The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 114 - The Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. ft. Al Felzenberg

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00:00:39.340 We're joined today for the full half hour by Professor Alvin Felsenberg.

00:00:45.780 Professor Felsenberg is the author of A Man and His Presidents,

00:00:49.640 the political odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr.

00:00:53.580 We will discuss the founder of the modern conservative movement 10 years after his death,

00:00:59.960 what WFB might have thought of President Covfefe one year in,

00:01:05.080 and what the conservatives of today can learn from our forebears.

00:01:09.420 And if Professor Felsenberg won't talk about all that, 0.99

00:01:12.660 I'll smash him in his damn face and he'll stay plastered. 1.00

00:01:17.540 Then the mailbag. 1.00

00:01:18.840 I'm Michael J. Knowles Sr., and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:32.040 You know, later on we're going to get Ben in here to play Michael Kinsley,

00:01:35.660 and I am going to see, as is true to form for this show,

00:01:39.000 I'm going to see how narrow I can make my references

00:01:42.200 until not a single person is with me anymore.

00:01:45.300 Until it's just to amuse myself, which is really what this show is for.

00:01:48.540 Anyway, we have a wonderful guest today to talk about Bill Buckley 10 years after his death.

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00:05:13.940 Let's get right into it.

00:05:14.840 We have a lot to talk about with Professor Felsenberg.

00:05:17.360 I'm joined by Al Felsenberg, who has worn many hats in his long career in politics.

00:05:22.140 Al has served as the principal spokesman for the 9-11 Commission,

00:05:26.060 director of the communications for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress,

00:05:31.540 special assistant and advisor to the National Broadcasting Board of Governors,

00:05:35.220 consultant to the Secretary of the Navy,

00:05:37.520 director of community outreach and public liaison for the office of the secretary in Defense Department.

00:05:43.000 During the George Bush II administration,

00:05:45.820 assistant secretary of state of New Jersey under Governor Tom Keene,

00:05:49.320 fellow at the Institute of Politics at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University,

00:05:54.360 as well as teaching positions at UPenn, GW, and Yale,

00:05:59.160 where Al helped to found the William F. Buckley program and also was my professor.

00:06:04.360 He is the author of several books, most recently his biography of William F. Buckley Jr.,

00:06:09.220 which we will be discussing today. Professor Felsenberg, thank you for being here.

00:06:14.280 Hey, Michael, it's a pleasure to be with you.

00:06:16.140 So, to begin, let's begin at the very beginning.

00:06:19.580 Buckley's siblings burned a cross outside of a Jewish resort in Sharon, Connecticut in 1937.

00:06:26.040 Little Bill, then 11 years old, quote, his own words,

00:06:30.160 wept tears of frustration because he was too young to join them.

00:06:33.900 Buckley then famously purged the conservative movement that he helped to create of the kooks

00:06:39.560 and the bigots and the racists and the anti-Semites around the time he graduated college.

00:06:44.120 How did Buckley make that journey in just a little over a decade?

00:06:48.020 Well, this was a very different era, rather, the 1930s.

00:06:54.020 Jews were not welcome in various communities.

00:06:57.640 Blacks were not welcome in many communities. 0.95

00:06:59.840 Other groups were not welcome. 0.76

00:07:02.640 Bill said that he didn't think that anti-Semitism was a congenital disease,

00:07:08.100 but his father did suffer from it.

00:07:11.460 And he said as he got older, he began to think for himself.

00:07:15.360 He began to change many of his views.

00:07:16.880 Part of it was the army, where the sheltered wealthy young man from Sharon, Connecticut,

00:07:26.240 who had private tutors and many servants and all the rest,

00:07:30.560 had met people from different walks of life for the first time.

00:07:35.040 It was a bit of a culture shock.

00:07:37.200 Jews from Brooklyn and Poles and Ukrainians from Chicago

00:07:41.660 and African-American field hands and all sorts of people that he hadn't been any time with.

00:07:48.200 And then, of course, the experience of the Holocaust. 0.88

00:07:51.740 Eisenhower, when troops were released from service at the end of the war,

00:07:59.220 insisted on showing footage of the American forces liberating the camps.

00:08:06.040 They saw the wreckage that the Nazi system had brought. 0.92

00:08:08.900 They saw the conditions of some of the survivors who were in, who were spared.

00:08:14.040 And, of course, all the deaths and costs.

00:08:19.080 He started thinking about it.

00:08:22.000 At Yale, he had a roommate named Ginzburg.

00:08:27.880 And you may know the Fencing, or the Fence Club, I think it's called.

00:08:32.040 I do, yeah.

00:08:33.080 In a rather prominent society, and Bill was clearly the one they most won.

00:08:40.960 He was the man on campus.

00:08:42.240 He was the editor or the chairman of the Yale Daily News,

00:08:45.840 the champion of the winning Yale debate club.

00:08:49.300 And the Fence Society really wanted him.

00:08:52.380 And then he won Ginzburg, because at that time they didn't take Jews.

00:08:55.900 Yale had a restrictive quota on the number of Jews it would accept.

00:08:58.900 And a generation earlier had a similar quota on Catholics.

00:09:03.280 And Bill said, okay, happy to join the club.

00:09:06.900 I come with Ginzburg, not at all.

00:09:09.920 And, of course, they both attended.

00:09:12.080 We were both remitted.

00:09:13.900 A year later, when Skull and Bones was having its final competition, what have you,

00:09:21.160 both men received an invitation.

00:09:23.680 Skull and Bones learned from the Fences Group.

00:09:28.140 And Ginzburg, to my knowledge, became the first Jewish member of Skull and Bones. 0.99

00:09:33.420 So it was a long journey.

00:09:34.820 Not that many years, but it was a great deal of self-searching.

00:09:38.320 Of course.

00:09:39.340 And now fast-forwarding.

00:09:41.760 I would like to hop back and forth a little bit,

00:09:43.460 because one thing I love about your book so much is you include a lot of lines that come out of Buckley's papers,

00:09:50.660 Buckley's letters, a lot of correspondence that we haven't seen.

00:09:53.980 It is no overstatement to say this is by far the most thorough biography of Buckley out there,

00:09:59.260 and certainly everyone should read it.

