The Michael Knowles Show - The Attack on Super Heroes ｜ Eric July

00:00:00.000 I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:08.860 Everywhere I go lately, people tell me that I need to interview Eric July. It doesn't matter

00:00:15.360 what state I'm in. It doesn't matter what we're talking about. I was at Tim Pool's place not so

00:00:21.120 long ago. He said, you got to talk to Eric July. I said, okay, I got to learn about this guy. So I

00:00:25.300 look up Eric July, also known as YoungRipa59. I had already reserved YoungRipa58, which is why he

00:00:32.620 had to go to 59. He's got some really, really terrific commentary, in particular on the

00:00:38.740 entertainment media and specifically about comic books. But this guy is a man of many, many talents.

00:00:43.860 You also may have seen him in the Thomas Sowell documentary, which is really terrific. Thomas

00:00:48.480 Sowell, common sense in a senseless world. So we're going to try to make sense of this senseless world.

00:00:53.680 Eric, thank you for coming on. I appreciate you having me, Michael. Thank you so much.

00:00:58.000 So I need you to educate me about a topic on which I am entirely ignorant. And this is the topic of

00:01:05.920 comic books. I won't say that I'm entirely ignorant. Here is what I know. I only know what

00:01:10.680 I read in the news that all of a sudden comic books, which I thought it's just a fun thing that

00:01:15.640 people, you know, either people with a very specific interest or, you know, people growing up,

00:01:19.520 they read them. They keep hiring radical leftists to write them. In particular, there's that guy,

00:01:26.640 Ton Nahisi Coates, who I think may be the single most overrated writer in America today. I'm the guy

00:01:33.000 who wrote a book without any words. And I think that this guy is way, way over overrated. So tell me,

00:01:38.300 I mean, is this just some strange coincidence? I mean, what, what is going on behind the scenes

00:01:42.940 in the comic books? Yeah, it's not a coincidence at all. It seems like within the last decade,

00:01:49.300 I would say more so in the middle of the, of the 2010s, you started to see this big time,

00:01:53.620 like cultural shift and in terms of who were writing these books. Now, often you'd get people

00:02:00.700 that were already part of like the comic book culture, like you mentioned, kind of, it is niche.

00:02:05.320 It takes a certain kind of person to even write and be knowledgeable on these,

00:02:08.680 on these characters, definitely though, of the Marvels and the DCs and mainstream comics.

00:02:13.700 And at some point, like the 2010s, they shifted and rather seem to focus on hiring people that were

00:02:21.040 more so fitting a particular social or political view. And this is why you got guys like Ton Nahisi

00:02:26.960 Coates writing, unfortunately, Black Panther, one of my favorite characters. And he had no business 0.83

00:02:34.120 being anything near that project, that intergalactic Wakanda or whatever weird thing they'd call

00:02:39.420 himself doing. To me, it's the worst run of Black Panther that we've ever got, but you can check 0.99

00:02:44.760 the receipts on that. Ton Nahisi Coates, there's no evidence even that he was, was even like into

00:02:49.940 comic books prior to being hired as a writer for, for Marvel comics. So those are the types of hires

00:02:56.740 that, that we're getting guys like Ton Nahisi Coates. It's a literal award with the Harriet Beecher

00:03:00.860 Stowe War for social justice. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with why he fit that position.

00:03:05.420 And they seem to try to cater to people and bringing people on to write their projects,

00:03:10.680 writing for people that don't read books, right? It does have a specific demographic,

00:03:14.820 an already established demographic, and their sales are really, really hurting. And you're

00:03:18.780 seeing that because of that, because they have focused on social views and political views as

00:03:24.280 opposed to actually entertaining their audience. And this is why right now, for example, in America,

00:03:30.720 in the West for the first time, I believe ever, the NBD book scans read that the Japanese comics,

00:03:38.580 the mangas had, the top 20 were all mangas in America. The top 20 sales were all manga because

00:03:46.500 that's where people are going to get their more like kind of comic book hero based sort of material.

00:03:52.180 They have just completely dumped a Marvel and they should be embarrassed, but it doesn't seem

00:03:55.960 like they are because they keep doubling down.

00:03:58.080 Well, this is one of the problems that I think conservatives are grappling with right now.

