Former interim DNC chairman Donna Brazile has accused Michael's crooked cousin Hillary Clinton of rigging the 2016 Democrat primaries. RIP, "Chelsea 2024." Then, Candace Owens, Elisha Krauss, and Amber Athey join the Panel of Deplorables as Republicans release their tax plan, Kevin Spacey seeks treatment for sex treatment, which is totally a thing and not just an insincere rote, and NFL popularity drops so low it might destroy Papa John’s Pizza. Finally, the Mailbag!
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Former interim DNC chairman Donna Brazile has admitted that my crooked cousin Hillary Clinton rigged the 2016 Democrat primaries.
This is really going to hurt Chelsea 2024.
Then, Candace Owens, Red Pill Black, Alicia Krauss, and Amber Athe.
Join the panel of deplorables as Republicans release their tax plan.
Kevin Spacey seeks treatment for sex addiction, which is totally a thing and not just an insincere and rote reaction to bad accusations.
And NFL popularity drops so low it might destroy Papa John.
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
Poor Papa John.
This is a tough day for the Knowles-Rodham family.
As you know, Hillary is my third cousin once removed.
Donna Brazile, who took over the DNC chair after Debbie Wasserman Schultz was ousted, has publicly accused Hillary of rigging that primary.
She laments, quote, "I had been wondering why it was that I couldn't write a press release without passing it by Brooklyn.
Well, here was the answer.
Had I known this, I never would have accepted the interim chair position.
But here we were with only weeks before the election." These are crocodile tears.
Basically what happened is that...
Hillary bought off the DNC in exchange for controlling the party's finances, strategy, and all of the money raised.
They got to decide who the communications director was.
They had right of refusal on basically all of the staff hires.
Hillary bought off the party before she even announced her campaign.
The reason that Donna Brazile's crocodile tears and her new bombshell revelations in her new book are a little suspect is that I'm old enough to remember seven and a half months ago when Donna Brazile admitted to helping Hillary Clinton rig the election and rig the Democratic primaries.
In March, in mid to late March, Donna Brazile actually admitted that from her post at CNN she fed Hillary Clinton debate questions before she was debating Bernie Sanders.
So it's actually more interesting now that we know that, because now Brazile is claiming ignorance, saying she called Bernie Sanders and cried.
She apologized.
She was so sad.
But that isn't true.
She's just as much of a Clinton hack as anybody.
Except for now.
Not anymore.
And what that means is that the Clintons are finally, after decades, toxic in the Democrat Party.
And even longtime loyalists are running away from them.
They probably won't be able to inflict Chelsea 2024 on us or some other Chelsea campaign.
She's throwing Clinton under the bus.
A lot of Democrats are throwing Clinton under the bus now.
This has been a long time coming.
And adios.
Sorry, cousin.
See you later.
I guess I won't see you in any political positions.
I won't see you hopefully on TV much longer.
We'll just have to see each other at the family reunion.
This is even more embarrassing for Democrats because just today they had to apologize for previously admitting that That they would discriminate in their hiring practices.
So the Democratic National Committee data services manager, Madeline Leader, said that she would discriminate against cisgender straight white males.
There was this email that came out and she said, send over job candidates, but no cisgender straight white males.
There are enough of those already.
Please don't pass this along to them.
It's really, really nice to see them eating their own.
This week they said, no, we would never do that.
Democrats have been trying to do this the whole time.
We see something with our own two eyes.
We see that Donna Brazile helped Hillary Clinton rig the Democratic primary.
They said, we would never do that.
How dare you accuse us of that?
Well, my eyes don't lie, Buster, so sorry.
Also, probably more important, but much less fun, the Republicans have unveiled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Here is Paul Ryan explaining the plan.
This plan is for the middle class families in this country who deserve a break.
It is for the families who are out there living paycheck to paycheck who just keep getting squeezed.
You know about half the country today is living paycheck to paycheck, and a lot more people are about a paycheck away from living paycheck to paycheck in this country, and this is going to help give people relief.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act will deliver real relief for people in the middle, people who are also striving to get there.
With this plan, the typical family of four will save $1,182 a year on their taxes.
For many families, having an additional $1,182 more will make a real difference.
That $1,182 more covers about a year's worth of gas for your car.
It covers your family's phone bill for the year, depending on how much data of course your kids use.
That $1,182 more, it can help you pay down your debt faster.
It can help you start and renovate your home faster.
That $1,182 more for the average family, that will help you put more money away for college.
It will help you save for retirement.
It will help you save for a rainy day.
