 

I’m looking right now at a post on X from someone called “I Meme Therefore I Am,” who writes, “One of the left extremists who was arrested for kicking and biting ICE agents in New Jersey was previously charged with sexual abuse of children related to the dissemination and possession of child pornography.” 

This character’s name is Brendan Geyer, and he graduated from Madison High School in New Jersey. 

I’m going to tell you something, Victor. If you wanted to buy a house in Madison, New Jersey, you’d better have a couple million dollars. 

These are hugely elite upbringings, and this was a very violent and ideological young man. 

Hanson: That’s what no one talks about in this country. 

There is something deeply troubling and disturbing about this postmodern culture that’s grown up in the bicoastal elite communities, where pampered white kids go to schools like Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the rest. 

They get indoctrinated for four years, and they don’t know anything. 

They don’t learn classical languages. They don’t know modern languages. They don’t know philosophy. They don’t know science or math. 

They take therapeutic sociology and psychology, then become fodder for all these causes. 

They’re so sanctimonious and self-righteous because they’re wealthy and entitled. Nobody in their entire lives has dared to bother them. 

They have security patrols in their neighborhoods. They’re like little sheltered hothouse plants, and we’re supposed to take them seriously. 

That is really the basis of the Democratic Party now. It is a DEI, socialist, Islamist, elitist coalition. 

I think we need to talk more in those terms. These are class snobs. 

They keep talking about oppression. 

[New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani is a good example. He talks about whiter neighborhoods and all these oppressors. 

He came from the 1% of Uganda. One percent in Uganda are of Indian ethnic background. 

According to his own definition and the people around him, he is a settler colonialist. 

I don’t believe that’s true, but they would say it’s true. 

He grew up in affluence, came over here, and his parents gained even greater affluence. 

He’s never really held a serious job outside of government, a board position, or serving as an assemblyman for a term. 

He’s got all these pie-in-the-sky social ideas, and he’s got these racialist ideas. 

He does not like Jews. That’s very clear. 

He does not like white people, or he wouldn’t say, “I’m going to go after the nicer, whiter neighborhoods.” 

When you talk like that, it’s a stark revelation of your soul. 

That’s a very disturbing demographic—these very affluent left-wing people who are so self-righteous. 

And you know what’s weird about it? 

They transfer their wealth and privilege into their ideology. So they think you have to listen to them. 

Black Americans don’t know what’s good for them unless they listen to Barack Obama, who can instruct them about why they can’t vote for anybody but Kamala Harris and why these people are all misled. 

That arrogance comes from the idea that they’ve always had affluence, they’ve always been privileged, and they’ve always expected people to listen to them. 

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