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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
New York has elected a Muslim communist mayor. Virginia makes a guy who wants to kill Republicans and our kids. Its top law enforcement official. It was a clean sweep for Democrats. But but there is a silver lining to the storm cloud of an election night. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles welcome back to the show. The silver lining, of course, is that Zarafui can wear her burka again. Isn't that great? You know Zoran, he was saying that aunt of his, everyone in his family is an aunt. All of his friends are aunts too. And his aunt Zarafui, she felt uncomfortable wearing her full burqa or whatever after 9 11. So anyway, she can wear it again and feel cozy and comfy. Absolutely, absolutely. Brutal night. We will get to all of it and what we should take away from it. First though, speaking of being comfy, I want to tell you about Helix sleep. Go to helixsleep.com knowles the holidays are approaching. That means your calendar is probably packed with hosting duties, shopping lists to dos. When life gets this hectic, sleep often takes a backseat. But that is when you need it most. And quality rest is what keeps you energized for holiday prep. Helps you stay patient with family, lets you enjoy the season instead of just surviving it. If your mattress is not giving you the deep, comfortable sleep that your body craves, you are starting every day at a disadvantage. That's where Helix comes in. Finding the right mattress does not have to be guesswork. Helix makes it simple with their sleep quiz. It asks you about your preferences, your sleep style. Then it matches you with the mattress that is right for you. They're not just making promises. Helix is the most awarded Matt with glowing reviews from Forbes, Wired and other trusted experts. They deliver straight to your door with free shipping, no hauling anything yourself. They give you 120 nights. Helix guarantee. Try it out. They give you a limited lifetime warranty. Returns and exchanges are seamless. It's risk free and it's fantastic. I love it. I was just on the road. I've had my Helix mattresses for a long time. I was just on the road a little bit. It's hard to sleep when you're on the road and then I got to come home to my home full of Helix mattresses. Go to helixsleep.com knowles for 27% off site wide helixsleep.com knowles For 27% off site wide make sure you enter our show name into the post purchase survey so they know we sent you helixsleep.com knowles Zoran comes out. He wins over 50% of the vote, which means that's with 90% reporting, they're still counting votes because we live in a banana republic. So somehow we've gotten much, much worse at counting votes in elections. But with 90% of the vote in, as of this morning, Zo run won over 50%, which means that all the people calling on Curtis Sliwa, the Republican, to drop out of the race, they were not proven right. Didn't matter. Sliwa could have dropped out. Every single one of Sliwa's votes could have gone to Cuomo. Zoran still would have won. Would have obviously been much tighter, but he still would have won. Made no difference. Mamdani gets on the stage, he celebrates. He talks about all those New Yorkers he's representing.
- [03:31]
Zoran Mamdani
I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties.
- [03:55]
Michael Knowles
You notice who he's not talking about? You know, I can't help but notice there's one group of people that you're not representing, but it happened to be, I guess, look at all the races. You could say white people or Europeans, but the other group is just like New Yorkers. What about New Yorkers? I am a New Yorker by birth and by upbringing. I spent the first 24 years of my life in and within a commuter rail line of New York City. And my family had been in New York for a long time. There are a lot of people, Italian background, Irish background, even some English background, a lot of Jewish background, a lot. But people who have been in New York a long time. Zoran Mamdani personally has been in New York for about five minutes. He himself is an immigrant, and he's speaking to people who are immigrants, not people whose parents were immigrants, even, not people whose grandparents were immigrants, even like people who have been in New York for five minutes. And the transplants from within the United States and especially from outside the United States played a big role in his winning. And what he's saying is, yeah, I know that you guys were the ones who elected me. And so this is a new city now. On the racial front, forget about white people. We'll talk about every other group of people other than white people. But it's even beyond just race. It's, hey, yeah, there was an old New York. We don't care about that. We care about Uzbeki taxi drivers and Mexican abuelas and everyone other than New Yorkers. So he leans very heavily into the racial ID Politics. And he leans very heavily into socialism. The first line that he quotes in his speech is from one of the most famous socialists in the history of the United States.
- [05:52]
Zoran Mamdani
The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been so.