00:10:01.040 Let's tackle the 239-pound gorilla in the room, rather. 0.96

00:10:05.440 When Donald Trump nearly ran for president in 2000 as basically a left-wing candidate

00:10:11.200 pushing late-term abortion and gun control, among other issues on the Reform Party line,

00:10:16.460 Buckley called him a narcissist and cautioned readers to avoid him.

00:10:20.120 Eighteen years later, the Heritage Foundation says that Trump is affecting their conservative agenda

00:10:25.640 at a faster rate than even Ronald Reagan.

00:10:28.520 Buckley called for tablet keepers, conservative elites to guide American politics to the right,

00:10:33.700 and he also said that average Americans are far wiser than their leaders or their intellectuals.

00:10:39.000 Here's the quote from Buckley.

00:10:39.900 As Franklin Adams once said, I think the average American is a little bit above average,

00:10:46.000 and under the circumstances, I rejoice over the influence of the people,

00:10:52.400 over their elected leaders, since by and large, I think that they show more wisdom than their leaders

00:10:57.500 or than their intellectuals.

00:10:58.680 I've often been quoted as saying I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people

00:11:01.860 in the Boston Telephone Directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.

00:11:06.900 Professor Felsenberg, was Buckley schizophrenic?

00:11:10.600 How do we reconcile these apparent contradictions?

00:11:14.360 Well, quite easily.

00:11:16.420 He started out his career very concerned that a liberal elite was taking America down the wrong path,

00:11:24.380 and that was a path toward moral equivalency between the United States and the Soviet Union.

00:11:28.760 He thought the Soviets were playing for keeps, and he thought all the situational ethics

00:11:34.040 that were creeping into university curricula were weakening our fiber,

00:11:40.160 and he did think that we were stressing American greatness and American symbols quite well.

00:11:45.140 But he had also written as a young man that he had seen not the evil effects of what we call populism,

00:11:53.820 but the effects of the mob, the effects of a mob manipulated by a demagogue

00:11:59.260 who didn't seem to have any ideology except crowd-pleasing and rabble-rousing. 0.61

00:12:04.920 He said he had seen this as a boy watching newsreels in the Saturday matinees,

00:12:11.500 and he had seen the Nourvier rallies, and he had seen Mussolini, and he had seen several others.

00:12:15.700 And he said there was something about the mob that bothered him,

00:12:20.900 the guttural style of Mussolini and Hitler and others, 0.93

00:12:26.860 and the finding of the scapegoat and the finding of the enemies and all of that.

00:12:30.440 He shuddered for that.

00:12:31.400 In his own time, he actually called George Wallace, governor of Alabama,

00:12:37.900 at that point at about segregationists,

00:12:40.780 who was saying the student radicals sat in front of his car.

00:12:44.060 It would be the last time they'd walk again, that kind of thing,

00:12:47.760 and attacked pointy-headed bureaucrats and all of that.

00:12:50.560 He called Wallace a phony conservative, a false populist.

00:12:55.140 He said Wallace claimed to be a conservative, claimed not to want Washington interference,

00:12:59.380 but he took money from the federal government for roads, for hospitals, for schools, for welfare, for everything.

00:13:09.320 Sixty percent of the Alabama budget came from Washington.

00:13:11.900 Wallace just didn't want blacks to receive any of the benefits.

00:13:16.000 And Buckley said he didn't want a program that was full of benefits and entitlements,

00:13:20.140 but if you're going to have them, he didn't want any racial tests.

00:13:23.540 He ended up by saying, all right, we have to go to the broader mass of the public.

00:13:29.060 They are smarter than most of the politicians.

00:13:32.340 I think that's still true. I think I can prove that to you.

00:13:35.360 I mean, I still think that statement can be proved empirically.

00:13:38.740 But to guard against the mob and the fears that he had, he wanted a conservative elite.

00:13:46.640 And, you know, if you're going to excommunicate people from a church or a movement,

00:13:51.140 you need a curia to do it.

00:13:52.600 And he went after many people.

00:13:56.040 He went after Ayn Rand, certainly, not because of her libertarianism,

00:14:00.980 but he thought she confused libertarianism with libertinism.

00:14:04.900 And there are values.

00:14:06.740 He also didn't like her atheism.

00:14:08.460 And he said she was basically a mirror of Marxism, that they were atheists, too.

00:14:15.000 And his most famous site was with the John Birch Society that had peddled conspiracy theories.

00:14:24.100 The most famous, of course, was Robert Welsh, who was the leader of the Birch Society,

00:14:28.540 the most famous of which was Welsh's assertion that the American government was in the hands of Moscow

00:14:34.880 and no lesser light than Dwight Eisenhower, president of the United States,

00:14:39.600 was a conscious agent of the international communist conspiracy.

00:14:43.440 That was too much for Buckley.

00:14:45.500 He said that all movements are defined by their opponents, by their weakest link in the chain.

00:14:52.360 He thought that was a pretty weak link.

00:14:55.280 He found quite a backlash.

00:14:56.680 He lost readers, he lost subscribers, he lost donors, he lost speaking invitations.

00:15:02.960 But he toughed it out.

00:15:05.440 And he once said that that was the proudest achievement of his life and his greatest legacy.

00:15:10.880 So you need a conservative elite, which he called the tablet keeper,

00:15:15.300 to decide what was in the realm of responsible conservative opinion.

00:15:21.160 And that's where he ended up.

00:15:22.600 I wonder in that evolution, because we know many friends and associates of Buckley,

00:15:29.480 you more than I, I suspect.

00:15:30.740 I've asked some of them their thoughts on Trump, on this moment,

00:15:35.320 and what they thought Buckley's thoughts would be on Trump or on this populism.

00:15:39.600 And they seemed split.

00:15:41.560 I then asked a friend of ours at the Manhattan Institute,

00:15:44.740 and he said he thought that the 27-year-old Buckley,

00:15:48.000 the polemicist, the defender of Joe McCarthy,

00:15:51.020 he might have liked Trump.

00:15:52.040 And the 60-year-old Buckley, the more mellow Buckley,

00:15:55.260 the no longer defending Joe McCarthy,

00:15:57.660 would almost certainly not have liked Trump.

00:16:00.120 How did Buckley's views and attitude,

00:16:03.260 not just the racism and the anti-Semitism of his family and his youth,

00:16:07.760 how did his views even on conservatism,

00:16:10.160 on the conservative movement and politics,

00:16:11.920 change over the course of his five decades in national politics?

00:16:15.320 Well, he changed his views on anti-Semitism, which we talked about.

