The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 143 - Groundhog Kanye： Six More Years Of Trump

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00:00:30.820 Groundhog Kanye has seen red pill black Candace Owens' shadow,

00:00:35.660 which means we can expect six more years of Trump.

00:00:38.640 Political pundits in the mainstream media can discern the face of the sky,

00:00:42.260 but they cannot discern the signs of the times.

00:00:44.880 We will discuss why with Selena Zito,

00:00:48.000 author of the new book, The Great Revolt,

00:00:50.640 Inside the Populist Coalition, Reshaping American Politics.

00:00:54.480 Then we'll discuss what Kanye West, Shania Twain,

00:00:58.420 and Coachella can tell us about 2018 and 2020.

00:01:02.200 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:11.180 The blue wave is coming, right?

00:01:13.460 It's inevitable the blue wave is going to come. 0.91

00:01:15.560 Trump is toast because of Russian porn star, former FBI directors.

00:01:20.440 It's all over. 0.99

00:01:21.500 Stick a fork in him, right?

00:01:22.760 Not quite.

00:01:24.820 Shania Twain, Kanye West, Eminem have me more hopeful than ever for Trump 2020.

00:01:30.620 And it's not just because I'm coming down off all my drugs from Coachella.

00:01:33.840 Even Coachella has me happy about Republican prospects in 2018 and 2020

00:01:38.980 because they speak to the common sense of Americans.

00:01:43.640 Not precisely ideological rigor, not even an ideological shift,

00:01:49.160 but a demographic and a dispositional shift, I think, in politics.

00:01:54.920 I'll explain more on that in a bit.

00:01:56.700 First, to lay the groundwork of why I'm excited politically.

00:02:01.260 Let's bring on Selena Zito to discuss the populist movement 1.00

00:02:05.060 that swept Donald Trump into office

00:02:07.140 and whether it can outlast President Covfefe.

00:02:10.240 Selena Zito is a national political reporter and columnist at the Washington Examiner 1.00

00:02:16.080 and the New York Post and a CNN contributor.

00:02:19.100 And she's the author of this excellent book.

00:02:22.100 Let's bring on Selena. 1.00

00:02:24.700 Selena, thank you for being here.

00:02:26.840 Thanks for having me.

00:02:28.480 So the book is The Great Revolt Inside the Populist Coalition,

00:02:32.980 Reshaping American Politics.

00:02:36.440 You have managed to get this book blurbed by Senator Tom Cotton, Rush Limbaugh, and Jake Tapper,

00:02:42.540 which is a pretty broad swath of the political spectrum.

00:02:48.540 You call 2016 the Great Revolt and you find the populists are the ones reshaping American politics.

00:02:54.840 What are your main findings from your research?

00:02:57.480 Well, what I found through my research, first of all, is something that I noticed leading up to 2016,

00:03:07.360 that this technological industrial revolution going on in this country has impacted everyone,

00:03:15.840 including our politics.

00:03:18.340 And we have found our way not to just express ourselves through politics,

00:03:22.860 but how we shop, how we buy, what brand loyalty we have to institutional brands that have had us forever.

00:03:32.520 Like sort of everything changed.

00:03:34.740 And when that all changed, it impacted politics.

00:03:39.080 And I don't think people were paying attention to that.

00:03:42.680 And so after the election, there was this rush to see, well, have Trump's voters changed their mind?

00:03:48.960 Will they change their mind?

00:03:50.160 And you see sort of reporters parachuting in for a day, asking, you know, did you change your mind?

00:03:55.940 What do you think of this tweet?

00:03:57.240 And they are sort of digging in and understanding what has unsettled the electorate in the way that it has.

00:04:05.640 Well, you know, they parachute in and they paint this picture of the Trump voter as this uneducated rube

00:04:13.160 who probably has some fairly significant racial animus. 1.00

00:04:16.980 And he's just a loser, basically. 0.97

00:04:19.180 That's just their piece. 1.00

00:04:19.900 He's a white loser in the middle of America. 0.98

00:04:22.180 And you describe a variety of characters, character types who voted for Trump. 0.98

00:04:28.140 And I got to tell you, I know people from these areas.

00:04:31.200 I have family in these areas, some of whom voted for Trump.

00:04:34.540 And so I knew immediately that the picture that was being painted by the mainstream media isn't right.

00:04:39.960 What are the character types that you found of people who voted for Trump?

00:04:44.160 Well, I went to all the counties in the Great Lakes Midwest, the states that changed the election, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.

00:04:59.360 And I went to only the counties that voted Obama, Obama, Trump, because I felt it was most important to look at those counties because they're the ones that show the shift.

00:05:15.900 They're the ones that show the great flip.

00:05:18.260 And I removed counties that voted Republican in 2014.

00:05:23.560 So say you voted for Joni Ernst in Iowa in 2014.

00:05:27.200 That county was taken out because I wanted to see the purest flip.

00:05:31.200 And then I interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people.

00:05:34.340 And along with Brad Todd, we took a look at these voters and we started to see a pattern about seven different archetypes of voters that were largely missed in the election and who are making up this new coalition.

00:05:50.900 And it's a coalition that actually has its roots in 2006 when the Republicans first lost the House and they lost conservative Democrat voters and they lost independent voters because they were unhappy with the status quo.

00:06:07.360 So this is like a wrecking ball to all establishments, Republican or Democrat.