With this plan, we are getting rid of loopholes for special interests and we are leveling the playing field.
So, a nice presentation by Paul Ryan.
There's a lot of great stuff in this plan.
But I have to say, as I watch him unveil this, politics has changed so much since Donald Trump came around.
It's really strange to watch Paul Ryan giving this speech, because that used to be the status quo.
That's what every politician did.
It was an earnest presentation.
Paul Ryan is a budget wonk.
So it's an earnest presentation, but very much in the mold of We're good to go.
Until this wrecking ball, this orange wrecking ball, just knocked all of that down.
And it's hard to watch a speech given with that sort of rhetoric, given in that mode, and not find it disingenuous.
And I don't think Paul Ryan is disingenuous.
I think he cares about this proposal.
I think it's a good proposal.
He's presenting it well.
But that manner of speaking that we saw certainly from...
From every other candidate, from Mitt Romney, from John McCain, on and on and on, is gone.
It seems not dishonest, but it just doesn't ring as true now because you've got a guy like Donald Trump who doesn't put his language through this filter.
of politics, this filter of decades in Washington.
And so it is really jarring.
It's an interesting linguistic change that I think we should probably thank Donald Trump for because it's much more interesting than just droning on about data usage from your children.
That said, it's an excellent proposal.
So we permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20%.
It consolidates tax brackets from 7 to 4.
It eliminates a lot of exemptions and deductions.
It expands the child tax credit, two new family tax credits.
Now, one issue that's getting a lot of pushback on the left and the right is it repeals state and local tax deductions, but they compromise and they preserve a property tax break.
The reason this is important, it might mean that your taxes go up, which is terrible and frustrating.
Not to the...
only because you're not allowed to deduct state and local.
But there is a good aspect of this, which is that if you can deduct state and local taxes, then it creates an incentive for your state and local governments to raise taxes because the taxpayer won't feel it on their bottom line.
So it's a way to raise taxes without being honest about it, without people realizing it.
By removing those deductions, then all of a sudden the government is accountable.
You will feel those increased taxes.
Obviously, we have a massive national debt.
We've run a lot of deficits, big deficits.
At the early Obama years, trillion-dollar deficits.
So it might be a way to address the fiscal problem and the debt problem in D.C. while also making your state and local governments more accountable.
That said, I don't want my taxes to go up.
It repeals the alternative minimum tax, which is very good.
A lot of Republican campaigns even that I've been on and that we heard in 2012 and 2016 said we should have an alternative maximum tax.
We shouldn't have these minimum taxes that you have to pay.
And it repeals the death tax, which is very good because the death tax is income that has been taxed possibly three times.
It's income that's been taxed on the – or rather, it's wealth that's been taxed on the income level and capital gains level.
And then when you die, they won't even let you get out of this world without taking more money from you.
So that is all really nice.
For analysis, let's bring on our panel of deplorables.
We have Red Pill Black, Candace Owens, Daily Wire's Alicia Krauss, and Daily Caller's Amber Athe.
Ladies, thank you for helping me recover from yesterday's all-male panel.
It was just awful.
I don't know why you do that to yourself, though.
That sounds awful.
It's my producer.
It's because I make jokes about him during the show, and then he punishes me without my knowing.
Amber, is this tax reform proposal, is it sufficiently conservative?
I think it's definitely pretty conservative.
Lowering the corporate tax rate is something that conservatives have been pushing for for a really long time.
As Donald Trump has said repeatedly, we have the highest corporate tax rate among advanced economies.
They're simplifying the tax code as well.
They're actually reducing the number of brackets there are in the tax code.
And there definitely is a conservative case, as you mentioned, for lowering or eliminating the state and local tax deductions because they do primarily benefit States that are willing to raise their taxes, like states like New York and California that have high taxes.
And, you know, liberals can get on board with that too, though, because it primarily benefits high income earners who are primarily the ones that are itemizing their tax deductions to begin with.
You mean it primarily hits high income earners?
Well, they're primarily the ones that are getting the state and local tax deductions.
Right, right.
Absolutely.
That's right.
Yeah.
So overall, I mean, I think this is a really great start.
Obviously, we still have to see if it passes.
And then they have this artificial deadline of Christmas.
So we'll see how all this plays out.
But so far, I think this is a really great start.
It is a good start.
They do have to do it.
We've been talking about this for a long time.
There was an Obamacare repeal failure.
So we do need to get this done.
If Republicans can't agree to lower taxes, clearly something is cracked in our party.