00:16:22.140 He changed his views on isolationism.

00:16:24.240 His parents supported the old America First movement,

00:16:28.360 which is what, a name of which gives some people every 60 moments to pause.

00:16:34.960 He talked about America First.

00:16:36.620 That was a movement Charles Lindbergh headed to stop America

00:16:40.920 from helping Britain in its hour of need.

00:16:42.760 Some of your listeners may have seen the movie Darkest Hour,

00:16:47.100 and there's a scene where Franklin Roosevelt says that he couldn't help him

00:16:49.840 because Lindbergh was the most popular person in the country.

00:16:53.280 And some people thought he'd run for president.

00:16:55.240 Changed his view on that, changed his view on segregation.

00:16:59.320 He was, on both sides, a son of a very proud southerner.

00:17:04.920 Several of his grandparents were on the Confederate side

00:17:07.820 and other forebears.

00:17:10.580 But he came to change that when he saw that the genteel southerners he knew

00:17:17.820 were being replaced by the virulent type, the revelbators, people like Wallace. 0.99

00:17:24.300 Well, I would put it this way.

00:17:27.480 McCarthy was a cause.

00:17:31.380 McCarthy, one of Buckley's contemporaries,

00:17:34.500 said that McCarthy was doing the right thing in the wrong way.

00:17:40.680 Buckley agreed with that.

00:17:41.740 His book on McCarthy came out before McCarthy went haywire,

00:17:44.740 attacked the U.S. Army, and a lot of other things happened.

00:17:47.500 But what you're asking me, I'll just confront this right on.

00:17:50.480 I mean, the man was always the epitome of civility.

00:17:54.840 The man was always trying to get to the higher plane.

00:17:57.240 The man who introduced Brideshead Revisited to American audiences on public television

00:18:07.240 would have a lot to say about Donald Trump.

00:18:11.640 And you yourself said there is a 300-pound gorilla in the room.

00:18:15.080 I won't call him that.

00:18:16.480 239.

00:18:17.480 239 pounds.

00:18:18.300 Is that what he says he weighs?

00:18:20.520 Okay, 239.

00:18:21.280 Whatever he says, he weighs.

00:18:24.200 Buckley did not stir up the crowd.

00:18:26.620 Buckley did not have too many scapegoats, that I remember.

00:18:30.820 Or, as he said about the liberals that he debated, they were misguided,

00:18:34.660 and he wanted to persuade them.

00:18:36.180 There's no persuasion going on right now.

00:18:39.000 There's a politics on the part of Trump and honest enemies

00:18:42.000 of mobilizing your base.

00:18:44.640 The base hasn't grown very much.

00:18:46.040 We talk about who's going on Matt Rushmore next time,

00:18:50.040 who's going to be the next one, like the candidate Reagan. 0.99

00:18:52.420 But, once again, what did Reagan say in his inaugural address?

00:18:57.040 I'm looking at a giant.

00:18:58.400 What did Trump say?

00:18:59.800 I'm looking at a carnage.

00:19:02.260 Well, Reagan said in his last address to the American people,

00:19:06.200 1992 Republican Convention.

00:19:08.440 I know this is painful for some supporters of Trump to acknowledge.

00:19:13.100 Reagan said, when I'm gone, let it be said about me

00:19:15.940 that I appealed to your highest hopes, not your worst fears,

00:19:19.300 that I took us to a higher level, took us to a higher place.

00:19:23.340 When he died, he couldn't find a single Democrat to say anything against him.

00:19:28.060 That's a test of greatness.

00:19:30.580 Well, what could Buckley do?

00:19:32.300 Well, all of his life, he was a free trader.

00:19:37.800 That's one opinion he never changed.

00:19:41.080 He'd not be happy about a trade war being launched right now.

00:19:44.820 He never saw a tax cut he opposed.

00:19:47.760 So he's not going to start opposing it because he might have some problems with Donald Trump's style.

00:19:51.820 He would support that.

00:19:53.040 He would support conservative judges.

00:19:58.260 But above all, I mean, he would talk about the role of the presidency

00:20:04.460 as an inspiring office, a potential to inspire the American people to greatness.

00:20:13.180 He talked about that.

00:20:14.480 He talked about presidents do things like free slavery, abolish slavery, rather.

00:20:20.100 They do things like unify the nation in the world war.

00:20:22.900 However, they brought in their bases, they appealed to the country's greatest traditions and highest hopes.

00:20:31.820 I don't think he would say we have that right now.

00:20:34.480 And even more than the policy, more than the tax cuts, more than the judges,

00:20:40.100 he said there's nothing more important in our system of government

00:20:43.700 than the separation of powers, the checks and balances,

00:20:48.120 and the fear of an imperial presidency.

00:20:50.100 That Congress is supposed to be the preeminent branch, James Madison told us.

00:20:57.420 And they should come up with a program, send it up there, and then negotiate with him.

00:21:02.540 The idea that the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate

00:21:07.540 act half the time like presidential aides would have appalled him.

00:21:12.680 They were presidents he adored, Ronald Reagan.

00:21:15.420 They were presidents he liked, George Bush I.

00:21:17.720 He always told them, don't ramp things through, negotiate with them, but act like Congress.

00:21:26.740 Congress should be coming up with programs.

00:21:28.900 His hero of heroes was Robert Taft.

00:21:31.960 And Robert Taft did that.

00:21:33.660 He came up with a program, sent it to the Hill, and he sent it to the White House, rather.

00:21:38.560 And let's say the show got started.

00:21:42.880 So, and I have to say, finally, looking at the CPAC speech,

00:21:48.200 you know, Buckley had four bears skating County Cork in the 1840s, around the time of the Irish famine.

00:21:55.620 That's not the reason they came.

00:21:56.780 They settled in Ontario and they made their way to Texas.

00:21:58.900 His grandfather was a, the sheriff of Duval County, the greatest of this country.

00:22:05.360 You think of Buckley as rich.

00:22:06.800 Well, he was quite rich.

00:22:07.820 His father was a self-made wildcat oil man.

00:22:11.360 And he managed to come up with, in the middle of the Depression, a trust fund for each of the ten children.

00:22:17.140 Buckley would not think that his four bears were snakes.

00:22:19.640 And, you know, it's funny, it's nice, it's laugh, laugh, laugh, yuck, yuck, yuck.

