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March 19, 2018 - The Michael Knowles Show

39:34

Ep. 123 - 12 Rules For Life ft. Jordan B. Peterson

“12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.” That’s the title of Jordan Peterson’s new book, and we’re lucky to have him on to cure the ample chaos on this show, which is an antidote to order. It’s a runaway bestseller. We will discuss why as well as how you can find order and meaning in this chaotic, desiccated, soy-boy culture of ours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	Twelve Rules for Life, an Antidote to Chaos.
	That is the title of Jordan Peterson's new book, and we are lucky to have him on the show to cure the ample chaos that we have here, this show, of course, being an antidote to order.
	It is a runaway bestseller.
	We will discuss why as well as how you can find order and meaning in this chaotic, desiccated, soy boy culture of ours.
	I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles Show.
	Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
	Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.
	Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
	These are just some of Jordan Peterson's rules for life.
	I can't give them all away, obviously, because then you won't buy the book.
	And you should buy the book.
	This book has clearly struck a cultural nerve.
	Number four best-selling book in the U.S., according to Publishers Weekly.
	Number one on Amazon.
	Number two on the Washington Post list.
	Number four on USA Today.
	Only the New York Times refused Dr.
	Peterson the honor for some bogus excuse.
	Seems to me I've heard that song before.
	Dr.
	Jordan B. Peterson is a clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
	Dr.
	Peterson has almost a million subscribers on YouTube, and his videos have been viewed almost 47 million times.
	David Brooks calls this the Jordan Peterson moment, and we are now lucky to be joined by him.
	Jordan, not David Brooks, obviously much better to be joined by Jordan Peterson to discuss the 12 Rules of Life.
	Dr.
	Peterson, thank you for being here.
	Thanks very much for the invitation.
	So let's get into trouble with the frivolous thought police right off of the bat.
	The book is subtitled An Antidote to Chaos.
	You describe order as masculine, the wise king at best, the tyrant at worst, and you describe chaos as feminine.
	These days we're told that gender is socially constructed, a figment of our imagination.
	How deeply entrenched is sex?
	How far back do our categories of masculine and feminine go?
	Well, they go back as...
	They go back hundreds and hundreds of millions of years.
	And they do seem to form part of our fundamental cognitive architecture.
	We tend to see the world in social cognitive categories.
	We tend to see the world as if it's an animated place.
	And the idea that sex is a large part of being animated is an extraordinarily deep biological perceptual category.
	So it can't be dispensed with In any straightforward manner.
	It's part of the way that we view the world.
	Dan, the idea that the way that we express ourselves sexually, say, let's call that gender, is malleable is obviously true to a certain degree because human beings are extraordinarily malleable creatures.
	You can tell that just by looking at fashion variation.
	But that doesn't mean that gender differences are all sociocultural constructs.
	In fact, the evidence that they're not, I would say, is crystal clear.
	The political types are about 30 years behind the social science, maybe 50 years behind it.
	That's why they're desperately turning to legislative means to enforce their idiot view of humanity on the rest of the world.
	That is something I frequently notice about politics and culture, is the pop culture and the politics, they are always lagging several decades behind.
	So you'll see people espousing some relativistic or nihilistic view of the world and you say, like, listen, man, I know you think you're sophisticated, but you're actually several decades behind.
	I want to talk about a dream that you write about in the book.
	You had a dream when writing Maps of Meaning, your first book, that you were hanging from a chandelier in a cathedral with tiny little people below.
	And you woke up in your bed and you still saw cathedral doors.
	Close your eyes again, you're back in the center of the cathedral.
	Was that vision a sign from God?
	Or was it the fever dream of an academic who's been thinking too much?
	And is there a difference?
	Well, I'm not sure there's a difference.
	I mean, It took me a long time to understand what the dream meant, but I eventually did.
	I mean, I knew at that point, or I had figured out as part of the process of interpreting that dream, let's say, that cathedrals were constructed in the shape of a cross, and so to be hanging at the center of the cross, which is essentially where the dream put me, was, well, obviously, you know, that's something that can be read in terms of its fundamental religious significance, but that isn't...
	That isn't the most appropriate level of analysis, I wouldn't say.
	The reason that cathedrals are constructed in the shape of a cross is because the cross is an X that marks the spot, so to speak.
