Ep. 31 - Why Can't The Left Take A Joke? ft. Zo Rachel
Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning political treatise "Weapon of A.S.S. Destruction" Zo Rachel joins to explain why the Left has lost its funny bone. Then, Erielle Davidson and Jacob Airey join the Panel of Deplorables to discuss the convenient changes to hysterical global warming predictions, the Google memo guy’s admiration for KKK titles, and Jimmy Kimmel’s latest humorless political rant! And finally, all of your questions will be answered in the Mailbag.
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Today, we are joined by the former host of Zonation on PJTV, the current host of The Zoloft, the current drummer for 20-pound sledge and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning political treatise, Weapon of Ass Destruction, the one and only Zoe Rachel.
We will analyze why the left can't take a joke.
Then, Ariel Davidson and Jacob Airy join the panel of deplorables, We'll discuss the convenient changes to hysterical global warming predictions, the Google Memo guy's admiration for KKK titles, and Jimmy Kimmel's latest humorless political rant.
His latest one, not the one from yesterday, the new one.
And finally, all of your questions will be answered in the mailbag.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
Before we get into it with Zoe, we have to just set all of this up.
Yesterday we played Kimmel, and Kimmel was whining about some political nonsense.
So he's back at it again today.
This is his latest threat to pound the Fox& Friends co-host, Brian Kilmeade.
Let's show it.
He follows me on Twitter.
He asked me to write a blurb for his book, which I did.
He calls my agent looking for projects.
He's dying to be a member of the Hollywood elite.
The only reason he's not a member of the Hollywood elite is because nobody will hire him to be one.
And, you know, the reason I'm talking about this is because my son had an open-heart surgery and has to have two more.
And because of that, I learned that there are kids with no insurance in the same situation.
I don't get anything out of this, Brian, you phony little creep.
Oh, I'll pound you when I see you.
That is my blow up.
What did I watch?
What am I watching?
I thought this was supposed to be a comedy show.
It is funny, I guess.
It's funny to laugh at him rather than with Jimmy Kimmel.
We are so lucky to have Zoe Rachel here today.
Zoe, first question.
Why has the left lost its sense of humor?
You know, there was a time when they were funny, huh?
Sort of, maybe, right?
Well, no.
I mean, there was a time when we had TV shows.
It sucks when you find out that these people that you thought were so funny.
You know, when we were kids, we'd sneak downstairs in the basement or something and we'd watch their shows.
These guys are hilarious.
And then you get older and you find out what their views are.
And it's such a disappointment.
It's a real letdown there.
Yeah, it's like, why is the host of the man show with the juggies who just, like, shotguns beers on camera?
Why is he lecturing me about healthcare policy?
And that's another thing.
They're supposed to be like, oh, well, I guess that's their idea of being pro-women while they have these chauvinistic shows.
But, yeah, they have lost their sense of humor, you know, whatever that was.
And why that is, you know, I think possibly it's because they want to be seen as something deeper than comedians, all the while hiding behind being a comedian.
Because when they get called out for trying to make their deep political statement and it backlashes on, it's like, well, I'm just a comedian.
You guys should have a sense of humor.
I'm just the Jon Stewart thing, right?
I'm an entertainer.
Clown knows on, clown knows off.
You want to have your cake and eat it too.
That's it.
That's it.
But you know what's weird?
Because at first I thought the reason they're losing their minds and they're not making jokes anymore is because they hate Trump.
Trump's been the big change.
But they were kind of funny under Bush.
There was Jon Stewart.
There was Colbert.
They were both pretty funny.
So what is it about Trump?
It's not just any Republican, right?
Well, I guess Trump is funny without even trying.
Because with Trump, it's not like he really says much.
It's not like he says anything really deep.
You know, not trying to come down on Trump, but it's not saying that he's not able to.
It's just he just does it, you know?
And it causes them to start biting or, you know, chomping and stuff like that to try to get under his skin.
But it's backfiring and it's causing them to get under their own skin as their head goes up their own.
Never mind.
Yeah, there's a lot going on anatomically.
You're right, though.
Well, you make the point.
About Trump's just not taking it, but he's also, he is funny himself.
Yeah.
So he'll set, you know, in that debate, you remember that debate with Megyn Kelly, and she says, you've said this about women, and you've said this and this and this about women, and he just lands in and he says, only Rosie O'Donnell.
And that is this great punchline, and I don't know, maybe it's they're not used to a guy, and he's one of them, right?
He is a Hollywood elite.
He's been a celebrity forever.
Right.
He was sort of a Democrat, and so he's funny, and they can't take it.
They don't know how to react when someone can throw it back just as well as they can throw it.
Mm-hmm.
But it's amazing, too.
I mean, you've been around Hollywood a very long time.
The way that Kimmel talks about it, he says, Brian Kilmeade wants to be in the Hollywood elite.
He wants to be, but he's a loser because he's not in the Hollywood elite.
Well, the funny thing you said was that they won't hire him.
It was like, I didn't know that you got hired to be a...