00:22:27.200 I think a lot of damage was done by the president to the president the other week.

00:22:34.280 Throwing out the red meat, you know, the other people are watching. 0.92

00:22:37.500 The French have a saying, not in front of the servants, or don't scare the horses.

00:22:42.720 I think a lot of horses got scared.

00:22:44.800 I do wonder, oh, sorry, please go ahead.

00:22:47.660 I'm talking too, I'm talking too much, go ahead.

00:22:49.340 No, no, I wonder particularly about the CPAC speech, because I thought, given Trump,

00:22:55.480 given that Trump is the president and Trump is who he is,

00:22:58.280 something I liked about it is that he doesn't, there's a sort of guilelessness to Donald Trump's speaking.

00:23:05.960 Whereas other politicians, who are not terribly educated, who are not terribly intellectual,

00:23:11.700 who are not terribly civil or well-mannered or well-brought up,

00:23:15.140 they affect something to that effect, and it doesn't comport with the reality of them.

00:23:21.560 Whereas with Donald Trump, in a sense, what you see is what you get.

00:23:25.940 And I wonder, you know, Buckley was a refined man from a wealthy family.

00:23:30.360 He said that he never attended a professional baseball game, and that was just fine. 0.71

00:23:34.700 He wouldn't pretend that he had, you know, the occasional threat to punch queer Gore Vidal in the face.

00:23:41.920 Notwithstanding, he almost always comported himself with grace and wit and patience and erudition.

00:23:48.080 But Buckley lived before Twitter.

00:23:49.540 And political discourse today, from the top to the bottom, is generally coarser, baser, more vulgar.

00:23:56.940 And that said, the culture today is coarser and baser and more vulgar. 0.79

00:24:00.840 CNN anchors call constitutional conservatives gay slurs on national television. 0.95

00:24:07.060 They nod along as teenagers, compare a U.S. senator to a mass murderer.

00:24:11.960 Is there any path back, as you see it, to reclaim a more dignified politics and culture?

00:24:18.420 Or is the age of chivalry gone, that of sophisters, economists, and calculators succeeded,

00:24:24.140 and the glory of Europe extinguished forever?

00:24:29.280 The answer is yes.

00:24:30.920 And the answer is it starts with the president.

00:24:33.160 It doesn't end with the president.

00:24:34.260 The president told us that he was one of the best educated presidents when he ran.

00:24:38.100 He doesn't act like it.

00:24:39.760 I don't know too many Wharton grads who speak that way.

00:24:42.960 He was proud to send his children to Penn and to Georgetown.

00:24:47.060 He didn't send them to Fodick State.

00:24:49.520 He sent them to very fine schools before they went.

00:24:52.960 They come across much more sophisticated and fine than he does.

00:24:58.680 Now, maybe this is how he thinks that working people behave.

00:25:03.540 This is a nation where working people wanted to join the elite, wanted their children to be better than they, 1.00

00:25:08.660 and wanted to rise, not to live in the gutter.

00:25:14.140 And if you want to raise the caliber of the debate, you start with the president.

00:25:18.520 William Shakespeare would have had no problem with Twitter.

00:25:21.140 His summits would still be going around the world doing great things.

00:25:25.260 Abraham Lincoln would have loved Twitter.

00:25:27.280 The Gettysburg Address is 10 sentences.

00:25:30.940 It could fit on Twitter.

00:25:33.100 It would fit on Twitter.

00:25:34.980 Well, that's what I'm saying.

00:25:37.360 The best part of the speech was when he talked about policies.

00:25:42.460 And he's right.

00:25:44.100 Conservatives talked for years about the court.

00:25:48.780 They talked for years about ending the regulatory state.

00:25:52.900 They talked for years about shrinking government.

00:25:54.760 He did it.

00:25:56.140 He probably did it in a way that none of the other Republicans running for president would have done,

00:26:01.040 although they would have agreed with it.

00:26:03.080 But his real message was the message about snakes.

00:26:08.400 And most of us are descended from immigrants.

00:26:12.380 And the concept of passports and visas and all of that started with the First World War.

00:26:18.920 I have no idea whether Buckley's or Bears were legitimate or not legitimate.

00:26:23.920 I know mine, they had some kind of paper.

00:26:27.360 You got on Ellis Island.

00:26:28.920 I didn't know we had visas then.

00:26:31.560 They were certainly, you know, allowed in.

00:26:35.040 And I don't think there were snakes.

00:26:38.660 They produced somebody who taught you.

00:26:40.560 And I think for the president of the United States to go that road, it's not an example that we want children to follow.

00:26:49.420 And it's not what gets you on about Rushmore.

00:26:51.720 That's the goal here.

00:26:53.200 Maybe I'm wrong.

00:26:54.600 Maybe I'm crazy.

00:26:55.460 This, I think, does bring us to the Buckley rule, this question of who we should vote for, what is a bridge too far, what sort of things should qualify.

00:27:04.340 Buckley, for those who don't know, Buckley famously had this rule for voting.

00:27:07.700 He said to support the rightmost viable candidate.

00:27:12.340 And he didn't always abide that rule, though.

00:27:15.360 He opposed the Eisenhower administration, as we talked about, as a young man, for being insufficiently tough on communism.

00:27:21.340 He supported Nixon, even as Nixon grew the government and declared himself a Keynesian and founded the EPA and OSHA and Title IX and the forerunner of affirmative action and all of that.

00:27:32.620 He still supported that president and turned on Nixon only when Nixon went to China, only when Nixon went a bridge too far.

00:27:38.800 And then he opposed him.

00:27:40.100 Buckley ran for mayor against then-nominal Republican John Lindsay, who later became a Democrat.

00:27:46.200 When should conservatives vote for the most right viable candidate?

00:27:50.540 And when should conservatives refuse to support the most right viable candidate?

00:27:55.260 And when should conservatives turn on candidates that they've previously supported?

00:28:01.600 Well, first of all, thank you.

00:28:03.340 Buckley supported Nixon because he thought that Nixon had a better chance of defeating the Democrats than the alternatives, even though his heart was with Reagan.

00:28:12.040 He broke with Nixon very early on the things you're talking about.

00:28:15.260 And his endorsement of Nixon in 72 was an argument on behalf of the lesser evil.

00:28:21.400 And, you know, you vote the lesser evil.

00:28:23.540 You know what you get at the end is evil, right?