00:06:14.600 And these voters, more than often than not, are highly, you know, have a college degree, have a successful life.

00:06:23.720 Some of them have had ups and downs.

00:06:26.460 Women with guns, that's like one of my favorite chapters, girl gunpower, because they went completely undetected. 1.00

00:06:35.100 Suburban women who believe that the Second Amendment is the most feminist thing they can do because it completely empowers them. 1.00

00:06:45.180 They have total control of their life and their destiny.

00:06:48.740 And nobody picked up on that.

00:06:51.420 Absolutely.

00:06:53.460 On the feminist gunpower, I do love that, you know, women are not as strong as men. 0.89

00:06:58.960 That's just a fact of life.

00:07:00.520 It is a biological fact.

00:07:01.860 And so the only thing that can be an equalizer, the only thing that actually can bring sexual equality as a matter of fighting off aggressors is a gun.

00:07:12.500 And the Democrats have just totally gone off the rails on that issue.

00:07:17.120 Well, it's really interesting.

00:07:18.640 I'm just going to go down a little rabbit hole for a second.

00:07:21.400 And so I teach this class at Harvard where I take the students out of Cambridge and place them in different parts of the country and immerse them and have them approach reporting the way I do.

00:07:35.300 No interstates, no airplanes, nothing but back roads, live in a bed and breakfast.

00:07:40.900 So the first person you meet is a small business person.

00:07:43.400 And I took them out to a gun range.

00:07:46.320 And the first group of people that they met there were a group of about 40 women, suburban women between the ages of 20 and 45.

00:07:55.160 And they just sort of validated the entire chapter on women with guns.

00:08:01.020 You know, I think a lot of people, they think that the reason people voted for Trump is his personality.

00:08:09.280 They were out for blood, they were angry, they liked his bad language, they liked his rudeness.

00:08:14.380 And yet what I noticed in your book, so many of the people profiled say, I like Trump, I still stick with Trump, I just wish he wouldn't tweet.

00:08:22.420 You know, I really wish he would.

00:08:23.600 And I've heard this from friends of mine and relatives of mine.

00:08:28.300 One, what does that tell us about the people who are supporting him, these forgotten Americans?

00:08:33.180 And two, in your opinion, observing politics, are the tweets good or bad for Donald Trump?

00:08:39.280 It doesn't seem to hurt him.

00:08:43.880 You know, even the people, as you said, a lot of the people that I interviewed who love his policies and love his sort of approach to Washington, wish he wouldn't tweet all the time.

00:08:57.360 But even that, I think he's really toned down in the past few months.

00:09:02.800 But also, they weren't looking for someone to like.

00:09:06.620 You know, they liked Barack Obama.

00:09:09.480 They were proud to vote for Barack Obama.

00:09:12.420 A lot of these people in this new Trump coalition did.

00:09:16.340 But they didn't like his policies.

00:09:18.680 And that's the flip side of this.

00:09:21.360 And that's why Democrats lost the midterms, was because they were punished for Obama's policies.

00:09:30.120 But Obama was still this likable character, whereas Donald Trump, they don't care if they do or do not like him.

00:09:38.040 They care if he gets the job done.

00:09:41.300 And that is the most important thing to them.

00:09:43.920 And then the other thing is, you know, when you said about angry, it's one of the things that really gets under my skin.

00:09:49.400 Because a lot of pundits missed, and reporters as well, missed what Make America Great Again meant.

00:09:59.400 They thought that was angry.

00:10:00.900 They thought it was a dog whistle.

00:10:02.360 They still do.

00:10:03.380 They thought it was something that was, you know, looking backwards.

00:10:09.260 It's not.

00:10:10.440 It's aspirational.

00:10:11.680 Americans want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

00:10:17.260 And they haven't felt that for an incredibly long time.

00:10:20.840 And that's what Make America Great Again was about.

00:10:24.500 Totally right.

00:10:25.480 I love in the book how you point out everyone thinks these people are desperate and they're bitter clingers or whatever.

00:10:31.000 But they're not.

00:10:31.560 They're actually hopeful.

00:10:32.940 They're optimistic.

00:10:34.280 You called it during 2016.

00:10:35.880 In September, you wrote in The Atlantic, I believe,

00:10:38.400 that the press takes Trump literally, but not seriously.

00:10:42.700 His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

00:10:46.240 And when I read that, I thought, yes, that's exactly as a New Yorker who knows how New Yorkers talk.

00:10:51.460 That is how I feel about him.

00:10:53.640 What is the difference?

00:10:55.680 Well, you know, I mean, take the rough rebounders in the in the book.

00:11:00.080 This is one of the types of Trump voter you identify in the book.

00:11:04.800 They've had ups and downs in their lives.

00:11:07.220 But when they hear him talk, they're like, yeah, I could have seen me saying something like that.

00:11:13.420 You know, I mean, they get it.

00:11:16.420 And even the people that don't like the way he talks but still love his policies,

00:11:21.660 understand that people in business do talk like that,

00:11:25.800 that people in business do do fake outs to to get what they want.

00:11:30.780 A lot of people have in their family, they own businesses or friends, they get his personality.

00:11:38.720 Sometimes it, you know, grates on their nerves, but it doesn't detach them from him.

00:11:45.180 Because, you know, here's the thing.

00:11:49.160 Donald Trump was not the cause of this movement.

00:11:53.080 He was the result of it.

