Ep. 1879 - The Right-Wing Civil War ERUPTS At Americafest 2025
Episode Stats
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Summary
Learn English with Michael Knowles. On this episode of the show, Michael talks about the loss of Charlie Kirk, a conservative hero who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2011, and the impact his life had on the conservative movement.
Transcript
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We're here at AmericaFest. This is the largest, most energetic gathering of young conservatives
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in the country. This is the biggest one yet. It is completely sold out at capacity. Tens and
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tens of thousands of people, they would have sold at a stadium had they been able to do it in one.
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You can't get a hotel room in Phoenix. The conservatives are here amid a right-wing
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civil war to pay tribute to the past, to look to the future. The title of my speech was Blessed
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are the Peacemakers. My friends and colleagues who took the stage around me tonight
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had a little bit of a different thesis. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.
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Thank you very much. This is great. I want to do the show at AmericaFest in front of a live audience
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every single episode. We need to make that change, Mr. Davies. It's much better here.
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We have got a lot coming up. We're going to do a live Q&A with everybody around here. First,
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AveMaria Funds are distributed by Ultimus Fund Distributors, LLC. Ah, wow. It's very energetic here
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at TPUSA because it always is. AmericaFest, it's the end of the year. It's right before Christmas.
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Only Charlie Kirk could have gotten everyone to give up their weekend before Christmas and show up
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year after year, bigger and bigger, bigger by the multiples. I remember showing up years ago.
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What was it? A thousand people maybe, 1,500, 2,000 people, more and more and more. Now it's
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completely a capacity. I would estimate 30,000 people here that would have sold 100,000. I think it
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was sold out months and months ago. So this is it. It's here to pay tribute to Charlie.
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It occurred to me today when I was driving to the show, this is the last Charlie event.
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Charlie, because he did the work of 10 men, would have events planned out months into the future.
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He and I were supposed to do an event 12 days after he was killed, which I then did alone with
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an empty chair. A number of Charlie's other friends hopped in for the rest of that tour. He then had a
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book come out posthumously. His wife, Erica, heroically went on and did the book tour.
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And then there was America Fest. But this is it. It hit me walking in. This is the last event that
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Charlie directly had his hands in. The stakes feel so high. The stakes feel so high because
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there is a civil war brewing right now on the American right. There was always going to be a
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civil war because we're coming to the end of the Trump era. We don't know what's going to come next.
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It's been a decade where Trump has dominated the coalition. And it was always going to happen
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because Charlie Kirk was the man, probably more than anyone, who held that coalition together,
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who did the work of keeping people who disagreed with one another, some of whom didn't like one
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another within that coalition, excluding the people you should exclude, keeping everyone happy and
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moving in the right direction. With his loss, it was always going to be fractious. So my speech,
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which you can find, I'm sure it's on the TPUSA channels. I think you can find it on my YouTube page,
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too. It was called Blessed are the Peacemakers. I outlined my vision as to why we should try to
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figure out a way to get along, move forward, keep our eyes on the prize. I think I was the only person
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who is speaking in America best who had this point of view. My friend and colleague Ben Shapiro comes
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out, opens up after Erica Kirk's beautiful speech. Erica, actually, who also touched quite
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beautifully on Charlie as Peacemaker. Ben comes out and Ben, with that Shapiro-esque clarity,
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So no, Tucker Carlson, it is not an excuse to go silent on Candace's targeting of TPUSA.
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Or to mirror her bullshit lines of questioning because you love Candace personally. The same
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holds true of Megan Kelly, a person I consider a friend, characterizing Candace as a young mother
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and thus shying away from condemning her actions or fibbing about them. That is a non-starter.
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Megan Markle is a young mother. Ilhan Omar is a young mother. That doesn't matter.
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And when Megan said this week, quote, my goal and my job here is to try to understand, yes,
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where Candace is coming from on this, and says she sees no purpose in inserting herself,
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quote, into this on one side, that is a moral and logical absurdity. There is only one moral
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side here, Erica Kirk's side. Ben coming out, one elbow to Tucker, one elbow to Candace,
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one elbow to Megan. He was taking no prisoners. He was going directly
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at a lot of other people in this space. And the crowd responded. The crowd responded actually quite
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favorably. Obviously, it's not exactly my tactic. And so I go on between Ben and Tucker. I considered
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my speaking slot to be something like being right in between India and Pakistan. I think it was
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somewhere between Iran and Iraq. But Ben comes out and he makes the argument, which was well-received,
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that we need the truth above all things, which, of course, I think everybody agrees with. And we
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need to clearly define the boundaries of conservatism. And we need to stand up for the
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vision of conservatism that is about free markets and limited government and what have you, and
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everything else is verboten, in addition to condemning conspiracism and bigotry and all the rest of that.