00:28:24.980 But I would say to you, well, you're asking about the president.

00:28:31.840 When Buckley died, for all I know, in 2008, Donald Trump was still a Democrat.

00:28:36.260 He was giving money to Mr. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer.

00:28:40.260 Until he was president, he didn't have much of a conservative record.

00:28:44.880 But he's now coming around talking about gun control.

00:28:48.380 And he stood and said he would never cut Social Security or reform entitlements.

00:28:54.180 Sounds very much like a Democrat to me.

00:28:57.140 And I would say to you that he did do some great things on – and I said them.

00:29:03.520 I'm not talking about what I think.

00:29:04.820 I'm talking about what Buckley might say.

00:29:07.680 He did carry the torch in judges.

00:29:09.980 He carried the torch in trade.

00:29:12.220 And he carried the torch in deregulation.

00:29:14.140 And he's not – excuse me, he's not carrying the torch in trade.

00:29:18.760 And I think he's not debasing the culture.

00:29:22.520 You're brilliant in pointing out.

00:29:24.580 The culture has been lowering itself by its own bootstraps for decades now.

00:29:32.400 But Reagan restored hope and promise.

00:29:34.500 We thought that after eight years of Obama telling us what we can't do and to accept the new norm of a 1.5%, 2% growth in the economy,

00:29:47.760 or George's Bush's overaggressive foreign policy, that we would have a president to take us to a new level.

00:29:54.000 I don't think that's come.

00:29:57.160 And I again would say to you that Buckley even said in the article you're quoting to me from, the cigar aficionado piece,

00:30:04.680 that demeanor and constitutionalism should come ahead of policy.

00:30:11.940 And with the left, you say it comes ahead of health care.

00:30:14.260 With the right, you say it comes before tax cuts.

00:30:17.300 You say the republic, and then we can talk.

00:30:21.160 Peggy Noonan had a column and said the same thing.

00:30:23.880 She talks to lots of conservatives.

00:30:25.460 She goes, well, but for this, he's good for taxes.

00:30:28.020 But for this, he's good for regulation.

00:30:30.420 But for this, he's good on judges. 0.99

00:30:31.940 Well, you could say that about Caligula's whores, can't you? 1.00

00:30:36.820 I mean, is there any point where that 239 gorilla needs to be given, of course, in manners and etiquette and how presidents behave? 0.98

00:30:47.020 I think that's what he would say.

00:30:48.800 Now, of course, there's, you know, a lot of people who were with the National Review.

00:30:54.760 We can't predict what Buckley would do.

00:30:56.880 He's been gone for a decade.

00:30:58.640 But we know what he did do.

00:31:00.300 So a lot of perhaps people in the National Review are more inclined to go with the person who is adopting the policies they like and forget lots of other things.

00:31:09.620 I see the religious rights given Donald Trump, you know, a mulligan, something they wouldn't give any other person with a lifestyle that he used to boast about.

00:31:22.000 But Christianity is based on forgiveness, change, redemption.

00:31:25.920 I get that very well.

00:31:27.180 But you really wonder sometimes that where does character matter?

00:31:34.200 I think it counts.

00:31:35.160 I think character is destiny.

00:31:36.540 The Greeks were right. 1.00

00:31:38.020 I'm not saying he has an efficient character.

00:31:39.880 I'm saying he wants to believe that he is the figure he created of himself as Donald Trump.

00:31:45.280 He's got to be smarter than that.

00:31:46.680 He did get into Japan.

00:31:47.760 He did graduate.

00:31:48.640 He had a pretty good record.

00:31:49.560 And he's got to be better than that.

00:31:54.440 He just feels that he has to, you know, be this creation, be the role of the Donald Trump or the Donald.

00:32:00.520 And I think that, again, Buckley, what did he write?

00:32:04.280 Cult of personalities, what he feared the most.

00:32:07.960 It's in that article.

00:32:08.860 And we'll have to see what happens now that Donald Trump is signaling trade wars.

00:32:15.240 And he said that we have to start confiscating guns and worry about due process later yesterday.

00:32:21.480 And then today it seems as though he has reversed that mercifully.

00:32:25.580 But one has to see.

00:32:26.940 One wonders if the right can keep pushing Donald Trump more in line and maybe try to rein in some of his coarser instincts.

00:32:35.200 But this brings us to the final question, which is about the legacy of Buckley.

00:32:40.720 As you write in the final chapter of the book, President George W. Bush summarized Buckley's place in history by saying he, quote,

00:32:48.100 brought conservative thought into the political mainstream and helped lay the intellectual foundation for America's victory in the Cold War.

00:32:55.700 He places Buckley's thought in a particular time.

00:32:58.000 And Buckley's fusionist conservatism, marrying the traditionalists and the libertarians through their shared anti-communism,

00:33:05.200 does become less relevant after the defeat of communism.

00:33:09.260 We saw huge cracks in the conservative movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

00:33:13.540 Buckley opposed George W. Bush's occupation of Iraq.

00:33:17.340 There were disagreements over domestic policy.

00:33:20.000 Can Buckley's conservative vision survive the end of the Cold War?

00:33:24.440 And if it can survive it, what does that mean in 2018?

00:33:28.120 Well, I think your summary is quite apt, brilliant even.

00:33:34.940 A coalition came together for a short time against a common enemy.

00:33:39.340 And when your enemy is Stalin, libertarians and traditionalists find they have more in common with each other than they do with the enemy.

00:33:47.340 The enemy would wipe them both out, no question about it.

00:33:49.520 And without the Soviet Union and a bipolar world, it's perfectly logical that would pray. 0.92

00:33:57.340 In fact, it was George Will, one of the anti-Trumpists, who said long before Trump was a candidate that if you look at the old conservative agenda, as he put it, the dogs are rejecting the dog food.

00:34:10.000 Well, I think that's an interesting concept.

00:34:13.900 And others were working on this before he came along.

00:34:17.980 But Buckley would say, in the end, what matters are adherence to what he called eternal truth, that all opinions are not of equal value, that all cultures are not of equal value.

00:34:32.880 Judeo-Christian traditions are superior. 1.00

00:34:35.280 Thank you.

00:34:36.500 America is superior and exceptional.

00:34:39.020 Thank you.

00:34:41.300 And he would harbor no compromise with those people who question that.

00:34:45.720 He was a steadfast opponent of political correctness.