00:11:54.960 And the important thing to take from the book is this movement.

00:11:59.360 If the movement's up here, the peak, we're still about here.

00:12:03.500 We haven't even gotten to the top yet.

00:12:06.340 This is still going to impact politics, business, culture, entertainment, sports.

00:12:12.680 It's across the board in our lives.

00:12:15.240 I think it's what Kanye West is referring to as the shifting consciousness.

00:12:19.060 If you've been watching his highly entertaining tweets the last few days.

00:12:23.780 I retweeted Kanye West three times in the past 24 hours, and I've never even followed him.

00:12:30.880 But he did it.

00:12:31.660 There were several of his tweets were very aspirational.

00:12:34.420 And that's what people, that's what people miss.

00:12:37.800 Like reporters and pundits tend to think anger, anger, anger.

00:12:41.360 It's not.

00:12:41.980 People want to be taken to a better place.

00:12:44.480 People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

00:12:47.140 Historically, that is who we've been.

00:12:50.500 It is in our DNA, and people miss that all the time.

00:12:53.460 That's right.

00:12:54.220 And we've already talked about the girl gun power. 0.91

00:12:57.280 One of the most perplexing, I think, groups that you identify in the book,

00:13:02.040 and even for me, I've had to wonder how it worked out for Trump, are the suburban moms. 0.99

00:13:08.060 The late, great Barbara Bush said in 2016 that she couldn't understand why any woman would vote for Trump. 0.95

00:13:13.940 He was so boorish about women.

00:13:15.380 And you say that the silent suburban moms constituted a crucial part of his coalition.

00:13:22.600 Why did they vote for him, and why were they so important?

00:13:25.980 It was interesting how much they've been insulted by Hillary Clinton.

00:13:30.680 You know, it really is disturbing, I think.

00:13:36.640 Look, these women are looking for a strength in leadership, but they're also looking for a wrecking ball, 1.00

00:13:47.100 because they do not believe that Washington and either party have served their families and their communities well.

00:13:55.040 It's not just personal.

00:13:56.900 It's not just about them.

00:13:59.260 You know, a lot of these suburban women have lived in this same area all their lives. 1.00

00:14:04.600 Their mother's mother's mother has lived there, right?

00:14:08.380 And they have seen sort of how the family has prospered and gotten better each time.

00:14:13.800 And they don't, they didn't see that under the last two, maybe the last three administrations.

00:14:20.420 And that they saw that with Trump.

00:14:23.140 They believe that there was hope in his way of doing business to maybe make their communities and their areas be prosperous again.

00:14:37.260 That's a very good point, and it is, you know, Hillary Clinton said she made fun of the mothers who baked cookies and things like that in the 1990s.

00:14:49.320 So I guess that alone could explain it.

00:14:52.920 One aspect that surprised me a little and actually changed my analysis of the election is the education.

00:15:01.280 We all know that President Covfefe loves the uneducated was a phrase that he used in his speech.

00:15:05.900 You write, Americans who live their lives among a group of friends and neighbors with varied educational backgrounds preferred Trump more than Clinton or Romney,

00:15:15.220 while college-educated Americans who live exclusively among other degree holders were less likely to support Trump, even if they were Republican.

00:15:23.600 So it's not the education itself that is the predictor of Trump support.

00:15:27.360 It's the education of your friends and the people you live with.

00:15:30.680 How does that work?

00:15:31.700 What does that say about just the geography of America, the social breakdown, I suppose, of America?

00:15:39.020 Well, there's this whole thing about the super zip codes, right?

00:15:42.560 And so the people who live in these super zip codes, so think about the six counties that surround Washington, D.C.,

00:15:49.320 or the counties that in New York and Connecticut that surround New York City or around Los Angeles.

00:15:55.660 In those areas, and this is like, you know, Virginia, Maryland, parts of Virginia, parts of Maryland, in those suburban zip codes,

00:16:04.640 if you had, just say you had a graduate degree, you didn't vote for Trump because everyone around you was doing well.

00:16:15.160 But in looking districts around in Kenosha, Wisconsin, or in suburban Pittsburgh or suburban Philadelphia,

00:16:24.200 these areas, I actually should say exurban Philadelphia,

00:16:29.440 these areas have a mix of college education, blue-collar worker, technical workers.

00:16:37.640 These are people who interact and it's part of their daily life or their family life to interact with people with a variety

00:16:46.620 and diverse amount of education.

00:16:49.180 And so they were much more apt to support Trump because they have seen the carnage.

00:16:57.480 You know, he got made fun of for saying that word, go to Youngstown, Ohio, and you see carnage.

00:17:04.000 You know, go to a lot of these places in the country and you see carnage.

00:17:08.620 And so they have seen the impact of some of these economic policies.

00:17:13.840 And so they were persuaded to go vote for Trump over Clinton because they felt that he was more in touch

00:17:20.660 with what would make their community better.

00:17:23.220 These people are not that selfish, right?

00:17:26.120 They want their whole community is their identity.

00:17:30.480 It's an extension of their family.

00:17:32.420 It's something they're very proud to be from.

00:17:35.140 And when they see parts of it crumble, they want someone who's going to make everyone better,

00:17:41.900 not just, you know, the nice street that they live on.

00:17:44.980 That's right.

00:17:45.720 Yeah, that reminds me of how the left loves humanity, but they don't really like humans very much.

