The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 209 - America’s Favorite Pagan Orgy

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00:00:37.780 This week, 70,000 weirdos will descend on the Nevada desert to bump uglies, roll around in filth, and worship Moloch. 0.98

00:00:45.580 We will analyze how millennials' favorite pagan orgy became America's most popular religious event. 0.98

00:00:52.000 Then we will explore why everybody is suddenly transgender. 0.97

00:00:55.240 Maybe me included.

00:00:56.780 Maybe I really am Rachel Maddow.

00:00:58.540 And we will blame our debauched sexual culture on British royalty, as seems fitting, historically speaking.

00:01:05.080 Finally, a primary night recap as CNN fills our leftist-tears tumblers to the brim.

00:01:10.220 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:12.240 Those tears were a little hot.

00:01:20.680 I just burned my tongue.

00:01:22.160 They're still hot from last night.

00:01:24.180 They're hot from the Florida primaries.

00:01:26.020 So we have a lot to talk about today.

00:01:28.120 This is one of my favorite topics. 0.94

00:01:30.580 Bizarre radical sex.

00:01:32.260 So we'll get into that, as well as the politics.

00:01:34.720 Before we do that, though, let's talk about a wonderful sponsor called Keeps.

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00:03:04.100 Hair today.

00:03:05.000 Hair tomorrow. 0.93

00:03:07.080 Dirty hippie girls at Burning Man the next day. 1.00

00:03:09.760 Today, tomorrow, and then you go to Burning Man the next day. 0.99

00:03:12.640 So today's show is going to be all about sex. 0.99

00:03:16.640 And this is not just your average orgy. 0.98

00:03:19.940 I was actually hoping, you know, they give me really terrible assignments here. 0.95

00:03:23.660 I've got to go to Hollywood Boulevard.

00:03:25.160 I've got to watch the movie about Barack Obama.

00:03:27.080 I've got to do this.

00:03:27.800 I've got to do that. 0.98

00:03:28.220 I just said, can you please send me to the weird millennial hippie sex ritual? 0.95

00:03:33.300 Can that be my one? 0.94

00:03:34.180 No, they won't let me go.

00:03:35.200 So I had to look at it from afar.

00:03:37.060 But that's possibly okay. 0.99

00:03:38.220 Because I realized that Burning Man is not just a weird festival, electronic music, druggie, dance, have sex with dirty people thing. 0.99

00:03:47.580 It is America's largest religious event. 0.97

00:03:51.220 That's not hyperbole.

00:03:52.140 They basically admit it themselves, and they get a lot of people to show up.

00:03:55.480 70,000 people will come this year.

00:03:58.360 What they do is indistinguishable from ancient pagan rituals, from even modern pagan rituals.

00:04:04.240 It all has a center in religious longing.

00:04:06.680 We will analyze all of those things, because I think basically the people who are participating in it don't really know what they're doing, which is often the case.

00:04:15.660 For those who are not familiar with it, and also because I want to see very misguided, hot, young millennial girls dance, can we see a clip of the live stream from Burning Man? 1.00

00:04:25.540 Thank you.

00:04:55.540 You know, this is sort of true of all perversion.

00:05:10.660 But when you look at this, for those of you who couldn't see the clip, you should subscribe to Daily Wire so you could.

00:05:14.820 It's this electronic dance music, oomba, oomba.

00:05:17.540 It's got this weird, vaguely Middle Eastern, Indian-sounding music.

00:05:20.860 And it's got what appear to be hot women wearing weird clothes and, like, skull masks and animal masks and weird chains and stuff. 1.00

00:05:29.340 And like all perversion, when you hear about it in theory, it sounds kind of titillating.

00:05:34.620 You think, oh, that might be kind of interesting.

00:05:35.900 Then you look at it, and it's just mostly horrifying.

00:05:39.260 And this is always true of perversion.

00:05:41.480 I don't just mean sexual perversion.

00:05:42.780 I mean perversion in general.

00:05:44.280 And this is the case of Burning Man.

00:05:46.400 But when you look at it, if this were displaced, if this were in some ancient druidic compound somewhere,

00:05:53.100 and you saw people jumping around to these weird beats in strange sensual attire and, like, big animal heads on their head,

00:05:59.820 you'd say, oh, yeah, that's a pagan ritual, of course.

00:06:01.800 But for some reason, when we see it at Burning Man, we say, wow, how modern, how new.

00:06:06.660 There's nothing new under the sun.

00:06:07.900 There's certainly nothing new about this.

00:06:09.560 If anything, the only new thing was Christianity, which managed to persist throughout the culture for, I don't know, what, 1,500 years or so?

00:06:16.880 And now we're seeing what happens when you pull that back.

00:06:20.940 So, just a little background on what Burning Man is.

00:06:24.660 Burning Man was created in 1986.

00:06:28.780 It was founded by these hippie artist types over in San Francisco.

00:06:32.920 And it was a summer solstice festival where, and this is where it gets weird,

00:06:38.220 the founders say they spontaneously burned an eight-foot-tall wicker man and a smaller wicker dog.

00:06:45.580 Spontaneously.

00:06:46.100 And I don't know where you spontaneously come across gigantic wicker people and then, you know,

00:06:53.820 just naturally have the idea that they have to set them on fire or incinerate them or something.

00:06:58.440 But anyway, that's their story.

00:06:59.940 So, they did that.

00:07:00.620 It was on the solstice.

00:07:01.560 So, it already has a kind of ritualistic aspect to it, a vaguely religious or spiritual aspect to it.

00:07:06.620 And then it grew every year.

00:07:07.880 And it grew.

00:07:08.480 And then they started doing bigger and bigger ones.

00:07:10.200 And eventually, by 2014, I think, the statue became 105 feet tall.

00:07:16.400 And they did it in Nevada, in the Nevada desert.

00:07:18.740 It attracted more and more and more people.

00:07:20.460 Now, we're up to 70,000 people.

00:07:22.840 And it's taken on this decidedly spiritual tone.

00:07:27.660 So, this, I just went to the Burning Man website.

00:07:29.840 They have their own Burning Man journal.

00:07:31.400 They have their own Burning Man philosophy.

00:07:33.460 I mean, every person I talk to, I say, have you been to Burning Man?

00:07:36.080 Have you been to Burning Man?

00:07:37.000 They'll say, no, I haven't been.

00:07:38.020 But, oh, man, a friend of mine, he's, like, religious about it.

00:07:41.400 So, like, I know he's religious about it because it's a religious experience.

00:07:44.580 Of course, that's the whole point.

00:07:46.720 And we'll explain why.

00:07:47.580 Because I actually don't really blame the very misguided millennials who are going to this.

00:07:52.620 I don't blame them for going.

00:07:53.980 They're going because there's an absence of meaning in their lives.

00:07:56.080 We can talk about that a little later.

00:07:57.840 I just went to the Burning Man website.

00:08:00.000 And I wanted to see, what's this about?

00:08:02.860 What are they writing about?

00:08:03.700 What's on their blog?

00:08:04.720 This is what's up this year.

00:08:06.740 They're talking about participating in ritual, participatory ritual.

00:08:11.420 And this is the quotes that they have at the top of this page.

00:08:14.960 They say, consider the golden spike.

00:08:18.680 The golden spike.

00:08:19.420 Every year they go into the desert.

00:08:20.640 They clamp down this golden spike in a ritual.