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So then Tucker takes the stage. And what was so curious about Tucker's point was that Tucker came
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at it from a largely classically liberal perspective. If you're telling the truth, you ought to be able
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to explain it calmly and in detail to people who don't agree with you and that you shouldn't
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immediately resort to shut up racist. You shouldn't immediately go to motive. I mean, first of all,
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if I was a racist, if I was a bigot, I would just say so. Okay, it's America. You're allowed to be
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whatever kind of person you want. I'm not. I'm sincerely opposed, have always been, and will
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always be. But the style of debate where you prevent the other side from talking or being heard
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because you immediately go to motive. Well, I wonder why you're asking that question.
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I wonder why. Why are you asking that question? I detect in the question a certain evil in your soul.
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And everyone listening should know that listening to you implicates them and that they someday may
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be asked to denounce you and that friendship is not a reason to defend someone. I kind of thought
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we'd reach the end of that. And as far as I'm concerned, we have, and I'm not going to play by
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those rules. So you hear Tucker come out. He says, look, I think we should judge people as individuals.
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You know, he's speaking in this classically liberal way, condemning racism in many ways on the defense
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saying, I'm not an anti-Semite. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not racist. I'm not bigoted. So you had Ben in
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other parts of his speech anticipating things that Tucker was going to say. You had Tucker in his speech
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anticipating things that Ben was going to say. Obviously the other guy was in the other's mind
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when they were writing their speech. And it led me to the conclusion that, uh, they should speak.
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I'm, I'm, I'm sure invitations have gone around at various points, but they should speak. They
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should hash it out in many ways. I think they would agree on a lot of things. It's probably the
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two of them would agree on things that I would disagree with them on, uh, because what, what, uh,
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my contribution to all of this fighting and hopefully working it out was, is that first of all,
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we must unite because we must win. We must win because we have to get along as a country
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because politics is the art of getting along. Politics is not some foreign thing. It's not
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extrinsic to human nature. Man is a political creature. Man is a social animal. We have to
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live together. Our nature inclines us to live in ordered societies. We can't get along with the left
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right now because the left wants to murder us. They're perpetrating murders against us. They're
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minimizing them, excusing them, even celebrating them. The justification for political violence
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on the left is only going up. Survey after survey shows that even liberal, liberal magazines show it.
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So we cannot get along as a country right now. The only way that we can get along as a country
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is if we keep winning and restore, uh, some order and we de-radicalize the left. That means that we
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need to not just have the wins from 2024 and previously, we need to keep winning. We need to hold
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power for an extended period of time. The only way that we can do that is if we have a coalition
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that works. Obviously we have to exclude people. Uh, all coalitions have borders. We have to exclude
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the unjust, the cruel, vulgar hatreds based on race or sex or what, what have you. But I don't believe
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that you need to hold to some particular view of economics to be on the right. I don't believe
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that you have to adopt the slogans of 1983 or 2003 for that matter on foreign policy or economics or
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the size of government in order to be on the right. My view is a little bit more expansive than that.
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And the proof of this, I think is that the Republican party was founded promoting tariffs and then we
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hated tariffs. And now we like tariffs again. The GOP was opposed to immigration. Then it liked
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immigration. Now it hates immigration. Again, we were the party of isolation. Then we're the party
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of bombing the whole middle East. And then we're the kind of the party of restraint again. And
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these changes are not evidence of hypocrisy. It's not evidence that we're rudderless. It's evidence
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that we understand what politics is, which is a practical science. It's not up in the ether.
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It's applying eternal principles to constantly changing circumstances, to being responsive.
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The left was not responsive. The left got caught in its own disconnected ideologies.
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That's why they're getting blown out of the water at the ballot box. We need to continue to be
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responsive, especially as we're seeing a generational change. When President Trump leaves,
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assuming we don't change the Constitution and he doesn't get his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth terms,
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when he leaves, the boomers exit the political stage. You're going to have potentially a millennial
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president. You got Zoomers coming up. Gen X is going to be the oldest guys in the game now.
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And so these shifts have to happen naturally. What is it that distinguishes us? We have to love
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our country. We have to recognize that there is an American people worth preserving. We have to be
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willing to contribute and sacrifice and even sacrifice within our own coalition. I've never
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gotten applause on a live show before because Mr. Davies never applauds me, but that was very cool.