00:17:51.180 And so you see those lecturing us on who we have to vote for and who has compassion for the poor

00:17:56.700 or the uneducated or this, that, whatever terms they use.

00:18:00.040 They tend only to ever go to cocktail parties with their fellow Harvard alumni.

00:18:04.920 And they don't actually speak to any of these people.

00:18:07.540 And they break out in hives when they get more than 150 miles outside the city.

00:18:12.220 Now, all of this makes a good case for a movement, a vaguely populist, not terribly ideological

00:18:20.680 movement of people who have been the victims of certain neglect, economic neglect, drug epidemics,

00:18:28.160 political neglect.

00:18:29.620 Now, Trump's pitch when he ran was largely about management.

00:18:33.360 You point this out.

00:18:34.180 He says, we have terrible deals.

00:18:35.720 I'm going to make good deals.

00:18:37.080 We're going to win when I do it.

00:18:38.520 It's about sort of my expertise in running things. 1.00

00:18:42.560 We have stupid people. 1.00

00:18:43.700 I'm going to be a smart person. 1.00

00:18:45.260 It wasn't about ideology.

00:18:46.620 It was a very un-ideological candidate.

00:18:49.240 So once Trump is done after his third or fourth term, I don't know, whenever, you know, whenever

00:18:54.080 we've got to say goodbye to him, how does that movement continue if it's about a man instead

00:18:59.940 of about ideas?

00:19:02.120 Well, it's I don't think it is about a man.

00:19:06.500 I actually think it's about the people that are part of the coalition.

00:19:10.940 So as I said, he was the he was not the cause of it, but he was the result of it.

00:19:18.000 I think our policy, you know, every so many years, I typically a hundred are Teutonic plates

00:19:25.300 realign and and and and our electorate makes different choices than the past behavior.

00:19:32.960 And I think we're in the middle of that movement.

00:19:37.000 And this is a book that's that across the ideological spectrum, I think, is important

00:19:43.100 to read, because if we don't understand what's going on in this country, we are going to continue

00:19:49.000 to have disruptive forces in in Washington.

00:19:54.180 And and and while that is important at the top level, at the bottom level, like in Congress,

00:20:02.280 that can sometimes be really unstable because nothing really gets done.

00:20:08.160 Mm hmm.

00:20:09.160 So but but, you know, I mean, the Democrats are going through their own, you know, their

00:20:14.200 own populist upheaval.

00:20:16.980 We don't talk about it much because they're not the party in power.

00:20:20.840 Uh, but but but there is theirs is very fractured and that's their challenge.

00:20:28.660 It's one little extra bit about this coalition, because they have, as you say, they have different

00:20:34.520 goals there.

00:20:35.960 They come from different places.

00:20:37.320 I want to talk about the Christians, evangelical Christians in particular, but Christians broadly

00:20:42.940 who support Donald Trump get a lot of flack for it. 0.98

00:20:45.880 People say that they're hypocrites. 0.99

00:20:47.300 People say that they're associating with a morally corrupt guy. 1.00

00:20:52.720 You call them the King Cyrus Christians are Christians who voted for Trump hypocrites. 0.97

00:21:00.160 No, I think that's the I think they would be very when they are very offended when they 0.96

00:21:05.780 hear that.

00:21:06.800 First of all, I am too.

00:21:09.380 Being a Christian is, first of all, about forgiveness.

00:21:13.200 Very important aspect that people tend to forget when they talk about Christians.

00:21:17.300 Uh, second of all, the, these voters who were the last ones to go across the line for

00:21:24.280 Trump, they, I call them King, the King Cyrus because King Cyrus was the Persian.

00:21:30.420 I'm not get this totally correct, but he was the Persian king who led the, uh, who protected

00:21:38.000 the Israelites.

00:21:39.000 And even though they had no ideological and religiosity connection because he was going

00:21:46.020 to protect them.

00:21:47.060 He, they followed him.

00:21:50.060 And this is, this is sort of what evangelicals saw in Trump.

00:21:55.220 He was going to protect their values.

00:21:58.460 It had been a long time since someone stood up for them, including George W. Bush.

00:22:04.200 And, and, and he, which is interesting because he's a Christian and I don't know what Trump

00:22:10.780 is.

00:22:11.440 Uh, but he had that whole Corinthians thing all wrong.

00:22:14.780 Yeah.

00:22:15.260 He likes, he likes the two Corinthians.

00:22:18.000 Yeah.

00:22:19.060 And something about wafers.

00:22:20.880 I don't remember that was pretty funny, but I'm sorry to interrupt, but you, you do put

00:22:26.040 in the book, you, you talk about the various times he sort of tried to bumble out an explanation

00:22:31.320 of his Christian faith.

00:22:32.480 And he, you know, one time he said he was asked, do you ever ask for forgiveness?

00:22:36.120 And he said, yeah, you know, I try not to make mistakes so that I don't have to ask forgiveness.

00:22:40.160 It's very, it was very funny to watch each time, but you know, the, the point being is

00:22:47.680 they, no one's had their back.

00:22:49.340 So they didn't go for the Christian guy this time or woman. 0.75

00:22:52.740 And, and, and Hillary Clinton is a devout Methodist.

00:22:56.380 I've interviewed her about, about her religion and, and its impact in her life.

00:23:02.340 But, you know, they went for the person that would have their back.