Alicia, speaking of getting it passed, can we get this passed as is?
I don't think so.
Always the bearer of bad news.
Sorry.
I think one of the biggest flaws that I instantly saw was despite them saying that this is a pro-family, pro-cut plan, it's eliminating the adoption deduction.
And as a pro-life, very conservative person, I just think that that's bad messaging and it's going to be something that the mainstream media latches on to and it's going to be something that a lot of pro-lifers and pro-adoption people have issues with.
If you're saying that you're pro-family, then you should be pro- All forms of the family, not just biological children, but adopted children as well.
I think that the Democrats are going to have a huge problem, of course, with the corporate tax rate, and that's going to become an issue more so when this bill goes over to the Senate, but we'll see.
And this brings up a point, which is that it's very easy.
Everyone wants to get rid of deductions.
Yeah, simplify, get rid of all those deductions, except for my deductions.
Except for mine.
I like my deductions.
That's how voters are, though.
Yep.
Whether you're on the right or the left, and I think this is how we saw Donald Trump come to power and become president of the United States in 2016, is you had a lot of those Rust Belt people saying, oh, the Democrats aren't doing it for me anymore.
This guy's saying that he's going to punish businesses that are going overseas.
That ain't conservative, but Donald Trump said that he would do it, so that's why he got their vote.
That's right.
And it's at least, it might be conservative in a way.
I mean, there is, but it's certainly not what we had seen for the previous 20 years, that libertarian streak, very, you know, abstract, neoconservative at times.
This is much more in the dirt, much more grounded.
You know, let's talk about my bottom line.
And it clearly worked.
And in defense of wonky Paul Ryan, I mean, Paul Ryan is a numbers guy.
This is something that people have known about him for a very long time.
He's the legislative kind of wonk and was always that, going back to the days that he was an aide on Capitol Hill.
And I'm not just defending him because he's married to a fellow Okie, but I actually think it's kind of endearing when Paul Ryan talks about your kid's cell phone bill.
It like makes him seem like that geeky dad that he is.
But I think the most impressionable and emotional moment that seemed very real is I believe it came from Representative Kathy McMorris-Rogers when she talked about the estate tax and the death tax because that's what it is.
And she was able to share her very real experience of when she was a teenager and her father died in a tragic accident on their farm.
And so they had a family farm.
They had the equipment that a family farm has, but they actually had to take out a loan that took her and her mother 10 years to pay off because after they experienced this tragedy, the IRS came a-knocking and said, "You owe us money." And so I think that that is something that if people even on the left can't get on that, it should be messaging that the Republicans run with because oftentimes Republicans look like the big bad white guys smoking cigars like Michael Knowles.
Yeah, that's right.
We need to share these stories of real incidents and how our tax code is negatively affecting average Americans.
And if you can't get behind repealing that, then I don't think you have a heart.
And people always say, you know, we can't legislate morality.
But all legislation is moral because politics is just human interaction.
It's how humans exist in civilized society.
And the tax code is moral.
Whether to let you keep more of your money or to extort you when your father dies, that's a moral question.
And there's an answer to it as well.
Candace, in this culture war era, in the era of Donald Trump mouthing off and calling people silly names and not the era of Paul Ryan giving an earnest sort of performed presentation on tax law and the tax code, can Donald Trump get his base excited about the intricacies of tax reform?
That's a very good question, and I'm going to go ahead and say yes.
I mean, yes, you're right that he does sort of use inflammatory language, and that gets people excited because he's sort of pushing through this PC culture, which was very necessary, especially coming off the heels of Obama.
But at the same time, you have to remember he's surrounded by a team of people that are incredibly intellectual and he understands his base and he does also understand the liberal base.
And it's going to be important that we're able to tap into the emotions which you guys brought up and I think that he is able to do that.
People don't show those clips of him, but when he is standing on a podium, he is tapping into humanity.
And like you said, it's not just politics, it's largely built off of morality and emotion and humanity.
And I think that he is able to do that as well, and he'll be able to execute it perfectly. - That's true, and this kind of brings into light, I think, why Paul Ryan giving a speech like that in the era of Trump is so strange, is Paul Ryan comes off as a Boy Scout, and Donald Trump does not come off as a Boy Scout.
Paul Ryan may genuinely be a Boy Scout.
We just don't, as a culture, we just don't buy it anymore.
We're not a culture of Boy Scouts anymore, and I think that's why Mitt Romney got...
Hit as well.
I think it's why Mitt Romney probably couldn't communicate, but maybe you just need more of a street talker for a more street society, for a society that's less high-minded and Boy Scout-y than it used to be.