00:04:02.460 So you look at the numbers, you look at book scan, Americans are not buying the American comics

00:04:06.020 anymore. They're buying the Japanese comics. So what I think a lot of conservatives, what we've

00:04:11.160 told ourselves for the past few decades of insane leftist aggression on the culture wars is we'll say,

00:04:17.520 look, eventually the almighty dollar is going to win out. They're going to put out really bad

00:04:21.560 stories. And eventually, because they're not going to have any sales, they're going to be forced to go

00:04:26.500 back to producing entertaining, normal content. And I keep waiting and I keep waiting for it from the

00:04:33.900 movies. And I don't read comic books, but I would be waiting for it from the comic books. And it just

00:04:38.380 doesn't happen. So is it, are they just willing to take the financial loss to push the woke ideology?

00:04:44.220 I think that's exactly what it is. And I think, look, they did cater to a really flaky audience.

00:04:51.060 I think that stuff kind of works a little more for the like the I guess the movies, film, TV shows

00:04:58.140 way more than it works for something like the comic books. But they are more, I guess maybe it's

00:05:04.800 Twitter, maybe it's the Instagrams of the world. And they're more like signaling to that kind of weird,

00:05:09.340 bizarre audience, which does not even represent a significant portion of the population, at least

00:05:15.200 not of actual customers. And yeah, they just when you think they can't get worse, you see again,

00:05:21.540 and I was believe that was April top 20. You think these comic pros would be looking at that? Like,

00:05:25.140 okay, we got to pivot. We have to pivot. We cannot just keep putting out this dog crap. And then I was

00:05:30.140 just reading the other day, they put for one odd reason, they made Electra Daredevil. Now,

00:05:36.140 Daredevil is no longer a guy. Electra is Daredevil. And she's being lectured by some like trans person 0.99

00:05:42.940 about other bull crap that has it's so out of character for not only Electra, but just that's 0.98

00:05:48.860 what they're doing is Pride Month. They're trying to signal and do all of that stuff. So yeah, they 0.97

00:05:52.760 keep doubling down. So I do think at some point, the pendulum is going to swing. But what will it

00:05:57.920 take? It's hard to say. But things like DC, and this was what a lot of comic book fans feared,

00:06:04.340 not myself necessarily, people that are way smarter than me. They feared once it went

00:06:08.740 mainstream, mainstream, I use that in quotes. And I guess they got tied to these mega corporate

00:06:14.340 entities. They could take that loss a lot more than what they could back in the past. So they're

00:06:19.800 willing to take it. Probably guys at the top aren't even seeing it. We know they're not making

00:06:24.040 money, but you know how Disney works. Disney can do 10 projects. One of them can succeed and

00:06:30.100 it'll fund the rest of everything it is that they do. So they can take the hit because they're not

00:06:35.640 necessarily answering directly to the customers like other, like more smaller entities have to.

00:06:41.040 So that's the one benefit that they have. They can continue to take those losses because they're

00:06:45.940 able to make up for the losses elsewhere. But it'll be interesting to see. There's been plenty of

00:06:50.440 rumors and that maybe, you know, it was AT&T, I believe owns DC. Now they're talking about selling that

00:06:55.620 stuff off and we'll see how long Disney keeps a hold of it because the only thing that they can

00:06:59.760 make money off of it is maybe the movies. And even those are starting to take a downturn in the

00:07:05.560 merchandise. But that's about it. As far as the books, don't be surprised if at some point even

00:07:10.080 Disney or AT&T say, you know, we're not even going to put these out. We're going to do reprints or

00:07:15.660 something like that. But you guys aren't making any money. But it doesn't sound like they're in the

00:07:19.500 business of actually making money. This is a problem throughout the corporate media. It's true in the

00:07:23.500 news media. It's true in the movies. You know, these entities are very often owned by much larger

00:07:29.160 corporate entities who don't really care. You know, if the wokesters in the executive suites 1.00

00:07:34.040 want to push a message, they just don't really care about the relatively small amount of money

00:07:38.980 they're going to lose. And I do think it's been a big problem that conservatives basically have

00:07:43.840 thought that the most important issue to people, they wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the

00:07:48.800 night thinking about some marginal tax cut and an occupational licensing reform. I like those

00:07:54.240 things. I'm not against them. I'm just saying other, other impulses move men's hearts and minds.