00:08:22.600 Quote, each year the recreation of Black Rock City from the empty desert is celebrated by driving a gold-painted length of steel into the playa at the spot where the Burning Man will stand, and from which point the entire city is surveyed.

00:08:40.340 Another quote that they have out there is, this may be the essential genius of Burning Man.

00:08:46.320 Out of nothing, we created everything.

00:08:48.560 And if that, obviously, if that isn't religious talk, then nothing is.

00:08:52.440 That's Genesis 1-1.

00:08:54.920 I mean, that's the first lines of Genesis, or out of nothing we create something.

00:08:59.880 And that's what they think they're doing.

00:09:01.180 Obviously, they're not creating something out of nothing.

00:09:03.120 They're taking a bunch of hippies and getting weird and dirty around a desert for a few days and then leaving.

00:09:08.320 And leaving a lot of exhaust and pollution in the air.

00:09:11.900 So it's not something out of nothing.

00:09:13.080 It's something out of something.

00:09:14.000 But that is the religious component of it.

00:09:16.500 And it gets even weirder.

00:09:18.440 They go on in this blog post because they have these different rituals that have developed over time.

00:09:23.320 They have temples. 0.79

00:09:24.200 They have an orgy dome. 0.79

00:09:26.480 More on that in a bit.

00:09:27.800 That was where I requested to go for my assignment.

00:09:29.580 I said, no, you're probably not allowed in.

00:09:32.120 And so it said, quote,

00:09:34.720 This year the Burning Man will reside in a temple that is dedicated to the golden spike.

00:09:40.440 Every space and turning, the entire grid of our collective home, derives from this singular point in space.

00:09:48.380 Hold on one second.

00:09:51.740 I'll go on.

00:09:53.020 We will mark this spot with an omphalos, a sculpture that will represent the navel of our world.

00:10:00.200 Aligning with the spine of Burning Man, this will create an axis that continues upward,

00:10:04.760 emerging high above the temple as a gilded spire.

00:10:07.780 The sculpture of the man will stand directly on the ground and it will be like every one of us.

00:10:13.600 He will live in a house.

00:10:14.580 He will inhabit a home.

00:10:15.920 And should you wish to visit him, you must get up close and personal.

00:10:19.760 Participants will witness the figure in intimate detail,

00:10:23.000 including every beveled edge and compound joint our man crew has employed in fashioning its body.

00:10:30.080 Now, for those of you in my audience who are not very high on drugs already, this might not make a lot of sense.

00:10:36.680 Fortunately, I assume most of you are on a lot of drugs, you know, psychedelics or something like that.

00:10:41.260 But this is very strange talk.

00:10:45.360 And a lot of it sounds vaguely Christian or vaguely Jewish.

00:10:49.680 There's any of the temples and the man being the sort of avatar of spirituality.

00:10:55.540 And, you know, you see these kind of religious parallels, but everything's a little off.

00:11:00.880 Everything is a little bit wrong.

00:11:03.640 So, where it actually comes from, the founders don't grant this, but it's obviously true,

00:11:10.680 is from this ancient druidic ritual, which was the wicker man ritual.

00:11:15.060 They say they hadn't heard of it.

00:11:16.340 They said it's blah, blah, blah.

00:11:18.100 But it's almost the exact same thing. 0.73

00:11:19.500 The ancient druids would create a giant man out of wicker and they would burn him and set him on fire as a sacrifice every year. 0.74

00:11:28.120 Julius Caesar wrote about this in his commentaries on the Gallic War.

00:11:30.980 So, it happened every year.

00:11:33.420 It had fallen into disuse until modern paganism came around.

00:11:37.900 What they call this is an act of radical self-expression.

00:11:42.440 So, you're saying they build this 100-foot tall man.

00:11:45.060 Every year it changes, 40-foot, 20-foot, 100-foot.

00:11:48.220 Call it a 100-foot tall man.

00:11:49.840 And they burn it.

00:11:50.660 And he's in different positions during the year.

00:11:52.840 There was one where they were in a real sensual position where it's clearly people about to, you know, get down and bump some uglies.

00:11:58.920 And other times it's this giant man.

00:12:01.740 And they set him on fire.

00:12:02.900 They call it a radical act of self-expression.

00:12:04.980 But it's not an act of self-expression.

00:12:06.960 That's an act of self-destruction.

00:12:09.120 Right?

00:12:09.320 That's an act of self-negation.

00:12:11.040 It's self-annihilation.

00:12:12.900 It's a sacrifice.

00:12:15.300 Why?

00:12:16.220 I mean, when we read the Bible, when we read ancient texts, Gilgamesh, whatever,

00:12:20.880 you see plenty of people going out into deserts and burning idols and having weird rituals around them.

00:12:26.680 But for some reason when they do it, we look at it and we say,

00:12:28.860 Oh, that's so weird.

00:12:29.920 Who would ever do that?

00:12:30.680 Why are they doing that?

00:12:31.400 That doesn't make any sense.

00:12:32.400 And then people do this exact same thing on an even larger scale.

00:12:36.360 And we say, Oh, it's a music festival.

00:12:39.020 Oh, it's, you know, it's just a bunch of hippies going out and whatever.

00:12:42.660 It's really, really strange.

00:12:45.080 So it's not, it doesn't just stop there though.

00:12:46.880 It doesn't just stop at the ritual.

00:12:47.940 It doesn't just stop at the history.

00:12:49.080 They have 10 principles, a doctrine of Burning Man.

00:12:54.420 And here are those principles.

00:12:56.000 It's kind of interesting because they seem similar to principles that we would have.

00:13:00.740 The first is radical inclusion.

00:13:03.140 So everybody can come.

00:13:04.860 Everybody's allowed to come to Burning Man.

00:13:06.380 The other is gifting.

00:13:08.140 So you have to like give people stuff.

00:13:10.000 You can't use money when you're in Burning Man.

00:13:12.920 And then this is my favorite one.

00:13:13.920 And the third principle is decommodification.

00:13:16.660 So we're saying no money.

00:13:17.880 Money is bad.

00:13:18.860 We don't want to turn anything into a commodity.

00:13:21.160 Oh, your ticket?

00:13:21.940 Your ticket costs $1,000.

00:13:23.480 But yeah, but man, after that, it's totally, there's no money.

00:13:26.600 These tickets cost anywhere from $200 to $1,200.

00:13:30.160 The parking fee is $80 or $90.

00:13:32.640 But then they say, but no money, no money.

00:13:34.520 And this is always the case with these things.

00:13:37.320 You'll hear people say, I'm sure the vast majority, if not all of the people who go there would say,

00:13:41.340 this isn't religious.

00:13:42.460 This isn't a religious thing.

00:13:43.440 That's crazy.

00:13:44.160 But then they do religious things.

00:13:45.600 They'll say, oh, this isn't about money.

00:13:47.260 This isn't about commodities.

00:13:48.480 But then they pay $1,200 to go.

00:13:50.560 They don't even know it's happening.

00:13:52.140 And this, we do this all the time.

00:13:53.520 We don't know when we're doing these things.

00:13:55.460 This is what makes idolatry so pernicious.

00:13:58.100 This is what makes it so dangerous.

00:14:01.260 You don't know when it's happening.

00:14:02.580 Then they talk about radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace. 0.94

00:14:11.320 This is a silly one, too.