- [06:17]
Michael Knowles
Eugene Debs, for those who don't know, was a socialist presidential candidate. He was jailed for sedition. Okay. This guy was very, very prominent, very dangerous man. He spoke quite eloquently, actually. And he had a real. A dangerous little silver tongue, didn't he? And he was ultimately, I think he had his sentence commuted by President Harding. He wasn't pardoned cuz he was guilty of his crimes, sedition, but he had his sentence commuted because he was an older man. But he really was a dangerous figure. The nearest that we've ever had to a socialist takeover of the United States. He won something like 8% of the presidential vote from prison. And Mamdani comes out, and that's the guy he quotes, Eugene Debs. So he was very serious about his socialism, the fact that the guy's essentially communist, and he was very serious about his identity politics, the immigrant politics, the racial politics, every group other than white people. He was very serious about that. The silver linings in Mamdani's election are one I did call it. My favorite thing to do in politics is win. My second favorite thing to do is be right. And so we couldn't get the first one, but at least we got the second one here. He was gonna win. It's why I couldn't get behind this big movement to say we all need to go out and endorse Cuomo. We need to vote for Cuomo. You know, I played President Trump, basically leaned into that, and I just didn't think it was really gonna do it. I even tweeted last night before the election results were in. I said, even at this late stage, we're on the brink of having a Muslim communist mayor in New York, and I still can't bring myself to say I'm rooting for Cuomo. I just don't. This guy. Look, I know we were all supposed to say that Cuomo was the moderate in this race relative to the Muslim communist, but the guy lit up Freedom Tower with a light show to celebrate killing babies. Cuomo's a psycho. I don't know. He was a terrible governor, and he would have been a terrible mayor, too. So you're choosing Arsenic or cyanide. Basically looking between Mamdani and Andy Cuomo. The other thing I was right about, though, and you know how much I hate to say I told you so. Everyone is freaking out. When Mamdani was running, they said this. The scariest thing about this guy is that he's a Muslim. I can't believe a Muslim's taking over New York. And I think it is a shame that a Muslim would be mayor of New York, especially for the 25th anniversary of 9 11. But I said, what are you talking about? The fact that he's Muslim is like the best thing about this guy. What are you talking. I said, oh, you think that he's like some jihadi or something? No, no, it's worse than that. He's a cringe millennial socialist. That's the worst part. In some ways, if he took Islam seriously, I could deal with him more easily. Islam and Christendom have a very serious 1400 year conflict and Islam engages in many theological errors. But at least these people believe in God. At least these people grant the existence of a kind of moral order. At least I can speak to these people. I can speak to Muslims in many ways more easily than I can speak to the purple haired, crazy, tatted up, weird piercings, dubious sexuality millennial or zoomer of the kind of atheist Western secularism. So it's not that. And I'll just point out, yeah, he leans into the crazy racial stuff. He leans into the ID politics. He leans into Eugene Debs and socialism. I don't hear him up there quoting Saeed Qutib. You know, I don't hear him up there quoting Osama bin Laden. I think that's probably one of the least significant aspects of his identity. He is a regular run of the mill millennial socialist, which therefore involves some race politics and some religion politics. But it's almost the worst kind of outcome. Now, the way that the left has reacted to his victory tells you a lot about our political moment. And it doesn't only tell you about the left, it tells you about the right. Because Republicans and conservatives have been flailing. They have fecklessly tried to counter the rise of a kind of meme y semi ironic streamer zoomer politics that is typified in people like Nick Fuentes. They've been flailing. I mean, they've just been completely feckless at it. And there's a similar phenomenon going on in the left. We will get to that because I've finally encountered an analysis of it for the first time. In years. That is actually insightful and tells you about our political moment. We'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about Policygenius. Go to policygenius.com knowles we all know that costs have been all over the place. Groceries, gas, subscriptions, you name it. So it's no surprise that we tend to assume everything is more expensive than it actually is. 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Since life insurance is such an important part of financial planning, it helps the policy genius. As the country's leading online insurance marketplace, thousands of five star reviews, it's just fantastic. You need to be able to leave your loved ones a safety net. 20 or $2 million policies for just 53 bucks a month Secure your family's future with Policygenius. Go to policygenius.com knowles Compare life insurance quotes from top companies. See how much you can save. Policygenius.com knowles Hasan Piker being interviewed by BT News but this is being aired on PBS. Hasan Piker is a prominent left wing streamer. He's the one who tortured his dog on camera and who has suggested the assassination of Senator Tom Cotton and who has called for the streets to run red in the blood of capitalists. And so he the New York Times actually published his assassination related musings after the killing of Charlie Kirk. That's pretty pretty shocking in itself. Here is what Hasan Piker had to say about the election of Mamdani. Done. What do you think it means that this guy ran as a socialist and anti communism. Didn't work to stop him. That's big.