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He never applauds me, but that was cool. That's why we got to get a live audience in on the show
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all the time, Ben. You need all of those things. That's what makes up the right. And so I like having
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these fights here. There are going to be more fights over the coming days. Then we need to
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unify. I don't want to see people taking their balls and going home. I don't want to see them
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retreating into their own factional corners, mumbling the same old shibboleths that have not
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been relevant in 15 years. I want to see people getting in, working together, keeping their eyes
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on the prize. That is a lasting and enduring legacy of Charlie Kirk because a lot of people have
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opinions. It's easy to have an opinion. It's easy to mouth off. It's easy to fight with people.
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It's easy to defame or detract or anything in the middle. But what's very hard is to build,
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to assuage, to refine, to have the patience, to suffer setbacks, to work toward a goal and to win,
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to have the courage to actually win, to stake something morally and go out there, take the
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victories, build on the victories and build a better country. A very, very hopeful at the end of
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the first day of America Fest, especially because of all these beautiful, smart, serious
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conservatives. I was just jonesing for more applause. I want to get to much, much more
00:13:13.840
momentarily, but first I want to tell you about PragerU. Go to PragerU.com slash DW. America,
00:13:21.520
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00:13:27.620
know that only 41% of Gen Z says that it is proud to be American? 100% of Gen Z in this room is proud to
00:13:35.180
be American, but only 40% nationwide. We got to make it 100% like here. We got to fix it fast.
00:13:41.860
Thankfully, there is no organization better positioned to educate young people about the
00:13:46.180
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00:13:50.940
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00:13:56.300
PragerU is correcting the record. They tell the whole story, the good, the bad, always with accuracy
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00:14:24.500
They would not let the government fund their message. That is why they rely on patriotic
00:14:28.380
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book club show is fabulous. If you have seen what they do, if you want to win the fight for
00:14:36.420
the next generation, we need PragerU well-funded. Right now, every dollar you give will be triple
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I'm not great at math, but I think triple means three times. Go to PragerU.com slash DW during the
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triple match. Make your gift today. That's PragerU.com slash DW. Very, very exciting to be here
00:14:58.200
at AmericaFest, a live show in front of a beautiful audience. Wow. This is good stuff.
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This is exactly the opposite of the scene that you're seeing in a video that's gone viral.
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This is a woman who is on food stamps, EBT, SNAP. This is a woman who asks the question for our age.
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Matt Walsh asked, what is a woman? These days we're all asking, what is an American?
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This woman asked, what is the point of food stamps if it's just used for food?
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It's not even cool. Like, why do they do that? What's the point of food stamps if it's just for
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real food? Hannah Moore believes she and other SNAP recipients should be able to go into the
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grocery store and buy whatever they like. Dota, candy, pre-packaged sweets, prepared desserts,
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and juice with less than half of natural fruit or vegetable juice in it will not be allowed to be
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purchased on SNAP cards. I don't know what Trump is doing. I don't know what's going on.
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What is the point of food stamps if it is just used for food? I feel like Shapiro in that clip
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from when was it six, seven years ago? You know, he said the Boy Scouts are for boys. And then the
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in the school said, well, where does it say that? And he says, actually, gang, it's in the name Boy
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Scouts. That's how I feel about the food stamps. Where does it say that food stamps are for food?
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It's in the phrase food stamps. That's where it's from. I think people are beginning to notice
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after the massive fraud among the Somalis in Minnesota, after the new fraud they've uncovered
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among the Haitians in Massachusetts, during the government shutdown, when we found out what
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something like 10% of the population of some states are on food stamps, we realize it's not just
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people who really need it, who are getting this, feed their kids, get them Cheerios. There's a ton of
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fraud. And you're beginning to wonder, is the reason that everything is so expensive just welfare
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fraud, generally among immigrants, but even among native-born Americans? Is that how corrupt is the
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country? How deep does the corruption go? And how fundamental do we have to get in our re-education
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of who we are? You know, the big question I just alluded to it a couple years ago was, what is a
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woman? You actually have to teach people the difference between a man and a woman. Now we
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have to remind ourselves, what's it mean to be an American? And you have to get down to basics.
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What is the point of entitlement programs? What is the point of food stamps? Does it have something
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to do with food? Do we need to finally clamp up, set some new standards? I think that's probably true.
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And you're seeing this in a beautiful way, controversial though it shouldn't be,
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out of the Trump administration. The head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
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has just come out. Her name's Andrea Lucas, and she is making a pitch to aggrieved minorities who
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might have been discriminated against. And the pitch is directly to white men.
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I'm Andrea Lucas, chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
00:17:55.980
Are you a white male who's experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a
00:18:02.140
claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws. Contact the EEOC as soon as possible. Time
00:18:08.740
limits are typically strict for filing a claim. The EEOC is the federal agency charged with enforcing
00:18:15.700
federal anti-discrimination law against businesses and other private sector employers.