	It's the center place of being.
	And we're each at the center place of being, and that's a place of suffering.
	And so part of the Christian injunction is to voluntarily accept that and to thereby transcend it.
	And the dream was pointing To me was pointing out the inevitability of that, the fact that I was being driven towards that conclusion.
	You see, I'd been spending years, I would say by that point, meditating and thinking about the fact of the Cold War and about this terrible ideological catastrophe that we had placed ourselves in the midst of, partly ideological possession, driving our proclivity to put the world at risk.
	And as an alternative to that, Kind of a nihilistic hopelessness that involved no central narratives whatsoever.
	I suppose that would be the postmodern conundrum.
	I was trying to see if there was a pathway between those extremes that was functional.
	And the dream was part of that process of realization.
	And the alternative to ideological possession and nihilistic hopelessness is something like the lifting up of individual responsibility as the proper mode of being.
	And that involves voluntary acceptance of suffering.
	You're not going to act responsibly and forthrightly in the world if you're bitter and resentful because of the fact that your life is tragic and that things often go wrong.
	So you have to transcend that.
	And the dream was part of the process by which I was starting to understand that.
	I do want to get back a little bit to that X marks the spot later because we see it in the Christian tradition.
	We see traditionally the cross is represented with a skull at the bottom of it because it's Adam's skull and Christ is the new Adam.
	I want to get back to that.
	Well, the idea there, that's an unbelievably profound idea.
	The idea there is that the first man, so to speak...
	The man who's laden with original sin and the knowledge of death is Adam, of course.
	And what Christ represents is the antidote to what brought Adam down.
	And so Adam was brought down by knowledge of death and knowledge of good and evil, knowledge of mortality, knowledge of nakedness.
	All of that was what produced the fall.
	So that's an emergence into self-consciousness and the emergence of the tragedy of the self-conscious world.
	And then Christ is portrayed as an antidote to that.
	And the antidote is voluntary acceptance of that burden and simultaneous transcendence of it as a consequence of the voluntary adoption.
	And that's put forth in the Christian corpus as the imitation of Christ, which is a theme, of course, that runs through Catholicism and Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity alike.
	I don't think it's something that's attended to enough in the Western Christian traditions, which tend to emphasize our universal salvation through the sacrifice of Christ, which is Well, it has its utility in that it takes some of the moral responsibility off human beings, but it has its price too because it does the same thing.
	It lessens the...
	Listen to the importance of what each of us do to some degree.
	And the sobriety of it.
	Christ tells us, take up your cross, but he also says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
	And it is true, certain traditions fall a little bit too much to one side or to the other, and they don't hold that tension that you see in your dream, that it clearly pervades the book.
	Well, that idea too of the burden being light, that's a very interesting one because it's a very great paradox.
	But, you know, one of the things that's quite interesting about attempting to only say things that you believe to be true and then also to acting in a manner commensurate with that is that it does make things lighter because...
	You're much less likely to be burdened by your past.
	You're not guilty and afraid that the terrible things that you've done are going to come to light, and you're not sleeping uneasily on a bed of nails that's your guilty conscience.
	So there's a lightness about it, and a lightness about accepting things.
	Even though it's a very dark act, in some sense, to accept things, there's a lightness that comes along with it.
	It's the lightness of being all in, I would say, something like that.
	And the opposite of that, when one doesn't have that, the culture is so burdened by itself, it begins to hate itself.
	You write, quote, The cynicism that makes that opinion a universal truism is widespread and fashionable, but such an orientation to the world is not at all characteristic of many people.
	They have the opposite problem.
	They shoulder intolerable burdens of self-disgust, self-contempt, shame, and self-consciousness.
	Why in 2018 do we so hate ourselves?
	Well, I think that paragraph does...
	It does lay out a lot of it, but we've added additional sources of guilt to that that are, I think, part of the modern, what would you call, manifestation of the idea that human beings have original sin and are fallen creatures.
	Like, we blame ourselves en masse for the depredations that the planet suffers at our hands, let's say, without any commensurate sympathy for ourselves.
	I mean, There are a lot of us, you know, we're going to hit 9 billion by midway through this century, and then it looks like things will probably level out.
	But that's a lot of people, and we're putting a very heavy load on planetary resources, let's say, and out-competing a lot of animals.