00:23:05.740 And one of the most important things in having their back was what the makeup of the Supreme

00:23:10.860 Court looked like.

00:23:12.160 Yep.

00:23:12.520 And he has paid them back in spades.

00:23:15.640 I mean, of all of the members of the, all the different parts of his coalition, the evangelicals

00:23:21.960 have received back the most for their investment in their vote.

00:23:28.640 I must say, when I read that chapter, when the whole book is illuminating, when I read that

00:23:33.340 chapter in particular, as a Christian who supports Donald Trump, I thought, oh yes, she gets it. 0.78

00:23:38.840 She actually understand that this group of people, I, I knew they existed because I'm

00:23:43.320 one of them, but it's, yeah, it's finally a fair dealing for Christians who support Trump.

00:23:49.780 My last question, I have to ask you, you're a senior political analyst.

00:23:55.420 You've worked in these things a lot.

00:23:57.600 What does this mean for 2018 and 2020, if you're willing to venture any predictions?

00:24:04.280 Well, I'm one of the few people that have, that I'm hesitant to say this blue wave is

00:24:10.880 going to take over because I don't have an understanding of what the primary outcome is

00:24:17.180 going to be for Democrats.

00:24:19.320 There's also, you know, Republicans and independent voters tend to come home and come home late

00:24:25.160 in midterm elections.

00:24:26.440 They just show up.

00:24:28.960 In terms of Donald Trump, you know, as I say in the book, this coalition is a wrecking ball

00:24:36.500 and they want to disrupt things.

00:24:39.220 You know, part of that's going to be disrupting some establishment Republicans.

00:24:44.320 You know, they've been unsatisfied with them, in particular on some issues like healthcare

00:24:50.520 and on trade.

00:24:54.480 And so, you know, I'm not, I'm not ready yet.

00:24:57.840 I would probably say, ask me again in August, but the Trump coalition hasn't changed.

00:25:05.220 It's still intact.

00:25:06.460 And I find evidence, as I'm out on the road, which is all the time, of it gathering more

00:25:14.340 as opposed to shedding people.

00:25:16.420 I'm so glad to hear you say that because I think that I'm a crazy person when I have

00:25:21.680 the same thoughts.

00:25:22.460 I say, historically speaking, I guess Democrats should take the house.

00:25:26.860 That's sort of how I get, you know.

00:25:28.400 And yet I'm reluctant to predict it.

00:25:30.760 It does not seem quite right to me.

00:25:32.680 And you point out in the book, I think it's something like 18% of Trump voters are, are

00:25:38.560 nervous about telling people that they're Trump voters.

00:25:40.820 And among certain demographics, that number shoots up to 40% or, or, you know, pretty significant

00:25:46.740 chunks.

00:25:47.720 Do you think, I know I said the last one was the last question, but really this is the

00:25:51.000 last question.

00:25:51.420 Do you, do you think that, that social anxiety that we have to keep quiet, that we can't tell

00:25:59.740 anybody that we're voting for Trump, do you think that that produces skewed public opinion

00:26:04.560 polls and therefore we can, uh, just as happened in 2016 when Princeton said two nights before

00:26:11.620 the election, 99% chance Hillary Clinton's going to win. 1.00

00:26:15.080 And then that didn't quite happen.

00:26:16.380 Do you think that we can trust these polls going into 2018 or are these silent voters

00:26:22.300 going to come up and give us a surprise?

00:26:25.280 Yeah.

00:26:25.520 Polling has been difficult period since the advent of the, uh, the iPhone and the BlackBerry.

00:26:31.460 Uh, people just, you know, we look at our phone and we're like, I'm not answering that.

00:26:34.880 I don't know what number that is.

00:26:36.680 Uh, so they, they, polling is much more challenging.

00:26:41.080 So there's that.

00:26:42.600 Uh, but also, yes, I mean, I, I have done stories lately where people will not, I mean,

00:26:49.220 they'll give me their name, uh, but they won't want their name to be punished.

00:26:54.160 I mean, published because.

00:26:56.360 And therefore punished.

00:26:57.300 Right.

00:26:58.200 And then for, yeah, I mean, you know, and, and these are, are businessmen and women who 1.00

00:27:04.000 are very supportive of the president, but they're like, I, I, you know, I have a business.

00:27:09.360 I don't need that aggravation with what they do to people or, you know, I have to work

00:27:14.160 with clients, uh, or I don't want to be, you know, uh, outed on social media.

00:27:20.020 And, and so there's, I, I don't think, I actually think that number has grown since, uh, and

00:27:27.220 probably is even higher to people who, um, since 2016.

00:27:32.300 I tend to agree.

00:27:34.160 And I have to say your writing is always on point.

00:27:37.320 Uh, if you don't, if you don't follow Selena, Selena Zito is one of the, uh, few people in

00:27:42.860 the national media who actually seems to get it and is not in a, just an echo chamber.

00:27:47.960 And the book is a fascinating read.

00:27:49.700 The book is the great revolt inside the populist coalition, reshaping American politics.

00:27:55.560 You've got to go get it.

00:27:56.620 It is the best book I have read about the 2016 election with one exception, a Hillary

00:28:02.520 Clinton's what happened because it answers the question right on the cover, Hillary Clinton.

00:28:07.960 With that exception, the cover itself gives a good view.

00:28:11.640 This is the most insightful book I've read about it.

00:28:14.200 Selena, thank you so much for being here.