00:08:00.660 Now, so I'm totally on board for fighting in the culture, taking back the culture, using our 0.99

00:08:06.880 political power to do it. The thing I can't get that into is the comic books. I just, just as a

00:08:13.020 personal, Matt, it's just a preference thing. Do I need to pay attention? Is the fact that these

00:08:19.500 comic book characters are going totally woke, is that actually going to have tangible effects

00:08:24.420 on our society? Or is that one area that I can just ignore? It's a niche interest and

00:08:29.800 I'll focus elsewhere. That's a great, great question. I think when you look at, for example,

00:08:35.120 what, like for example, Hollywood in the last 10 years, I think you, you can't really ignore it

00:08:40.140 because you look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For example, they were just pumping out billion

00:08:44.400 dollar films like it was going out of style. And that is, that's, that's influential. And you're

00:08:51.100 right in terms of conservatives, libertarians. This is something I've been trying to shake their

00:08:55.300 shoulders on, not necessarily with the comic books, but also with the other things that I do,

00:08:59.920 whether it be with the music stuff and everything else. I'm saying, yeah, we have the arguments on

00:09:04.160 our side, but is that good enough? I don't think so. And this is what a lot of the left

00:09:09.680 give, I have to give them credit. They played the long game and there was nothing off limits for

00:09:14.180 them. Nothing. I say if it was the more, more influential that it was, they were like, all

00:09:18.800 right, let's get ahold of it. And they played the long game. And I think what you're seeing now is

00:09:22.900 the, the effects, especially over the last, last year, when you can't turn on, I can't even turn

00:09:27.660 on a video game without seeing black lives matter, uh, on freaking soccer game or something like, 0.61

00:09:32.980 or like FIFA. It's nonsense. Like I don't, I don't play video. I'm supposed to get away with that. 0.99

00:09:37.760 But I think the left had benefited from both libertarians and conservatives thinking that

00:09:42.920 those are trivial things. Like we don't, people don't care about that type of thing,

00:09:48.060 but it's a very influential thing, especially when it comes to like younger generations,

00:09:52.080 that stuff that they're, they have their nose in. So often that's something that they're intrigued by.

00:09:56.280 And, and I'm like you in a sense that there are other subject matters that I simply do not care

00:10:00.980 about, but I can't deny if they are important and if they are influential, definitely. If someone is

00:10:07.560 able to be more like they can communicate in whatever subculture it is that they are in.

00:10:12.520 And I think that's, if there's going to ever be a tide shift towards Liberty, people that actually

00:10:17.100 value Liberty and private property rights, that's where it's going to happen. It's not necessarily,

00:10:21.840 I believe politics, I believe that's more so on the downstream.

00:10:24.820 You change this and people's minds and hearts starts to change. And then maybe that manifests

00:10:30.680 itself in other ways. Maybe it is in a political sphere, maybe it's somewhere else, but the left,

00:10:35.640 they have everything because for a very long time, both libertarians and conservatives neglected a lot

00:10:42.520 of that. And we just simply didn't think it was as important as what it actually was. And this is why

00:10:47.720 so many of these, like these younger folk there, they, they got them in. I mean, it doesn't matter

00:10:52.020 what it is that they pump out. They walk right hand in hand with them. And, uh, yeah, they listen

00:10:56.500 to them. That's right. You, you may not care about the culture, but the culture cares about you. And

00:11:01.980 I, you know, people do this a lot with the pronoun issue. We'll say, should I call Bruce Jenner,

00:11:06.620 he or she, and we, everyone gets into big debates about this. And, uh, some of the more squishy

00:11:11.760 conservatives, they'll often say, who cares, right? It's the same thing on the comic books. It's the

00:11:16.320 same thing on all these aspects of the culture. Oh, who cares? Uh, the left cares. The left seems

00:11:21.780 to care quite a lot, which is why they're losing a lot of money, pushing these messages. They're

00:11:26.180 hiring these radicals like Ta-Nehisi Coates. They're hot. They're really focused on it because

00:11:30.540 they know that the culture can carry whole premises through to it. But I wonder, I wonder if part of it

00:11:36.960 is conservatives have just, and libertarians have just ignored it and they just don't really care that

00:11:40.480 much. But also what would we do with the power if we actually knew to wield it? But by that, I mean,

00:11:47.260 the left has a very specific vision of society. America is evil, racist, sexist, whatever, you 0.98

00:11:54.300 know, it's all sorts of terrible stuff and we got to tear it down and pull down statues of Washington. 0.99

00:11:58.140 Okay. What is the conservative response? What is our substantive view of things? Do we have one

00:12:05.040 or is it just that we can't really agree on anything? So the only thing we do when we have power is

00:12:09.580 temporarily cut taxes a little bit? Yeah, see, that's always the question that I think is very