00:18:20.620
The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating all forms of race and sex
00:18:26.540
discrimination, including against white male applicants and employees. Check out EEOC.gov to
00:18:33.040
learn more and read our one-page explainer about DEI-related discrimination.
00:18:38.620
By the way, if you're listening to this, you think you've been discriminated against because you're a
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white guy, you should file a claim. I go further. I think you have a responsibility to file a claim.
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This is going to be a big divide on the right. In fact, I think a lot of what this year's AmericaFest
00:18:54.620
is about is about settling the latest right-wing civil war. There's always some right-wing civil war
00:19:00.860
because the right is just too independent-minded to ever get along on anything. We're in the period
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of generational flux. We're beginning to rethink certain things. One of those is how we deal with
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the civil rights offices, how we deal with some of the anti-discrimination programs because for a long
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time what the right said was, we shouldn't have these civil rights bureaucracies that are going in
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and adjudicating every identity issue. We need to eschew identity politics. What did that get us?
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That got us nothing because the left has sufficiently ginned up identity politics that all that that has
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really led to is people on the right not using the tools of government that are made available to them.
00:19:47.120
In principle, the whole point of the EEOC of all these civil rights offices is to stop discrimination
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on the base of race or sex, but we all know that isn't true. The purpose of the EEOC and these civil rights
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offices has been to stop discrimination except for white people and men and straight people and
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Christians and God help you if you're a white straight male who's a Christian. Then you have
00:20:10.100
no recourse whatsoever. Then it's actively good for you to be discriminated against. In fact, the entire
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significance of a phrase like diversity is to say that there should be fewer of you in the schools,
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fewer of you in the jobs, and we got to get other people to replace you on the basis of those
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characteristics. So what the right said for a long time was, you know what, we're not going to engage
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in this and we're just, we're going to try to abolish it altogether. In fact, you know what,
00:20:35.640
forget about these offices. I want to abolish the whole bureaucracy, get rid of the whole
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administrative state. By golly, wouldn't that be great? We'll go back to 1789 and we'll be governed
00:20:45.380
by that beautiful piece of parchment, the constitution, and we'll erase 200 years of history.
00:20:51.280
It's not going to happen. That's not real politics. That might be entertaining. That might be amusing
00:20:56.700
for essays, for white papers, for think tanks and podcasters. That's not how politics works.
00:21:03.260
Politics is a practical art more than it is an abstract science, okay? A pure science. You got
00:21:10.240
to play the hand that you're dealt. You don't want to be unjust. You don't want to do things that are
00:21:14.860
immoral, but you have to work within the given circumstances of the polity that you have. So if
00:21:20.200
we're going to be governed by some massive bureaucracy that is largely unaccountable to the legislature,
00:21:24.920
in some cases, even the presidency, if we're going to be governed by the Civil Rights Act as a new kind
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of constitution, then we damn sure shouldn't let it discriminate against a significant portion of
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our population. You have to work within the system in order to overcome the system. I think this is
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beautiful. This is the way. Good on Trump for doing it. Good on Andrea Lucas for doing it.
00:21:47.540
All you white guys out there, if you've been discriminated against, file your claim. This
00:21:54.240
requires a political solution. Now, speaking of important uses of government, the House has just
00:22:00.300
passed a very important bill. It should be the most basic thing ever. It says that you can't castrate
00:22:05.920
little kids. It was a big issue. The left had been castrating little kids for a while. The right
00:22:11.280
called attention to this, campaigned on it. We won every single seat in the whole government,
00:22:14.840
the whole country. And so then the House goes and says, we're going to pass a bill that says you
00:22:19.700
can't mutilate little kids because of the weird sex ideology. And the Republicans vote for it.
00:22:25.060
The Democrats vote against it. And four Republicans vote against it. This party, I mean, this is the
00:22:32.040
theme of AmericaFest is the right-wing civil war. This party, the conservative movement is so fractious
00:22:37.800
that there are sitting Republican members of Congress who cannot even agree that we shouldn't turn
00:22:44.120
five-year-olds into Unix for our freaky sex experiments. We'll get to more of that momentarily.
00:22:49.100
First, though, I want to tell you about Pure Talk. Folks, this episode is sponsored by Pure Talk.
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As a consumer, you carry the success or failure of businesses in the palm of your hands.
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in an excellent cell phone company and God bless America. Folks, here, I'll just wrap this. I'll wrap
00:23:53.040
up this little segment on transing the kids. The conservatives are not going to make it if we
00:24:00.020
are so divided that we can't even agree on not castrating the kids as a matter of justice,
00:24:04.980
as a matter of common sense, even as a matter of electoral politics after the 2024 election.