00:14:13.360 Because so much of this is about nature worship. 0.85

00:14:15.940 So much of the modern lefty mindset is environmentalism, nature worship.

00:14:20.720 We're killing the earth, whatever that means.

00:14:22.580 They say you have to leave no trace.

00:14:24.540 You have to commit zero waste.

00:14:27.660 And they really believe this.

00:14:28.840 But that is impossible.

00:14:30.380 If you exist in the world, you create waste.

00:14:33.000 And it's obviously absurd.

00:14:34.480 You have 70,000 people coming out there on airplanes, planes, trains, and automobiles, driving, doing a bunch of drugs.

00:14:40.980 Like, these things don't cost nothing to do.

00:14:44.000 They don't.

00:14:44.680 They expel a lot of carbon dioxide.

00:14:46.760 They expel pollutants into the environment.

00:14:48.820 But still, they pretend.

00:14:49.980 There's this mythology of it all.

00:14:51.460 Then it says participation.

00:14:53.520 And then the last one is immediacy.

00:14:55.440 They say no idea can substitute for this experience.

00:15:00.240 And even here is a very important religious point.

00:15:02.960 Someone asked the other day in the mailbag about Gnosticism, the idea that there's a secret knowledge that leads to salvation.

00:15:08.560 And Gnosticism is a heresy because you have to do things.

00:15:11.180 You have to put things into your body.

00:15:12.620 Religion requires you to participate in it. 0.99

00:15:14.420 They're saying exactly the same thing here.

00:15:16.820 Burning Man is saying exactly the same thing.

00:15:18.940 They say you need to participate in the ritual.

00:15:21.000 You need to put your whole body into it.

00:15:23.040 And so what does this mean practically?

00:15:25.280 Practically speaking, what this means is sex, drugs, and bizarre spirituality.

00:15:31.920 But that's what it exists for.

00:15:33.680 This brings us to the most titillating part of Burning Man, which is something called the Orgy Dome.

00:15:40.560 The Orgy Dome is not the only place at which to have an orgy at Burning Man, but it is the most famous place.

00:15:45.960 I had to try to find a PG, family-friendly clip about the Orgy Dome, which took up most of my mourning.

00:15:54.000 But here is the most PG-rated one I could find to explain and give you a little bit of a tour of what the Orgy Dome looked like.

00:16:01.480 This was a number of years ago, but what the Orgy Dome looks like at Burning Man.

00:16:04.740 Hello, Kickstarter.

00:16:06.780 Our Burning Man theme camp has been heating up the playa with the hot sex fire jam and our famous 24-hour air-conditioned orgy dome for 10 years.

00:16:15.120 That's right.

00:16:16.020 We have been providing an intimate place for lovers in Black Rock City for a decade.

00:16:20.420 The Dome is open to couples and Morsems looking for a safe place to love.

00:16:27.140 Let's face it, tents get messy and dirty, far from romantic.

00:16:31.000 And if you are sharing an RV, somehow a dome full of sexy strangers is easier than trying to be intimate with roommates around.

00:16:37.880 That's where we come in.

00:16:39.560 When you and your partner enter the Dome, you're greeted by us and we make sure you know simple safety rules and given a sanitary towel.

00:16:46.720 You remove your dusty shoes before entering the Orgy Dome space, where you will find soft lighting, mattresses and couches on soft carpet, and lovely drapery along the walls.

00:16:59.600 That, just that voice, just that voice alone makes you think like, ah, get out of here, you, get out, go away.

00:17:07.000 That lady sounds like she's been rode hard and put away wet. 1.00

00:17:10.780 That is a reference, but that is an old farm analogy that is not a dirty analogy.

00:17:15.680 Get your minds out of the gutter.

00:17:16.820 I know that you were just watching a clip about an Orgy Dome, so I forgive you for your gutter thinking.

00:17:23.460 But there really is this, you hear that voice, you're like, yeah, I've been having a great time at the Orgy Dome.

00:17:27.820 Oh, yeah, I couldn't be happier.

00:17:29.320 I'm really flourishing. 0.96

00:17:31.560 People can love here on disgusting mattresses.

00:17:33.680 There is, it's been estimated, and this estimate comes from four or five years ago, that 5,000 people, over 5,000 people have gone into the Orgy Dome. 0.92

00:17:48.560 Can you even imagine how disgusting that place is?

00:17:54.280 For those of you who can't watch, maybe you shouldn't subscribe.

00:17:57.740 Maybe this is a great argument for listening to the show on audio.

00:18:01.360 But for those who couldn't see it, it's just filthy mattresses underneath a tent with a lady who sounds like she's smoked six packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years, 1.00

00:18:10.040 telling you how lovely and wholesome and enjoyable it is.

00:18:13.720 It doesn't seem that enjoyable, does it?

00:18:15.140 But the aspect here that really makes me not want this assignment, even if I could have gotten it, is that everybody is filthy.

00:18:24.980 There's no cleanliness to this thing.

00:18:26.600 When you get there, you're encouraged to kind of just roll around in the dirt, because there aren't a lot of showers.

00:18:31.820 If there are any showers at all, people clean off with a little bit of water or soapy water or something.

00:18:36.840 And just people lying around doing drugs in sweltering heat in the Nevada desert for days and days and days,

00:18:43.040 and then frolicking around a filthy orgy dome where 5,000 people have been before you.

00:18:48.820 If that is not enough to get you to run to church right now, get down on your knees, beg forgiveness, and never leave, I don't know what is.

00:18:57.300 But this is the promise of Burning Man.

00:19:00.280 The promise of Burning Man is that you're entering another world.

00:19:03.860 In this world, you have to clean yourself, and work, and read books, and wake up on time, and take care of people, and have accountability, and cook dinner, and all these things.

00:19:14.160 In Burning Man, it's another world.

00:19:16.500 It's a different world.

00:19:17.360 You don't have to bathe.

00:19:18.260 You don't have to do anything.

00:19:19.700 You can roll around in the dirt. 1.00

00:19:21.100 You can have sex with whomever you like. 1.00

00:19:24.640 Presumably, you have to get a chick to like you, but I don't know. 0.99

00:19:27.220 If everybody's hopped up on ecstasy, I don't know how hard that is.

00:19:30.120 Then you listen to electronic music.

00:19:32.220 Even that aspect, it's not like you're listening to Brahms and Beethoven.

00:19:35.200 You're listening to music that speaks to what Aristotle and Plato would call the bass passions.

00:19:40.460 That is just all bass.

00:19:43.040 It's all percussion.

00:19:44.460 It's all speaking to that part of you, which is rhythmic and tribal.

00:19:47.620 So you're just kind of moving and going with the flow of man.

00:19:50.260 It's another world.

00:19:51.640 And this is what's drawing so many people.

00:19:54.500 Now we can get really into why I don't feel bad.

00:19:57.340 I actually sort of feel bad and I don't really judge these hippies because they're in a culture

00:20:01.440 that encourages this and where they think they don't have any other choice.

00:20:04.620 There's another world.

00:20:05.820 People are always looking for another world.

00:20:07.300 There's a reason why drug use is so high up.

00:20:09.840 It's not simply escapism from the quotidian.

00:20:13.200 It's looking for transcendence.

00:20:16.060 It's people who, everyone who has ever taken acid or mushrooms or even, I guess,

00:20:20.940 even edibles or smoked pot or something.

00:20:22.640 They're looking for an experience that is not of this world.

00:20:26.340 And the reason for that is all human beings long for another world.

