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April 9, 2019 - The Michael Knowles Show

44:20

Ep. 328 - Democrats’s Bulls**t Primary

As the 2020 Democrat presidential primary heats up, one issue above all takes center stage: BS. Yes, BS artists descend on Iowa and New Hampshire to spread heaps of cow dung, ironically, largely about cow dung. Then, we analyze BS from the campaign trail to the MSM. Date: 04-09-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	As the 2020 Democrat presidential primary heats up, one issue above all takes center stage.
	BS. Yes, BS artists descend on Iowa and New Hampshire to spread heaps of cow dung.
	Ironically, often about heaps of cow dung.
	We will analyze BS from the campaign trail to the mainstream media.
	All of this and more.
	Check it out.
	I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is the Michael Knowles Show.
	This is an important question.
	There is a philosophical text that people don't read as much anymore.
	It came out, I think, about 20 years ago called On BS by Harry G. Frankfurt, who's a philosopher from Princeton.
	And I got to tell you, watching the Eric Swalwell presidential announcement video, watching Pete Buttigiegaga try to pick a fight with Mike Pence, watching all of the crazy Me Too attacks on Joe Biden, it just occurs to me that this campaign is about it just occurs to me that this campaign is about BS.
	We will analyze exactly what BS means and why this campaign seems to be about nothing, or actually specifically about BS.
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	B.S. So, there's this book that came out about 20 years ago on B.S. by Harry G. Frankfurt.
	And what he pointed out is that one of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much B.S., Quote, everyone knows this.
	Each of us contributes his share.
	So you see it all around you.
	Now, perhaps the reason for that is not that people are BSing more than they used to, but because we're communicating so much more than we used to.
	So now, obviously, you're watching this on the Internet or you're listening to it in your car or on your phone or wherever.
	Everybody is talking to everybody.
	This is a product of the Internet age.
	Okay.
	Maybe the percentage of BS remains the same, even though the volume has greatly increased.
	But, as Harry Frankfurt points out, quote, In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what BS is, why there is so much of it, or what function it serves.
	And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us.
	In other words, we have no theory.
	And...
	Coincidentally, I was watching all these Democrat presidential candidates coming out, and not only are they BSing, they're even using the word BS quite a lot.
	Here is Julian Castro.
	But I don't think, I think it's, I think it's bullshit to say that we're just gonna, you know, no, I think it's bullshit to say that people can get away with laughing it off, you know?
	I think that that's completely the wrong way to look at it.
	I really love Bill Maher here.
	He goes, oh, you said BS. That's how you know they're super serious, by the way, is when the candidates swear on the campaign trail.
	That's how you know they're very serious.
	But Julian Castro is not the only person who is using the word BS on the trail.
	You've got this new guy, this congressman from California, Eric Swalwell.
	He puts up his announcement video, his campaign ad, and in that ad he uses the word BS as well.
	Donald Trump was bold, but a lot of what he was bold about was just bull****.
	That's what it is.
	It was just BS. BS, according to this book on BS, quote...
	It's not fundamentally that the speaker regards his statements as false.
	So it's not that BS is when you just intentionally lie and it's just obvious lies.
	That's not really what defines BS. What defines BS instead is that the BSer intends the BS statements to convey a certain impression of himself.
	So when you BS, it's not that you're intentionally lying.
	I guess you could be lying.
	Or that you're telling the truth.
	It's actually that you don't really have any regard for what you're saying at all.
	You don't really have any regard for the truth value of what you're saying.
	You don't really have any regard for the object of what you're saying.
	All you are really concerned with is how you are being perceived.
	What impression you are giving of yourself?
	So when guys like Julian Castro or Eric Swalwell, when they even use the word BS, they are just trying to give an impression of themselves.
	Yeah, I'm going to talk tough.
	Yeah, I'm going to speak casually.
	Yeah, I can use profanity.
	But it's not actually conveying an idea or an idea about which they really care.
	This is obviously what's going on in the 2020 Democrat primary.
	This is what Pete Buttigiegaga's attack on Mike Pence is all about.
	We talked about this yesterday.
	Pete Buttigiegaga went out and he's the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
	He's gay.
	And he came out and he said, I want the Mike Pence's of the world to know that if you have a problem with who I am, you have a problem with my creator.