00:28:16.360 Thank you so much for having me.

00:28:18.360 All right.

00:28:18.700 Do I have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube now?

00:28:20.780 That is a terrible shame because this is groundhog yay.

00:28:24.260 Today, we're going to talk about how Kanye West and Shania Twain and Coachella and Eminem

00:28:30.860 are all giving us good hope for the future, for Donald Trump's presidency, for the policies

00:28:37.020 he's trying to enact and for the voters that he talked to that, uh, other politicians haven't

00:28:42.060 talked to.

00:28:42.560 It is groundhog yay.

00:28:43.820 Stick around, but you can only do that at dailywire.com.

00:28:46.700 If you're already there, thank you very much.

00:28:48.360 You help keep the lights on and the lights today, you know, they're a little different.

00:28:51.060 It looks like my eyes are even more dilated from all the peyote I did at Coachella over

00:28:57.420 the weekend, uh, but it really helps us out and, uh, you know, what do you get?

00:29:02.160 It's 10 bucks a month or $100 for an annual membership.

00:29:04.640 You get me, you get the Andrew Klavan show, you get the Ben Shapiro show, you get to ask

00:29:08.140 questions in the mailbag.

00:29:09.200 And I think I'm coming up next, uh, this coming month, I will be doing the, uh, conversation

00:29:13.980 so you can ask questions.

00:29:15.680 Everybody can watch, but only subscribers get to ask the questions.

00:29:19.140 Many are called, but few are chosen.

00:29:21.240 None of that matters.

00:29:22.320 What really matters is the leftist here's Tumblr because guys, today was a big day for leftist

00:29:29.740 here's Tumblr.

00:29:30.320 Like if you don't have it already, run, just run.

00:29:33.480 It's too late.

00:29:34.180 It's too late to get, if you do have a Tumblr, get ready because Kanye West, the pop culture

00:29:39.820 figure is just tweeting out these extremely conservative sentiments beginning with how much

00:29:46.280 he likes red pill, black Candace Owens, who's a friend of the show.

00:29:49.300 She's come on here before.

00:29:50.700 Uh, so you're going to need this because they're going to, you know, all this pop culture, they're

00:29:54.300 gonna be like, oh yes.

00:29:55.800 Oh, I, uh, what?

00:29:57.780 And then the, the floodgates are going to explode.

00:30:00.800 Make sure you have your leftist tears Tumblr because if you don't have it, then you're going

00:30:04.740 to drown and die. 0.73

00:30:06.140 Go to dailywire.com to get it. 0.54

00:30:07.740 We'll be right back.

00:30:08.420 They are really good today.

00:30:21.780 They are really scrumptious and delicious.

00:30:24.240 And this is because I'm coming back from Coachella.

00:30:28.000 Drew made me for the Andrew Klavan show, watch Coachella and report on what's, what's happening,

00:30:34.240 what it means for the culture.

00:30:35.320 And I was pleasantly surprised.

00:30:36.920 I was really surprised because this, if, if you missed it, which I assume probably you

00:30:41.960 did, this is what Eminem, this is how he began one of his songs at Coachella.

00:30:52.080 We love you.

00:30:54.260 How many people are proud to be citizens in a beautiful country of the Lord?

00:30:59.060 The stripes to the stars for the lightning nicks for the free of the sea.

00:31:02.520 The United States.

00:31:03.600 Beautiful.

00:31:03.880 How many people are proud to be citizens of this beauty, beautiful country of ours?

00:31:09.520 If you couldn't see, there were huge American flags on the screens and it wasn't ironic.

00:31:14.400 You know, he went into some song where he's singing about himself, but it wasn't like an

00:31:17.700 ironic thing.

00:31:18.520 You know, I hate this country. 0.99

00:31:19.500 It's really a terrible country. 0.96

00:31:20.980 He, he actually meant that he said, it's good.

00:31:23.180 I have to clean up his language, but he said, it's good to be back from overseas.

00:31:26.460 It's nice to be back here in America.

00:31:28.720 And this is a big turnaround because for the last few months, Eminem has been trying desperately

00:31:33.960 to get Donald Trump's attention, even though Trump just won't do it.

00:31:37.060 He's not giving him his attention.

00:31:38.480 But this is what he was rapping just a few months ago.

00:31:41.580 That's an awfully hot coffee pot.

00:31:44.980 Should I drop it on Donald Trump?

00:31:47.080 Probably not.

00:31:48.000 But that's all I got till I come up with a solid. 1.00

00:31:55.920 Got a plan and now I got a hatchet like a damn Apache with a tomahawk. 1.00

00:32:00.660 I'm a walk inside a mosque on Ramadan and say a prayer that every time she talks, she gets 1.00

00:32:10.880 a mop.

00:32:11.700 Ah, I'm a stop.

00:32:16.560 But we better give Obama props because what we got in office now is a kamikaze that'll

00:32:22.220 probably cause a nuclear holocaust. 0.90

00:32:24.700 And while the drama pops and he waits for to quiet down, he'll just gas his plane up and

00:32:30.120 fly around till the bombing stops.

00:32:34.620 So it goes on like that.

00:32:36.120 This was Eminem a few months ago.

00:32:37.900 I don't listen to rap ever.

00:32:40.880 I just don't like it.

00:32:42.040 Is that good rap, though?

00:32:43.080 That doesn't sound like good rap.