00:34:50.080 If the president really wants to pick up the Buckley mantle, there was an article by Ed Meese yesterday on some of the Obama executive orders that Trump can continue to reverse on political correctness.

00:35:02.320 I mean, God and man at Yale was nothing but an attack on political correctness at this time.

00:35:07.100 It's gotten quite worse now.

00:35:09.440 And I think that I have students that are arguing with me and with others about that they have a right to pick their pronoun.

00:35:17.900 I don't have a right to correct their grammar.

00:35:21.140 So they write me notes that, well, I really know that they are or they is.

00:35:26.820 It's not a good way to put it.

00:35:28.260 But, of course, I want pronouns that are gender neutered.

00:35:30.340 A president could do a great deal to stop this novel.

00:35:34.080 And he doesn't have to do it by laws or by decrees.

00:35:37.860 And I think that that would be a great tribute to William F. Buckley, Jr., but eternal truth.

00:35:43.380 Our culture is superior to others.

00:35:46.840 It doesn't mean that we ram it down people's throats.

00:35:49.120 We send armies.

00:35:49.860 But if you want to be American, you're expected to accept its creed, which is that, which is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. 0.68

00:35:58.780 You could be a Buddhist to be part of that tradition or any other religion or no religion to be part of it.

00:36:04.600 And that, yes, American exceptionalism, Reagan's notion that God put this nation here between those two oceans to gather to its bosom people from all corners of the world.

00:36:16.980 And they created more civilization and more growth and more wealth than any great nation before us, for us.

00:36:24.460 And our job is to pass it on in better condition than we found it.

00:36:28.840 And it's only ever one generation away from extinction, unfortunately, and which is why it's important to look back on past generations and read books like A Man and His President, The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley, Jr.

00:36:41.360 Just a point, by the way, for the listeners, as we were talking about the pronouns, my preferred pronoun, of course, is my lord or sir.

00:36:47.740 So you can always, if you're referring to me on Twitter or something, that's a good way to do it.

00:36:50.620 Professor Felsenberg, they're telling me I have to sign off for Facebook and YouTube right now.

00:36:55.740 So thank you so much for being here.

00:36:57.460 It was a very enlightening conversation.

00:37:00.160 And everybody must go out and read this book, A Man and His Presidents, The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley, Jr. by Alvin S. Felsenberg.

00:37:09.220 Thank you, Professor Felsenberg.

00:37:11.280 Been a pleasure, Michael.

00:37:12.680 Thank you.

00:37:14.200 All right.

00:37:14.760 That's pretty good.

00:37:15.500 And we actually, we let that go a little bit longer on Facebook and YouTube.

00:37:18.740 And by Facebook and YouTube, I, of course, just mean Facebook because YouTube hasn't let us on now ever since CNN started really pinging us.

00:37:25.400 Well, sad.

00:37:26.040 Okay, if you're on Facebook, please go to dailywire.com.

00:37:29.880 What do you get?

00:37:30.620 You get me.

00:37:31.100 You get the Andrew Klavan Show.

00:37:32.000 You get the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:37:33.120 You get the mailbag.

00:37:34.680 You can ask questions.

00:37:35.420 We're just about to do that.

00:37:36.640 And we've got some very good ones in our last minutes here.

00:37:39.220 You get the conversation.

00:37:40.980 You can ask questions in the conversation.

00:37:42.960 Everybody can watch, but only subscribers can ask questions.

00:37:47.040 Many are called, but few are chosen.

00:37:48.620 But none of that matters.

00:37:49.680 What really matters is the leftist tears tumbler.

00:37:52.420 You might hear I'm a little bit under the weather right now.

00:37:54.960 That's why I brought in my special personalized leftist tears tumbler today.

00:37:58.460 And I tell you, nothing makes me feel better when my allergies are kicking up or I've got a little bit of a cold and some nice, salty, delicious leftist tears with honey in it.

00:38:07.060 You want to put a little bit of honey so you get the sweet and the savory.

00:38:10.320 It's a really, really good way to have them if you're feeling a little fluish.

00:38:13.720 Be sure to go to dailywire.com right now.

00:38:15.680 We'll be right back.

00:38:16.240 All right.

00:38:27.900 We, in our last minutes here, I know we're running a little bit late, but we're going to try to get some mailbag questions in.

00:38:33.360 And these guys are going to tell me when I have to go.

00:38:35.400 First question from Brandon.

00:38:37.000 My mother is very religious and it seems like she can't have a regular conversation without bringing up the Lord.

00:38:41.860 I personally don't mind because I have a strong faith and enjoy the discussion.

00:38:46.480 However, my two older brothers cringe and want to end the discussion as soon as it starts.

00:38:50.660 I wouldn't say they don't believe in God.

00:38:52.600 However, it looks like God isn't really a priority in their lives.

00:38:55.360 I get along great with my brothers.

00:38:56.840 However, I almost never bring up the Lord with them and just talk about common interests.

00:39:00.520 My question is, should I try to talk to them about God?

00:39:03.440 If so, what's your advice in doing so, knowing that they don't want to?

00:39:07.080 Should I talk to my mom about dialing it back a little bit?

00:39:09.420 If so, what's your advice on doing so?

00:39:11.860 Great.

00:39:12.900 I would say I have a good friend in politics.

00:39:16.980 He has been a major political operative and he's been an actor.

00:39:21.560 He's in the movie The Warriors.

00:39:23.120 That's the only clue I'll give you.

00:39:24.960 Cult classic.

00:39:26.140 And he's had a great career and he's also a devout born-again Christian.

00:39:31.320 And he told me, I asked him how it happened.

00:39:33.580 And he said, well, the Holy Spirit just came on me.

00:39:35.940 I said, well, what did you think when that happened?

00:39:38.340 He said, my first thought was, oh, God, please don't let me become a Jesus freak.

00:39:43.880 And I sort of see what he means.

00:39:45.880 You know, there are some people who every sentence they say is proselytizing.

00:39:52.000 And there's a difference between evangelizing, spreading the good news, and proselytizing, banging people over the head with it.

00:39:57.520 But St. Francis of Assisi said, preach the gospel and if you must, speak.

00:40:02.320 There is, on the subject of common interests, you can always talk about that.

00:40:06.520 But, of course, one doesn't simply want to sit there and talk about the food.

00:40:10.280 Oh, good chicken, isn't it?

00:40:11.320 Yeah, the chicken's good.