	And, well, you know the whole environmental catastrophe story.
	You bloody well hear that all the time.
	But, you know, mostly what we're trying to do is to survive and survive with a relative minimum of excess misery.
	We're trying to do that the best way we can see fit.
	It's only been since the 1960s that we've started to recognize ourselves as a force of planetary significance.
	100 years ago, we believed the oceans were inexhaustible.
	That was a conclusion that was drawn by a commission that was set up by the British Parliament.
	It's only been...
	Not even in my lifetime.
	I'm older than the idea that we are a planetary shaping force, but we carry terrible guilt about the price we have to pay for existence.
	And you hear people say things like, well, the planet would be better off without us, which is an absolutely horrifying thing to say.
	But I can understand why people say it, even though I think it's a dreadful thing to say.
	But it's never said with any sympathy.
	We're fighting against mortality itself and all the suffering that goes along with that.
	It's not surprising that we don't do it perfectly.
	It's a virtually impossible load.
	And so if you add that existential load as the member of a species, say, with the kind of power we have, to the knowledge that each person has of their own inadequacy and failings, then we carry a heavy existential burden with something that was very well Developed by the existential psychologists the 1950s and people feel guilty and ashamed about about being Just about being human and then they don't treat themselves very well,
	and that's not helpful It's it's not a it's not a solution to the problem It isn't even anti-American or anti-Western or this.
	It is anti-human fundamentally.
	And you quote the Columbine shooter in the book who wrote, nothing means anything anymore.
	And one aspect I really enjoy about this book is the constant weaving together of different disciplines, of university, of philosophy and psychology.
	Everybody and her mother is on depression drugs these days, and yet I suspect a great deal of apparently psychological problems Or really, essentially, philosophical problems.
	This pervasive cultural nihilism that robs people of meaning, of a sense of meaning.
	What portion of our social malaise do you think is philosophical?
	And how did we get here?
	Oh, I think it's deeper than that even.
	It might be theological.
	Like, I think the culture war that we're in is essentially a theological war.
	I agree.
	It's a war on the very idea of the transcendent individual.
	And some of that can be conceptualized psychologically, but that's not the deepest possible level of conceptualization.
	Our culture is predicated on the idea that each human being, this is the source of the idea of natural right, let's say, or of individual sovereignty.
	There's an idea that each person is touched by divinity, let's say, and is made in an image of God.
	That actually means something In the context of the story within which it's to be interpreted.
	So the Word of God, which was active at the beginning of time in the Judeo-Christian account of creation, used truthful language to extract habitable order from chaos.
	And I think that is what human beings do.
	I don't think we've ever formulated a more accurate representation of the nature of human consciousness because we confront potential.
	We call that the future.
	We confront an infinite landscape of potential and we choose how we're going to make it manifest itself in concrete reality.
	Like, that is really what our consciousness seems to do.
	And that brings...
	New being into being.
	And our legal systems are predicated on the idea that that capacity should be given all due respect, right, as the generator and recreator of culture itself.
	And like, you can't just throw away that idea.
	It's the idea on which our society rests.
	The post-modern neo-Marxist types are after that idea, hammer and tongs.
	They hate everything about it.
	And so that's why I think it's a theological battle.
	That's why Derrida said, you know, he called Western culture phallogocentric, phallo, P-H-A-L-L-O. And he meant male-dominated and logo-centered, which is, well, it's certainly logo-centered.
	Is he going to criticize that?
	Well, yeah, I'm going to criticize the idea of the sovereign individual, and that's certainly what the postmodern types do.
	Didn't Derrida say there's nothing outside of the text, or it's all, everything is relative, everything is a matter of interpretation?
	Yeah, well, he disputed whether or not he really said that, but I think...
	Of course he would.
	Well, right, and I think it's a pretty accurate summation of the postmodern ethos.
	They're skeptical of meta-narratives, of transcendent narratives.
	Well, that's all well and good, except that if you and I make an agreement so that we can live together peacefully and cooperate and compete over the long run, it's because we've established a narrative that transcends both our individual identities.
	And if we're going to live together as a culture, that means that despite our individual and cultural differences, let's say, and let's say we can maintain as many of them as possible, we need to subordinate ourselves to a transcendent narrative that actually constitutes the framework for peace and cooperation and for civilized competition.