00:32:44.920 I'd listen to the Sugar Hill Gang over there.

00:32:46.740 That was just terrible.

00:32:48.040 The rhymes were forced and weird and really sad.

00:32:52.380 But anyway, now he's not angry.

00:32:54.220 Now he's grateful and he loves America.

00:32:56.040 He's talking about how great it is.

00:32:57.360 This was at Coachella.

00:32:58.260 And Coachella, you'd expect it to be super political. 0.99

00:33:01.680 Beyonce was the big headliner and the songs weren't good.

00:33:05.040 And she's a very political person.

00:33:06.480 But even she didn't get really political there.

00:33:09.040 I found out apparently the guy who owns Coachella is a Christian billionaire, a conservative Christian

00:33:14.920 billionaire.

00:33:15.840 And maybe that reigned it in a little bit.

00:33:17.460 But what I think actually reigned it in is that entertainers and people in the pop culture are realizing this doesn't play.

00:33:25.940 This doesn't play.

00:33:26.720 And some of them, I think, are having epiphanies themselves.

00:33:30.640 You know, for instance, Kanye.

00:33:33.560 We knew that Kanye kind of liked Donald Trump because during the campaign or maybe right after the election, he went and visited him at Trump Tower.

00:33:40.520 He actually showed up, you know, and took pictures with him.

00:33:44.280 So he wasn't always a Democrat.

00:33:45.920 But he said left-wing things.

00:33:48.460 Kanye West just started tweeting out these amazing tweets.

00:33:52.780 Over the weekend, he goes, I love the way Candace Owens thinks. 0.73

00:33:56.740 And you know Candace from the show. 0.60

00:33:58.500 She's been on here before.

00:33:59.440 She's red pill black. 0.97

00:34:00.640 And she used to be a lefty. 1.00

00:34:02.220 And now she's a conservative. 0.91

00:34:03.500 And she speaks directly to black people in particular.

00:34:07.020 And so Kanye West tweets that out.

00:34:08.880 He then tweets, be fearless.

00:34:10.880 Express what you feel, not what you've been programmed to think.

00:34:14.340 He says the blinders are off.

00:34:16.540 He says the psychological zombie effect.

00:34:19.920 He didn't say anything.

00:34:20.660 He just said that phrase.

00:34:21.900 But OK, I kind of see where he's going to.

00:34:23.160 He goes, we have freedom of speech, but not freedom of thought.

00:34:27.220 Absolutely right.

00:34:28.500 And sometimes we don't even have freedom of speech.

00:34:30.520 He goes on, the thought police want to suppress freedom of thought.

00:34:34.520 That is the definition of political correctness.

00:34:37.020 That is the project of the modern left.

00:34:39.780 He then goes on and says, constantly bringing up the past keeps you stuck there.

00:34:44.280 So he's actually pivoting points, but to another correct one and a conservative talking point.

00:34:49.440 And then he says, there was a time when slavery was the trend.

00:34:53.060 And apparently that time is still upon us.

00:34:55.340 But now it's a mentality.

00:34:56.980 There's this slave mentality, slavishness.

00:34:59.560 Absolutely right.

00:35:00.540 And finally, he says, self-victimization is a disease.

00:35:04.640 Absolutely right.

00:35:06.340 Then he goes on a string.

00:35:07.800 He just starts tweeting Scott Adams videos.

00:35:10.720 Scott Adams is the Dilbert guy who rightly predicted Donald Trump winning the presidency.

00:35:16.260 And has been a really good observer of the Trump effect and why people like him and why people vote for him.

00:35:22.360 Now Kanye West is pushing this out here.

00:35:24.280 Now I know Ben, I think he said on the show today, he wrote a piece about this.

00:35:28.700 He said, conservatives shouldn't be thrilled about this.

00:35:31.000 We shouldn't embrace Kanye West.

00:35:32.780 Kanye says a lot of crazy things.

00:35:34.620 And he takes prizes away from Taylor Swift. 0.98

00:35:37.080 And he said, George Bush doesn't care about black people.

00:35:39.600 And so we shouldn't suddenly embrace him because he's saying the correct things.

00:35:43.600 But I don't agree with that at all.

00:35:45.020 I think absolutely we should.

00:35:46.680 I'm not saying that Kanye West is now the great intellectual leader of the conservative movement.

00:35:52.600 Or he's some political philosopher or some luminary.

00:35:56.320 But it is so important that guys like Kanye West say the sort of things that we believe.

00:36:02.940 And sometimes come over to our side.

00:36:05.780 Or support the causes that we support.

00:36:08.140 That is so important.

00:36:09.400 Conservatives have ceded the popular culture for so long.

00:36:14.520 And it's why the left was dominant for decades upon decades.

00:36:18.600 And now we're playing into the popular culture.

00:36:21.220 Politics is downstream of culture.

00:36:22.700 That's what Andrew Breitbart always used to say.

00:36:24.500 Donald Trump is a cultural figure.

00:36:26.620 We elected him to fight a cultural battle.

00:36:29.680 Because all battles ultimately are cultural battles.

00:36:32.740 Even over taxes.

00:36:34.260 Even the question of how much we should lower taxes is cultural.

00:36:37.480 It's about our relationship to the government.

00:36:39.520 Our relationship to money.

00:36:40.800 What we think of when we think of private property in the United States.

00:36:44.340 And how individuals should react to their property.

00:36:47.060 I love that Kanye is doing this.