00:24:10.840
Got to unify. Got to make peace. Got to have a clear vision. Got to move forward. That's a lot
00:24:15.720
of what's happening here at AmericaFest. And so, happily, since we have all these excellent,
00:24:21.040
beautiful, smart, well-dressed young conservatives and old conservatives all around AmericaFest,
00:24:27.300
we have a live Q&A sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to puretalk.com slash Knowles and switch today.
00:24:34.320
I love the mailbag. You know, you send me your mellifluous words in the voicemail bag. You write
00:24:39.800
into me. I often don't even get to the written ones. Now I get to see you all in person, beginning
00:24:44.440
with a young man who is wearing the appropriate right-wing uniform, the suit with the red power
00:24:50.840
tie. How are you? Great. Thank you, Michael. I want to say first and foremost, thank you because
00:24:56.420
you have inspired me to stand up for freedom. I want to say thank you because I love your show
00:25:00.300
and your books. I am a proud Turning Point USA chapter president and a 15-year-old youth
00:25:06.100
liberty advocate. And my question is, in a world that is saturated today, I see my generation
00:25:11.600
saturated in Islamic ideals and democratic socialism. How can young people really shift and turn the
00:25:18.040
tides to where we're focusing on preserving freedom for the next generation? Excellent question.
00:25:22.520
And you bring up two ideologies, a religion and a political ideology, that seem like they
00:25:28.920
would be opposed. Islam and the left. You know, Islam, for instance, doesn't take kindly
00:25:35.540
to homosexuals, is a little tough on ladies, not the most liberal religion out there, and
00:25:41.460
the left, which doesn't believe in God and inasmuch as it does believe in God, hates God.
00:25:46.300
So you say, well, why do these two things get along? Because they do. You know, they come
00:25:50.760
into the synthesis with Greta Thunberg, who is a leftist, who's wearing the keffiyeh and
00:25:55.000
marching for Palestine or whatever. And it actually makes sense that they get along because they
00:26:00.060
have a common enemy. And the common enemy is America, Western civilization, Christianity,
00:26:06.880
order, God, the true religion. And so how do we combat these things as Americans? I would
00:26:15.840
go back to what John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1813. He was writing to Jefferson
00:26:21.980
and he said, you know, there were principles on which independence was one. They too had
00:26:30.080
a fractious society, but they said, you know, look, the general principles of Christianity,
00:26:35.220
the principles which united all of the sects, including a lot of very heretical people like
00:26:40.080
John Adams, actually. Those principles were the ones that inspired them to independence,
00:26:44.920
as well as the principles of American and English liberty. I think both of those ideals are very,
00:26:51.400
very important. Sometimes people ask whether America is a nation with people and a history
00:26:56.840
like normal nations, or whether it's a creedal country, you know, just an idea of floating in
00:27:01.600
outer space. I say, well, it's not an idea. Look, it's a country, but there's a creedal aspect to
00:27:06.100
any country. And so when you're trying to defend your American way of life, you have to dig into
00:27:13.620
the American tradition. And that's where it is. In as much as there is a creed to America,
00:27:18.160
it is Christianity, broadly speaking, and the civic religion, which is the ideas and the practices of
00:27:26.160
liberty from America and from England. That's what you've got to practice. And you've got to recognize
00:27:31.560
that the left has been threatening our civilization since the French Revolution, and Islam has been
00:27:36.920
threatening our civilization since about 620 AD, and has been invading about 100 years after that.
00:27:45.360
And so these are not problems that are going to go away. And there probably will not be any final
00:27:50.180
victory this side of the second coming. But all we have is our time, you know, and all that we have
00:27:56.280
is our ability to rebuff these bad ideas, these bad movements. We have a responsibility to do that.
00:28:01.220
And then we pass the buck to the next generation, which is you. Thanks. Hello.
00:28:06.980
Go ahead. Hi. Hi. We absolutely love you. You eat dinner with us every night.
00:28:14.360
I'm so honored to be invited. What have we been eating?
00:28:18.500
Whatever he cooks. I'm marrying an amazing cook. I'm very blessed. Yeah. So, but no, I was raised very
00:28:27.120
liberal, uh, kind of, you know, I know you went through that little phase. Um, but yeah, raised
00:28:31.920
very liberal, uh, woke up thankfully. And, um, yeah, you've been a huge part of that journey.
00:28:38.160
I do have a question about religion. Um, I, my family, we are Irish Catholic, like heritage wise.