Okay, we've got to get off this completely meaningless topic of tax reform to get to what really matters, more groping, all of the Hollywood groping.
Kevin Spacey is seeking treatment for sex addiction.
This has new allegations mount against actor Jeremy Piven.
And against that 70s show, Danny Masterson.
Sex addiction.
There seems to be an epidemic among rich, famous, powerful men of wanting to have sex with young, beautiful women.
Candace, how did this public health crisis begin?
This public health crisis, yes, exactly.
This is what happens when people have a lot of money and when they control the press, these people feel untouchable.
And what we are seeing is just the greatest thing ever.
We've been waiting for this.
They have been policing us.
They've been standing up telling us from their moral high ground how stupid we all are, how disgusting Donald Trump is because of a tape of him talking to somebody privately.
So this is just, it's perfect.
It's karma.
It wakes up later and it knocks people in the face.
The PR, of course, of them all going to seek treatment, which I'm pretty sure means let's hide underground waiting until a bigger story comes up.
So they're all going to be in treatment for sex addiction.
And again, it comes from having money and too much power and control of the press.
Weinstein is in counseling, too.
So these guys are all going into counseling.
You're right.
They're just hiding out until the next story drops.
But there are reports saying that he's not taking it seriously at all.
He's smuggled in a cell phone.
He's saying it's all a conspiracy.
Spacey basically shrugged off these 30-year-old allegations, and then he came out as gay to distract from it.
Amber, why even go through the charade of this sex addiction treatment?
Nobody buys it, right?
Well, I think the sad part is that there are a lot of liberals in Hollywood who would buy this because, look, if they frame this as a sex addiction problem, then all of a sudden they're someone with a mental health issue that needs to be coddled and protected and they're no longer some dangerous predator.
You see the left do this all the time with people who are sexual degenerates and they just excuse their behavior by saying that they're broken or they're troubled.
And, of course, Hollywood loves the story of the comeback, too.
So if these people are, you know, able to, quote unquote, get treatment and spend a week and then take some, you know, a three month vacation in Cabo and then come back and make a hit film about their struggles, Hollywood's going to eat that right up.
And that's exactly the point, the mental health issue, because it goes from being something I did to something my brain made me do.
And we have done this with a lot of other issues in society over the last century or so, issues that we would have previously treated as moral failings.
We now treat as a clinical kind of mental condition.
You see, people are no longer drunks, they're alcoholics.
People are no longer leches, they are sex addicts.
And actually, there have been good things that have come out of this.
Alcoholics Anonymous is, in many ways, evidence that taking a slightly more clinical, less judgmental approach can be effective and can produce good outcomes.
But there might be some benefit to this level of abstraction, but Alicia, are there any hazards to treating moral failings as strictly physical?
Yeah, because I think that you potentially have people out there, and I have this issue too, like every single time there's a terror attack or a shooting, they're like, ooh, was it PTSD? Because we've already seen that there's military men and women that legitimately have PTSD, people that have experienced tragic real-life events that actually have PTSD, are afraid to come forward and get treatment for these real issues.
And so I'm afraid that you're going to have somebody that legitimately might have a pornography addiction or a sex addiction, Or have had an assault situation in their past and now they're afraid to come forward because the Hollywood elite is just scrubbing this off as if it's no big deal.
And I'm wondering if that's why you only have two people so far coming forward because I'm hearing from friends and people that I know in the industry saying they're surprised these Kevin Spacey allegations haven't come out years ago.
And now we're hearing that people on his sets knew to keep young boys away from him because he had a penchant for, you know, that was his taste.
And that's just disgusting.
And so I think that you have a lot of people, like the man that came out earlier saying, hey, you know, just because I'm straight doesn't mean that that's the only reason I had issues with Kevin Spacey groping me inappropriately.
It's that he shouldn't be groping dudes at bars inappropriately.
And so I think that him now checking in, Weinstein checking in, kind of puts this facade on it like, oh, like you said, it's a mental health issue instead of a moral issue, and that actually prevents people who need help for mental health getting the help that they need, in my humble opinion.
Yeah, it does debase it in a lot of ways.
Absolutely right.
Okay, we have a really important story to talk about, how the NFL has destroyed even-chain pizza through their terrible anti-American activism, but...
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The NFL is now so unpopular that it might destroy Papa John.
It might destroy both Papa John and Papa John's Pizza.
The CEO of Papa John's, John Schnatter, is blaming his company's dip in share price and his personal loss within 24 hours of $70 million.