It's like, is that like on an application or a job description?
I'm here for the job to be a Hollywood elite.
I didn't know that's how it worked.
On Monster.com, I said, like, yeah, the ideal job would be a Hollywood elite, my qualifications...
I'm divorced multiple times and I do a lot of drugs.
Will that get me in?
I don't know.
That would look good on a resume for Hollywood Elite.
And they won't admit that, hey, maybe he's just not willing to do the brown nosing that they did to get to where they are.
Just really kissing the behinds of the right people to get to where they are.
So you've been in Hollywood a long time and you basically...
You were at the forefront of conservative new media, right?
You're doing videos on, like, MySpace.
You're completely cutting edge in conservative commentary.
And then Breitbart discovered you.
Andrew Breitbart, some of the other people, Bill Whittle, all those guys discover you?
I guess so, man.
You know, because MySpace, well, that's going back, that's in the time machine right there.
Yeah, you were doing videos on, like, Telegraphs, you know?
You were doing, yeah, you were...
No, but you were right at the beginning of this conservative internet culture.
That's where you are.
Yeah.
While I was doing MySpace, that was like 2007, and it started to take off a bit.
I didn't even know about YouTube.
That's how under a rock I was.
Somebody said, you should put this stuff up on YouTube.
And when I did, they started going viral, and I got contacted by some people.
Long story short, I ended up on PJTV. I was, I guess, one of those lonely people in front of my brick wall, you know, doing this, you know, rant from a conservative angle.
And it was well-received at the time.
And it, those guys, Andrew Breitbart, you know, was kind of at the forefront of all of that, but PJTV, Roger Simon, Bill Whittle, all those guys were doing something completely new.
The conservatives had been shut out of the media, shut out of the mainstream comedy, politics, entertainment culture.
And then this internet exuberance happens and you break through.
How is it different today than it was in 2007?
Well, it's different today because I guess, you know, as I call them, the liberal internet overlords, you know, who basically facilitated these platforms, you know, for us to do that.
You're talking about YouTube, Google.
Yeah, man, you know, when they realized that our voice was that, you know, potent, What changed was that they started putting limits on it.
And I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I've kind of been saying for a while, I don't think we should be dependent on their platforms that much or as much as we are.
I think we need to create something competitive where we can have our own so in case they decide to drop the curtain on us, we have some recourse.
And right now, we're feeling the effects of that.
And, you know, we have all the time on Allie Stuckey, Roman Millennial, Fleckis Talks, all these big right-wing YouTubers, Crowder, Nakei Jared, and their revenues are being cut by 60%, 70%.
Our revenues have been cut dramatically.
So they're clearly going after that.
The funny thing I was struck with, I was looking at some of your early videos today.
This is a video from 2010 from Zonation.
Oh, boy.
Man, this is weird.
Illegal immigrants and their so-called sympathizers believe they're being mistreated by our American government.
But wait, isn't it the government of the country you left the one that mistreats you?
Yeah, I believe it is.
Why don't you protest that government?
The government of your country of origin treats its citizens like crap, and you take it out on us.
And a lot of what that is, is catharsis.
Your life sucks.
And trust me, you don't have to be poor for your life to suck.
But your life sucks, and this is an event for you to vent your frustration and look for any excuse to whine about how much your butt hurts and drag as many people as you can into your misery.
You got these angry protesters running around with their hoodies on and look like a bunch of little Unabombers acting a straight fool.
because they reckon if they throw enough of a hissy fit, they'll get their way.
All right.
That video was made seven years ago.
That could have been made seven hours ago.
That is describing exactly what is the main story in the news right now.
Does anything change?
Does anything ever change in politics?
No.
No, it doesn't.
And that's the thing, man.
This has been going on since God knows when.
And it gets recycled.
And we know how liberals love recycling.
And that's exactly what's happening.
It's just recycled over and over again.
This is the first time that I think I'd be willing to recycle, is to pull back some of these videos.
So where's it going to head?
I mean, right now, you're a drummer for 20-pound sledge.
You're still putting out videos, even though YouTube's trying to just squeeze them and crush them as much as they can.
Where does it head?
The conservative movement?
The conservative entertainment movement?
You know, these satirical videos that come out?
What's the future look like for it?
Or are we going to be just totally squeezed out and have to come up with our own platform?
Well, I think it's definitely going to have...
It's going to take another platform.
It's going to take being independent, you know, with our work.
And it's going to take that support, man.
It's, you know, the idea of...
I'm looking at what the liberals have done.
You know, this is what they do, and this is what they still do to promote their ideology.
They're in everything.
They're in everything.
And conservatives really have to learn how to compete in that arena.
Support...
You know, we're so big on defense.
We're pro-defense.
Well, you're going to need a defense mechanism in the cultural arena, too.
Not just in the military war and the cultural war, too.
Right, exactly.
If you want to sustain political conservative representation, well, you're going to have to have cultural representation to be underneath that for them to consent.
If we're governed by our consent, we're going to have to have a culture that consents to that.