00:28:44.260
My fiance is, uh, United Methodist. Um, so I was just curious when we get married, cause I've been
00:28:51.300
really wanting to get baptized. I know it's a little easier to do the Methodist baptism than
00:28:56.760
Catholicism, but I really love like the, I mean the tradition, the everything that you've taught me
00:29:02.860
about Catholicism pretty much. So I was just wondering your thoughts on that because I know
00:29:07.240
also like I've read that usually you convert to what the man is traditionally. So I just was
00:29:12.780
curious your thoughts on that. So you're asking me whether you and your family should be Catholic
00:29:19.000
or Methodist. Well, I love your idea. I mean, obviously, yes, you're, you're right. The husband
00:29:23.640
has a spiritual leadership of the household. So I think your dilemma is a false dichotomy.
00:29:29.440
Do you follow your, uh, ancestral religion of Catholicism or do you convert to the husband's
00:29:35.460
religion of Methodism? Yeah. That there's a synthesis of these ideas, which is that we
00:29:39.900
convert your husband to Catholicism and then there's no problem at all. That's a wonderful
00:29:44.400
thing. You know, when you mentioned the baptism, uh, you know, the, the Catholic church recognizes
00:29:49.860
valid baptisms based on the matter, you know, like the water, uh, and, uh, the form, the Trinitarian
00:29:56.340
formula, baptizing in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy spirit. So, uh, I, you know,
00:30:01.040
I'm pleased, I'm in a way I'm pleased to hear that there are still Methodists around cause you
00:30:04.560
know, uh, the mainline Protestant churches have had some problems recently. He says Methodists
00:30:08.340
is like Catholic light. He says the, the Episcopalians are usually called twice the
00:30:13.340
liturgy, half the guilt. And, uh, now they have bishopresses and things, but, uh, you know,
00:30:18.620
if you, if you want to be baptized, I would of course recommend a Catholic baptism. And it's
00:30:23.060
the journey, that year long journey. And yes, I would, you know, I would of course recommend
00:30:27.060
that, but I would say, you know, really, uh, dig in with this with your husband and grapple
00:30:32.400
with this and think about those distinctions, uh, maybe explore the questions because I think
00:30:37.180
it was, uh, John Henry Newman, though it might've been Fulton Sheen who said, you know, there,
00:30:42.500
there are a million people who oppose what they think the Catholic religion is, but there
00:30:47.620
aren't a hundred people who oppose what the Catholic religion really is. And so I would
00:30:51.640
dig into that. And you might find that you're persuaded by Methodist theology, or you might
00:30:56.640
find, especially as I sit at your dinner table every night, that your husband and the rest
00:31:01.020
of your family, maybe come on over and swim the Tiber and then, uh, and then we can all
00:31:05.880
be together in heaven. Absolutely. Sounds great. God bless you. Thank you. You as well. Thanks.
00:31:11.880
Thank you. Uh, thank you. Me and my brother love watching your show every morning. Oh, thank
00:31:17.580
you so much. My question is knowing that men and women were created equal in the image of
00:31:22.920
God, but we have different roles. What, how do you think voting would be? Do you think women
00:31:27.880
should be voting or just households? Well, the really conservative position, I guess,
00:31:32.400
is that nobody should be voting. You know, we should just have divine right Kings or something
00:31:36.340
like that. But, uh, we live in the system that we live in. Uh, sometimes people raise this to be
00:31:41.300
somewhat provocative to say, uh, should we repeal the 19th amendment? And it is worth pointing out
00:31:46.400
as an historical matter that at the time the 19th amendment was proposed, there were many,
00:31:50.920
many women who opposed it and they didn't oppose it as the left suggests, because they're just a bunch
00:31:55.920
of idiots or they hate themselves or they're sexist or something. Uh, they opposed it because
00:31:59.800
that represents a shift in the political economy. Previously, the basic unit of politics was the
00:32:04.840
family. Uh, when, when you move to something more like a universal suffrage, the basic, uh, unit of
00:32:11.000
politics becomes the individual. And so there's some advantages to that, but there are a lot of
00:32:14.560
disadvantages to that. What I would say though, to the people now who say we should repeal the 19th
00:32:19.500
is, uh, you know, you have to dig in a little bit more specifically. The problem, uh, for the
00:32:26.640
electing Democrats is not women voting exactly. It's single women voting, specifically single
00:32:33.060
women in cities. So my way, my moderate view between the people who say we, we, the 19th
00:32:39.520
amendment's the greatest amendment ever. All the women need to vote starting at the age of six.