On these ignorant ingrates in the NFL and the leadership of the NFL who refuse to address the problem and allow it to fester and spread throughout the entire league.
The take a knee protest, declining NFL viewership.
Papa John's has been the official pizza of the NFL since 2010.
Bad investment.
Bad choice, Papa.
Bad choice, Papa John.
Alicia, is Mr.
John just passing the buck or are SJWs now destroying even chain pizza?
I actually side with Mr.
Schneider here, and not just because he's from Michigan like my husband is.
How do you know where everybody's from?
This is the second time in the show you've brought up this secret knowledge.
It's my worthless talent that makes me no money, but if I could figure out a way for it too, then that would be really helpful.
I'm a big fan of their garlic butter dip too, so this is another reason why I'm defending Papa John.
I just inject that right into my veins.
It's so good.
So there's an element of, I get what he's saying.
Like you said, he's been the pizza.
Papa John's has been the pizza of the NFL since 2010.
I mean, haven't they had a Manning in their ads before?
And so if viewership goes down, the eyeballs that are looking at your commercial during an NFL game and going, hmm, pizza and beer sounds real good about now, is definitely going to go down.
Now, is it entirely because of the NFL's lack of being able to do business well and lack of understanding of who their audience is?
I don't know.
There could be some other things going on, too, or the shareholders are saying something when it comes to Papa John's.
But I think that it could definitely play a role in how it's negatively affecting his business.
It's probably negatively affecting a lot of advertisers, and that's why you see ESPN really having to shutter lots of their departments and lay off lots of people because advertisers aren't wanting to work with ESPN anymore because they're losing 15,000 customers a day.
I know.
Pretty soon ESPN is going to have to shut down its entire politics wing, and then they're going to have to do sports again.
We're going to have to go right back to sports.
Amber, for years SJWs have boycotted conservative companies.
If they find out that some CEO even considered voting for Bob Dole in 96, they will try to shut that business down.
Are we beginning to see activism of that sort among conservatives, that kind of activism on the right?
I think to some extent we are because I know, for example, my parents and actually myself, we're not watching the NFL this year because we don't like to see anti-American players sit there and, you know, disgrace the flag and disgrace everything that this country stands for before they go and play a game where they get rich off of American dollars.
And it is important to note that the CEO of Papa John's Pizza is actually pretty conservative and he's been an out conservative for several years now.
So I think while it's probably true that the NFL is affecting his bottom line, there's probably another motivation for him to speak out as well, and that's probably because he's against these protests from a moral standpoint as well.
Jerry Jones was pressuring him to do this or suggested that he do this.
So there might be some political machinations that we're here, too.
And honestly, the NFL commissioner is really, I think, the main person at fault because we've been hearing for a while some rumblings that there are liberal owners of teams, there are kind of center people that own teams, and then there's people on the right that own teams.
And so not all of the team owners are okay with how Roger Goodell has handled this situation.
Yeah, he's just awful.
He's so terrible at his job.
I think Condi Rice for commissioner.
Remember when there was buzz about Condi being commissioner?
She can leave Stanford for a little bit and go take over Roger's job.
I'd be totally down with that.
Yeah, absolutely.
Condi for commissioner.
Candice, should we, with these boycotts, Should we be punishing the advertisers of SJW virtue signalers?
Should we as conservatives do that?
Or does that just tediously politicize everything in American culture right down to chain pizza?
Well, what's happening here is essentially just a domino effect, you know?
And yes, unfortunately, it's going to have to impact...
All of this in order for them to realize and think about what the core issue is.
And I hate to say it, but this is what happens when the inmates are running the prison system, which, by the way, is just a quote that everybody uses.
It's no shot at NFL players, but this is exactly...
They are also criminals, by the way.
They're arrested on average once every seven days.
So it is just a figure of speech.
It's also true.
You're going to have to lose money in order for them to realize what's going on and get to the heart of the issue.
This is really about something that makes Americans feel disrespected.
People kneeling down while the flag, the fact that they did it overseas, okay, is just the most disrespectful thing you could possibly do as an American.
There should be a zero-tolerance policy for this throughout the NFL and any other sport.
And I'm happy to see this happening.
Absolutely.
And really kudos on the domino effect line.
Spot on.
Well done.
Okay.
We need to move on.
On that point.
Excellent panel.
Thank you all for being here.
Amber Athie from The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire's own Alicia Krause, and Candace Owens, Red Pill Black.
See you ladies soon.