	He goes out unprompted and says, Mike Pence has a false faith.
	Mike Pence is violating the commands of God.
	He's insulting God.
	Now, what did Mike Pence do to deserve that?
	Nothing.
	Mike Pence has never criticized Pete Buttigieg.
	Mike Pence has never attacked Pete Buttigieg's sexuality.
	Actually, we only know of two instances where Mike Pence ever referred to Pete Buttigieg.
	One, when Pete Buttigieg deployed to Afghanistan, the Navy Reserves, Pence called him and wished And then a second time, actually, was when Pete Buttigieg declared himself gay, came out of the closet publicly, and Pence was asked about this.
	And what did Pence say?
	Did he attack his sexuality?
	Did he launch a homophobic tirade?
	No.
	He said, quote, I hold Mayor Buttigieg in the highest personal regard.
	I see him as a dedicated public servant and a patriot.
	So actually, the only time that Pence has ever spoken publicly about Pete Buttigieg was to give him a compliment.
	So then why does Pete Buttigieg go out and go after Pence?
	Because of BS. So he's saying, Pence has a problem with me.
	Pence has a false faith, a false religion.
	Why is he going?
	It doesn't matter if any of those claims are true.
	It doesn't matter that Pence has never attacked Buttigieg.
	It's that Pete Buttigieg needs to be perceived as a victim.
	And so he's got a BS. It's all just about how he can portray himself, how he can make himself be perceived by people.
	Pete Buttigieg is white.
	He's a male.
	He's Ivy League educated.
	He went to Harvard.
	He was in the military.
	He's a Rhodes Scholar.
	He is an elite guy.
	He's a young mayor.
	So it's very hard for him to portray himself as a victim.
	He has to invent false enemies.
	He has to tilt at windmills.
	He has to BS. Going back to that other guy, the guy in California who's now running for president for some reason, who knows why, Eric Swolewell.
	Here is just a clip.
	You should watch the whole announcement for a master class in BS, but here is just a little clip of him introducing himself to the American people.
	You tell him you can't do something, he's gonna do it.
	Today we are just governing crisis to crisis.
	You know, I'm from the first generation that might do worse than our parents.
	We can't do nothing.
	We have to in this country go big on the issues we take on.
	Most Americans believe we need to have coverage for all when it comes to health care.
	Be bold in the solutions we offer.
	Most Americans believe that to be free of gun violence.
	I went to the funeral for four police officers who were killed by an assault weapon to take the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people.
	And do good.
	In the way that we govern.
	And most Americans agree that to address climate chaos, to make sure your house doesn't end up underwater or on fire, we should do something about it, but make sure that we're not pinning workers against their job.
	The economy is not the unemployment rate.
	Donald Trump was bold, but a lot of what he was bold about was just bull.
	And the economy is not the stock market.
	It's you.
	The economy is you.
	We need to do better, not worse.
	We need to be strong, not weak.
	We need to, we need to, we need to.
	This is BS from the beginning.
	This guy is a total BS-er.
	This guy, Eric Swalwell, here's his entire resume.
	Here's his entire career.
	He went to college at Campbell University in North Carolina.
	So I'm going back all the way until he was 18.
	He then transfers to the University of Maryland.
	He then studies politics.
	Okay.
	While he's there, he's on the student government.
	So he's a student politician.
	Not just a student politician.
	He is the student liaison to the city council of College Park at UMD. He sticks around UMD for law school.
	Okay, now he's got a couple internships in there.
	Who does he intern for?
	Is it a private business?
	No, no, it's for a congressman in California's 10th district.
	Then...
	After law school, he goes and works as the Alameda County Deputy District Attorney.
	So it goes straight into politics there.
	Then he's on the Dublin Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission.
	So a political appointment.
	Then he's on the Dublin Planning Commission.
	Another political appointment.
	Then he's on the Dublin City Council.
	Local politician.
	Then he runs for Congress and wins from California's 15th Congressional District.
	This guy, since the age of 18, has done nothing but...
	Work in government.
	Work in politics.
	Run for office.
	That's all he's done in his entire life.
	This guy is, it's like if on the House of Cards, if there were a campaign ad for the challenger candidate, and it's so exaggerated, it's so hyperbolic, it would be Eric Swalwell's announcement.