00:32:42.460
And we need to take away the right to vote from women is we should say only married women living
00:32:49.740
in rural and maybe suburban areas get to vote. And they actually get two votes. They get the
00:32:55.600
right to vote of the women who were single and in the urban areas. Uh, one thing I would say that
00:33:01.440
you could do given our political circumstances is I like the idea that the husband and wife vote
00:33:06.540
together. I don't like the idea that the vote of a husband and a wife cancels each other out.
00:33:11.300
Uh, and so it is notable that the married women tend to vote more conservative. So that's all a
00:33:17.900
recommendation to get married, talk about politics together, come to the right conclusions, right,
00:33:24.260
capital R and, uh, and, and then we can worry about the amendments down the line.
00:33:34.400
Hi, Mr. Knowles. Um, I am from California, which is obviously a very blue state. What can I do?
00:33:41.300
I was a high schooler to help California become Movid.
00:33:44.640
What can you do? Gosh, uh, you know, if you were a little bit older, uh, I would say you might want
00:33:51.860
to flee. No, no, not as a way to escape problems because you don't want to be a coward, but sometimes
00:33:57.900
you need a tactical retreat in order to mount a greater victory. So, you know, the, the conservatives
00:34:04.480
retreat to these swing States and more red States, they get a big majority. They bring Trump into
00:34:10.260
office. Then we shape national policy. National policy has an effect, even in the blue States,
00:34:15.280
especially as Trump is threatening to withhold federal funds, sending in federal troops, uh,
00:34:19.900
deporting a lot of the illegals who give disproportionate power to the blue States.
00:34:23.120
So there, there's some good cause for that. Now I'm not suggesting you hop on a box car and run
00:34:27.240
away from home as a teenager. So what can you do? Uh, you know, the best you can do is, is focus on
00:34:33.620
your local area. So where in California do you live? So I'm on the central coast. So right by all
00:34:38.920
the beaches. Okay. So, you know, you're not living in the heart of the tenderloin or something,
00:34:43.660
you know, you're not on skid row. There's a chance that you actually could affect, uh, local areas,
00:34:48.820
maybe state legislature, maybe even Congress. Uh, that's where I would focus your efforts also
00:34:54.160
because if you, especially if you volunteer on a congressional campaign, it's very good political
00:34:58.520
training. You you're exposed to national issues, but it's got all the pettiness and backstabbing
00:35:03.860
of local politics. So you really get a good sense of what politics is about. And I would train there.
00:35:08.940
The other advice I would give you though, I suppose I'm undercutting it by having you on my show
00:35:13.180
is I would not try to get famous too young. A lot of people in politics, they all want to be,
00:35:18.820
famous live streamers when they're six years old. And that's not a good idea because you don't,
00:35:23.740
you just haven't fully formed what you think you haven't had the experience of working in politics
00:35:27.560
and you're going to regret it if you do. So that's what I would do. I would dig in at that level.
00:35:31.480
And if you have any practical political experience at all, you will be much better positioned and more
00:35:36.600
knowledgeable than like 99% of broadcasters. Good luck. Thank you. Okay. Before we get to this
00:35:44.680
excellent question, I want to talk about guns. I want you to go to stopboxusa.com and use code
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Michael Knowles, all one word folks. I love my guns. I was just walking through here and I saw Nick
00:35:59.580
Freitas and Nick Freitas. He was doing some stream and Nick Freitas recently gave me a gun, a beautiful
00:36:04.980
desert Eagle that is the size of like half my body. And if I ever shot an intruder with it, it would blow
00:36:10.480
off my front door. So where am I going to store my cool desert Eagle? I have the answer. It is
00:36:15.480
stopbox pro. The stopbox pro is great because there are two kinds of gun holders. You got the digital
00:36:23.040
ones that need the retina scan that are super duper secure, but then when you need it, you can't get
00:36:27.440
into it. And then you got some that are a little bit weaker and they, you know, they're a little easier
00:36:32.480
to get into, but then you worry when you have guests over, when you have kids, stopbox pro figures it all
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Wire Plus today, dailywire.com slash gift. I'm so happy I was going to wear that same jacket and I
00:37:49.540
would have looked so silly if we were wearing this. Nice to see you. It's so nice to meet you,
00:37:53.800
Michael. I'm 100% your biggest fan, whether you believe it or not. I believe it. Thank you.
00:37:59.400
I had the opportunity to talk to your boy, Mr. Davies. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that.
00:38:03.900
He told me Professor Jacob was doing his job today. He's back home doing his job. Doing his job. He's
00:38:08.700
probably asleep. I said I thought he was on sick leave or on a trip with destiny. Yeah, he's always
00:38:15.560
on medical leave because of his latest car accident. Yes, I was about to say, he's probably fixing his car.