00:12:15.760 difficult for people that, again, no matter what it is you call yourself, it's just if you value

00:12:19.940 liberty, like what's next? Obviously you brought it, I mean, I believe that stems from obviously the

00:12:25.140 Marxism it is that they advocate where it's just anything that exists. They want to make sure they

00:12:30.460 tear it down and build it up in a way or build it back up in a way that they envision it, this sort of

00:12:35.860 anti-property rights, more radical, egalitarian, I use that term loosely, egalitarian sort of approach

00:12:43.460 where we're all like equal robots when we know that's absolutely not the case, but let them tell

00:12:48.160 it that's what they believe. I think this is why I was focused so much on decentralization so much

00:12:54.500 because if anything, if there's anything else to focus on, because you're right, I do believe that

00:12:59.420 there's a lot of people that value liberty that are on different sides of just different subject

00:13:04.080 matters. They differ so much and it's like, okay, I just want to be left alone, right? The left doesn't

00:13:09.520 want to leave you alone and this is why they get the power and they're like, look, we're here to

00:13:14.640 destroy and they're pretty blatant and pretty honest about it. We just want to be left alone and we want

00:13:19.920 other people to just be able to go about their life without being able to either be aggressed upon

00:13:25.000 and obviously them not having the right to use aggression upon peaceful people. And this is why that has to

00:13:30.940 stay at the top. If you are in any sort of advocacy position or really in any position of influence,

00:13:36.860 it has to stay at the top and you have to be loud. And unfortunately, a lot of conservatives seem to

00:13:41.860 lose sight of that. Even the ones that focus a lot on, okay, I just want to own the libs and stuff like 0.58

00:13:47.540 that. I mean, I get it, but is that actually going to work us towards a more freer, a more prosperous

00:13:53.560 society, right? And this is why decentralization is such a focus of mine because it's like, we're not going

00:13:59.440 to agree on how this power needs to be willed. So at minimum, if we can try to like get, I don't

00:14:05.780 know, get rid of it. So where we don't have Nancy Pelosi and these other quacks out of that there 1.00

00:14:10.260 and Washington, I've made this argument on the blaze every day that I'm there. I'm less about

00:14:15.560 arguing with Nancy Pelosi about who should be in her position. I want to pull the rug from up under

00:14:20.140 her so she doesn't have any sort of influence. So they can't make the decisions that it is that more 1.00

00:14:26.500 so impacts our life. This is why we get so up in arms. So maybe we have to change that part of

00:14:31.980 the power structure as opposed to just wielding it and just focusing on, yeah, we may get a tax cut

00:14:37.360 here, we may get a tax cut there, but it has to come with mountains of corporate welfare and all

00:14:43.540 sorts of things that we're funding. They compromise. Definitely, we see this with a lot of even the

00:14:47.580 conservatives, they'll compromise on, or the Republicans compromise on certain things. Okay,

00:14:52.240 we'll give you this, this and that port field bill, $2 trillion. Let's devalue your money in

00:14:56.620 the first place. And we don't really work towards liberty. And that's what has to be kept in mind.

00:15:02.800 I wish I would, I would love to hear or see rather Republicans actually keeping that at the forefront

00:15:09.800 of what their advocacy actually is. The term that I like to use is that they tend to campaign like

00:15:15.500 libertarians and then govern like Democrats. I would love to change that.

00:15:19.900 Well, there's this strange paradox. I don't know if it's really a paradox, but it is a strange

00:15:25.520 circumstance that at least since Reagan, at least since Republicans have really embraced,

00:15:31.540 as you say, the kind of libertarian language on the campaign trail, they actually have put forward

00:15:37.680 some policies in that direction. You know, they've focused a lot on economic deregulation. Okay. And

00:15:43.740 the Democrats I find, since around the same time, maybe a little earlier, have focused a lot on social

00:15:48.820 deregulation. You know, you can sleep with whoever you want. You can kill a baby in the womb. You can 0.94

00:15:53.060 kind of do whatever you want. And so, you know, in a weird way, they've both kind of deregulated.