00:40:12.220 You do want to talk about things that matter.

00:40:14.760 I think most people hate small talk.

00:40:16.860 There was a study that came out a few years ago that the majority of people hate small talk.

00:40:20.960 So you want to bring it in.

00:40:21.960 And there's no reason not to talk about your faith in the way you see the world.

00:40:26.500 St. Peter said you should always be prepared to give an explanation of the joy that's in your heart.

00:40:31.900 And so if they ask you about it, you should be prepared to give them an answer.

00:40:34.740 But I wouldn't push them away.

00:40:35.960 I wouldn't clobber them over the head.

00:40:37.740 In your own life, I think people should be able to look at you and say, wow, there's something different about that guy.

00:40:43.680 I wonder what it is and how do I get a piece of it.

00:40:46.120 So that is what I would do.

00:40:47.600 I would evangelize, but I wouldn't proselytize.

00:40:50.500 Next question from Alex.

00:40:51.960 Hey, Michael, I have a quick question regarding your personal journey back to the church universal.

00:40:56.600 I am currently an evangelical and I absolutely adore my church.

00:41:00.040 They helped me to understand who God is after I left the LDS faith.

00:41:04.740 However, I did just attend mass for the first time and the service pierced my soul.

00:41:09.940 I understand passages of scripture in a completely new life and was completely taken in by the beauty of the Eucharist.

00:41:15.660 However, I still love my church.

00:41:17.260 I feel like leaving them for the Catholic church would be tantamount to betrayal.

00:41:20.120 So I would like to know, did you deal with similar feelings on your journey home and how did you overcome them?

00:41:25.700 Of course, yeah.

00:41:26.640 It was actually a number of Protestants brought me back to belief in God and Jesus and ultimately to the Catholic church.

00:41:31.700 I, and I totally see your point, there is something about liturgy, serious liturgy, sober liturgy, that is much fuller than the acoustic guitars and the electric guitars and, you know, like you're going to a cheap rock concert or something.

00:41:45.480 I certainly think so.

00:41:46.360 So there is, I wouldn't call it a betrayal at all.

00:41:49.540 You, you have, you have to look toward the truth above all things.

00:41:53.880 If you have the sense that the Catholic church is the church, it is the church instituted by Christ and you, it's pierced your soul, then go to that. 0.99

00:42:03.980 You can, it doesn't mean you can't be friends with people.

00:42:06.280 You can still see all of your old evangelical pals and hang out with them.

00:42:10.500 I probably hang out with many more non-Catholics than with Catholics and have more Jewish friends than, you know, Christian friends probably.

00:42:18.500 Ben wouldn't call himself my friend, but I would call Ben my friend.

00:42:21.240 You know, that's, that's just a difference of nomenclature.

00:42:25.380 But you, you don't need to worry about that.

00:42:28.620 You, I would follow, follow your heart.

00:42:30.420 Follow what you think is the truth, the truth above all things.

00:42:33.620 If you look for truth, you might find comfort in the end.

00:42:36.180 But if you look for comfort, you'll find neither truth nor comfort, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin and in the end despair.

00:42:43.460 That's a paraphrasing of C.S. Lewis and he's exactly right. 1.00

00:42:46.860 From Johnny, what type of hair product does the king of trolls use? 0.52

00:42:50.220 Leftist tears.

00:42:51.120 I use leftist tears because of the salt.

00:42:53.440 The salt content is just right.

00:42:55.640 So it allows your hair to maintain the right volume and the right poofiness and a little bit of rigidity, but it's not too rigid.

00:43:01.300 And it just feels so good when you put them in.

00:43:03.880 Next question from Samuel.

00:43:05.780 Greetings and salutations.

00:43:07.400 O'Knowles, the magnificent writer, bishop of the Daily Wire, usurper of titles and collector of leftist tears.

00:43:13.540 That is good.

00:43:14.160 That is a half of my, of my titles.

00:43:16.240 Very good use.

00:43:17.260 My question for you is this.

00:43:18.580 We're deeply divided.

00:43:19.540 It seems that the possibility of avoiding a second civil war is closing quickly.

00:43:24.220 How should we conduct our lives in these trying times when nearly every door is closing faster than we can reach them?

00:43:30.220 Samuel.

00:43:31.480 P.S.

00:43:31.920 All we can do is trust in God.

00:43:34.120 That's true, but you also want to, you also want to make sure you're living in the world, too.

00:43:38.240 You know, trusting God above all things.

00:43:40.280 But, you know, if someone's going to start shooting at you, duck.

00:43:43.340 I'm not convinced that we're headed for a civil war because we're too apathetic.

00:43:47.940 We're not even cool enough for a civil war.

00:43:49.980 We're too, like, lazy and apathetic for that. 0.91

00:43:52.980 Especially the left. 0.79

00:43:54.100 Especially the left.

00:43:55.200 They don't even protest anymore.

00:43:56.940 They occupy.

00:43:58.080 They just sit and occupy Wall Street. 1.00

00:44:00.740 And they wear stupid hats. 1.00

00:44:02.420 And they say, what do you want? 1.00

00:44:03.460 And they say, I don't know.

00:44:04.620 Say, what are you doing?

00:44:05.420 Ah, we're standing around.

00:44:06.460 I don't know.

00:44:07.080 So I wouldn't worry about that.

00:44:08.520 Plus, we have all the guns.

00:44:09.700 So don't worry about that.

00:44:10.940 That doesn't worry me too much.

00:44:12.980 There is obviously a cultural civil war, as Dennis Prager puts it very well.

00:44:18.320 But in that war, I think you've got to fight it joyfully.

00:44:21.600 I think you have to fight that civil war.

00:44:24.720 Not from the perspective of, oh, these guys are going to kill me.

00:44:27.300 I hate it. 0.99

00:44:27.800 I'm so miserable.

00:44:28.560 You have to fight it from the perspective of, this covfefe feels so good pulsing through my veins.

00:44:33.940 And the leftist tears taste so delicious that I want to share that joy with everybody.

00:44:39.040 And I think that helps a lot, too.

00:44:40.540 Also, because the lefties, they're the ones that are angry and upset all the time.

00:44:44.520 And they're always screaming.

00:44:45.700 And they don't know anything.

00:44:46.620 And they don't know anything about history.

00:44:47.880 And they don't know anything about philosophy or literature.

00:44:50.560 So you don't want to be like them.

