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Join Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire as he revisits and reacts to the iconic scene from "The Newsroom" (2012) where a character boldly asserts, "America is not the greatest country in the world anymore." This powerful moment has stirred conversations across the globe and today, we bring it to the forefront again.
In this thought-provoking episode, Michael Knowles dissects this viral video, unpacking the claim and exploring its implications. With his signature blend of insight and wit, Knowles challenges the statement, invoking historical context, national identity, and sociopolitical realities to construct his response.
Whether you're interested in cultural discourse, passionate about American history, or simply a fan of The Newsroom, this video promises to offer a unique and engaging perspective. We delve into themes that touch on patriotism, global politics, and the ever-evolving narrative of American greatness.
Remember to LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE for more videos like this! Feel free to leave a COMMENT below with your thoughts on the statement from The Newsroom.
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#MichaelKnowles #TheNewsroom #AmericanGreatness #TheDailyWire #CulturalCommentary
Let's get to this clip that producer Jacob pulled.
This clip is from the 2012 HBO series.
Really cutting-edge stuff, producer Jacob.
That's great.
2012 HBO series, The Newsroom.
Oh, that's that awful show written by that awful writer, Aaron Sorkin.
Where one of the characters, Will McAvoy, explains why America's not the greatest country on Earth.
It's got 10 million views on YouTube.
Okay, take it away.
Let's move on to the next question.
Go ahead.
Hi.
My name is Jenny.
I'm a sophomore, and this is for all three of you.
Can you say in one sentence or less what... Um, you know what I mean.
Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?
Diversity and opportunity.
Lewis?
Uh, freedom and freedom.
So let's keep it that way.
Will?
The New York Jets.
No, I'm gonna hold you to an answer on that.
What makes America the greatest country in the world?
Well, Lewis and Sharon said it.
Diversity and opportunity and freedom and freedom.
You don't look satisfied.
I want a human moment from you.
What about the people?
Not the greatest country in the world, professor.
That's my answer.
You're saying... Yes.
Let's talk about... Fine.
Sharon, the NEA is a loser.
Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants.
It doesn't cost money.
It costs votes.
It costs airtime and column inches.
You know why people don't like liberals?
Because they lose.
If liberals are so f***ing smart, how come they lose so f***ing damn always?
This is how you know it's a liberal show.
Like they all are.
In politics, always.
When one is trying to seem like he's being critical of both sides, one criticizes the other side for being evil and wrong and malicious and terrible, and criticizes his own side for being ineffective.
Very rarely does someone criticize his own side for having some mistaken premises or falling for some bad ideas or even making errors and engaging in sin.
Usually what it will be is, oh, you guys are the bad guys and we're the weak guys.
We just don't know how to win.
So he's framing it this way.
He goes, the liberals are our biggest problem.
We just lose.
We're not strong.
What are you talking about?
You control the media?
The bureaucracy, the military, the university, corporate America, everything.
You control everything.
Oh, we just don't have any power.
Why?
Because, like, occasionally Kevin McCarthy becomes the Speaker of the House for five seconds and can't really get anything done?
Oh, wow, yeah, you're right.
You guys don't have any power.
Sure.
Okay, keep going.
And with a straight face, you're gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom?
Canada has freedom.
Japan has freedom.
The Canada one didn't really age well, because Canada is now, like, possibly the most tyrannical worst country on Earth, where dictator Trudeau comes in and shuts down those poor truckers and locks up pastors.
This did not age well at all, and it didn't age well because Aaron Sorkin is a big lib and doesn't know anything about anything.
Thank you.
So his predictions don't come true because they're not in accord with reality.
But if his criticism is of freedom in the abstract, I'm actually half with him, so keep going.
The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom.
207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.
All right.
And yeah, you, sorority girl.
Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there's some things you should know.
And one of them is, there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world.
We're 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality.
Sure.
Whatever.
Blah, blah, blah.
You've got these statistics.
The reason that this rant that you hear, not just from the Sorkin character, but from liberals all the time... We're not the greatest.
We're the 12th in reading and the 11th in... Whatever, you know.
The reason you know that's fake is because we're the most powerful.
We control the world.
We are, at least for now, the superpower on Earth.
And we're the country that everybody wants to go to.
So that is prima facie evidence that we are the greatest.
We have the most greatness.
It actually goes back to Carl Jung.
Carl Jung says that different nations are motivated by different things.
Germany is motivated by the idea.
France is motivated by glory.