But we don't have that.
And what is, you're Christian, you obviously play Christian music, Christianity is in a lot of your videos.
What is conservatism to you?
Conservatism to me is...
You have to understand that you can't have your freedom at the forced expense of somebody else.
When you recognize what the Constitution is and what laws it recognizes, not what laws it creates that facilitates the rights of man, but the laws that it recognizes given by our Creator.
When you recognize that and say, okay, there is a balance of freedom here.
You're free to do this.
Now, I know that a lot of libertarians really appreciate this.
Yeah, that's right.
No, it's conservatism, because you have this set of freedom that goes against this set of freedom, and it has to balance.
So say, for instance, like, and the libertarian's going to get mad at me, but I have to give this example.
Like, they'll say, you know, what a woman does with her body should be her business, right?
This is, you know, and the government shouldn't have any say.
But here's the thing.
That woman's right to do that is affecting someone else's right.
Well, I thought the baby was just like a little scab or something.
It was like a little piece of tissue that is attached to the woman.
Yeah, but you know, even a lot of libertarians will say that, look, I personally am not pro-abortion, but what a person does.
But the thing is, you can't say that without...
The only reason why you would say that is recognizing the personhood of the kid.
It's the only reason why you would say that.
Whenever I hear that, this is what I hear.
I hear, well, I would never kill my beautiful little precious child, but I would love all of those poor people to get rid of theirs so I don't need to pay for their welfare.
That's what I hear every time they say that argument.
Because you have to ask, well, why wouldn't you do it?
Why wouldn't you get that abortion?
Exactly.
And then once you go down that road, if you feel like you're entitled to kill a kid, you're going to feel entitled for somebody else to pay for it.
So it's a self-eating snake, and it doesn't really follow to the conclusion.
That's why I say you have a conservative interpretation of the Constitution that recognizes this balance of rights.
And that creator, too.
Exactly.
This isn't a man-made ordinance.
You have to have the acknowledgement that we're endowed with this, or this is an inherent right that's put there by our Creator.
I totally buy it.
Let's get some other views on what conservatism is.
We have Ariel Davidson coming to us from Skype from the Hoover Institution and the Daily Wire's very own Jacob Aries joining on the couch.
You are so lucky, Jacob.
You get to sit next to royalty like this in studio.
Ariel's coming to us from the Hoover Institution.
What do you think?
Does it make the right point?
I want these two questions.
One, why is the left so unfunny?
And what is conservatism to you?
Well, why is the left so unfunny?
Well, I think they've I think it really comes down to the fact that victimhood is now the most celebrated virtue on the left end of the spectrum.
So they've prioritized not offending anyone as the ultimate good.
But in the same token, being a person who is offended is also seen as an ultimate good.
And so comedy is inherently, I think, politically incorrect.
And so they're definitely going to butt heads in terms of what comedy's objectives are and what the left's ultimate objectives are.
If we look back at comedians like John Cleese, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, all of these gentlemen won't perform on college campuses anymore.
They explicitly won't because they think that college campuses have become too conservative, and not too conservative in the sense that everyone's voting Republican.
They're too conservative in the sense of what's allowable and what's not allowable.
Conservatism, to me, in general, I think that we go back to the founding fathers and their principles.
We go back to Aristotelian views and John Locke.
I look at conservatism From the mindset of your rights do not come from the government, they come from God, and they are inherent to you, and they're not something gifted by daddy government.
And this is something that, you know, when we talk about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, these are not gifts that the government bequeaths upon us.
These are things that we inherently have as human beings.
The right to life being a huge one that we just talked about.
So conservatism to me is really, you know, government is a social compact agreement that we enter into as individuals.
We give up a little bit of power over ourselves, but in general, you know, I think Restoring the power of the individual is what should be the objective of the conservative movement moving forward.
Absolutely.
And I think that's why those two questions are pretty related.
What is conservatism and why has the left lost its sense of humor?
Right.
There is, in comedy, there's an ultimately conservative base to it.
Even though a lot of comedians are left-wing, they'll vote for Democrats, though some of the greatest do not.
The greatest comedian of the 20th century, Bob Hope, was a Republican.
The greatest living comedian right now is Norm MacDonald.
Avoids political classification, but the guy's at least not a liberal Democrat.
Ron White, I love him.
Ron White is great.
He's wonderful, yeah.
And the reason I think is that the conservative view of the world is non-ideological.
It kind of accepts the world for what it is.
It accepts the tragic fact of life.
It accepts our fallen nature as people, and then it makes jokes about that.
that.
It subverts your expectation to have a comedic ending, but with people who are utopian or with people who are constantly idealistic or deeply ideological, there's no... you can't make a joke about that.
They delve so far into the absurd, so far away from what we know is our lived experience of the world, that you can't laugh at it.
There's no standard against which to laugh.
Well, there's also this belief that if you're making a joke about something, that you're inherently degrading it.
And the left has sort of ascribed to this idea of universal values, that everything is equal, just different.