	He even said, by the way, This I find sort of distasteful.
	He said the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred during his internship on Capitol Hill, and that inspired him to public service.
	So he's trying to link his own career ambitions to 9-11.
	If 9-11 inspired you to service, you would have joined the military.
	You were exactly military age at that time.
	Oh, was he 19 years old or something?
	18 years old?
	But it didn't.
	And actually, it obviously didn't inspire him to public service.
	He already got the political internship.
	He was already working on Capitol Hill.
	Pure example of BS. You're going to see a lot of this.
	He's going to say things like...
	Listen, climate chaos.
	Climate chaos is a big deal.
	That's the new phrase I guess they use.
	It's better than climate change or global warming because whenever the people understand what you mean by climate alarmism, whichever euphemism you're using, they start to hate it, so they always have to change the euphemism.
	So now they're on climate chaos.
	If you don't want your house to get set on fire, then you've got to, I don't know, what, tax people at a 90% tax rate or spend $93 trillion on the Green New Deal?
	What do you have to do?
	Look, Eric Swalwell won't tell you specifics.
	He just has to talk out of both sides of his mouth.
	We need to stop climate chaos.
	We need to make sure workers have their jobs.
	We need to do good.
	That's actually his slogan, do good.
	He's like, okay, what is the least objectionable campaign slogan we could have?
	Do good.
	Okay, that's testing pretty well.
	Okay, good.
	That's focus group testing very well.
	Do good.
	He says, the economy isn't GDP or the unemployment rate.
	Actually, sort of it is.
	The economy is you.
	You.
	Total BS. Now, he's the youngest, he's the newest BSer in this race.
	You'll notice in that whole announcement, he doesn't talk about anything specifically.
	He doesn't make one detailed policy proposal.
	You know, there's that guy on the internet, Andrew Yang.
	He's this crazy, futurist meme guy.
	And he's sort of a joke candidate.
	At least that guy has policy proposals.
	At least that candidate actually will give you a specific proposal for any number of policies.
	BSers don't do that.
	BSers just talk in these broad terms and out of both sides of their mouths.
	He's the youngest in the race.
	The oldest BSer in the race is Joe Biden.
	And, look, Joe Biden, actually his BS has gotten him into trouble here because all he really cares about is being perceived as this nice, empathetic guy.
	That's why he smells people's hair and pats them on the shoulder and gives them massages and holds their hand and nuzzles them, is because he doesn't care about anything else.
	He doesn't really care about the truth value of what he's saying.
	He just wants to be perceived well.
	Well, now that's coming back and hitting him, there's a new accusation against Joe Biden.
	This from a young woman named Lily Jay.
	Lily Jay talks about how she met Joe Biden at some event and she doesn't know how to feel about it.
	I'll let her say her piece.
	Then we'll explain why she doesn't know what to say about it.
	She says, quote, But I didn't experience it as intrusive or unsettling.
	I remember later being disappointed that most of the press pictures of me that day captured some degree of physical contact with either the vice president or president.
	I could have sworn there was a moment I stood on my own.
	All right, I have to pause there for just one second.
	She was surprised that the newspapers included photos of her standing with the leader of the free world instead of by herself.
	Can you imagine the ego, the pride, the hubris, the arrogance to say, you have a photo taken with the President of the United States.
	You have another photo taken just sort of smiling on your own.
	And you want the newspapers to run the one of just you.
	Why does the President have to be in my photo?
	That's the hubris.
	That's the pride that these people are talking about.
	She goes on.
	Mostly I tried not to think about my day at the White House at all.
	It was meant to be lemonade from lemons, a capstone to an experience I'd sooner forget.
	Why hadn't I been more aware of Biden's contact with me?
	Why didn't it occur to me to be perturbed?
	This is it.
	This sums it all up.
	Why didn't it occur to me to be perturbed?
	She wasn't perturbed.
	She met the president and the vice president of the United States and they were nice to her and they spoke to her and they said nice things to her.
	And that was a good day.
	But now, in retrospect, she realizes she could have gotten a lot more currency if she had pretended to be a victim, if she could have pretended to be aggrieved.
	This is the great new privilege.
	This is the new currency.
	This is the BS. Because what she was focusing on then was the actual interaction, the interaction itself.