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Hasan Piker
Yeah, I think we are in the heart of the imperial core. This is a country that defeated the ussr, unfortunately. And the reality of the matter is there's A lot of antagonism. There's no class consciousness in the United States of America. It's one of the things I try to address every day with my commentary. And I will say this. The conditions have deteriorated so much that everyday Americans insist, spite of their lack of class consciousness, are finally arriving at the conclusion that perhaps there is an alternative out there. There is an alternative that focuses on them as opposed to the interests of the billionaire.
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Michael Knowles
Okay? Even just that last line, finally, people are gonna focus on the working class interest. They're gonna rise up against the interests of the millionaires. That guy is a millionaire. I suspect he's a millionaire many times over. He opens up, he says, you know, this is the country that beat the Soviet Union, unfortunately. And then that girl is interviewing him. She's like, ooh, you're bad. Ooh, ooh. Yeah, we wish the Soviet Union won the Cold War. Yeah. And it's just so fake and stupid. It's so, so lame and fake, and it's total nonsense. This guy would not have lasted five minutes in the Soviet Union, and everyone knows it. You think Hasan Piker is gonna last very long under Stalin? He does look a little weirdly like Stalin, but no, not for five seconds. That guy would have been liquidated in five seconds. Say what you will about the Soviets, Soviets were made of tough stuff, okay? The Soviets weren't, like, giggling on live streams, you know, crying about their dog moving, okay? This is so artificial. It's totally fake. The Zoron victory, the Zoran victory in New York is not distinguished by class. He did very, very well. He won over 50% of the vote. But the features that distinguished his voters from Cuomo or Sliwa's voters, it's not economic class. It's like everything else, but it's not economic class. It's race. It's nationality. It's neighborhood. But weirdly enough, you can't map it onto the poor, beleaguered working class voted for this guy and the plutocrats voted for the other. That really wasn't it. This all brings me to an excellent article by Chris Ruffo. I read it yesterday. You know, I've been on the road constantly. I gave a speech at the Nixon Library a couple days ago. Was filming in LA yesterday for my Prageru Book Club show. Flying back, covering the election returns. I needed something to buoy my spirits. And I read an excellent article by Chris Ruffo on this kind of politics. And he was writing about it from the perspective of the right, and he was analyzing the rise to prominence of people like Nick Fuentes, who the liberal media love to chatter about and. And who even figures on the right are taking the debate about and I think dissipating their energies, especially before election day, and spending a lot of time obsessing over. And every analysis, everything, every drop of ink spilled on this phenomenon has been wasted for about 10 years. I found the whole thing to be completely tedious and totally missing the point until I read Chris Rufo's article, which was excellent. It's in City Journal. Highly recommend you check it out. Rufo's article observes that the reason that the Republicans and the conservatives have been completely feckless about stopping the rise to prominence of people like Nick Fuentes on the right, or I think you could extend this to the kind of politics we're seeing here on the left, Hasan Piker. And the rest of it is because they don't even understand what the phenomenon is. They think that the phenomenon is just politics. And sometimes the neocons rise up, and sometimes the paleocons rise up, and sometimes the libertarians rise up and this candidate is gonna lead the pack. No, maybe this candidate will lead the pack, and that's why we need to win. No, it's not. It isn't that. It is a kind of hyperreal politics. It's a kind of a meta politics. It's a politics about politics. And curiously enough, coincidentally enough, I alluded to this. I touched on this a little bit in an answer to a question at the Nixon Library two nights ago. And then Chris put that observation much more articulately and in a far more comprehensive way in this article. A hyperreal politics is based on some of the thinking of a guy named Baudrillard. We've talked about Baudrillard on the show when we interviewed Wokel Distance, who had this concept of hyper and hyperreality would be like in Wokel Distances example that he used on our show. Said you start out with a strawberry and then you want more of the strawberry. So you make a strawberry jam, but you want it to be even more strawberry. So then you make