00:20:29.860 We feel like we're not at home in this world.

00:20:31.960 This is the traditional Christian ethos.

00:20:34.320 We are pilgrims in this world.

00:20:35.860 We are made for another world, which is heaven.

00:20:38.520 C.S. Lewis writes about this beautifully.

00:20:40.260 C.S. Lewis basically translating Thomas Aquinas for modernity.

00:20:44.440 He says, quote,

00:20:44.880 This is the argument from desire, basically.

00:21:12.900 All of mankind has a desire for God, a desire for transcendence.

00:21:17.820 And therefore, there must be a satisfaction to that longing.

00:21:22.080 Unless the world is one cruel joke, as cynics think it is, as nihilists think it is,

00:21:26.740 then there is a satisfaction for that longing.

00:21:29.680 That's what the people are looking for at Burning Man.

00:21:31.520 That's what people go for.

00:21:33.380 And you see this in the report.

00:21:35.800 They do every year.

00:21:36.900 They do the afterburn report over who goes to this thing and who is showing up.

00:21:42.160 The median age at Burning Man is 30 to 34.

00:21:47.220 It's millennials, slightly on the older end of millennial,

00:21:50.660 but it's people who have been working day jobs and don't feel fulfilled in that.

00:21:57.660 They're looking for an escape.

00:21:58.760 They're looking for some way to regress into childhood,

00:22:01.920 to become childish or childlike,

00:22:04.220 and to transcend the everyday.

00:22:06.640 These are not total poor degenerate people.

00:22:10.600 That's what you might think.

00:22:11.780 You'd think it's like all just homeless people showing up, right,

00:22:14.300 to be irresponsible and to screw around and do a lot of drugs.

00:22:16.860 But that isn't what it is.

00:22:18.180 What they actually found is that people are disproportionately educated at Burning Man.

00:22:22.700 They're people who disproportionately have college degrees or even graduate degrees.

00:22:27.600 I think the majority of people who attend Burning Man,

00:22:29.960 certainly the majority have a B.A.,

00:22:31.340 and I think the majority have even a master's.

00:22:33.680 44% of them, almost half of Burning Man,

00:22:36.880 makes over $100,000 per year.

00:22:40.000 That's pretty high.

00:22:41.260 So it's all of these yuppies,

00:22:42.800 these young urban professionals,

00:22:44.540 over-credentialed, probably undereducated,

00:22:47.200 looking for something that is not being satisfied in their daily lives.

00:22:52.460 The breakdown of their religious views is pretty interesting.

00:22:55.560 15.9% of people who go to Burning Man say that they're religious.

00:23:01.880 So the vast majority, over 84% of people at Burning Man say they're not religious.

00:23:08.400 Okay, this might explain why they go there.

00:23:10.480 About 24% say they're atheist.

00:23:12.660 1% say that they're deist.

00:23:14.880 16% say they're agnostic.

00:23:16.980 And then another 8% say I don't know,

00:23:19.720 which is very funny because agnostic means I don't know.

00:23:22.340 So you can add those two together.

00:23:23.980 It's like 24%, almost a quarter of people there are agnostic.

00:23:28.400 And then the big number, the lion's share, 0.97

00:23:30.400 almost half of the people who go to Burning Man.

00:23:33.280 You know what they are.

00:23:34.180 You know what I'm going to say.

00:23:35.000 I don't even need to say it, do I?

00:23:36.660 On the count of three, ready?

00:23:37.560 One, they are.

00:23:38.700 One, two, three.

00:23:40.200 Spiritual, but not religious.

00:23:43.920 Who got it?

00:23:45.160 100% of people got it.

00:23:47.400 Spiritual, but not religious.

00:23:50.100 And this is something that is really pernicious.

00:23:52.360 I've talked about this in other episodes.

00:23:55.720 I've talked about, there was a great book on this,

00:23:57.400 An Immovable Feast, which I recommend you read.

00:23:59.960 It's on this problem of spiritual, but not religious.

00:24:02.560 Spiritual, but not religious defines our generation.

00:24:06.240 It defines millennials. 0.70

00:24:07.280 It's people who want the nice aspects of religion.

00:24:10.500 They want that natural human longing for God to be fulfilled.

00:24:15.500 But they don't want to have to do anything about it.

00:24:17.200 They don't want to have to do anything that they don't want to do.

00:24:19.460 You read the Bible, and you see the Jews wandering in the desert.

00:24:25.220 And then Moses goes away for five seconds, and they immediately start worshipping a golden calf. 1.00

00:24:29.280 You say, you idiots, what are you doing? 1.00

00:24:30.840 God just delivered you out of the desert. 1.00

00:24:32.320 You have a longing for God.

00:24:33.220 He's giving you manna.

00:24:33.960 He's giving you this.

00:24:34.520 He's giving you that.

00:24:35.440 And they say, yeah, but I don't want to do any of the rules.

00:24:38.420 I don't want to follow the rules.

00:24:39.440 I want God to come to me on my terms.

00:24:42.740 I'm spiritual, but not religious.

00:24:43.960 I'm not that interested in God.

00:24:45.200 I'm very interested in me, and I want transcendence.

00:24:47.420 Spiritual but not religious, that's the lion's share of them. 1.00

00:24:51.120 So another interesting question, they say, do you belong to a religion or a religious denomination?

00:24:57.400 71% say no.

00:24:59.140 28.8% say yes.

00:25:01.860 So all of the people who say any religion, paganism, thisism, thatism, Unitarian, whatever,

00:25:07.420 about a quarter of people say, yes, we belong to some religion.

00:25:11.280 So clearly there's a misunderstanding here with regard to religion.

00:25:14.620 We've got to wrap this up, but I really want to get to this point.

00:25:19.040 I think some of you might still be looking at me and saying, Michael, you're just, you're

00:25:22.460 being hyperbolic.

00:25:23.260 You're misunderstanding Burning Man.

00:25:24.900 Burning Man, it's just people having fun. 1.00

00:25:27.340 It's just kids, stupid kids going out and having fun. 1.00

00:25:30.600 First of all, they're not kids. 1.00

00:25:31.560 They're 34 years old. 0.99

00:25:33.080 And second of all, they're probably not stupid. 0.99

00:25:35.760 They're actually disproportionately overeducated or at least overcredentialed. 1.00

00:25:39.700 But this is religion.

00:25:42.080 It's not, I think that people are misunderstanding paganism here.

00:25:46.540 It's not that we're misunderstanding Burning Man or that we're misunderstanding the nature

00:25:52.560 of Burning Man.

00:25:53.280 It's that people are misunderstanding the nature of paganism.

00:25:56.440 They always pretend it's something other, like that they would never do.

00:25:59.440 If you read about paganism in any of the ancient myths or any of the ancient histories or the

00:26:04.760 Bible or whatever, it's this very different thing.

00:26:08.960 You say, I can't, what is, what is, oh come on, that's what old people did before they 1.00

00:26:12.540 had science.

00:26:13.600 Before, like us, they had science.

00:26:15.140 Now we have science, so we can't have paganism. 0.84

00:26:17.380 Of course you can.

00:26:18.300 In many ways, scientific naturalism has created a new paganism.