And so if you're inherently making fun of something or poking fun at it, you're degrading it and thereby saying one culture or belief system practice is better than the other, and that's a big no-no in terms of leftist logic.
So I think it kind of circles back this idea of universal values, which is a very popular notion on the left and actually within sort of the neoconservative movement as well, I'd say, too.
But that's a standard liberals don't stick to, though.
You know, as the saying goes, if liberals didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all.
As far as conservatives go, I don't think we're as opportunistic as people try to make us out to be.
Because if we were, we would have a smorgasbord of parody and lampooning.
Because that's what they give us all day long.
They give us stuff to joke about all day long.
And it's almost tragic that there isn't something to just constantly...
We should have an army, a legion of people making fun of these people.
And you're on the front lines because you're doing a great job of it.
Oh, thanks.
We need more.
See, you're too unique for your own good, man.
But we need more of this.
Usually, I only bring on the all-female panels of these beautiful women to come on every single day.
But it's nice every once in a while to get some guys on to finally give me a compliment.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, you got it, brother.
See that game the other day?
We need to get to the very important news.
This actually is great news today.
According to courts, as of April 2017, the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's carbon budget for keeping temperature rise below 1.5 degrees centigrade It was approximately 160 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Now, a new study published in Nature Geoscience seems to have changed the game.
It suggests that the 1.5 degrees centigrade carbon budget may now be closer to 800 billion metric tons that would buy the world as much as 20 years at current emissions levels.
All of that summed up means that...
The Paris Climate Accord was sold to us that we must sign it now.
If we wait even one single minute, the entire world will explode.
Now is the time.
We're the ones we've been waiting for.
Then Trump says no.
He says, sorry, too bad.
And now they say, well, okay, we have a little bit more time.
But you really have to do it now.
Now is the time.
Forget what we said before.
This is the real one.
Jacob.
That is pretty convenient.
Everybody says that we have to sign on to that accord and now they seem to move the needle.
Is that what they're doing?
Is this just absolutely moving goalposts, completely cynical or are they really just confused about the science?
I honestly think they're just moving goalposts.
Every time they set something up, it either doesn't happen or it's an anecdotal event.
And so they move it back every so often.
They do this every five years.
I was reading somewhere that, I believe it was in The Guardian, they said, we really need to talk about global warming because of this new science.
And I think Leonardo DiCaprio donated $20 million To fund some research.
And it's like, what a waste of money.
You know, give us a good movie you could use that $20 million for.
But I guarantee you, 20 years down the road, when your show enters its 20th season, the three of us will have this conversation.
You'll be asking, are they going to move the goalposts again?
And I'll just repeat this over and over again.
Well, I guess the rapture is going to happen on Monday, as the Christian numerologists predict.
But if not for that, yeah, I don't think global warming would be the thing to take us down.
Ariel.
From this same article, from this same report, they say that the range of prediction on how much carbon dioxide will be the threshold is between negative 200 billion tons and positive 1,000 billion tons.
That is a pretty wide range.
Isn't that the point?
The huge range.
The chaotic systems and complex systems like the climate are not predictable 100 or 200 or 500 years in the future?
Absolutely.
I think what it comes down to is that this study is pretty validating for climate skeptics.
And when I say climate skeptics, I'm not saying that people don't think the environment goes through some sort of cyclical changes.
I agree with that.
That's a given.
But I do think we need to take a hard look at the science that's being used.
And clearly, you know, if this study is coming out and it's questioning the sort of level or pace of warming that the Earth is going through, then maybe we should be sitting down and pausing, especially for Making tremendous decisions about our own economy and the global economy in general based off of these scientific studies.
Wait, but hold on.
You're telling me that just because all the models are constantly getting it wrong and they're constantly changing, we shouldn't destroy the entire global economy for them?
No, we probably need to sit down and think long and hard about it.
And that's something that's not really done because people sort of, you know, they say if you at all are questioning the science, science, If you at all are questioning the science, then you are an idiot, you're a bigot, you're closed-minded, you're willing to destroy the earth.
No, I just want to have a frank and honest conversation about, you know, what kind of regulations are we putting in place and are they actually going to be effective at what we're trying to do?
And furthermore, what is it that we're trying to do, right?
I mean, what is the impact of mankind on the climate?
Do we really know?
Is that something that is quantifiable?
But Ariel, you certainly would agree that if you don't get down on your knees and worship the science, then you are a sinner damned to hell, right?
Yes.
Okay, well with that, alright.
I'm glad we're going to have a reasonable discussion.
It's Rosh Hashanah, so I can atone for, you know, I can ask for forgiveness.
You better get to that atoning, my dear.
So, how long before the left changes its model again?
Would you say like 15 minutes or a day or two?
I think that's a good measure right there, man.
That's a good measure.
And it all sounds like 800 billion metric tons of crap!
It's heavy, man.
It's like there's 800 metric, billion metric tons of crap holding us together right now.
And I like watching the Science Channel.
You want to talk about people who contradict themselves.
Oh, the Bible contradicts itself.
