Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.

On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America about something that's going on in America in

2023. I am delighted to be joined today for an end of year special Americano episode. And I can

think of few better people, or no better people, in fact, to talk about what's going on in America

right now and look ahead to

2024, then Victor Davis Hansen, who is a classicist, military historian and author most recently

of The End of Everything, How Wars Descend Into Annihilation.

Victor, thank you very much for coming into Americano.

It's good to have you here.

Thank you for having me.

Let's start with a piece you wrote quite recently.

I read it on American Greatness.

I'm not sure where it was first published,

called Weimar America.

And this was a very interesting essay

where you suggested that something very dark and creepy was happening in America.

And you were looking at the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses.

And you think that a sort of strange mix of progressive politics, a kind of anti-Americanism on campus, is sort of combining to bring about

something quite authoritarian and dark in American politics. Can you give us a summary of your

thesis? Yeah, I think the American left, oh, for the last 20 years, especially as it's manifested in the university,

has adopted this cultural Marxism of binaries, oppressed, oppressor.

People have talked about this.

...