00:26:22.020 It's the same idol worship of nature that the Hittites engaged in. 1.00

00:26:25.660 It's the same idol worship of nature that pre-Christian, non-Jewish people engaged in. 0.98

00:26:31.780 And the main religious right here is the main religious right of those ancient people. 0.96

00:26:38.060 The weirdo, dirty hippies at Burning Man are engaging in the same central religious right, 0.99

00:26:45.100 which is sacred prostitution. 1.00

00:26:47.300 Even that phrase, people are unfamiliar with that.

00:26:49.560 Sacred prostitution is a major religious form. 0.62

00:26:53.080 You see it in Gilgamesh?

00:26:54.400 Actually, in Gilgamesh, the name is Shamhat.

00:26:57.280 The sacred prostitute, Shamhat, is largely responsible for creating civilized man, 1.00

00:27:03.020 for civilizing this wild man and making him a member of society. 0.99

00:27:06.560 It's this sacred prostitute. 1.00

00:27:08.700 Judah has sex with a sacred prostitute in Genesis, the sacred prostitute Tamar. 1.00

00:27:13.980 Herodotus describes the ancient Babylonians as requiring their women to undergo a sacred 0.99

00:27:19.920 prostitute ritual where they go to the kingdoms of the, or to temples of the love goddess 0.77

00:27:25.960 and have sex with men willingly for money or not with money. 0.98

00:27:29.800 The Code of Hammurabi, the oldest legal code in the world, protects sacred prostitutes. 1.00

00:27:34.800 Specifically, the ancient Hittites, the ancient Sumerians, the Corinthians,

00:27:39.000 everybody had sacred prostitutes as a central aspect of their society. 0.98

00:27:43.880 And actually, the Phoenician cities, multiple Phoenician cities, 0.67

00:27:46.700 had these sacred prostitutes within the Roman Empire 0.99

00:27:49.160 until Emperor Constantine put a stop to it.

00:27:52.560 Does anyone remember where Constantine comes into play?

00:27:54.960 Constantine is the emperor who broadens the appeal of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire,

00:28:01.740 decriminalizes Christianity throughout the empire.

00:28:04.840 It's only at that point, it's only at the advent of Christianity on a wide scale

00:28:08.560 that these ideas of sacred prostitution, these ancient rites, go away.

00:28:13.360 So what do we think?

00:28:14.100 Is it just that all of these ancient peoples were weird and bizarre and crazy, 1.00

00:28:18.540 and these hippies in the desert are just weird and bizarre and crazy? 0.96

00:28:22.680 No, of course not. 0.76

00:28:23.560 I'm not saying that at all.

00:28:24.300 What I'm saying is there is something essential in human nature

00:28:27.080 that tends toward these things, that tends toward paganism,

00:28:31.020 that tends toward nature worship, that tends toward sacred prostitution,

00:28:35.140 and the idolatry of sensuality, and the idolatry of sensuality. 0.72

00:28:40.360 And there is something different in religion that comes into place,

00:28:43.520 in Christian religion, in Judaism, which says no to that.

00:28:47.560 It says do not follow your basest instincts, your base passions, and your human nature.

00:28:53.280 Do something higher.

00:28:54.380 Use your mind.

00:28:55.280 Use your intellect.

00:28:56.380 Use your consciousness.

00:28:57.220 Use your will to aim toward something higher, which is the true God.

00:29:01.120 Not these nature spirits that you're worshiping, but the true God.

00:29:04.400 This is the story of the Bible.

00:29:05.720 It's the story of the Old Testament.

00:29:08.180 And the people constantly revert back to their old ways, their natural ways.

00:29:12.420 That's what's happening at Burning Man.

00:29:13.960 The people at Burning Man think that they're forming a new society, a new city out of nothing,

00:29:18.860 creating a new thing out of nothing, with this novel idea of a barter system,

00:29:22.900 as though the barter system didn't predate the modern financial institutions,

00:29:27.160 as though it didn't predate our modern system of currency and finance.

00:29:30.940 This new spirituality, this new sensuality, there's nothing new about it.

00:29:35.960 It is simply the base instincts, even the new music.

00:29:38.980 We think this is a new music, like Bach is old and dubstep is new.

00:29:44.680 That is exactly flipped.

00:29:47.040 There is nothing in the world that is older than dubstep or EDM or modern electronic percussion music.

00:29:54.940 That's the oldest form of music in the entire world.

00:29:57.680 The newest form of music is the music that goes higher than that,

00:30:01.220 that has harmony, that has melody, that has sophistication.

00:30:06.180 It might be 300 years old, it's still the newest music in the entire world.

00:30:09.860 And what is happening as a result of this?

00:30:11.640 Then I've got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.

00:30:13.460 This is having practical effects throughout our culture.

00:30:15.580 It's not confined to a random desert in Nevada.

00:30:18.140 It's going out around the world.

00:30:20.120 This year, Americans are diagnosed with a record number of sexually transmitted diseases.

00:30:26.720 I don't want to sound like a prude on all of this, okay?

00:30:29.140 I'm actually not a prude.

00:30:30.560 There's a time and a place for everything, and that place is college or Burning Man, I guess.

00:30:34.880 But this is really becoming a social problem, and you have to call it out for what it is.

00:30:39.420 We have a record number of STDs diagnosed in the U.S.

00:30:42.320 2.3 million people will be diagnosed with an STD this year.

00:30:45.140 That's the fourth year in a row that we've broken a record.

00:30:48.800 This trend is getting absurdly high.

00:30:51.040 We're talking about chlamydia, we're talking about gonorrhea, we're talking about syphilis. 0.99

00:30:55.120 Specifically in the gay community, gay guys are spreading syphilis. 1.00

00:30:59.100 Didn't we get rid of syphilis a hundred years ago? 0.99

00:31:01.880 Shouldn't this have been gone a long time ago?

00:31:03.760 No, it's making a comeback.

00:31:05.640 Paganism, our base instincts, are making a comeback, baby, along with syphilis. 0.97

00:31:10.400 Because people are having unprotected sex. 0.98

00:31:12.520 They're having unprotected sex with multiple partners. 0.69

00:31:15.100 They're having unprotected sex with multiple partners at the same time. 0.98

00:31:18.620 In the orgy dome, in the middle of the desert in Nevada. 0.64

00:31:21.580 The CDC is very concerned about this.

00:31:24.280 The CDC is issuing warnings.

00:31:26.400 They don't understand why this is happening.

00:31:28.380 We're modern.

00:31:29.480 We have science.

00:31:30.720 We are using our reason, aren't we?

00:31:32.720 Not at all.

00:31:33.680 There is a great quote from Chesterton.

00:31:35.980 He said,

00:31:36.240 The madman is not the guy who loses his reason.

00:31:38.780 He's the guy who loses everything except for his reason.

00:31:42.080 People in that desert are using their reason, but they're not using anything else.

00:31:45.300 They're not grounding it in first principles.

00:31:46.900 They're not grounding it in traditions and faith and culture.

00:31:49.600 They're going with their base passions and where their illogic leads them in that.

00:31:54.200 And this has led to some absurdity in the Me Too movement.

00:31:57.680 You've now got a porn actress, Jenny Bly, hardcore porn actress, who is complaining because she 1.00

00:32:04.320 was treated like a piece of meat on a porn set. 0.78

00:32:07.900 We'll get into that in a second. 0.84

00:32:09.720 We'll get into the transgender social contagion, how all of this social stuff plays a role in 1.00

00:32:15.280 our transgender obsession. 0.76

00:32:17.320 It's playing a role in screwing up our kids. 0.95

00:32:21.000 We can blame Charles and Diana for that.