No, the Science Channel contradicts itself.
Now, their whole thing is that they want to colonize Mars, right?
But they say that Mars has gone through global warming.
And I'm like, how?
Are we so evil that we caused global warming on Mars before we even started colonizing it?
We are worse than I thought.
We are worse than I thought.
It's almost like that person's like, oh, I gained 10 pounds just thinking about pie.
It's like, dude, did we cause global warming?
They're just thinking about terraforming?
Yeah, no, Mars gained 800 billion metric pounds.
Kermit Dioxide, just us thinking about it.
Yeah, absolutely right.
Well, I know you all want to hear the most important news, which is Google memo writer James Damore's comments about the KKK. You want more Ariel.
You want more Jacob Berry, maybe.
You definitely want more Zo Rachel, but you can't get it unless you go to dailywire.com right now.
You got to go.
We thank you, all of the current subscribers, and you can go over and watch the rest of the show.
But if you're on Facebook and YouTube, you're on the fence, you say, I don't know if I want to subscribe.
It's $10 a month or $100 a year.
I guess it's not that much.
But what do I get?
Well, you get me.
Okay.
You get the Andrew Klavan show.
Yeah, you get the Ben Shapiro show.
Fine.
This is what you get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
This is the most beautiful vessel for Leftist Tears in the entire country.
We have a Jimmy Kimmel vintage right now that we're offering in this.
You can serve Jimmy Kimmel's Tears Hot or cold, always salty and delicious, and it's indestructible.
It's made out of crushed up Steven Crowder mugs, so we've boiled them down to their essence.
Good luck trying to destroy this thing.
Go over there right now, dailywire.com.
We'll be right back.
The engineer fired for anti-diversity Google memo, his name is James Damore, has now sparked outrage by branding KKK titles cool.
He said, quote, the KKK is horrible and I don't support them in any way, but, buts negate sentences, but can we admit that their internal title names are cool, e.g.
Grand Wizard.
He also said, So, which is less cool, the KKK or Dungeons& Dragons?
Hmm.
Oh man, can we throw in a third category of KKK playing Dungeons and Dragons?
Oh yeah, that would be a level of the Grand Wizard playing with the Grand Wizard, absolutely.
I actually don't know which I know less about, the KKK or Dungeons and Dragons, but I don't think either are.
You know, learning about Dungeon Dragon, you'll learn all you need to know about the KKK. And which is important, you know, and if I may, you know, on a sobering note, let's make a distinction about, you know, because people want to say the KKK or some, you know, radical Christian organization.
It's like, look, you don't have an organization that has titles like Grand Wizard, Exalted Cyclops, Quorum of Centaurs, you know, that have these pagan names that you will not find in the Bible.
It's not a Christian organization.
It's a fraternity that has its hierarchy built more on paganism.
That's like the alt-right or the Nazi party.
It has nothing to do with us.
And two, in terms of nicknames for the KKK, they already have the best and most appropriate nickname for themselves.
The Invisible Empire.
The Democrats are the invisible empire.
They're the ones who created the KKK. And it's amazing that people don't see what they do.
You don't see the man behind the curtain.
And just like the Democrats who have founded the KKK, if they don't like what you're doing, they'll make you invisible.
That's why conservatives are disappearing.
It is true.
They share all of the same premises.
The importance of identity politics, the need of creating more racial disarming in the country.
And they were founded as the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.
And also, how they despise the Jews, same thing.
Democrats today, they despise Jews.
Well, everybody hates the Jews, though.
I think you would admit, throughout all of history, from the beginning of time to the present...
They make me mad sometimes, you know, but they're secular Jews.
I do.
I actually think it's because they're God's people.
Everybody hates them.
That's like the Bible tells us that's going to happen.
Jacob, is James Damore serious, or is his comment esoteric and perhaps ironic...
Merely trying to provoke a reaction from the left.
I think he's just trying to get his 15 minutes of fame back, honestly.
Going to 16 or 17.
Yeah, fair enough.
I honestly think whenever he first came on conservatives' radars, I was like, guys, this guy's a leftist.
I mean, I guess a liberal, maybe not a full-on leftist.
But if you read the whole memo, he really goes after religious people.
And so I honestly think this is just another...
Him just trying to do something just to stir up so he'll be in the news again.
I think, like you said, it's just esoteric, just trying to gin up more controversy.
Ariel, is Jacob right?
Is it just these 15 minutes of fame, or is he trying to make a point?
Does he have any point that we should be able to say that some aspect of a terrorist organization is interesting or admirable or something like that?
Or is he just an attention horror?
I mean, I really think this goes back to what we've talked about on a few prior shows and what we talked about before, basically looking at if you're saying, if you say anything radical or, you know, crazy or stupid, you'll get enough attention.
And all publicity seems to be good publicity now because then you'll trend on Twitter and you'll have people talking about you and blogging about you and putting out puff pieces about you.
And you know what?
Honestly, I thought it was a really stupid comment.
And I think that I agree with Jacob 100% that it was really just a cry for attention.