00:15:58.740 And yet, as you rightly point out, we seem to be in the most centralized, powerful government,

00:16:06.580 you know, maybe in the history of the world. So how does that happen? I mean, how has a process that

00:16:11.120 I don't think is just totally disingenuous, I think they actually have deregulated in certain

00:16:15.060 pretty noticeable ways. But how has that deregulation then led to a more powerful,

00:16:21.000 centralized government? I can't make sense of it. Right. And it is, I think it's because they're

00:16:26.560 not focusing on the, I guess, the power more so in itself. It's more so, okay, I'll take this slight

00:16:32.560 victory here. I'm on this. It's more topic to topic. And I'm not, I'm not against like single

00:16:37.540 issues or focusing on people have their expertise and stuff that they, they actually value. And I think

00:16:42.820 that's a valuable thing that people focus on, whatever it is that they find as the strengths

00:16:47.240 or something that it is that they care about. But what happens is they lose sight of what the

00:16:53.100 actual like core principle is. And that's liberty. For example, this is why I don't take leftists

00:16:58.260 serious when they complain about, let's say things like police brutality. That is not anything to take

00:17:04.040 serious from them because they have no problem with the cops whooping up on you in the event,

00:17:10.020 in the event that it's for something that they want to, to advocate for, which is why they're

00:17:15.200 like non-existent in the event. Or there'll be like, contradict themselves. Like we saw with the

00:17:20.120 whole January 6th thing, they're doing vigils and all of this for that lie of Brian Sicknick being

00:17:26.340 beat over the head with a fire extinguisher, which was of course turned out to not even be true.

00:17:30.860 But that's the type of stuff that they do because for them, it's, it's less, it's not necessarily

00:17:34.900 about the deregulation. It's more about what can we do to destabilize, uh, let's say what exists

00:17:40.740 right now so we can actually capture that power. So this is why, even though they claim to be okay,

00:17:47.680 like even with the drugs, they like to think that they're the party against the war on drugs, 0.71

00:17:51.280 which is bull crap, but they like to think that, but it seems to always lead like to what you said, 0.94

00:17:56.840 more centralization. That's because liberty isn't really on their focus. It's more single issue, 0.98

00:18:01.660 single issue. What do I have to do? Or what do I have to advocate to become prominent and to get

00:18:06.540 the power? And when you don't focus on the private property right element of what it is that we're,

00:18:10.880 we're discussing, then yeah, you're going to lose sight of that. And this is what we have right now,

00:18:14.940 big bloated centralized, uh, uh, mess. And unfortunately it's ruining a lot of people's

00:18:19.960 lives. Well, and you've totally hit the nail on the head on this power struggle. I notice even

00:18:24.200 on the issues where they talk about liberty, you'll notice they never really mean liberty in the way that,

00:18:29.780 you know, a conservative person would talk about it. They mean, they mean licentiousness. The only,

00:18:34.000 they're not really interested in the liberty to tamp down your appetites and govern yourself and

00:18:38.740 exert political control. They only talk about liberty and like shooting up dope or something.

00:18:42.540 Liberty is the kind of degrade us and take us out of our heads. And so.

00:18:46.140 Degeneracy in anything.

00:18:47.180 That's right. Yeah. I mean, these, and these are things, by the way, the founding fathers

00:18:49.660 explicitly said, they said, do not abuse liberty to licentiousness. That's a bad idea. You're

00:18:54.760 going to lose your self-government if you do that. So, so they do this all the time. But then I wonder,

00:18:59.160 do conservatives need, and I wonder this, I, you know, this is sort of a thesis that I've put out

00:19:05.560 there. I know it's very controversial, but do conservatives need a substantive vision?

00:19:11.320 Meaning what we've tried to do, I think with the best of intentions is, is nothing. And what I mean

00:19:16.840 by that is, you know, you get power and you say, I'm not going to regulate. I'm not going to do this.

00:19:21.240 I'm not going to, we're going to let people make their own decisions, leave them alone. And then the

00:19:25.400 left won't leave anybody alone. And the left won't let anybody be left alone. And it's just

00:19:29.060 not going to happen. So, you know, a Republican wins and, and we basically freeze the culture and

00:19:34.520 we say, okay, we've got sort of a break for the next two or four years. And then the Democrats win

00:19:39.340 and they push the culture to the left. And then maybe a Republican wins and we freeze it again.