00:32:22.900 And we've got to talk about politics.

00:32:25.280 We've got to talk about last night's big primary night.

00:32:28.040 I can't get to any of that before I say goodbye to you on Facebook and YouTube.

00:32:31.620 I've probably already said goodbye to you.

00:32:32.760 We're probably already censored.

00:32:33.720 There was another wave of censorship that came out this morning.

00:32:36.100 So if you're on dailywire.com, thank you.

00:32:38.900 You help keep the lights on and covfefe in my cup.

00:32:41.040 If you are not over there, go to Daily Wire.

00:32:43.280 You get me, the Andrew Klavan Show, the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:32:45.240 You get to ask questions in the mailbag.

00:32:46.660 That's coming up tomorrow.

00:32:47.460 Get your questions in.

00:32:48.800 And you also get to ask questions in the conversation.

00:32:52.040 Just coming up with the big boss, Ben.

00:32:53.260 None of that matters.

00:32:54.680 Get the Leftist Tears Tumblr. 0.85

00:32:57.460 This is the only way, especially if you're going to that orgy dome in the middle of Nevada.

00:33:01.620 You're going to want to, you're going to have to take the leftist, leave the Leftist Tears in. 0.93

00:33:04.960 Put just a dash of soap. 0.93

00:33:06.420 The salt will help scrub and clean you off before you go into the orgy dome.

00:33:10.140 And it'll bubble up and fizz.

00:33:11.460 It'll be very good for you.

00:33:12.920 So Leftist Tears, they have so many uses, don't they?

00:33:15.600 Go to dailywire.com.

00:33:16.540 We'll be right back.

00:33:27.180 This is an amazing headline.

00:33:28.580 I feel bad for the woman. 0.97

00:33:29.460 Her name is Jenny Bly or Blig or something.

00:33:32.540 And she's got a Me Too complaint when she was on a porn set, which is that she said she was treated like a piece of meat. 1.00

00:33:38.280 Now, is there even a joke to be made about that?

00:33:44.240 That is the definition of a porn set, is you're treating your body as a piece of meat.

00:33:48.320 But I do feel kind of bad for her.

00:33:49.740 She says, by the way, that the director of the porn movie, who she says groped her, came up and grabbed her while he was filming, copped a little feel.

00:33:56.620 You know, this guy has the name John Stalliano, and she said that he didn't know.

00:34:02.400 He didn't know that he wasn't supposed to do that, but he should have asked my permission.

00:34:06.040 But she's an actress in a porno movie, and, you know, last time I checked, those movies don't, that's not like asking permission every step of the way.

00:34:15.000 I don't think that's how that works.

00:34:17.480 This is a real social contagion because, in this case, porn is a fantasy, right?

00:34:22.560 Porn is creating a fantasy and marketing it to people who are desiring a fantasy.

00:34:26.140 They're desiring a longing for sexuality, and that outlet is a cheap and easy way out, but it's probably not the most gratifying one.

00:34:34.340 This is a fantasy, and other sexual fantasies are spreading as well.

00:34:38.780 There was a study at a Brown University that transgender identification is a social contagion, that this spreads around socially.

00:34:47.120 The study identified groups of young adults who said that they had 50%, or the majority of them had trans-identifying people within their small group of friends.

00:34:59.640 Over 50%.

00:35:00.960 And this is statistically impossible.

00:35:03.340 This is 70 times the expected average here of people who have the legitimate social confusion, or psychological confusion, about their biological sex.

00:35:12.320 This is much, much higher than average.

00:35:15.020 So, clearly, this is spreading in a social way.

00:35:16.980 It's spreading because it's being mainstreamed by the culture.

00:35:19.640 The study also found that 62% of people identifying with gender dysphoria had some psychological disorder before they identified as a member of the other sex.

00:35:30.160 So, before they got confused about their sex, they had some other mental illness going on,

00:35:33.820 and almost 50%, 48% of these people had a traumatic event before they had gender confusion.

00:35:40.680 That's bullying, that's sexual assault, and that's also divorce.

00:35:45.240 So, divorce is listed in there.

00:35:46.920 Very politically incorrect.

00:35:49.100 You're not allowed to say it.

00:35:51.060 Brown was forced to pull this study.

00:35:53.400 Brown, you know, it's amazing.

00:35:54.660 They said in their note about this, they sent out a big note to everybody.

00:35:59.080 They said, we believe in academic freedom.

00:36:01.680 But, they always do that.

00:36:03.400 They always come up, but, and then they say, we believe in academic freedom, but we don't really, ha, ha, ha.

00:36:08.200 And then they pulled the study because it's politically incorrect.

00:36:10.660 But, this is the part we can't talk about.

00:36:13.160 This is, I was mentioning this at the end of the show yesterday.

00:36:15.140 The politically incorrect thing here is that we're not allowed to say that perhaps our physical ailments,

00:36:22.900 our gender confusion, the high increase in suicide, the high increase in drug addictions, in alcohol abuse, in opioid abuse, in self-harm, in all of these things.

00:36:37.520 Maybe that has something to do with our sick culture.

00:36:40.040 Because that's what this Brown study is saying.

00:36:42.560 It's saying people who experience abuse, who experience traumas, who experience the divorce of their parents,

00:36:48.420 are more likely to have these mental problems, including gender confusion.

00:36:53.100 This brings us down to this day in history, which was actually yesterday in history.

00:36:56.980 In 1996, Prince Charles and Princess Diana got a divorce.

00:37:01.220 They divorced publicly.

00:37:02.620 And this was in the news.

00:37:03.840 I remember this as a kid.

00:37:05.000 It was in the news constantly.

00:37:06.040 People were so neurotic about the Princess Diana and whatever.

00:37:10.600 And the effect of that was so mainstreaming of divorce.

00:37:16.840 Now, look, the Church of England was founded because Henry VIII, you know,

00:37:21.280 wanted to get a divorce and chop off the heads of his wives and have a male son or whatever. 0.95

00:37:25.300 So, we can say that Charles and Diana were better spouses to one another than Henry VIII, perhaps. 0.98

00:37:30.100 But, you've got to remember, Edward VIII abdicated in the early 20th century.

00:37:34.220 He had to abdicate the throne because he wanted to marry a divorced woman.

00:37:37.720 There was a real sense of seriousness about marriage in the early 20th century that fell apart at the end of the 1990s.

00:37:45.240 All of this is connected.

00:37:47.000 All of this is connected because what Charles and Diana were just symbols on TV, in the aristocracy, in the royal palace,

00:37:53.700 of what was happening around the world, which is that divorce was exploding, especially in the 90s.

00:37:58.400 Because many, if not most, of my friends have parents who were divorced.

00:38:02.820 Divorce was everywhere.

00:38:05.040 And some people made it out just fine or relatively fine from divorce.

00:38:08.340 A lot of people I know were run over by it.

00:38:10.820 It's an aspect of a sexually irresponsible culture. 0.88

00:38:14.380 And again, I'm not talking about the time and a place for everything.

00:38:16.920 You know, I'm not saying that, you know, when you're a kid you can't experiment or whatever, be a little loose.

00:38:21.840 But when you're the prince of Wales, when you're British royalty, when you're on the throne, when you have children, don't do it.

00:38:29.360 You have to put other people before yourselves.