00:44:53.820 You're the one who can say, look, this is the way it is.

00:44:56.280 I've got a little bit more knowledge than you do, perhaps.

00:44:59.160 And let me explain the world to you.

00:45:01.000 And we can share a delicious tumbler of leftist tears.

00:45:03.980 Do we have to go or do I get one more?

00:45:05.880 You can get one more.

00:45:06.460 We do one more.

00:45:07.360 Oh, my gosh.

00:45:07.860 My phone is even going off.

00:45:09.180 That's how late we're going.

00:45:10.840 We'll do one more from Luke.

00:45:13.680 Hey, Mike.

00:45:14.840 Hope all is well.

00:45:15.780 Is it true that most Catholics no longer participate in the practice of confession?

00:45:20.060 As a new Catholic convert, why should I tell a stranger my deepest, darkest failures?

00:45:25.680 Thanks and take care.

00:45:27.000 Yeah, it's really hard.

00:45:27.740 The confessional is a really tough one.

00:45:29.080 This is a good question to end on.

00:45:30.120 A lot of people don't do it anymore.

00:45:32.600 The communion lines are long and the confession lines are short, which tells you a lot about modern culture and maybe the sense of sin that people have.

00:45:41.720 One advertisement for the traditional Latin mass is very frequently they have a confessional going during the mass.

00:45:49.060 So you get a twofer.

00:45:50.020 You get to go in and you get to confess your sins.

00:45:52.280 And then you get the Eucharist and you're in a state of grace.

00:45:54.820 You should tell a strange, well, it shouldn't be a stranger.

00:45:58.680 You should see your priest more than once.

00:46:00.500 You should know your priest.

00:46:02.760 But you should tell them your deepest, darkest failures because he can forgive your sins.

00:46:08.180 You know, Christ gives the apostles the ability to forgive sins.

00:46:12.100 He says, as my father sent me, so I send you.

00:46:15.480 As my father sent me to reconcile people to God, so I send you to reconcile people to God.

00:46:20.440 Jesus says to the apostles, if you forgive sins, their sins will be forgiven.

00:46:24.100 And if you retain people's sins, their sins shall be retained.

00:46:28.360 So this isn't just a broad saying, yes, the sins are forgiven.

00:46:31.200 Just because of the good news, there's this ethereal thing.

00:46:35.140 He is sending real people to do things in the acts of the apostles, not just the words of the apostles.

00:46:40.720 Christ's sacrifice is perfect.

00:46:42.600 His forgiveness is perfect.

00:46:44.380 And he says, I send you to forgive sins.

00:46:47.700 What sins you forgive are forgiven.

00:46:49.740 What sins you retain are retained.

00:46:52.220 That's an important aspect.

00:46:53.520 Obviously, he also gives the apostles the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

00:46:58.940 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.

00:47:00.840 Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

00:47:02.920 Some people mistakenly think that confession is a product of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.

00:47:08.140 That isn't true.

00:47:08.920 The Fourth Lateran Council did codify aspects of the confession, but only because they'd existed for over a millennium.

00:47:15.060 St. John Chrysostom talks about the confession.

00:47:17.700 It's very good, one, because of the scriptural basis for it, but two, because it's very hard and because it's very effective at bringing into reality, making tangible that which is just ethereal.

00:47:33.480 So we know that Christ conquers death and conquers our sins, but it's easy to forget that.

00:47:40.860 In the world, you say, okay, it's just abstract.

00:47:42.520 Hey, I'm sorry.

00:47:43.260 Okay, maybe I'm forgiven.

00:47:44.460 There's something.

00:47:45.160 We're humans.

00:47:45.960 We have bodies.

00:47:46.760 We live in time and space.

00:47:48.100 There is something very difficult.

00:47:49.480 Even now, I've gone to confession a lot of times, when you're standing in that line, you think you have to grapple with your sin in a very palpable way, and you get down on your knees, and you have to tell another person your sins.

00:48:01.020 There's a way of grappling that is very palpable.

00:48:04.200 Psychologically, it's very helpful to do that, but spiritually, it's very helpful, too, because then the priest reiterates God's forgiveness.

00:48:11.700 He reiterates to you.

00:48:13.160 You hear it.

00:48:14.240 It's a very palpable way of doing it, and then you're in a state of grace.

00:48:17.640 I highly recommend it.

00:48:18.720 It's the laundry.

00:48:19.920 It's the dry cleaners for your souls. 1.00

00:48:22.180 There's a reason that it's been a sacrament for a very long time.

00:48:25.720 I highly recommend it, and I wouldn't look at it as some obligation that you have to do.

00:48:30.200 I'd look at it as a sacrament, as the unity of heaven and earth coming together in a moment, of the unity of the symbol and the symbolized coming together in a moment and reminding you of your forgiveness.

00:48:41.140 It's a really wonderful sacrament, and you should do it, but don't tell me.

00:48:45.560 I don't want to hear about it.

00:48:46.260 Tell your priest.

00:48:46.700 Okay, that's all the time we have for today.

00:48:48.360 Please survive the weekend.

00:48:49.640 If you want some more, listen to Andrew Klavan's Another Kingdom.

00:48:53.820 We're hard at work on season two.

00:48:55.960 You can get that.

00:48:56.640 It's our narrative podcast.

00:48:58.000 Available wherever good narrative podcasts are downloaded.

00:49:00.780 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:49:02.060 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:49:02.980 I'll see you next week.

00:49:03.660 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:49:12.580 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:49:14.720 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:49:16.640 Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:49:18.620 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:49:21.100 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:49:22.860 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:49:24.860 Hair and makeup is by Jesua O'Vara.

00:49:27.300 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

00:49:29.040 This Men's Mental Health Month, CAMH is confronting a silent crisis.

00:49:36.000 Did you know men account for 75% of all suicide deaths in Canada?

00:49:39.600 Many struggle alone, held back by stigma.

00:49:42.140 But there is hope.

00:49:43.360 CAMH is on the front lines pioneering breakthroughs and expanding access to compassionate support.

00:49:47.940 Your donation fuels this vital work so no father, son, brother, or family is left behind.

00:49:52.860 To join us in building better mental health care for men across Canada, visit camh.ca slash support men.

00:49:59.040 That's C-A-M-H dot C-A slash support men.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 01, 2018

Ep. 114 - The Legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. ft. Al Felzenberg

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