00:19:43.660 And so, you know, if you, if you follow that process, we're going to be over the cliff on the

00:19:47.720 left and not, not too far into the future. So how do, how do we reverse it? How do we,

00:19:52.940 how do we go in the other direction? Right. And this is why, you know, I know Malice and other

00:19:58.420 guys use the whole, well, this is what they are like progressives going to speed limit is more so

00:20:03.620 what it is that you're, that, that, that you're saying. And this is what, what frustrates me so

00:20:08.240 much, probably the most about a lot of Republicans that are in the positions of power because often

00:20:14.320 they're never on the offense, right? Always on the defense, always on the defense. And even when it

00:20:19.220 comes to something as fundamental, like, which is where libertarians, conservatives, we all agree,

00:20:24.060 we value the, uh, like gun ownership, gun rights, the second amendment. They only get on offense when

00:20:29.800 they think that a Democrat is taking it to them. So we got, for example, I'm out, well, I'm out in

00:20:33.280 Texas and you know, we got governor Abbott who calls himself trying to basically make Texas a, a, a,

00:20:38.700 a sanctuary, a city in terms of the second amendment. What took you so long? Like why,

00:20:43.920 why all of a sudden are you now on the offense and we've seen it? It's more so when that, like I said,

00:20:49.880 they're more about owning the, the, the, the libs. It's more so taking it to them and being

00:20:54.720 against them. And this is what I called about the election. I said, don't be so frightened to

00:20:59.180 really think that they're just going to get this power and do whatever it is that they want.

00:21:02.960 They'll attempt to do, but what you're going to see is a more offensive Republican party,

00:21:06.700 uh, or at least the ones that, you know, semi value Liberty. You're going to see a more

00:21:10.800 offensive Republican party because now they can at least make the excuse that, well, we're trying

00:21:14.400 to stop them or we're trying to take it, take it to them, uh, in some way. So what the, what people

00:21:19.840 that if you desire any sort of political power or whatever it is, you have to be on the absolute

00:21:25.400 offense, but just sitting there and thinking, well, I'm in this position will be in the, on the defense,

00:21:30.080 uh, for as long as my term is, isn't an effective thing. And you've seen that leftists get in power

00:21:36.480 and they're like, I'm implementing whatever it is that I can. And maybe this conversation,

00:21:40.800 maybe it won't happen right now, but I at least get the conversation started in four or five years,

00:21:44.820 uh, from now, something gets implemented and we know we're moving. It's not moving towards

00:21:49.680 Liberty. It's moving to the absolute opposite way. So they have to get on the offense and stop,

00:21:54.360 uh, more so being reactionary and waiting for them to do something. The leftists do something. And then,

00:21:59.880 uh, people that are in power, uh, libertarians or conservatives or whoever, they're like,

00:22:04.220 okay, now I'm going to do something. How about do something all the time?

00:22:07.480 You know that you've hit the nail on the head here, especially with this pun offensive. And I

00:22:13.500 think of Trump who goes on the offense and he is offensive. He says offensive things, but it is

00:22:20.920 important. I'm not saying people need to be impolite. I'm not saying they need to be cruel

00:22:24.780 or anything like that, but Trump calls it like he sees it. And he doesn't engage in these sort of

00:22:29.760 abstract ideological things from a, in a think tank somewhere. And he in crucially doesn't

00:22:36.540 accept the left's premises. He goes, he launches his campaign. What does he do? He comes down the

00:22:41.560 escalator and he says, look, we've got foreign nationals pouring into our country with crime 1.00

00:22:45.580 and drugs and it's ruining communities. And people hate this country now. And I'm not going to let you,

00:22:50.320 I'm going to hug the American flag. He literally would hug it. He'd kiss the American flag. He'd say,

00:22:54.700 look, I don't care about your kooky theories. We're going to stand up. We're going to get better

00:22:58.020 trade deals. We're going to bring manufacturing back. You think we can? I think we can. Looks like

00:23:02.140 we can. And you know, it's, it's such a, he always had the Democrats on the back foot. He always had

00:23:07.900 them reacting to whatever he tweeted. That's why they had to kick him off Twitter is because he was

00:23:11.960 setting the narrative. And I guess this actually brings us right back to our first topic.

00:23:17.040 The left with few exceptions, maybe Trump is the one exception. The left sets the narrative,

00:23:23.520 right? The left decides the terms of, of what we can say, of how we behave, of even what we think.

00:23:29.340 And we're all left just living in their world.

00:23:33.300 That's, that's a, I mean, you put it about as perfectly as it, as it could be. And that's why I've

00:23:39.000 said about the Trump phenomenon. It's less about the policies with him, whether you feel like,

00:23:44.540 you know, obviously me not being a big, not being a fan of him or others. I said, that doesn't matter.