But I think given sort of the controversy around the Google memo, that aside, it was just a very, it was very poorly sort of associated with what he had done in the past, right?
So he's already got the microscope on him.
And this was just, I think, a very, very stupid move, personally.
If I were in charge of his PR, I would just be like, I don't know what you're doing.
Especially for those of us who defended his completely innocuous memo.
Now the guy goes out and he, probably just to get attention, is making comments that could be interpreted as adulatory at the KKK. Yeah, it damages his credibility, right?
And so now people are going to go look at that memo and say, wait a minute, he might be a bigot.
He might have these views that are not compatible as a free society.
You know, I think he undoes a lot of the—and unfortunately, he undoes some of the credit he gained from the past of writing that very well-thought-out memo.
Meanwhile, you have actual bigots and people like Democrat Valerie Plame, who just today tweeted out an anti-Jewish tweet, a clearly anti-Semitic tweet.
On Rosh Hashanah.
Yeah, that's right.
On Rosh Hashanah.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year.
But people are talking about James Damore much more than that.
They're saying when the Klan hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's Damore.
A funny line.
Good job, Twitter, whoever came up with it.
But we should talk about that a little bit.
Valerie Plame, of course, was the Democrat contrivance that was a non-traversy, non-scandal during the Bush administration.
Ariel, do you have any reaction to it?
I did.
I had a few reactions, but I'll try to keep it short.
You know, I thought what was interesting is that she's been a contributor on various major news networks like CNN, I believe, and others.
And many have pointed this out, though, that, you know, they're all worried about having Sean Spicer be a contributor.
Never mind that this woman It posted a clearly anti-Semitic article suggesting that Jews should announce on television before they give any opinion or foreign policy expertise they should announce that they're Jews, just so everyone knows where their loyalties might lie.
This is the content of the article, okay?
But we all know how that's worked out in the past when Jews are forced to wear badges or- Yeah, it's totally fine, right?
I haven't finished the book.
I'm reading a book about it now, but I hope it turns out all right.
Yeah, no.
So she is, I mean, it was remarkable.
And the best part about it was her defense was, I'm not anti-Semitic, but you have to admit that there are many war hawks, neocons who are Jews.
And I'm thinking, okay.
Then she goes on to explain further, and she says, oh, you know, I didn't read the article thoroughly enough, and I wasn't sure of this platform.
Please, woman, you have literally tweeted articles from this website and from this exact author many times in the past.
So pleading ignorance, do not fall for it.
She is...
And she's also been an anti-Israel activist from, like, as long as I can remember.
She was part of the Plowshares echo chamber of Ben Rhodes in pushing the Iran deal.
So, you know, I tweeted this on Twitter earlier today, but, you know, nothing makes the Iran deal sweeter than a little anti-Semitism, right?
She basically said what Mel Gibson got in trouble for saying, a drunken Mel Gibson slurring his words and saying all sorts of crazy things, said Jews started all the wars in the world.
And then this woman completely soberly said the same thing.
And I bet that she won't be kicked out of Hollywood for a decade.
Oh no, she doubled down on it and then people started right and left accepting her apology.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
This woman is pleading ignorance and do not fall for it.
She is lying.
She knows exactly what she tweeted and she tried to defend it.
And it's not just her.
Chelsea Handler, just a couple of days ago, said on her Netflix show, she said that Stacey Dash, Sheriff David Clark, and Ben Carson are black-white supremacists.
Where's the outrage?
Where's the outrage machine?
I mean, this is clearly a very racist statement that she made.
And there's radio silence.
Stacey Dash called her out on her new article for Young Cons.
But outside of that, silence.
Zoe, would you also identify as a black white supremacist?
Well, I'm going to have to say no on that, and I've got to send it to Chelsea Handler herself.
Only a white supremacist would assume, I tweeted this out, would assume they have the authority to tell a black person what their disposition is supposed to be.
That's the irony, right?
It's like, who do you think you is?
No.
There's this total irony in the form of what they're saying.
The very form throws back their assertion onto themselves.
Absolutely right.
All right.
Ariel, Jacob, thank you for being here.
Zoman, so good to have you in.
Thank you so much.
We now unfortunately have to kick out the whole panel to talk about the mailbag.
So now we have the first mailbag question from Joe.
Hey, Sir Knowles.
Just wondering about some relationship advice.
I'm a constitutional conservative.
My girlfriend is left-wing in between Bernie and Marx.
What do I do?
To quote Don Corleone, you're going to act like a man.
What's the matter with you?
Listen, I've pretty much exclusively dated Democrats in my life because I'm from New York and went to a liberal college and I live in L.A. You know, listen, man.
The conservative view of the world is the more correct view of the world, much more so than some socialist like Bernie Sanders or Karl Marx.
I'm not sure who's further left.
So just hang around there.
Act like a normal person.
Explain some things to her, like some very basic economic and political principles and historical examples, and she'll come along.
If she's a semi-even close to reasonable person, you'll bring her right along.
Not a big deal.
From Brian.