	Which is, the vice president's talking to me, he's saying nice things to me, he's, this is really nice, okay, thank you very much.
	Now she's thinking, oh, hold on, in this new environment, I could be perceived as a victim.
	Even though I'm not sure that I'm a victim, it doesn't sound like I'm a victim, there's no evidence that I'm a victim at all.
	But now, because I met the vice president and he touched my hand, Now I can get another 15 minutes of fame.
	Now I can be perceived as aggrieved and important and have social currency.
	All BS. And yet, despite all of that, Joe Biden is still at the top of the field of the 2020 race.
	According to Morning Consult, Joe Biden is polling at 32% right now.
	Even with all of the weird, touchy, gropey things, he's only lost one percentage point in the polls over the past week.
	Bernie Sanders is number two right now, but he's number two with 23% support.
	So Biden is up nine points on Bernie Sanders right now.
	That is a pretty good lead.
	Obviously, a lot of it at this early date is still name recognition.
	Joe Biden was the vice president.
	If Barack Obama comes out for him hard early on, then perhaps he could translate that into really maintaining a lead in this race, though I'm not so sure.
	What we do know for sure, though, is that of all of these candidates, of all of the issues, the only thing that unifies them is they are all simply about perception.
	And in particular, about being perceived as a victim, being perceived as empathetic, being perceived as likable.
	This is true of Elizabeth Warren.
	Her central issue is trying to say that being one one thousandth Native American makes her a victimized minority.
	Eric Swalwell, just all about being perceived.
	He's the straight shooter.
	He's reasonable.
	Hey, come on, guys.
	No policy proposal in that whole race.
	Beto O'Rourke, the same thing.
	Joe Biden, the same thing.
	Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigiegieg, all of them.
	The entire issue is about being perceived as a victim.
	The question now for Democrats is, can they win on that?
	Can they win on just appearing empathetic?
	Whether it's the kind of slick old walking simper smiley Joe empathy or whether it's the aggrieved minority empathy like Pete Buttigieg or Liz Warren or Kamala Harris or whomever.
	Can you win just on that?
	Or do you have to offer a specific solution to a specific problem?
	This is actually going to see the re-litigation of how Trump won.
	Because there was a big debate that broke out after 2016.
	Did Trump win because he ran on a mood?
	Because he ran on an attitude?
	Because he was just a talked tough and said the right words?
	That's what a lot of people think.
	That's what the never-Trumpers think.
	That's what the anti-Trump left thinks.
	That's even what a lot of conservatives think.
	Or did Donald Trump win because he offered specific policy solutions that were different from what his Republican opponents offered?
	He talked about raising barriers to trade.
	This was anathema to Republican dogma.
	He talked about building a gigantic wall and cutting off immigration.
	Anathema to Chamber of Commerce Republican dogma.
	He spoke in brutal terms about very specific problems.
	In many ways, the 2020 race could show us which that was.
	I tend to favor Ann Coulter's argument.
	I tend to think that the American people are not just gullible idiots.
	I think they actually vote for specific reasons.
	They know what they're talking about.
	And Donald Trump was offering them something that was different from what a lot of other people were.
	And so they gravitated toward him.
	I actually think talking to a lot of People all throughout the country.
	I mean, how many states have I been to in the last year just on this Young America's Foundation speaking tour?
	I have been all over to just about every part of this country.
	And when I talk to people, and I talk to Trump supporters, I find that it's not that they're cheering on when Donald Trump is really mean or vicious or cruel.
	Actually, most of them say he's doing good things and his personality is a little out there and he's a little too brash, but I still like him anyway.
	They like him in spite of his personality excesses, not because of them.
	This comes as news to elites on the coasts, on both parties for that matter, but...
	It just seems to me that eventually, you might get through the Democrat primary, you might get through, but at a certain point, you have to offer something concrete.
	Even Barack Obama, who was the hopey-changey, vague candidate, even he sort of offered something concrete in so much as he was the guy who voted against the Iraq War.
	Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War.
	He differentiated himself by saying, I voted against the Iraq War.
	That was something specific, and I think a lot of people gravitated toward that, especially in the Democrat Party.
	You can't just rely on fake lie messaging forever.
	Eventually, reality reasserts itself.