Now we have to move on to the mailbag so that we can change your lives.
From T.O. Dear Michael Knowles, King of Trolls, great job quoting Thomas More last week.
Oh, props.
My question is, is there any way someone can have a conversion moment just before they commit suicide and go to heaven?
Thanks, T.O. Yeah, absolutely.
Of course that's true.
Antonin Scalia was asked this question in a New York Magazine interview.
If you haven't read this New York Mag interview, it's really illuminating because the interviewer doesn't realize who she's talking to, and she just comes off as so dumb and unread, and she's talking to possibly the smartest guy in American politics and American government.
And She's shocked that he believes in hell.
And he said, you know, I even believe in the devil.
And she goes, that must be awful scary.
And he says, do you realize how out of touch you are with America?
Many smarter people than you or me have believed in the devil.
But in that interview, he says, he doesn't even know if Judas Iscariot is in hell.
It's perfectly plausible that before Newsome himself, Judas Iscariot had a conversion moment and repented and...
And he could be in heaven.
I doubt it because Jesus says that it would be better for that man had he never been born.
But who knows?
I don't know.
You can't know who's in hell easily.
There's a good line from Dr.
Johnson, which is that, depend upon it, sir, when you know that you're to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully.
So hanging can concentrate the mind, and it might even be likely that you get a clearer view of yourself and eternity as you're about to hang.
Next question from Garrett.
Is it wrong of me to use videos like your video on PragerU about the alt-right to substitute a personal deep dive into their ideology?
With limited time, it seems that videos like yours or Ben's can sum up the same facts in 30 minutes.
I could find reading an entire book.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I do it all the time with other people and sometimes, like the Prager video, I'll produce videos myself.
That's why we have those.
That's why we have people who comment on politics or religion or philosophy or whatever is because I don't have time to delve into everything to a deep degree that doesn't consume my profession or my top three interests, let's say.
So I do it all the time with other things that I don't have time to investigate Obviously, don't take my word for it.
If you ever have any evidence that I'm not giving a credible account or that my account is either uninformed or dishonest, then go read the books yourselves.
We haven't seen that kind of blowback on my PragerU video, for instance, so I think it's pretty legit.
I'll stand by it.
I think it's very credible, and most people do as well.
But obviously you have limited time, so you should pursue the academic and literary interests that are most compelling to you.
Next question from Alexander.
Can one still appreciate a work of art if the artist is evil?
An example is appreciating the movies and shows the Weinstein Company produced.
Of course.
Absolutely.
I mean, evil is a big claim, but even that much, and certainly the art of very bad people can be turned to great effect.
Even the art of people who have a terrible view of the world, who have an incorrect view of the world, can be good if they're good enough artists.
I think I got a lot of flack for this movie review I did on Mother, the Aronofsky film that came out a month or so ago, because Aronofsky seems to be kind of a Looney Tunes liberal, big environmentalist.
He doesn't He's given interpretations of his own movie, Mother, that are not the interpretation that I would give.
And nevertheless, if artists are good enough, if they're talented enough, if they're faithful enough to narrative and story, then they're inevitably going to produce art that's worthwhile and beautiful and illuminates something and makes you see something about the world, despite themselves, despite their own best efforts.
So a lot of times people will knock on the right, they'll knock Judd Apatow's movies because people smoke a lot of pot.
But those movies are great.
Those movies show a basically conservative view of the world because he's a good artist.
I don't know whether he's conservative or not.
Most likely in this town he isn't.
But he's a good filmmaker and he follows story very well.
And so if the story shows a true view of the world, then you're going to get something out of it that is beautiful and artistic and probably more in line with how the right views the world than how ideologues view it.
Next question from Eleanor.
Hey Michael, what are your recommendations for young conservatives to do, read, watch, etc.?
Thanks.
They ought to watch The Michael Knowles Show if you ask me.
And they ought to listen to the Another Kingdom podcast, which is Andrew Klavan's latest story, which I perform as a podcast.
We're releasing one a week.
We're releasing another episode, the fourth episode tomorrow.
It's doing really well.
It's got hundreds of reviews, over 400 reviews or 450 reviews, almost all five star, except for like Harvey Weinstein gave us a two or something.
But it's been a lot of fun.
It's about a 30-something Hollywood nobody who walks through a portal into another kingdom and is accused of murder.
He's got a bloody dagger in his hand and a dead lady at his feet.
I've really enjoyed it.
So check that out.
That's on art.
I always recommend the same books as sort of introductory baseline political philosophy books.