00:38:21.740
Yeah. But I wanted to, my real question is to ask you, I have a teen podcast. It's called American
00:38:27.880
Honey. Nice. And I wanted to ask you, what do you think the biggest problem facing teenagers is
00:38:34.200
today and how do we fix it? The biggest problem facing teenagers is that they live their entire
00:38:39.240
lives on the internet. And, you know, I saw this a little bit because though I look very aged because
00:38:45.200
of all of my wisdom and the cigars I've smoked, I'm actually not that old. And so, you know, when I
00:38:51.040
did grow up substantially online too, and it's very, very dangerous. But when I grew up, we didn't have
00:38:58.280
smartphones. We weren't, we didn't live our lives through avatars of social media. Online dating was
00:39:03.980
not really a thing yet. So I kind of feel like I got the last chopper out of Nam. And for young people
00:39:10.820
today, the problems posed by growing up online are, are manifest. Obviously the big one is
00:39:17.640
pornography. The exposure to pornography happens on average at like age 10 and it can seriously warp
00:39:23.340
your mind, affect your relationships, damage your physical health. It's just horrifying and it's
00:39:27.780
almost inescapable. That's just one of the problems though. The other problem is that as you live your
00:39:33.440
life online, you forget that we're incarnate creatures in the real world. The fact of the incarnation
00:39:38.560
is the central fact of history. It's, it's so important that God becomes incarnate and like takes
00:39:44.420
on flesh and is crucified for us in time and space. Uh, the, the more that you live your life
00:39:49.480
virtually, uh, the, the less that matters, the more you're inclined to live a double life, which is
00:39:54.700
very damaging for your psyche. It's very damaging for your soul. Uh, the, the more easily you are
00:39:59.880
preyed upon by people who are gaming the algorithm of your brain. Uh, so it would seem to me that the best
00:40:07.060
advice I would have for teenagers is put down, uh, open up the smartphone, watch the Michael Knowles
00:40:13.580
show. First off, then the moment the show ends, go to Mayflower cigars or go to dailywire.com slash
00:40:21.580
shop and get the Michael Knowles candles. And, but the moment you order those products, put the phone
00:40:26.660
down and go outside and don't, don't have your first experiences of dating being online. Don't,
00:40:32.040
uh, don't use online tools to cheat and rob yourself of an education. Don't, uh, don't believe
00:40:38.620
that your virtual persona is your, is your real life. You'll miss out on your whole life. It'll
00:40:43.340
seriously damage you. And when you put it down by speechless and by speeches, which is a physical
00:40:48.340
book. Well, my last thing would be me and my mom always joke anytime my dog was born on January 6th,
00:40:55.200
but you have a very special way of saying January 6th. I do. I don't, I barely even recognize
00:41:00.460
the, the date, the way that you've pronounced it. Are you all familiar with that date? Do you know,
00:41:06.040
you've heard of it because it's the worst day in the history of this or any Republic, you know,
00:41:12.100
it's the most horrifying, tragic day in the history of the world known as January 6th, the day that
00:41:21.420
makes Adam Schiff cry. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, they haven't stopped sobbing in five years and we
00:41:30.080
need to hold memorials for all of the terrible horn hats that were damaged that day. Thank you for
00:41:38.980
bringing up that emotional. I don't know that I can go on and give my speech later after thinking
00:41:44.820
about that awful day. Wonderful to meet you. So nice to meet you. Can I give you my card for my
00:41:49.820
podcast and how do I work for you, work for daily wire, get on the podcast. This is great. I've been
00:41:55.600
trying to replace my associate producer, professor Jacob for five years. This is great.
00:42:01.060
One tee hee hee Tuesday the other day. So yeah, that's too little too late. Uh, please give me
00:42:05.700
your card. I appreciate that. That's great. Uh, look at that's a, I gotta get cool cards like that.
00:42:13.340
Bell, lovely to see you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you to all of you. Wonderful to
00:42:17.360
meet all of you. Great to see all of you as well. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael
00:42:36.400
What was it like, Merlin, to be alone with God?
00:42:51.420
Merlin, I knew your father. I am yet convinced that he was not of this world.
00:42:59.000
All men know of the great Taliesin. You are my father. That the gods should war for my soul.
00:43:10.620
I know what the Bull God offered you. I was offered the same.
00:43:18.260
There is a new power at work in the world. I've seen it.
00:43:44.840
Fate of Britain never rests in the hands of the great light.
00:44:05.480
How many lives must be lost before you accept the power you were born to wield?
00:44:13.220
So clinging to the promises of a god who has abandoned you.