England is motivated by the gentlemen, these defining concepts for these nations.
And what is America's?
America's is greatness.
That's why Donald Trump's slogan was, Make America Great Again.
This is why he took that from Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan's slogan was, Make America Great Again.
That is the idea, and it has worked, because generally people get what they want, what they're after.
Now, there are things that are more important than greatness.
In a terrestrial sense.
There's holiness.
There's sanctity.
There are other things.
I'm not saying that America is without faults by any means.
But this is just a stupid rant.
The fact that we control the entire world and that all the people want to come here and they're flooding across our borders three and a half million per year, plus another million legally, is the proof that we are the greatest country on earth.
It's indisputable.
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Third in median household income.
Number four in labor force and number four in exports.
We lead the world in only three categories.
Number of incarcerated citizens per capita.
Number of adults who believe angels are real.
Can you believe these stupid idiots who believe angels are real?
Like, um, St.
Thomas Aquinas, and, um, St.
Augustine, and, uh, every smart person who's ever lived, statistically, but not Aaron Sorkin, I guess.
Who do you think has a better view of reality?
Who do you think's got, got a little more ticking around in between the old years?
Thomas Aquinas, one of the most intelligent people ever in human history, or some Hollywood TV hack writer?
I fold like a cheap thing that, you know, that folds really easily.
Yeah, we believe that there is such a thing as spiritual reality.
One of the evidences for spiritual reality would be the intelligibility of the universe and the fact that the things that we most care about in the world are not material and physical, but metaphysical.
Our loves, our hopes, our dreams, our intuitions of an ultimate intelligence that makes the world intelligible.
The intuition of a divine logic of the universe.
A recognition that some things...
Yeah, no, you're right.
You totally debunked all of philosophy and theology, Aaron Sorkin.
Great.
have rational soul and body are composites of the two, hylomorphic.
And then there are other creatures that are not corporeal, but are spiritual entirely.
Yeah, no, you're right.
You totally debunked all of philosophy and theology, Aaron Sorkin.
Great.
Good job.
26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.
Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever periods.
When you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the f*** you're talking about.
Yosemite?
Yosemite's nice.
Sure used to be.
We stood up for what was right.
We fought for moral reasons.
We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons.
We waged wars on poverty, not poor people.
There it is.
There it is.
This is what we used to be great.
And when were we great?
in the 1960s.
That was it.
I'm a boomer Hollywood writer.
And that's my thesis.
We weren't great in 1620.
We weren't great in 1776.
We weren't great in the 1860s.
We weren't great even really in the maybe starting in the Second World War we start but it was the 60s.
Back when we had the weather underground blowing people up for radical leftist causes, back when we decided to dismantle a lot of our institutions, and back when we decided to rewrite the Constitution and turn away from God and start just engaging in all sorts of completely debauched behaviors everywhere.
And coincidentally, actually, starting at the place where all of those test scores and all of those statistics that I previously cited for evidence of America's decline, right at the very moment that they all started to decline, that was That was when we were really great.
Doesn't add up.
We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest.
We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists.
Yeah, we never beat our chest.
We never, oh no, not Americans.
We haven't always been known for beating our chest, at least starting in the early 19th century, up through Donald Trump.
Yeah, no, that's not a defining feature of the American character.
Of course it is.
That's always been a defining feature.
We made the greatest art.
Oh, yeah.
Look, man, I'm as patriotic as they come, okay?
and I think America actually has made some contributions to art.
Don't you forget about me.
But, come on, man.
You're gonna compare Jackson Pollock to Bernini?
I don't think so.
We reached for the stars.
Acted like men.
We aspired to intelligence.
We didn't belittle it.
It didn't make us feel inferior.
We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't... We didn't scare so easy.
Put a pause.
There has never been a time when Aaron Sorkin did not identify himself by who he voted for in the last election.
Never.
Never once.
We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed.
By great men.
Men who were revered.
First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.
America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.
So what's the better country?
I guess that's the answer he's got to give.
I totally agree that America's got all sorts of problems.
Not the problems he identifies, but America does have all sorts of problems, one of whom is him and his way of thinking and his way of viewing the country.
But if you make the claim America's not the greatest country in the world, which I'm totally open to hearing, what's the alternative?
Just tell me the country.
France?
China?
Namibia?
If you can't give an answer to that, then the argument kind of falls apart, and he can't give an answer.
And his argument, I suspect, I feel unraveled from the very beginning, as is always the case with Mr. Sorkin.