Dear Michael Master of Trolls Knowles, as an avid reader of Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell on free market economics, I often find myself in a position to defend this point of view against these postmodern neo-Marxists saying that Marxism is the greatest economic philosophy of all time.
Then, when I plead against Marxism cases like the Gulag Archipelago, the Gulag, and the Soviet Union, and even newer examples of how socialism doesn't work, like Venezuela, they always reply, well, that's not real Marxism.
How can you combat this argument?
This argument, but that's not real Marxism.
You hear it all the time.
You say, look, all of these terrible things have happened because of communism.
Everywhere communism's been tried, it's destroyed lives.
It's brought more misery than anything else in modernity.
But they say that isn't real Marxism.
This is an informal logical fallacy called the no true Scotsman argument.
And the no true Scotsman argument goes like this.
No Scotsman would ever have sugar in his porridge.
You say, well, my uncle is a Scotsman and has sugar in his porridge.
He says, well, no true Scotsman would do it.
So you basically, you move the goalposts.
You change the classification to, you change your premise to suit your conclusion.
So it isn't logically valid.
And obviously, in other historical contexts, they wouldn't make the same distinction.
Well, that isn't true capitalism.
Well, that isn't true Americanism.
So just throw it back in their face.
It's total bunk.
From Gary.
Michael, I just wanted you to know that after watching your episode with Joy Villa and Kaya Jones, I upgraded my monthly subscription to annual, something I was considering for a while, but your show brought the decision home, no question, just an acknowledgement.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
And you lucky duck, you're going to get that Leftist Tears Tumblr.
That's great.
Thank you.
I appreciate the kind words.
From John, dear almighty troll king Knowles, as someone who has written a book with no words, do you have a favorite word or phrase?
Is there a word or phrase you find amusing to say, use a lot in conversation, or that has special meaning to you?
If not, is there a phrase or quote that you live by?
Churchill gave a line about this.
He said, it's good for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
And I read that quote, and then I read a bunch of books of quotations.
I do love reading quotes and pull out.
So off the top of my head, there are two that I live by.
One is from Alexander Pope in his essay on man.
He says, all nature is but art unknown to thee, all chance, direction, which thou canst not see.
I love that quote.
I think it's really beautiful and explains a semiotic view of the world and coincidences.
And then, of course, the word that I live by every second of the day is covfefe.
C-O-V-E-F-E, covfefe.
Next question from Monica.
Dear Michael, God help us, Knowles, why is it the English hate us but seem obsessively interested in us?
Best, Monica.
Why do the English hate us but seem so interested in us?
It's because instead of the Queen's English, they would be speaking the Fuhrer's German if it weren't for us.
They hate us because they ain't us.
From Patrick, how has the price of a lap dance managed to defy economics and inflation over the past decade?
I am going to ignore the obvious pun between lap dance and inflation and move right on to the question.
That is interesting.
I guess if the cost of lap dances haven't increased, probably the answer is internet pornography, right?
One presumes there's the same supply of...
therefore lap dances that there ever was.
It's probably keeping up with population growth, but the demand is probably much lower now because 20 years ago or 30 years ago, if you wanted to engage in some just debaucherous carousing and lust, you would have to go to your local dive and pay a lady to dance on you.
But now you can just close the blinds and from the comfort of your own room, engage in, I think, a $10 billion industry, which is internet pornography.
So sad for the dancers and probably sad for our culture too, because porn industry is growing immensely.
From Derek, how would America be different if the founding fathers had not been Christian?
It's an impossible hypothetical because Christianity – it's impossible in the situation because of the development of America but also in the development of the West.
The only way that that would have happened is if we hadn't turned away the Muslim invaders at Lepanto or Tours.
And the West had developed entirely differently.
So one can't really imagine.
But it is worth considering the providential founding of the country.
Despite my Sicilian complexion, part of my family is English.
And I think four of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower, signed the Mayflower Complex.
And so I've read a lot about the Mayflower.
And they were headed over toward New York.
We're headed over toward Manhattan.
They get blown off course by hundreds of miles, but they don't even go up to the next best harbor up in Boston Harbor.
They end up in this little strange place called Plymouth, and then out of the woods immediately emerge the only two people in the hemisphere who speak English, Squanto and Samoset, and they find these perfectly tilled fields ready for agriculture.
They find stores of corn, but they don't find a lot of people because a plague had wiped them all out three years earlier.
There are some cases where Occam's razor would say the more likely answer is providence rather than some random chance.
And so there's been this Christian character of the nation since then.
John Winthrop obviously gave the famous speech, A City Upon a Hill, a Model of Christian Charity.
And the Founding Fathers were deeply religious.
Some were deistic, some were more traditionally Christian, and they said that this constitution is only fit for a moral and religious people.
So I have no idea what the country would look like.
It wouldn't be the country.
It would be utterly different.
It would be a totally alternate universe.
Next question from Rachel.
Hello, Michael.
I'm enjoying your show so far.
Thank you.
And I think it's a great addition to the Daily Wire.