	But fake lie messaging can get you around for a while.
	This is, again, a prime example of BS, this time from the mainstream media.
	There was a poll that was just conducted by NBC Wall Street Journal.
	Tax time's coming around.
	You maybe are looking at your refund right now, trying to figure out what you're going to pay, what you're going to owe.
	How many of you believe that you will get a bigger tax refund this year than you did last year?
	How many of you believe that you will save money on your taxes this year compared to last year?
	NBC News, Wall Street Journal asked that question.
	Only 17% of Americans believe that their taxes will go down.
	28% of Americans believe that they will pay more in taxes.
	27% say that they will pay the same.
	28% say they don't know enough to say.
	Only 17% believe that their taxes will decrease because of that tax bill last year.
	This is reflected in public approval of the tax bill.
	According to Pew Research last month, just 36% approve of the tax cut, 49% disapprove of the tax cut.
	Just one third of Republicans believe that they're getting a tax cut.
	10% of independents believe it, 7% of Democrats believe it.
	Even among hardcore Trump supporters, 36% believe that they are getting a tax cut.
	Another 36% say that they're staying the same.
	And 6% say that they're paying more.
	Even among hardcore Trump supporters.
	What is the reality?
	There was an analysis done by the Tax Policy Center.
	Tax Policy Center is non-partisan.
	It showed that 80% of Americans will receive a tax cut under the 2018 tax law.
	80% of Americans will see their taxes decrease, and yet only 17% of Americans think that their taxes will decrease.
	That is the power of the mainstream media.
	That is the power of BS. That is the power of demagogue politicians who went out from day one and they said, it's a tax scam!
	Before the tax bill was even released.
	They said, it's a tax scam.
	It's a tax hike.
	They don't care about the truth value of that statement.
	They would have said the statement regardless of what the tax bill said.
	What they were positioning themselves as is, we oppose Trump.
	Trump bad, we good.
	Therefore, what Trump does is bad, and therefore the tax bill is bad.
	Therefore, the tax bill is going to raise your taxes.
	And then you saw this breathlessly reported throughout the mainstream media for months and months and months.
	And then you're now seeing the effect of that even as tax day rolls around.
	Now, there is a little...
	The issue with BS is that you can always pull some random statistics to try to buttress your claim, and then people who are uninterested in truth will just endlessly recite those.
	So you can point out now, tax refunds are actually down $6 billion this year.
	So there are $6 billion less in refunds this year.
	However, the reason for that is that people are getting more in their take-home pay.
	People actually are getting more in each paycheck.
	A lot of people have direct deposit.
	A lot of people don't notice that they're getting more in each paycheck.
	It wasn't a ton more, but it's a little bit more.
	Also, it's because the very wealthy are, depending on where you live, especially in coastal cities, especially in blue states, their taxes are actually not decreasing.
	In some cases, they're increasing.
	Nevertheless, the reality remains, the vast, vast majority of Americans get a tax cut.
	Matt Iglesias, that left-wing writer for Vox.com, he came out and said, a lot of people don't want to take credit for messaging victories like this, but Fewer than one in five Americans thinks they're getting a tax cut, even though, objectively, the vast majority of Americans are.
	He was bragging about this.
	He was bragging about BS for a whole year, and it worked.
	The question of the 2020 race is, how long can this work for?
	How long before someone punctures it?
	Is there going to be a real candidate, a forceful candidate in the race, who punctures all of that BS? We'll have to find out.
	Now, speaking of the mainstream media...
	I'm assuming you weren't watching this week on ABC. But they're talking about Donald Trump's new appointments.
	Donald Trump is appointing new people.
	There was a big gutting of the Department of Homeland Security yesterday.
	And he's been talking about adding Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board.
	This is a prime example of what the mainstream media does.
	This is how they convinced you that the tax...
	Cut was actually a tax hike.
	This is how they convince you of all of their lies.
	But the way they do it is they go on television, they have a nice tie, they put on their jacket, they speak with a really super serious voice, and they say things that aren't true.
	We'll get to that in one second, but first...
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	It tastes like nothing.
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	We'll be right back.
	Here is Yvette Simpson, who works for Democracy for America, some left-wing group.
	She's on ABC reacting to the report that President Trump may appoint former presidential candidate Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board.