00:23:49.820 The thing to focus on with him, that anybody of any, uh, that, that is in a political sphere

00:23:56.000 can take from that is the fact that he at least controlled the conversation probably for the

00:24:00.940 first time. If we want to be realistic, you mentioned since Reagan, maybe since then that

00:24:05.560 they actually control the conversation. So the leftists were reacting based upon everything it

00:24:11.840 is that he did, as opposed to what they had been doing classically and back to really what they're

00:24:16.500 doing right now. And that's being on the complete defense. So that's something that people can learn

00:24:21.540 from what I love for those policies to be at. I mean, top Liberty, more than everything, of course,

00:24:27.760 that's what it is that we want. And that's the perfect storm or rather the perfect world. We have

00:24:32.420 someone that a hundred percent values, uh, Liberty. I'll take 90, uh, 90% values Liberty, but is also on

00:24:39.820 the offense in trying to bring about that in our world and really within our lifetime. Cause this is

00:24:45.640 something that, that, that we want. So we have to stop reacting based upon what the, what the left

00:24:51.500 is doing. This is what I've been saying with, for example, people that value Liberty, like say in the

00:24:55.940 cultural space, the number I've thrown out there is 51%. 51% is all I ask of people to go out of their 0.95

00:25:03.180 way and search for people that are in these subcultures. Cause we're here, we're in these subcultures

00:25:08.900 and use 50% of your time, uh, money, uh, the, the good stuff, not the corny stuff that, yeah,

00:25:16.120 there's people that are making alternatives that aren't really good, but think they should be

00:25:19.040 supported just because they create an alternative. No, there are people that actually do good stuff.

00:25:23.400 And I think with 51% of people just going out their way looking instead of being reactionary,

00:25:28.420 go out of your way and look for this material that's out there. And then you'll start to see the

00:25:32.620 pendulum, the pendulum swings. Cause right now really they're able to get away with what it is

00:25:37.140 because well, and everything it is that we do, we accept them as like the norm. That's why they

00:25:42.940 have the entertainment sector and we accept it has to be star Wars. It has to be DC. It has to be

00:25:47.840 Marvel. It has to be star Trek. And they've ran all of those into the ground and they control them.

00:25:52.580 And we have to, unfortunately, we got to say, look, they got them. They have them. Maybe we should

00:25:57.400 be looking to a certain alternatives to try to get the pendulum to swing back.

00:26:01.220 That's great. I love your point that we can't make corny stuff. You know, there's so much

00:26:05.940 corny stuff on the right. And I think I can't watch it, man. Yeah. It's, you know, really we're

00:26:11.580 here, you know, at Daily Wire, moved to Nashville basically to make movies because there was so much

00:26:16.220 less regulation. Taxes were a lot lower. It'd really give us the freedom to make stuff. And I

00:26:20.280 think so many of us just want the freedom to make stuff. And, you know, you've reminded me in your

00:26:25.240 discussion of Liberty, the left always redefines the words, right? They always pervert the language.

00:26:30.140 That's how they redefine the culture. And they nowhere is that truer than on Liberty. They define

00:26:35.340 Liberty. You know, the founding fathers had a pretty decent definition of Liberty and people,

00:26:40.680 John Locke for that matter, had a real, it was a lit, his Liberty, you know, you had Locke,

00:26:45.940 you had John Milton, sure. And Burke, I think expressed it the best, you know, this kind of

00:26:50.420 ordered Liberty that lets everybody flourish. And it's just a really civilized, great way to live.

00:26:55.400 And the left has just totally perverted that flipped it on its head as they have so much of our

00:27:00.140 language. They have so much of our culture. And so, okay, we've thoroughly depressed everybody.

00:27:06.220 Is there any hope? I mean, in a really nuts and bolts way, how do I walk into Marvel or DC tomorrow

00:27:13.240 and I say, hey, I have no idea what your product is, but I want to, I want to write it now. I want

00:27:18.000 to take it back. How do we reclaim these institutions that the left has taken from us?

00:27:23.260 I think there's, there's two ways to attack this great question. First and foremost, there are a lot

00:27:28.020 of people who reach out to me definitely because comic books are the main thing that, that, that I

00:27:32.060 cover. I cannot tell you the amounts of, of artists, writers who have reached out to me. A lot

00:27:39.240 of the prints that you see, one's on my wall. I won't even point to which one it is, but a lot of

00:27:44.360 the prints that I get are directly from the artists. It was like, I love that poster that is of this.

00:27:48.820 What did you get that? It was signed and everything. The artist sent it to me, the artist sent it to me.