	Right.
	It's like that means let's dispense with that which unites us.
	Well, then all we have is fragments and then we're going to fight because human beings tend to fragment towards their tribes and then fight.
	Right.
	And that's what I see happening both on the left.
	The left is pushing it, I would say, with everything they've got.
	And the radical right is responding in kind.
	It's really not good.
	It doesn't lead anywhere good.
	good.
	And I love this central theme of the book of culture as a natural fact of the world, because in our highly scientific age, many people seem to think or take it as a given that we just perceive the bare world, the valueless facts of the world, uh, without any meaning.
	And then we ascribe later meaning to those things you write in the book, uh, quote, there is a little more natural than culture that we perceive.
	Well, I, My question on this is, what does that say about how we should live?
	Well, one of the things it says is that you can't exist outside of a framework of value.
	It's not possible.
	It's not technically possible.
	I outline this in quite a bit of detail in Rule 10, which is called Be Precise in Your Speech, is that the way the world manifests itself to you is integrally tied to your value structure and that's because to put it very simply is that your very vision is dependent on an aim like whenever you look at the world you're aiming at something you're aiming at something with your eyes you you can't focus on something without aiming at it and you won't aim at it without valuing
	it so your very perceptions are dependent on your value structure now that doesn't mean there isn't a world it means that it does mean that experience is a complex interplay of your value structure and And the unmanifest world.
	It's something like that.
	And then that begs the question, which is, well, if you have to have a value structure, then what should it be?
	And then that brings us back to the ideas that we were talking about earlier.
	Like, you should value being.
	You should take on the responsibility of being as your highest ethical obligation and try to improve it, try to reduce suffering.
	Try to make the most out of yourself in a way that's beneficial to you and your family and your community.
	You should aim high.
	And your perceptions will reconfigure themselves around those aims.
	And that will allow the world to manifest itself to you in the most positive possible manner.
	Or at least in the most meaningful possible manner.
	And in the absence of that, all you have is stupid sufferings.
	That is the anxiety and depression that we talked about earlier.
	Without a point, without value, without an aim, all you're left with is the misery and anxiety of life.
	That makes people bitter.
	I love to bring up the notion of the aim, because one can react to this stupid suffering in a number of ways, but this is so clear.
	You write in it, you say, you cannot aim yourself at anything if you are completely undisciplined and untutored.
	You will not know what to target, you won't fly straight, even if you do get your aim right.
	And Then you will conclude there is nothing to aim for and then you will be lost.
	And these days the prevailing moral framework, as I see it, is if it feels good, do it.
	How is it that discipline and the straight and narrow offer the best chance for a good life?
	And how is it that we have forgotten that is the case?
	Well, the reason that discipline is necessary is because you're a mass of competing short-term interests.
	And so the question is then, well, which short-term interest should win out?
	And the answer to that is, well, none of them.
	They need to be organized into a hierarchy that makes them functional across time and across individuals.
	So like a two-year-old is very likely to act out his or her proximal impulse.
	But of course, a two-year-old can't survive in the world.
	You have to bring your primary instincts, let's say, Under the regulatory structure of a higher-order value system that allows them to manifest themselves without undue mutual sacrifice across large spans of time in the presence of large numbers of other people.
	That requires a very sophisticated ordering.
	It's like we already talked about the fact that a meta-narrative is necessary to unite subcultures, say, so that they can operate peacefully and harmoniously within the same space.
	The same thing applies within you, because you're an internal coalition of warring, single-minded tribes.
	And they have to all be brought under the organizational structure of long-term collective vision, let's say.
	And in order to do that, you have to be disciplined.
	And any discipline, technically speaking, It's an attempt to bring all those competing short-term impulses under a larger scale and more inclusive framework.
	And so you do that and then, well, that's actually what gives you freedom.
	Being impulsive and being free aren't the same things because if you're impulsive, you're just the slave of your impulses.
	There's no freedom in that.
	That's the same freedom, so to speak, literally, that a two-year-old has because a two-year-old isn't socialized yet.
	So, it's not...
	it's a completely...
	that doesn't function in this sophisticated world.
	It doesn't work.
	Everyone knows it.
	We just like to pretend sometimes and say, oh, that does feel good, you know.