	I think at this time it's more important to make sure that appointments are, you know, are validated or Herman Cain.
	I just want to leave it there.
	Herman Cain, the Federal Reserve.
	Makes no sense to me.
	We actually, I worked for a candidate who ran in a primary against Herman Cain.
	The question is not in my mind Herman Cain's qualifications.
	I mean, he actually has been at a Federal Reserve Bank.
	I think he understands these issues.
	The question is around the independence of the Federal Reserve.
	Okay, so then they pivot a little bit.
	We're very lucky here.
	The reason we got this clip is because Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institution, who used to work for Mitt Romney, he happened to be on this panel, and he just couldn't let that egregious lie go.
	The entire mainstream media have been talking now for weeks about how crazy it would be to appoint Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve Board.
	Why on earth would you ever appoint Herman Cain, the 999 guy, that wacky presidential candidate Herman Cain?
	Herman Cain is a very accomplished man.
	He was the CEO of Godfather Pizza.
	That's pretty impressive.
	Also, he was already on a Federal Reserve Bank board.
	Herman Cain served on a Federal Reserve Board before.
	He is imminently qualified for this.
	He obviously would be a good person.
	And so this woman, Yvette Simpson, said, okay, well, never.
	But they just...
	It's just this posturing.
	They say, oh look, I'm not even going to answer this question.
	I'm not even going to answer how crazy it would be to have Herman Cain on the...
	Herman Cain?
	The Federal Reserve?
	I'm just going to leave it there.
	It's just this innuendo.
	It's just this perception.
	But...
	Here, let me make the argument for Herman Cain's qualifications.
	He's already been on a Federal Reserve Board.
	Okay?
	That seems...
	Okay.
	That seems to refute your argument.
	Then...
	More innuendo, more insinuation.
	Well, the combination of the nomination, potential nomination of Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, I mean, Lonnie would probably have freshman students in their economics class that are more qualified than Stephen Moore and Herman Cain to be in those positions.
	Are the freshmen in the economics classes, have they been the CEO of a major corporation?
	Have those freshmen in the economics classes been on federal reserve boards?
	No.
	But it's just this attitude.
	It's just this posture.
	And so all of these 2020 candidates, for sure, are running on posture.
	They're all running on attitude.
	Is that enough?
	You know, we've seen certain races have been about mostly nothing.
	Certain presidential races have been very consequential, very much about issues.
	So when you look at, say, the 2000 presidential race, Bush versus Gore, that race was basically about nothing.
	We had just won the Cold War.
	We had this massive economic boom, which was given to us by Reaganomics and by the information age, by the tech explosion.
	We had relative peace abroad, relative peace at home.
	So the campaign was basically about nothing.
	What was the major issue of that campaign?
	The main one that I can remember is George Bush saying, we must restore honor and dignity to the White House because Bill Clinton got a little frisky in the Oval Office.
	And that was basically the biggest issue of the campaign is that Bill Clinton got frisky in the Oval Office with his intern.
	Not about a whole lot.
	Fast forward to 2008.
	2008 was about a lot.
	It was a referendum about the Iraq War and it was a referendum on the financial crisis, on the housing crisis.
	Maybe those issues were debated unfairly, but they really were about real issues.
	2016 was about real issues.
	You had just finished eight years of Barack Obama, the slowest recovery we had ever seen in the country, a coarsening of race relations, divisiveness that slowly took course.
	You saw a guy who was elected because he was supposed to get us out of wars in the Middle East.
	We actually began more wars in the Middle East under him.
	You had a demoralization of the left and you had a lot of righteous anger on the right.
	You had a guy who weaponized the IRS against his political opponents, Weaponized the DOJ against his political opponents.
	We're now learning he weaponized the DOJ and the FBI to spy on the Republican presidential candidate who would come after him.
	You had this massive corruption.
	You had a total disruption of the entire healthcare sector.
	One-sixth of the economy being taken over.
	A president who told you, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
	And then, whoops!
	You can't keep your doctor.
	A president who told you the new healthcare system, it's not going to cost anything.
	And then when it cost a ton of money, when the rate of increase increased, when premiums shot through the roof, he said, well, you didn't think you were going to get all that free stuff for nothing, did you?
	You didn't think that free stuff was going to be free, did you?