00:27:52.940 And they're like, well, this is more like an undercover thing because they don't want to

00:27:56.460 end up like Gina Carano. And it's like, well, I, I, I agree with a lot of what you say. It's crazy,

00:28:02.280 this industry, but I can't see it. I get that with music, my band backwards. We go on tour

00:28:07.000 and we see drummers and whatever of other bands, man. We love what it is that you guys say.

00:28:12.380 We can't say that. And until y'all do it, nothing changes. Now the other side is I guess on the,

00:28:20.040 on the customer because we got people that valued Liberty got too comfortable and we,

00:28:24.820 we neglected it. And we were just like, okay, if I like it, I see it. I'm, I'm, I'm not even going

00:28:29.140 to be mindful of who's creating it. I don't care. And unfortunately they make money off of, off,

00:28:33.960 off of the people that value Liberty because of that. And then they win awards and then they get

00:28:37.540 on award show and tell you how much they hated you because you didn't vote for the right person.

00:28:40.860 So this is why I'm not as though I know I talk about the bad a lot. I'm not necessarily pessimistic

00:28:47.900 because just as quick as it got bad, it can get better. But what it does require is a conscious

00:28:52.300 effort for people to go out of their way and seek this, this, this information instead of just relying

00:28:58.240 upon what the people that have already gained the control, what they put out there. We've talked

00:29:03.020 about Twitter and the trending topics. All of those are fake bought, all of that stuff. It's not

00:29:08.200 organic or anything like that, but they'll put it in your face and have you thinking that it's

00:29:11.580 legitimate. So what people have to do is go out of their way. This is why I said 51%. I can't expect

00:29:17.240 you to just stop altogether. Wouldn't that be nice if people just said, okay, if it, if it's a homebody's

00:29:23.440 crazy leftist, I'm not even going to support it. That'd be fantastic. But I think that's a little

00:29:27.860 unrealistic. This is why I just say just slightly over half of your money, time and effort and revenue

00:29:34.120 investments going towards people that are involved in these, these, uh, these subcultures

00:29:39.360 that it's not about them. Let's say being a libertarian, being a conservative or something

00:29:44.000 like that. It's more of them. I don't know, not hating you, you know, instead of, instead of

00:29:48.440 supporting the ones that do so just as quick as it did get bad, it can get better, but it just requires

00:29:54.800 the customers to think differently. And I know because we have the ideas on our, on our side, we'd love to

00:30:00.600 be in a perfect world where that didn't matter, but they have already drew the line in the sand and

00:30:05.680 it is what it is. They've made it abundantly clear that they will take your money and investments and

00:30:10.580 then tell you how much you suck. So let's try to change that and go seek out those people who, 0.98

00:30:16.120 who are the actual creatives and the people that are the creatives that are already, let's say,

00:30:20.960 maybe with those mega entities, out yourself, out yourself. And it's gotta be on the customers to go

00:30:26.180 catch them. That's right. That's the, that's the key. It's not enough to say, Hey, Eric,

00:30:30.440 Hey, I, I like what you said, but I can't, I don't want to, you know, no, you know what,

00:30:35.360 you know what is even better than getting invited to the fun party or getting the promotion at your

00:30:40.380 woke corporation. You know, it's even better than that. Integrity, having integrity is good and having

00:30:45.140 a good, thriving, flourishing, free country with good, a good way of life. That that's important too.

00:30:51.100 Eric, where can people find you?

00:30:52.200 You can find me of course, uh, YouTube, young Ripper five, nine. Um, also Eric DJ live. You

00:30:58.380 want to get links to everything. I know I do a million things at once. So you can catch me of

00:31:03.160 course, over there. And we do for Ken and, uh, sake, let's say every day, 12 PM, uh, on the channel,

00:31:08.620 you can catch that as well. And obviously doing news and why it matters and everything over at

00:31:12.400 blaze has been awesome by the way, uh, Michael, and I appreciate, you know, you, you having me on,

00:31:17.020 like I said, I already, we cross paths a lot. And I think it's important that we do have these

00:31:21.660 conversations. So they, they know that we're locked in.

00:31:24.000 Oh, pleasure is all mine. I'm so glad you could come on. Don't forget. You can find me

00:31:27.880 at young Ripper 58. And then because that one was already taken, you can find Eric July at

00:31:33.420 young Ripper 59. Eric, talk to you next time.

00:31:37.020 All right, man. See you soon.

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The Michael Knowles Show - August 05, 2021

The Attack on Super Heroes ｜ Eric July

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