Founders’ Fire: From 1776 to Trump—Arthur Herman on Innovation, Wealth, and American Renewal | VDH

Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words

Jennifer Hayne

News Commentary, News

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson interviews historian Arthur Herman about his book "Founders’ Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump," linking the Founding Fathers to later American business and technology founders and arguing they drive American exceptionalism through risk-taking and innovation. Herman describes a recurring cycle in which founder energy becomes institutionalized and bureaucratic until crises like the Civil War and World War II spark renewal, and he ties recent political turbulence and Trump’s rise to a similar governance crisis and a push to reinvent government around founding principles. They address attacks on wealth and “robber baron” narratives, the role of patents and the pursuit of happiness in enabling entrepreneurship, the outsider traits common among founders, and a shift from globalization to an innovation-first model amid regulation, censorship, and antitrust pressures. 👉Go to JoinADF.com/HANSON or Text HANSON to 83848 to help support Alliance Defending Freedom’s work!https://www.JoinADF.com/HANSON.com 👉For more videos like this, subscribe to The Daily Signal’s YouTube channel and enable notifications to be alerted the second a new video drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some follow the noise.
0:03.0	Bloomberg follows the money,
0:04.8	whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings.
0:08.9	There's a money side to every story.
0:11.4	Get the money side of the story.
0:13.5	Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.
0:19.6	Get the new fix-and-fall tariff from British Gas, where prices can only slide down.
0:24.6	If energy prices climb up, no worries, you'll be fixed for two years, but if later the market falls, so will your tariff.
0:32.6	A win-win, sorted automatically by us.
0:35.6	Price cap, taken care of.
0:38.4	Fix your prices today.
0:40.3	Search British Gas Fix and Fall.
0:42.4	Tis and C's eligibility and limitations apply.
0:44.2	Price review based on the off-gen price cap after 12 months.
0:46.2	See Britishgas.co.uk slash verify for more. What happens when an educator objects to a school directive requiring her to violate her religious beliefs and deceived parents?
1:07.6	Kathy McCord, a former Indiana school counselor, faced backlash. Despite her 37
1:12.6	years in education, she was fired after simply confirming the truth. South Madison directed her
1:18.7	and other staff to refer to students with opposite sex names and pronouns, in some cases, without
1:25.3	telling their parents and actively hiding it from them.
1:29.0	Kathy believed what many parents believe.
1:31.3	Kids do best when schools and families work together, and she believed no one should be forced
1:37.0	to violate their faith to keep their job.
	...

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