	And you had a lot of pent-up righteous anger about real issues.
	Previously, you'd had the Tea Party movement.
	Then you had, I guess, what you would call the Trump movement in 2016.
	That was a campaign about issues.
	But now things are going pretty well again.
	So now, when I look at the political scene, I'm sort of reverting back to the 90s.
	I see immense economic prosperity.
	We have very high employment, record high employment right now, record low unemployment, and record low unemployment specifically among groups that typically have higher unemployment, like black Americans and Hispanics.
	You're seeing people get to keep more of their money, tax decreases, relative peace abroad, drawing down from conflicts overseas.
	You're seeing a restoration of judicial restraint at the federal courts, at the Supreme Court.
	Overall, things are going pretty well.
	Even on issues that could be real hobby horses for the left, like environmentalism, you're seeing massive environmental advancement.
	The United States is leading the world in reducing carbon emissions and taking care of the natural environment.
	We're doing better than all of the people in the Paris Climate Accord at actually upholding those values.
	Things are going relatively terrific.
	I sound like Drew Clavin, like things are going tickety-boo.
	And so I think that environment of prosperity, that equitable, just environment that we're looking at, opens the door again to BS, to just attitudes, to just posturing.
	But can that take them over the finish line?
	I don't see how it does.
	Where does that...
	Where does that end for them?
	What voter in Michigan?
	What voter in Wisconsin?
	What voter in Pennsylvania?
	What voter in Florida who has seen the country improve is going to flip because Pete Buttigieg invented some victimhood?
	Because Pete Buttigieg imagines that somebody doesn't like him for his sexual preferences.
	Because Cory Booker's crying tears of rage.
	Why would anybody flip that vote?
	I just don't see it.
	It just seems a little thin.
	It just seems...
	Also because things are improving.
	So one of the lines, one of the kind of insinuations here is that because there's turnover in the Trump administration, things are getting worse.
	I mean, Herman Cain and the Federal Reserve.
	I mean, I'm just going to leave it there, okay?
	I'm just going to leave it there.
	That seems like you're getting a guy who's qualified and experienced to take over a job.
	That sounds good.
	All of the replacements seem to have been pretty good.
	Mike Pompeo is doing a great job.
	John Bolton is doing a great job.
	From everything we can tell, Mick Mulvaney is doing a good job as the acting chief of staff.
	From what we can tell, John Kelly did a better job than Reince Priebus.
	Sarah Sanders did a better job than Sean Spicer.
	Things have been improving, and now the DHS secretary has been canned, and there is now an acting DHS secretary, and we'll see who the permanent replacement is.
	Seems like an improvement.
	It seems like it could really only be an improvement because the crisis at the border has not abated.
	It's actually gotten worse.
	There are reports coming in now that we're getting 100,000 people entering this country illegally every 30 days.
	So we're getting over 3,000 people a day.
	One of the relative record numbers that came out last month was 2,500 a day, and that was considered outrageous.
	Just a few months ago, it was only 1,000 a day, which is still very high.
	100,000 in a month is a huge number.
	So what does President Trump see?
	He sees that the person doing the job is not doing it well enough, so he cans them and replaces them, and hopefully they start to do it better.
	Again, the attitude, the insinuation, the BS is going to say, because of all that turnover, it's chaos, it isn't working, you've got to vote for us.
	In reality, it seems to me those voters are going to take the exact opposite impression.
	Say, oh, things are improving.
	Okay, good.
	Oh, finally, once all the BS clears, once the mainstream media clears, they're going to look at their bank accounts.
	They're going to look at their paychecks and say, oh, yeah, I'm making a little bit more money now.
	That's a good thing.
	That's a good thing.
	Before we go, I do have to get to this in our remaining minutes.
	I have been saying it for years.
	Finally, a radio host named Rick Wiles is, he's finally coming out and buttressing what we've all been thinking.
	Look, for how many millennia now have we been waiting for the Antichrist to come?
	And you guys didn't realize he was right under your own nose the whole time, our very own Ben Shapiro.
	Ben Shapiro denies the deity of Jesus Christ.
	I've heard him say this before.
	That's right.
	What I'm shocked by is that there are millions of conservatives in this country, including Christians, who support him.