You should read Burke, Oakshot, Pain, those kind of people.
That said, I would recommend one book in particular if a young conservative wants to get a total survey view of the American character.
That's a book called What So Proudly We Hail, The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song.
It's by Leon Cass and his late wife Amy Cass and Diana Schaub.
They were all professors of mine at a think tank program in DC and a really illuminating book of political philosophy and literature and speeches that will give you, I think, a good view of the American character.
You should also watch old Firing Line episodes.
They all used to be on Amazon Prime.
I know they're all still at least on YouTube.
That was Bill Buckley's public affairs program.
Nothing like it exists today.
Nothing can exist like it in this media landscape.
But he would bring on somebody either on the left or on the right and have a very long conversation with them about significant topics.
So check that out.
It's a good historical artifact and you'll be educated by it too.
And then constantly discuss issues and your premises and your first principles.
Not to win debates, not to smash a liberal or anything like that, but because if you do that with people on the left, you'll start to learn what is true about your beliefs, what is not quite correct about your beliefs, where you should go and pursue your own intellectual journey and academic journey.
And we're very lucky as conservatives in this culture because while the entire culture is against us, we have to constantly defend what we think and amend possibly what we think and really hone it down to some reality.
The left doesn't have that advantage.
They are told that whatever they think is right and the left dominates the universities and dominates Hollywood and dominates so much of our corporate culture.
So they don't get that and you have an opportunity so you should use it.
Next question from Jessica.
Good afternoon, Mr.
Knowles.
I watch your podcast every day and truly appreciate what you do.
Thank you.
How would you define the purpose of life?
Just an easy question for a Thursday afternoon.
Thank you.
The answer is 42.
That's the meaning of life.
Some other meanings of life.
My reaction is just to give glory to God.
That's as basic as you could say it.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, I have learned, agrees with that.
They say man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
1 Corinthians 10.31 says, Do all to the glory of God.
That's simple.
And related to that glory is awe.
Related to that enjoying God forever is awe.
Holy fear.
It's not servile fear.
It's not being afraid that the Lord is going to squish you, though certainly he could.
It's awe at this infinitely great thing, the maximally great thing.
Being before being, the creator of the cosmos, the divine logos.
And that awe gets to, I think, Ecclesiastes 12, 13, which says, The end of the matter, all has been heard.
Fear God, fear meaning holy fear, awe, be in awe of God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
And the reason I recommend awe to you as a compliment to giving glory to God is the world is just, it's the best.
It is when you are in awe, when you have a moment that Lewis would call the numinous, an experience of a glimmer, of a hint of a reflection of God, then it illuminates the entire world and puts your own life in perspective and everything around you in better perspective.
Next question from Brian.
This is equally profound, by the way.
Have you checked your Clintonian privilege lately?
It is true.
Hillary Clinton is my third cousin once removed.
She's a member of the family.
She goes to family reunions.
Well, I'm sorry, she doesn't, but her first cousin that married into my grandfather's mother's family, they go to the reunions.
And so I really like the idea of the Clintonian privilege because it's analogous to white privilege in that It used to exist, but it doesn't exist anymore.
So there used to be white privilege in this country.
There certainly was white privilege.
Blacks were excluded from institutions.
They were excluded by the law.
They were excluded by the society.
And they aren't now.
Those laws are over.
The Civil Rights Movement won.
Civil rights, there's no segregation.
There's no, by law or statutory, discrimination by race.
Except the other way, there's affirmative action, which disadvantages white people and Asian people and Jews.
But there is no—but that's certainly—you certainly wouldn't call that white privilege.
And the same way with the Clintons.
The Clintons are over.
We saw the former DNC chair, Donna Brazile, throwing her under the bus.
We see Democrats constantly throwing them under the bus.
Chelsea Clinton won't even be able to become president within four years.
So it's very—I have checked it.
It has been checked by society.
And I suppose that's perfectly fine.
From Father Greg.
Dear Michael, I was interested in your discussion with the panel on faith and works.
Your panel seemed to articulate that works are not in any way necessary.
However, then stated belief is necessary.
Is not assenting A to belief A a work, insofar as it involves the exercise of our intellect and will?
In Christ, Father Greg.
An excellent point, Father Greg.
Thank you for watching and for observing that.
I'll just bring up a couple of verses that I think throw into light some of this faith versus works pseudo-debate that was happening.
Jesus said to them, this is from Matthew, I believe.
Jesus said to them, verily I tell you, very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Now, it seems hard to understand this verse without a sacramental view, without realizing that he's describing a sacrament.