00:38:32.480 And that sexual selfishness really does seem to go hand in hand with all of these social problems,

00:38:38.500 with all of these psychological problems, and all of these health problems.

00:38:43.400 They're all connected to this.

00:38:44.660 Speaking of bad parenting, I've got to go in a few minutes, so I do want to get through these political things.

00:38:49.080 We can talk more about weird sex at another time.

00:38:52.020 Speaking of bad parenting, there was a student who assaulted another student in class

00:38:57.120 because he was wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

00:38:59.180 You've got to listen to how the parent reacted to this.

00:39:01.880 Take it away.

00:39:03.360 Go right now, please.

00:39:05.540 Video shows some of the tension inside this high school classroom.

00:39:09.300 The teacher trying to subdue a fired up 17-year-old senior.

00:39:12.840 I don't agree with, you know, grabbing someone's hat and verbally talking to him that way.

00:39:22.840 But as far as the issue being brought up, that maybe this is something that needs to be brought up.

00:39:31.100 It's another one of these buttheads. 1.00

00:39:32.680 Drew calls them the buttheads. 0.87

00:39:34.060 They say one thing and then they negate what they just said because they use the word butt afterwards.

00:39:37.880 Says, well, I didn't, you know, I didn't like that.

00:39:39.900 But don't wear the hat or you're going to, you know, you're going to get in trouble. 0.79

00:39:43.640 We're going to hit you. 0.91

00:39:44.520 Really awful parenting. 0.99

00:39:45.760 And this is why Trump is popular.

00:39:47.820 So in our last minutes here, I do want to cover the primaries last night because they do show very good signs for November for Republicans.

00:39:54.460 I say that cautiously.

00:39:55.960 Anything could happen, but these are pretty good signs.

00:39:58.560 So in Arizona, Martha McSally beat out Kelly Ward and Joe Arpaio. 1.00

00:40:02.900 I like all of those people.

00:40:04.080 They all seem very nice.

00:40:06.020 McSally is a good candidate, though.

00:40:08.500 Probably a safe candidate when we get into the general election.

00:40:12.860 And then the real story for Donald Trump is in Florida where Ron DeSantis won his primary.

00:40:17.720 He was running against Adam Putnam.

00:40:20.000 Adam Putnam was the favorite.

00:40:22.240 He was killing it in the polls.

00:40:23.560 He was totally going to beat DeSantis.

00:40:25.160 Then Trump comes out and endorses Ron DeSantis.

00:40:28.200 Ron DeSantis wins in a landslide.

00:40:30.620 They couldn't, even Putnam said that.

00:40:31.860 He said, we can't catch up.

00:40:32.980 It's so hard to catch up.

00:40:34.800 This shows us that even in a swing state, even in a place that really matters, Florida really, really matters in 2020,

00:40:42.020 President Trump's word is very popular.

00:40:44.120 We know this.

00:40:44.660 His approval ratings are very high.

00:40:47.540 He's a popular guy.

00:40:48.860 Everything is going very well under his presidency.

00:40:51.840 So the left is furious about this.

00:40:53.460 Here is the left.

00:40:53.980 I love this.

00:40:54.640 I gobbled this up.

00:40:55.700 I took the lid off my Tumblr and just put it underneath the faucet.

00:40:58.260 Here is the mainstream media freaking out over Trump's popularity.

00:41:03.680 Last week was a tidal wave of bad news for this presidency.

00:41:08.600 And this president and his approval ratings stayed the same.

00:41:12.840 So I wonder, I mean, if that's not going to move the needle, is this John McCain thing going to move the needle?

00:41:18.160 And forgive me for being skeptical because I was under the impression, as was most people, that when Donald Trump came out and said he was not a war hero,

00:41:27.380 he likes the guys that don't get caught back in 2015, that people would care.

00:41:32.060 And when I went out and I talked to Republican voters, they didn't care at all.

00:41:36.620 The Republicans don't care.

00:41:38.240 But 43 percent is both a very high number when you realize that that many people are so deluded as to believe this guy's a good president.

00:41:46.660 But it's also a pretty low number, you know.

00:41:49.140 And a lot of independents have left Donald Trump.

00:41:53.680 They voted for him in 2016.

00:41:55.400 They're not going to vote for him again.

00:41:57.120 They have much more in common with John McCain.

00:42:00.040 So you have to draw a distinction between hardcore Republicans who, as Trump said, he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue.

00:42:07.160 They'd still support him.

00:42:08.300 And a much really larger group of people who go in different directions depending on the election.

00:42:14.260 88 percent of Republicans still support him.

00:42:17.620 You know, nothing that Jonathan Alter said is true.

00:42:20.540 That guy, he said, this isn't very high.

00:42:23.040 According to his daily presidential tracking poll, he's doing better than Barack Obama, also a popular president during that time in his presidency.

00:42:29.860 But then he says Trump has lost the independents.

00:42:32.420 Which votes has he lost?

00:42:34.180 Tell me which votes Donald Trump has lost.

00:42:36.720 Because all of the awful predictions about Donald Trump's handling of the government have not come true.

00:42:41.620 The opposite has come true.

00:42:42.600 Record high economy, record high employment.

00:42:45.780 Everything is going great.

00:42:47.400 Peace abroad, relative peace abroad.

00:42:49.380 So which votes has he lost?

00:42:51.000 Just to use that one, we use it a lot because after Kanye West came out, people started tracking the vote among black voters who typically go for Democrats.

00:43:00.860 Donald Trump's support among the black vote has more than doubled in just eight or nine months.

00:43:05.820 What votes has he lost?

00:43:06.860 He hasn't lost any votes.

00:43:08.580 That's wishful thinking.

00:43:09.940 The lady on MSNBC actually has it right at the top. 1.00

00:43:12.920 She goes, darn it, why is he so popular? 0.97

00:43:15.660 I go on TV every day and say he's bad. 0.98

00:43:18.360 Why is he so popular?

00:43:19.840 He hasn't.

00:43:20.360 She goes, he's had a terrible two weeks.

00:43:21.840 He hasn't had a terrible two weeks.

00:43:23.360 He's had a great two weeks.

00:43:24.640 The NASDAQ broke a record.

00:43:25.940 The Dow broke another record.

00:43:27.440 The S&P.

00:43:28.600 I mean, what are you talking?

00:43:30.040 Nobody cares about what you care about.

00:43:32.800 Nobody cares about, well, he didn't do and he should have done this and he didn't hold his glass.

00:43:38.280 Nobody cares.

00:43:40.000 They care about the economy and peace abroad and jobs and STFU.

00:43:47.020 I mean, that is like, that's going to be the banner.

00:43:49.500 I hate to be vulgar, but we're in a vulgar era, you know, and the left, especially the left is being vulgar.

00:43:55.120 The right is being a little vulgar, too, because it's so shocking.

00:43:58.800 Nobody cares about the things you're pretending to care about.

00:44:01.300 The polls back that up.

00:44:02.680 So what is the response?

00:44:04.100 What is the response going to be?

00:44:06.240 Because Trump is still popular despite all the hit jobs.

00:44:08.720 Take it away.

00:44:09.340 CNN's Jeffrey Toobin.

00:44:11.760 Jeffrey, go ahead.