	Yeah, go gaga over him.
	Yes.
	They'll buy his books, they'll boost his career, and yet he openly denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
	That makes him an antichrist.
	Yes.
	Right?
	St.
	John said that anybody who denies that Jesus Christ came to earth as God in human flesh is Antichrist.
	There is no one Antichrist.
	There is a spirit of Antichrist, and Ben Shapiro has the spirit of Antichrist because he denies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
	He denies that he's resurrected.
	He said, well, you don't even use that word, resurrected.
	All right?
	He's a Kabbalist.
	He laughed when he said prophet.
	He mocked a prophet.
	He called him a rebel.
	He called him a rebel criminal.
	Why are any of you out there following Ben Shapiro?
	Why?
	You're schizophrenic.
	Yes.
	You're spiritually schizophrenic.
	You've got to cut off this stuff.
	But the money's flowing to people like Ben Shapiro.
	Right.
	And the doors are opening for him.
	Because he denies Christ.
	I love this last argument at the end.
	He begins, he says, why are you giving your money to Ben Shapiro?
	The implication being, you're not giving your money to my program.
	Then at the end, he says, the money's flowing!
	They just keep giving the money to Ben Shapiro, which is a terrible thing.
	Because you should be giving your money to me!
	I agree.
	I think people should be giving all of their money to the Michael Knowles show.
	I mean, the fact that they give it to the Ben Shapiro show.
	Although, the very fact that I have a show...
	Does bring up a little problem with Rick Wiles' argument here.
	Because if Ben Shapiro is the Antichrist, it does occur to me, he's like the worst Antichrist ever.
	He could not be worse at being the Antichrist.
	Because Ben has a network called the Daily Wire, and there are five hosts on that network.
	There is Ben...
	Then there's Drew.
	Then there's me.
	Then there's Matt Walsh.
	And then there's Jeremy Boring, the God King, hosts the backstage show.
	So there are five hosts on Ben Shapiro's network.
	And so this guy definitely wears a yarmulke.
	Definitely, I don't see him at church on Sundays.
	But then this guy is...
	An outspoken Anglican.
	I am an outspoken Catholic.
	Matt Walsh is an outspoken Catholic.
	And Jeremy Boring is an outspoken antinomian.
	I don't even know what you'd call his theology.
	Fundamentalism?
	I don't know.
	At least he would call it Christianity.
	He believes in Jesus.
	So one of the guys who owns the Daily Wire, the guy who's running it right down the hall, hosts a show.
	He's quite Christian.
	Four out of five of the Daily Wire hosts are outspoken Christians.
	But wait a second.
	Now I'm seeing it.
	Because if a guy were the Antichrist, and he didn't want you to know that he was the Antichrist, what is the most Antichrist-y thing he would have done?
	He'd hire a bunch of Christians to spread their views and faith and beliefs and message on his airwaves.
	That would be that subtle little serpent.
	That's what he would do.
	He would hire all these Christians and then they would get to talk about their faith on the air all the time, every single day.
	And then, that is how he would affect his Antichrist agenda.
	The only...
	Rebuttal, I could imagine, to that is that a house divided against itself cannot stand and that the devil can't cast out demons.
	Who said that?
	Was that the Antichrist who said that?
	It was somebody else.
	It was another Jewish guy who said that, I think.
	I had to bring it up because I regularly refer to Ben as the Antichrist.
	But then when I started thinking about the argument, when Rick Wiles, the radio host, really...
	Spelled it out for me.
	I just don't think it quite holds up.
	That's our show.
	We've got a lot more to get to, but unfortunately, you know how this happens.
	I'll see you tomorrow.
	Get your mailbag questions in for Thursday.
	I am going to be traveling.
	By the way, I'm going to be giving a speech at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
	So I think we'll be in studio, but I'll be flying out for that tomorrow.
	Check it out.
	I'm hoping we'll stream it, but if you're in Kansas City, come by and say hello.
	In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	show.
	I'll see you tomorrow.
	The Michael Knowles show is produced by Robert Sterling.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer Jonathan Hay.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Danny D'Amico.
	Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	Production assistant Nick Sheehan.
	The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
	Today on The Ben Shapiro Show, the media and Democrats slander President Trump over immigration and an NBA player talks about his white privilege.

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