But even if you don't, he is describing you doing something.
He is describing a work in a certain sense.
You have to eat of the flesh of him to have life in you.
You have to drink of his blood to have life in you.
Another point on this is the Acts of the Apostles.
That book in the New Testament is not called the Ideas of the Apostles or the Abstractions of the Apostles or the Thoughts of the Apostles or even the Faith of the Apostles, though it might be called that.
It's called the Acts of the Apostles because their faith has motivated their actions and their actions.
And they were sent forth to preach the gospel.
Now, there's another gospel line.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father.
Forget what the will of my Father means.
Even the verb does.
What you do is an action.
And this, I think, gets to a problem in politics, too.
So I'll expand this beyond just Christianity.
Our age, because our politics and our country was born in so...
In such a great degree out of the Enlightenment, the temptation is to be rationalist about it, as Oakeshott describes rationalism in politics.
So for the rationalist, Oakeshott says he's always standing.
He's standing for something.
He's never doing anything.
He's just standing.
And so for the rationalist, he's walking around and he stands.
And then everything exists up here.
So all of his virtues, all of his ideas, all of his principles, everything that politics means to him is up here.
But this is the ethereal realm.
This isn't on Earth in space and time where he is.
And we are people who are in space and time.
We can't abstract our ways out of that.
Even thought is an action.
It's a neurochemical mechanism that transports ideas and changes ideas.
So you cannot escape your space and time To do so is to deny a fundamental reality that you are in.
And so both in our understanding of God and our relationship with God and with the incarnate God, the incarnation of the divine logos, as well as in our politics, you've got to remember you're a person in time and space.
And when you abstract too much and you stand valiantly, you're not really doing that much.
Next question from Carlos.
Hello, Michael.
I am planning to go to Cuba sometime in January with my cousin and was wondering where you stayed and spent most of your time while you were there.
How long was your visit?
I want to speak to the Cuban people.
I'm interested in how they feel about their government.
And also, how much damage does the embargo against Cuba do?
I always hear that the embargo is responsible for disparities in the Cuban economy, but they can do trade with other nations, can't they?
Sincerely, Carlos.
Yes, they can, Carlos.
Good observation.
The embargo, it does nothing.
I mean, the embargo obviously hampers their economy, but for years the communist thug mafia Castro regime has blamed this trade embargo for all of their woes.
Well, that doesn't really work for all of the other socialist and communist countries around the world who also have destroyed their own countries, which is what the Castros have done.
So I suppose it's been an excuse for them, but no one really buys it.
I was able to see some people in Cuba.
Obviously, you've got to be a little touchy about this because they live in a totalitarian regime where people can be offed just for speaking ill of the one party.
So the Cuban people universally hate their government, and you don't see Che Guevara t-shirts down there.
You see American flags.
I did not see anyone wearing a Che shirt.
I saw them wearing American flags on their jeans, on their t-shirts, on their cars, when they can have cars.
So I stayed there.
I was just there for a long weekend.
I'm glad I went in that little window when it was legally feasible and easy enough to go.
I just stayed for a few days.
I stayed in an Airbnb because, from what I gather, first of all, it's a lot cheaper.
The big hotels are awful and they charge you $500 a night.
The Airbnbs are beautiful and they cost you like $30 a night.
But also, apparently, the government extorts less of that money than they do from the national hotels.
So I'd recommend doing that.
Any way you can give money to the Cuban people or to the Cuban black market rather than the government is a good idea.
And, you know, I would try to talk to people if you can.
There's not a lot of English spoken down there, so I don't speak Spanish at all.
I can sort of understand it because I have Italian and some French.
But if you really want to speak to people, you'll have to speak Spanish.
And it'll take a little while before they'll speak ill of their government because the totalitarian regime there is so brutal and so awful that there are real consequences of it.
So you'll have to be a little patient with that.
Okay, enjoy your trip.
I'm flying out tonight for the Buckley program at Yale.
It's the annual dinner there.
So if I don't come back, it's because the shrieking harpies and snowflakes on campus have ripped me limb from limb.
Also, make sure you check out Another Kingdom.
That is the way to survive the weekend.
It is the way to survive the Clavenless weekend.
So go over there to wherever good podcasts are downloaded.
We're on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play.
Make sure you check that out.
And then I will see you all on Monday.
I am Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
See you soon.
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Marshall Benson.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
Supervising producer, Mathis Glover.
Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
Edited by Alex Zingaro.
Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
Herond makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
And our associate producer is Bailey Lynn.
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