Thank you again.
Seeing as guns trigger leftists so much, pun not intended, yeah, right.
I'd like to know, do you own a firearm?
And if you could have the firearm of your choice, what would it be?
This would be ignoring your state's laws, for example, if it is not legal to have an AR-15.
Thanks, Rachel.
Funny you bring up the AR-15 and the gun control laws.
I did not have a gun.
I didn't own a gun.
I didn't especially care.
It's fun to go shoot clay pigeons or something, but I could rent or borrow some friends.
But then California passed gunpocalypse, and they were going to ban the AR-15.
They said, in three months, the AR-15 is going to be banned.
So I thought, well, if I ever want an AR-15, I have to buy it right now.
What did I do?
I immediately went out with a number of the Daily Wire people, God King Jeremy Boring and the production king, Jonathan Hay.
And we went down and went AR-15 shopping.
So I do sometimes wonder if the Democrats own huge stock in these gun companies because we're so reactive to it.
The minute they try to ban something, it's the best thing that could possibly happen for sales.
So, yeah, I do have an AR-15.
It's not even my favorite gun.
I prefer shooting shotguns and clay pigeons and stuff.
Marshall and I went shooting a little while ago.
But keep banning a man and we're just going to keep buying them.
Next question from Brendan.
Dear Mr.
The Only Good Knowles in the world.
Thank you.
As a young lad getting more and more into politics, I have a question.
What are different subjects to look into when getting into politics?
Economics, government, crap, and all that other stuff.
His words, not mine.
Thanks, Brendan.
Yeah, you should look at all that crap, Brendan.
You should look at, obviously, history, economics, political philosophy, all of that.
But you should ground all of your political thinking in politics.
In the foundational texts of the West.
So you should ground it all in Plato, Aristotle.
You should read a lot of the classics.
You should read the modern classics like Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and The Prince.
And then as far as I'm concerned, for even more modern political texts, you ought to read Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and all of his other writing as well.
Russell Kirk is good to read everything Bill Buckley wrote, Conscience of a Conservative, all of that stuff.
But as a conservative, I would ground your political learning in the classics and in history.
Because you'll figure out what has worked over time.
And you will avoid what the left does.
The left compares every single news cycle, anything that possibly happens to the Third Reich or the fall of Rome.
And it's because those are the only two things they know about.
They're the only two things they've ever studied.
So you should study more and then you'll have more historical knowledge to pull upon.
From David.
Question.
The Dennis Rodman Solution.
That's the title.
We send him in with a firearm that breaks down into facial piercings.
Get him close.
Assemble the firearm and become an international hero overnight.
How do you see this plan working out?
Excuse me, I'm sorry, just one second.
Tango jump shot!
Tango jump shot!
They're on to us!
They're on to us!
I'll have to think about it.
I don't have an answer on that.
From James.
Dear King of Trolls, as a history alumnus of Yale, could you please help me with my history essay about how Enlightenment values influenced the American Revolution?
If you answer this, I'll be able to cite the Michael Knowles show in my bibliography.
You should also cite Reasons to Vote for Democrats.
That has an extensive bibliography that might aid you.
The real answer is it would be easier to write about how Enlightenment values did not influence the American Revolution or All of the American revolutionaries, all of the ones that we saw write the Federalist Papers and Craft Our Constitution and the Declaration, were Enlightenment thinkers themselves, American Enlightenment thinkers.
So in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson is channeling John Locke and the natural rights to life, liberty, and property, or the pursuit of happiness.
You see Benjamin Franklin visited Europe a lot of times, was engaged in these debates that come out of the Enlightenment.
He brought those ideas back to Philadelphia.
And obviously the Federalist Papers in the Constitution express this as well, not simply the Declaration of Independence.
So the real answer is everything.
It would be far easier to point to even the writings of Thomas Paine that come later and thankfully only affected it a little bit and not entirely because he was quite radical.
It would be much easier to point to aspects of the Enlightenment that did not influence the American Revolution than how they were influential on the Revolution.
Final question.
This is the last one from Teresa.
Hey, Mr.
Hillary is my distant cousin, Knowles.
You make me relive that trauma.
Now, I need a moment.
What is your favorite musical and or Broadway show?
My favorite musical, my favorite Broadway show, is the first one that I ever performed in as a little eight-year-old boy, and it is, unsurprisingly, Guys and Dolls.
What's not to like?
You get cool guys like Sky Masterson and Nathan, played by Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra in the movie.
You get all those cute chickadees.
It's a show about men and women.
I enjoy women.
It's a show about gambling.
Sometimes I like gambling.
It's a show about Christianity.
I really like Christianity.
It's got it all.
It's set in New York.
It's set at a great time.
I love it.
I think it's a masterfully done show that really sums up that era of American Broadway musicals.
All right, that's it.
We've got to get out of here.
Thank you for watching.
Tune back on Monday.
Happy Rosh Hashanah to those who celebrate.
I'm definitely celebrating because I am not going to have to be in this office tomorrow.