	Now, I have one last...
	Well, we like to pretend all the time because that's why we go out and drink, you know, because drinking enables you to blind yourself to the long-term consequences of your actions.
	And there's no doubt that that's very, very rewarding in the short term.
	But it's also why you wake up the next morning hungover and ashamed.
	I must tell you, Dr.
	Peterson, we celebrated St.
	Patrick's Day and my birthday on this Saturday, and I can attest with real-world experience to your theoretical notions.
	I have one last question that I want to ask you, but before we do that, and I think this question is really good, I think it's the crux of the matter.
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	Dr.
	Peterson, you call for people to consider meaning as the higher good.
	You write, consider then that the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering is a good.
	Later in the book, you call Satan and our image of hell a dreamlike fantasy.
	Later still, you say that hell is metaphysically true.
	In the final chapters, you write a very moving, What seems to be series of prayers to, quote, the source of all revelatory thought in a discussion with God.
	My question, which is it?
	I'm not asking about metaphor or symbol and symbolized or signifier and signified.
	Is God fact or fantasy?
	Maybe God's both.
	But if you had to pick one, I don't mean to be glib about it.
	Well, no, I don't think you can do that in a discussion like this because...
	You're talking about matters where the distinction between those things actually starts to blur.
	No, because there's a reality, for example, there's a reality to fantasy that we don't really understand.
	Fantasy is how new things come into being.
	And fantasy has a structure.
	It has this archetypal structure.
	And so, I mean...
	Let's see if I can come up with a better...
	I can't come up with an answer to that that's so blunt because, look, one of the things I mentioned while we were having this discussion was that our legal system is predicated on the idea that each individual is made in the image of God and that there's actually a reason for that, that it's tied into the Judeo-Christian narrative.
	And the narrative suggests that the way that you bring habitable order, the habitable order that is good into being, so that's what happens in Genesis at the beginning of Is there a distinction to be made here between Metaphor, metaphysical reality, and some sort of fantasy.
	You know, in the sense that a unicorn would be a fantasy.
	I don't think a unicorn has metaphorical truth and metaphysical reality.
	I think there are some forms of fantasy that don't have their literal counterpart, let's say.
	They don't have their real counterpart, but there are some places where fantasy and reality meet.
	And we don't understand those places very well.
	I don't understand them very well.
	I think part of the reason that I have a hard time answering questions like that is because they transcend the limits of my knowledge.
	I actually don't know how to answer the question.
	It is the case, as far as I can tell, that the central presumption of our functional legal system is that each person has within them a spark of divinity, and that that spark of divinity manifests itself in the bringing into being of the present from the potential of the future.
	I think that's all true.
	Is that a fact?
	Like, is that the sort of truth that we would call a fact?
	I think so.
	Well, possibly, but it's not the sort of fact that you discover that it doesn't sit easily in the category of facts that scientists have produced.
	Right.
	It's more like an inference.
	So let's say you observe a bunch of people acting a particular way, and then you say, well, here's the rule that describes their action.
	You say, well, does that rule represent?
	What does that rule represent?
	Does that represent a reality?
	Well, it represents a reality of sorts, but it isn't the same sort of reality that's represented by a pure scientific discovery.
	They're not in the same category.
	So I'm not exactly sure what...
	Look, here again, here's the observation.
	If people treat one another as if they're touched by divinity, Their personal lives improve, their familial lives improve, their social structures stabilize, they produce functional political systems and productive economies.
	Does that make that proposition true?
	Well, possibly, but it doesn't make the proposition a fact in the same way that scientific investigation makes a scientific fact true.
	I ask the question in this way because I think you write with heartbreaking beauty about Christianity, about the metaphysical logos that is made flesh and dwells among us.
	And watching you write about this in the book is hugely edifying.
	We talk about theological issues a lot on the show.
	I highly recommend that everybody goes out and reads 12 Rules for Life.
	And also, I press the question that way because my bishop promised me a toaster if I could baptize you.
	But we might have to save that for another program.
	Dr.
	Peterson, thank you so much for being here.
	It has been a wonderful conversation.
	I will finally allow you to go on and move on with, I'm sure, your very busy rest of your day.
	Well, thank you very much for the interview and for the conversation.
	Jordan Peterson.
	All right.
	Do I have to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube now?