00:44:12.600 Let's be clear also about what's going on here. 0.99

00:44:15.880 The theme here is I'm Donald Trump and I'll protect you from the scary black people. 1.00

00:44:22.160 Antifa is widely perceived as an African-American organization. 0.79

00:44:25.400 And this is just part of the same story of LeBron James and Don Lemon and Maxine Waters

00:44:31.400 and the NFL players and the UCLA basketball players.

00:44:34.880 This is about black versus white.

00:44:37.900 This is about Donald Trump's appeal to racism.

00:44:40.500 And it just happens all the time.

00:44:43.000 And we never say it or we don't say it enough for what it is.

00:44:46.440 But that's what's going on.

00:44:47.920 Is that Jeffrey Toobin's nickname for himself?

00:44:51.700 Is that what widely perceived is?

00:44:53.520 He's the only person I've ever heard say that Antifa is a black organization is Jeffrey Toobin on CNN.

00:44:58.900 Nobody says that.

00:44:59.800 In fact, it's exactly the opposite. 0.99

00:45:01.340 There are all these whiny little white communists. 1.00

00:45:03.580 There are all these shrimpy little cowardly white communists who put on napkins over their face. 1.00

00:45:09.840 One, because they're too cowardly and they don't want to get arrested. 1.00

00:45:12.340 And two, presumably because they're very ugly people. 0.99

00:45:15.500 They're ashamed of that too. 1.00

00:45:17.220 They hate themselves. 0.99

00:45:18.460 No, that's ridiculous. 0.99

00:45:19.880 But, you know, nice try, Jeffrey. 0.95

00:45:21.380 It has become ridiculous.

00:45:24.120 They, it's so lovely, right? 0.83

00:45:26.100 They say, why is Trump still popular?

00:45:28.680 We've been doing this crooked investigation and all this insinuation and lying about stories.

00:45:33.380 And now we know CNN was lying about a story because Lanny Davis admits it.

00:45:37.200 And this and that, and he's still popular. 0.99

00:45:39.680 You're a racist. 0.99

00:45:40.960 Hey guys, did that work? 1.00

00:45:42.860 I called Trump a racist.

00:45:44.140 Do you think that's going to work?

00:45:45.020 It's not going to work.

00:45:46.080 That's not going to work at all.

00:45:47.000 They're doing this to Ron DeSantis now.

00:45:49.280 Not 12 hours after Ron DeSantis wins his primary in Florida.

00:45:53.480 He went out, he was talking about, he said, he was talking about how his opponent is like

00:45:57.400 sort of a nice guy, Andrew Gillum.

00:45:59.980 He's the Bernie-backed socialist.

00:46:01.580 But he said, look, don't monkey this up, guys.

00:46:04.080 You know, don't vote for socialism. 0.92

00:46:05.860 But his opponent, Andrew Gillum, is black. 0.97

00:46:09.080 So now they're saying, he's a racist. 0.95

00:46:10.600 12 hours after, 12 hours. 0.86

00:46:12.740 But monkey it up or monkey around. 0.92

00:46:14.120 These are, these are just turns of phrase.

00:46:15.820 These are very popular idioms.

00:46:17.980 There is not a shred of evidence that race has anything to do with that.

00:46:22.840 But I think this is the game that Americans are tired of.

00:46:25.560 Why is Trump's approval rating so high?

00:46:27.740 Because of things like that.

00:46:29.240 Because in the old days, if someone said, monkey it up or monkey around, nobody would

00:46:35.560 think that that was racist.

00:46:36.720 Nobody would actually think that.

00:46:37.960 But the left would pretend it was racist.

00:46:39.880 And the right would pretend that it sounded racist.

00:46:42.460 And then we'd all sort of, oh, he shouldn't have said that.

00:46:44.680 Oh, he, no, he really, like, why shouldn't he have said that?

00:46:47.280 But not a soul thinks it's racist.

00:46:51.280 We're all just, it's all pretend.

00:46:53.100 And Trump comes along and smashes all that pretense. 0.97

00:46:55.620 And so now they say, he's a racist. 0.60

00:46:57.280 And we're just laughing at them.

00:46:58.360 We say, okay, yeah, okay, that's cute.

00:47:00.000 Keep going on that one.

00:47:01.300 Keep going on that one.

00:47:02.000 So now your major pitch to voters, this is your big pitch going into November, is racist, 0.93

00:47:07.120 racist.

00:47:08.680 The final Democrat pitch going into the midterm elections.

00:47:11.320 Don Lemon, give it to me, baby.

00:47:12.680 It says it right in the name, Antifa, anti-fascism, which is what they were there fighting.

00:47:19.520 Listen, there's, you know, no organization is perfect.

00:47:22.020 There was some violence.

00:47:23.240 No one condones the violence.

00:47:24.820 But there were different reasons for Antifa and for these neo-Nazis to be there. 0.99

00:47:30.460 One, racist, fascists. 0.98

00:47:33.680 The other group, fighting racist, fascists. 1.00

00:47:36.440 There is a fascist. 0.84

00:47:37.460 There's a distinction there.

00:47:38.360 So just because something says something, just because the name purports to be one thing,

00:47:44.460 doesn't mean that it's, that it is that, right?

00:47:47.020 You don't get to just name yourself.

00:47:48.280 McDonald's could name itself like the, I don't know, health foods of America.

00:47:52.540 It doesn't make it health food.

00:47:53.920 It makes it McDonald's.

00:47:54.960 It remains McDonald's.

00:47:56.220 They call themselves Antifa.

00:47:58.080 They literally wear black shirts, like, like the original fascists, Mussolini's fascists,

00:48:03.600 called the black shirts.

00:48:05.220 They go out, they wear black shirts.

00:48:06.440 They beat up their political opponents in the street, and they stop them from speaking. 0.99

00:48:10.120 They are fascists.

00:48:11.900 So now you've got, Democrats have been smart on this so far. 0.98

00:48:14.160 They haven't defended Antifa because Antifa are terrorists.

00:48:18.500 Now you've got Don Lemon.

00:48:21.160 Empty-headed Don Lemon goes out there and starts defending Antifa.

00:48:25.020 So the argument going in, we've seen these polls last night.

00:48:29.240 We've seen the primaries.

00:48:30.980 We can see very clearly that in important swing states, President Trump's still very popular.

00:48:35.320 This is not surprising.

00:48:36.860 We also see that the Democrat argument is racist.

00:48:40.700 And the final pitch, defending Antifa. 0.99

00:48:44.340 Vote, vote for Democrats, or we'll club you on the head in the street. 0.99

00:48:47.900 Vote for, that's going to be their pitch. 0.99

00:48:49.900 Unbelievable.

00:48:50.400 Keep it up, guys.

00:48:51.000 I hope you do it.

00:48:51.720 Keep it up, Don Lemon.

00:48:52.880 I want Don Lemon to run for something.

00:48:54.500 Get your mailbag questions in, because we've got the mailbag tomorrow.

00:48:56.840 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:48:58.460 This is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:48:59.720 I'll see you tomorrow.

00:49:00.200 The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Senia Villareal.

00:49:08.820 Executive producer, Jeremy Borey.

00:49:10.900 Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.

00:49:12.720 Our supervising producer, Mathis Glover.

00:49:15.340 And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.

00:49:17.960 Edited by Jim Nickel.

00:49:19.460 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:49:21.760 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:49:24.340 The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.

00:49:27.520 Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

00:49:30.200 Thank you.

00:50:00.200 Thank you.

00:50:01.200 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 29, 2018

Ep. 209 - America’s Favorite Pagan Orgy

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