00:36:48.840 I think he is freeing people from certain social stigmas they might have about politics.

00:36:56.820 You know when I talked to Selena.

00:36:58.180 She said that education wasn't the predictor of voting for Trump or not voting for Trump.

00:37:02.840 It was the education of the people around you.

00:37:05.520 It's this social pressure to conform.

00:37:08.840 So if you're constantly being bombarded with people saying it's totally unacceptable to support Donald Trump.

00:37:14.480 It's totally unacceptable to be a conservative.

00:37:16.420 You're more likely to comply.

00:37:19.160 That's the left wing agenda.

00:37:20.840 That's their goal.

00:37:21.940 But if you have people breaking that up.

00:37:23.700 And guys like Kanye West saying like nah I don't really like Hillary. 0.64

00:37:27.000 I'd vote for Trump.

00:37:28.040 Or Roseanne Barr another person who's not a conservative.

00:37:30.960 But says yeah I like Trump.

00:37:32.100 I like what's happening.

00:37:33.120 I don't want to vote for Democrats.

00:37:34.620 That is wonderful.

00:37:35.900 That cracks through this oppressive culture.

00:37:38.940 You know Shania Twain the Canadian singer said last week that she would.

00:37:45.040 She couldn't vote obviously in the election. 0.81

00:37:47.300 But she would have voted for Trump.

00:37:50.180 The apparatus of the mainstream media and the entertainment industry descended upon her like vultures.

00:37:56.860 Like monsters picking apart her flesh.

00:37:59.760 And she had to apologize.

00:38:01.740 And it was a little bizarre because she clearly stated her opinion.

00:38:05.160 And then she said basically I'm sorry for stating my opinion.

00:38:08.260 Next time I'll keep my opinion to myself.

00:38:10.660 But they descend on you and say you can't say that. 1.00

00:38:13.960 Shut your mouth. 0.80

00:38:14.720 You can't say that. 1.00

00:38:15.700 You can't say that.

00:38:17.060 And this is a wonderful sign for Republicans and for the Trump people.

00:38:22.040 Because as long as they are pressuring you and saying if you believe a certain thing you're going to lose your job.

00:38:28.920 If you state common sense you're going to lose your job at Google like James Damore.

00:38:32.480 Or if you hold a political view that was the main consensus political view until five minutes ago.

00:38:40.000 Like Brandon Icke on the issue of gay marriage.

00:38:42.260 You're going to lose your company.

00:38:43.440 You're going to lose Mozilla.

00:38:44.480 We're going to take everything from you.

00:38:45.860 They incentivize people shutting up.

00:38:48.100 And what that means is they're going to be less honest with pollsters.

00:38:51.660 They're not going to be willing to say I'd vote for Trump.

00:38:54.680 Because you could lose your job.

00:38:55.960 You could lose your reputation.

00:38:56.960 But they're still going to go vote for Donald Trump.

00:39:00.060 Because they want to crack that culture. 0.84

00:39:03.000 That's a wonderful thing.

00:39:04.780 This is a groundhog yay is really what I think about it.

00:39:08.380 I think this is a wonderful sign for 2018 and 2020.

00:39:13.120 By all rights there should be a blue wave.

00:39:15.300 By all rights the Democrats should retake the House.

00:39:18.240 And yet this culture is so poisonous.

00:39:20.940 People are being so censored and silenced to say well yeah I actually kind of like the president.

00:39:26.640 He's doing a good job.

00:39:28.000 I don't know if you noticed.

00:39:29.020 It appears he's bringing peace to Korea after 70 years.

00:39:32.120 And is denuclearizing the craziest state on planet earth.

00:39:35.820 If they even say that they could lose their reputations.

00:39:38.540 And so they're going to keep quiet.

00:39:39.980 And that silent majority is just going to keep on going right to the voting booths.

00:39:44.060 Wonderful stuff.

00:39:45.320 And I think the first time I've ever said something nice about Kanye.

00:39:48.400 That's not true.

00:39:49.200 I actually think Kanye West has great taste in music.

00:39:51.920 He just I don't know that what he does with the music is great himself.

00:39:55.700 But he clearly has a good ear you know and takes good songs and does whatever he does to them.

00:40:00.300 And now he's he's doing that to political speech and to political philosophy and fine by me.

00:40:06.700 Keep doing it man.

00:40:08.200 I'm I'm almost a Kanye West fan.

00:40:10.540 All right come back tomorrow.

00:40:11.740 We have a lot of cool guests coming up but I can't tell you.

00:40:15.840 I'm going to keep it a secret.

00:40:17.220 I'm going to keep I'm just like the silent majority.

00:40:19.300 I'm the silent Michael the silent me.

00:40:21.600 Okay come back tomorrow.

00:40:22.620 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:40:23.260 This is the Michael Knowles show.

00:40:24.200 I'll see you then.

00:40:28.800 The Michael Knowles show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.

00:40:33.120 Executive producer Jeremy Boring.

00:40:35.300 Senior producer Jonathan Hay.

00:40:37.180 Supervising producer Mathis Glover.

00:40:39.360 Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:40:41.680 Edited by Alex Zingaro.

00:40:43.420 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:40:45.420 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:40:47.860 Copyright forward publishing 2018.

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The Michael Knowles Show - April 23, 2018

Ep. 143 - Groundhog Kanye： Six More Years Of Trump

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