	Okay.
	All right.
	That's fine.
	I wanted to keep Dr.
	Peterson on for everybody as long as possible because he's fascinating to talk to.
	So if you are on YouTube right now, I don't believe you, if you're on Facebook, please go to dailywire.com.
	You will get me.
	You'll get the Andrew Klavan show.
	You'll get the Ben Shapiro show.
	You can ask questions in the mailbag.
	And if you ask them to Jordan, I'll tweet them along to him.
	I'll try to get us all our toaster.
	But none of that matters, of course, because what you have is that you need the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	I know what you think.
	You think that, oh, I can just have the abstract concept of a vessel for Leftist Tears.
	You know, the Leftist Tears, they float in the forms.
	They're sort of ethereal, aren't they?
	No.
	That is another evidence of signifier and signified becoming one.
	And you need this real physical and metaphysical leftist tears tumbler so that you can hold them because they are delicious.
	They're delicious in the mind and they're physically so salty and good.
	Go to dailywire.com.
	We'll be right back.
	That conversation was far too esoteric and ethereal to leave off on when we've got so many funny, absurd things in the news.
	So for the last few minutes here, I cannot help but go through all of these.
	Hillary Clinton is blaming other people for her problems again.
	My fourth cousin, twice removed.
	I actually forget the relationship.
	Somewhere around there.
	She is blaming other people for her problems.
	I know it's breaking news.
	I know this is shocking.
	Last week in India, maybe two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was asked, why did you lose?
	How did you lose?
	And she blamed poor, racist Republicans, as well as the empty-headed women who only do what their husbands tell them to do, which is elect Donald Trump.
	And obviously, we all knew this to be true.
	She caught some flack for it, though.
	So, this outrageous statement.
	She says, oh yeah, all the rich people voted for me, and all the women who didn't vote for me hate themselves, and they're slaves or something.
	Now she's apologizing.
	She's apologizing and she's really sorry that you misinterpreted her.
	That was the apology.
	First, she blamed the questions.
	She said, well, they asked me these questions.
	The reason that I had this faux pas is they asked me the questions and I told the truth.
	But then she apologizes because you misunderstood her.
	She said, quote, I understand how some of what I said upset people and can be misinterpreted.
	I meant no disrespect to any individual or group.
	What do you mean misinterpreted?
	I actually don't see how what you said could be misinterpreted.
	You said poor racist Republicans and slavish women voted for Donald Trump.
	That's it.
	This is why we don't like Hillary Clinton.
	This is why she can't resuscitate herself.
	First of all, this apology is disingenuous and deceitful.
	She's not apologizing.
	It's like little bratty teenagers do this.
	They say, well, I'm sorry if you feel that way.
	Don't apologize for my feelings.
	You don't control my feelings.
	Apologize for what you did.
	Second, it's arrogant and disdainful.
	It's, oh, well, you don't, you just, clearly you plebes don't understand.
	But it's also broadly contemptuous of her fellow countrymen.
	It just, she doesn't like them.
	She thinks they're poor, racist rubes, and any woman who doesn't support abortion on demand and vote for her is somehow self-hating.
	Keep it up, Hillary.
	I know it's the Macedonian teenagers, it's the Click Farms, it's James Comey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Keep adding to it.
	The Clintons are constitutionally incapable of shame.
	They are fully immune from shame, and this is just more evidence of it.
	Keep on keeping on.
	Another news story we have to hit is that Jews are responsible for the snow.
	I don't know if you knew that or you read that.
	A Democrat councilman from D.C., Trayvon White, is blaming a snowstorm on the Jews.
	This might be an improvement from global warming, but you're probably going in the wrong direction, actually.
	I don't know that that's more credible.
	He said, quote, man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man.
	Y'all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation, and that's a model based off The Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the city's man.
	Be careful.
	He added, be careful.
	The Rothschilds were a famous banking family and Jewish, and so there were all these conspiracy theories about them.
	And so now...
	Snow is the fault of the Jews.
	I know they're the global media elite and the international banking community and the neoconservative elite.
	There are a lot of euphemisms that these guys use, but now they control the weather.
	Obviously, this guy's a dummy, but the reason I bring it up, he's a councilman in the nation's capital.
	It's a funny story.
	If this had been a Republican dog catcher in Palookaville, USA, there would be petitions right now for Donald Trump to resign for some reason.
	I don't know why.
	They say it's Trump's fault.
	He elected this dog catcher.
	We're talking about a sitting councilman in the nation's capital accusing Jews of controlling the snowstorms.
	The left-wing media portray Republicans as racist kooks.
	They do this frequently.
	They've done it for decades and decades.
	They don't portray their own people as racist kooks, even though there are ample racist kooks among them, probably more than in the Republican side.
	They do this.
	The left-wing media do this to make it socially unacceptable to call oneself a Republican or a conservative.
	So, you know, oh, you've got to be one of those toothless hicks.
	That's what Hillary Clinton was doing to everybody.
	But then this D.C. councilman goes on and accuses the Jews of controlling the weather, and all of a sudden, you know, there's a little blip.
	It goes on the Daily Wire, but that's it.
	No one really talks about it.
	If it had been a Republican in the middle of America, this would be running for a week or two weeks.
	You've got to pay attention to this because they do it so that when you're in an elite place or on a college campus or in a boardroom, you would never admit to being a Republican.
	They've got way more kooks than we do and they're way kookier.
	They're so kooky they'd even elect Hillary Clinton president and they'd vote for her.
	Don't let them have it.
	One other story, Jeff Flake might be running for president.
	He said, quote, I, as you know, am retiring from the Senate at the end of the year.
	It has not been my plan to run for president, but I've not ruled it out.
	I hope that somebody does run in the Republican primary, somebody to challenge the president.
	He doesn't sip his Chardonnay correctly, you know.
	I think that Republicans want to be reminded what it means to be a traditional, decent Republican and what the party stands for.
	Limited government, economic freedom, free trade, and no borders whatsoever so we can flood the country with cheap labor and elect Democrats.
	Well, he didn't say that.
	He actually said embracing immigration.
	These are things that have made the party what it is over the years, and I think that people are wanting to hear that reminder.
	So I don't know who it'll be.
	I think the odds that I will do it are long, but I've not ruled it out because we need to use our champagne flutes correctly.
	It is more likely that the Jews control the weather than that Jeff Flake will ever be president.
	There is not a chance this guy is going to be president.
	It's so pathetic, though, because when you look at what he's saying, he said, this is such an outrage.
	President Trump is such an outrage as a Republican.
	I mean, look at what the party used to stand for.
	Limited government.
	Donald Trump has cut the government by more than any president in modern history.
	He's cut entitlement.
	I wish he'd cut entitlements.
	He's cut regulations, and he has slashed the federal bureaucracy more than any president in modern history.
	Economic freedom.
	Yep, ditto.
	And we got a great tax reform bill that grew economic freedom.
	Free trade.
	He's threatening tariffs, but no more than other presidents, and he's probably not even going to enact them except against China.
	And embracing immigration.
	Well, we're not, by the way, Amnesty for illegal aliens is not immigration.
	That's not the same thing.
	Democrats want to ally those things.
	They're completely different.
	So Jeff Flake is never going to be president.
	It's really funny.
	I hope he runs.
	That would be unbelievable.
	I would be so thrilled.
	That's our show.
	We've got to say goodbye.
	I do want one last point.
	You know that British interloper, limey hack, John Oliver?
	You know, for some reason, he colludes with Democrats and interferes in our elections.
	So he went on his program and made fun of Charlotte Pence, our pal Charlotte Pence.
	And she has a book called Marlon Bundo.
	It's about the vice presidential bunny rabbit.
	And so he made one where Marlon Bundo is gay because the only thing that Democrats care about in 2018 is gay sex.
	That is the height of philosophy, politics, and moral philosophy is just that.
	They don't have room to think about anything else.
	So...
	Anyway, all of his fans, all of these empty heads, are going to Amazon and leaving one-star reviews on Charlotte Pence's book.
	Let's get that spirit of 76.
	Let's punch that limey right in the proverbial virtual mouth and go leave five-star reviews for Charlotte's book and order it.
	I've got a copy right over there, a signed copy.
	It's pretty cool.
	Let's go do that because that British guy drives me so freaking crazy.
	Okay, that's our show today.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Come in tomorrow.
	We'll do it all again.
	The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire Forward Publishing production.
	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.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

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