a strawberry candy, a hard candy, but then you want it to be even more concentrated. So you've got the strawberry Jolly Rancher. Now you make a strawberry Jolly Rancher slushie, and then you make a strawberry Jolly Rancher slushie ice cream or something. And by the end, people really like the strawberry Jolly Rancher slushy ice cream, but it actually doesn't really taste like the strawberry. And if those same people went back and tasted the strawberry. They wouldn't like it. They wouldn't even recognize it. Perhaps that's the process of hyperreality. Baudrillard, very interesting thinker. Wrote a book called the Iraq War Didn't Happen. Anyway, he's great. So anyway, on this phenomenon that you're seeing here on the left, with the commentary of pike, or you're seeing on the right as well, the hyperreal politics, per Chris Ruffo, seeks out taboo, seeks out transgressing all of these standards and norms and taboos in order to elicit a reaction. It's not that Hasan Piker is seriously a Stalinist. He doesn't even really know what that means. He's not seriously a communist. When he talks about how we need to go destroy the millionaires, he would be destroying himself. It's not serious. Same too, on the right. The figures on the right who would call themselves Nazis are not Nazis in any meaningful sense of the word. And Nazism as an ideology is dead and has been dead for 80 years. The very purpose of wielding these symbols is to take something that does have symbolic value and charge and energy and to use that to bait other people to get attention. But as I pointed out in my answer at the Nixon Library the other night, well, everyone all over the right is having arguments about this influencer and this podcaster and this streamer and how this streamer can't talk to this influencer and this podcaster can't. It's all so disconnected from actual practical politics. The fact that a lot of this fight was breaking out two days or one day before election day is kind of hilarious. When I'm asked to weigh in on this, I, intuiting Rufo's thought here, say, like, well, hold on. I just don't even see why I would weigh in on this. This seems kind of frivolous, it seems sort of gossipy even, and it just seems disconnected from actual politics. I said if this actually played a role in the political order, if these people actually could move 10,000 votes in Michigan or something, if this really weighed in on practical political concerns, I would concern myself with it more. But if it's just this kind of entertaining meta politics, hyperreal politics, I might enjoy it as entertainment, I might engage with it that way, but I'm just not gonna treat it the same way as I would if this were actually pertaining to real elections. Really, really brilliant observation from Rufo. Highly recommend you go read the article which he says the way to respond to this is to treat it as, quote, an essentially fraudulent phenomenon and to focus on actions and outcomes, which is my view as well. It doesn't mean that that can't affect the way that we all interact with each other. Obviously it does. But it shows you that this political moment is quite different than political moments of the past. And even the relationship between politics and political analysts is fundamentally different. This isn't Charles Krauthammer going on the news show talking about votes and demographics. There's something different that's changed here. And it's not just on the right, it's on the left as well. And it can be kind of entertaining. It can be, but it's different. You gotta know that it's different. Otherwise the people who are really disturbed by this or who wanna counter it or who, they're just gonna keep spinning their wheels like they continue to do and have been doing for a very long time. So beyond New York, beyond the left and the right kind of meta politics, what happened on election day? We got blown outta the water. More disturbing perhaps than what happened in New York is what happened in Virginia. We'll get to that momentarily. First though, I want to tell you about PureTalk. Go to PureTalk.comKnowles There is a reason, there are many reasons that I am proud to say that PureTalk is my wireless company. Because they don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Especially when it comes to supporting our veterans. 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All right, let's just get through it. Governor race is Abigail Spanberger versus Winsome Sears, the Republican. Spamberger ran away with it last. I didn't even check the numbers this morning. As of last night, I Was following it. They called the race at 42% of votes counted 55 to 45. Wasn't closed last night. Maybe it tightened up over the course of the night. But she won. She was always gonna win. Spanberger infamously refused to withdraw her endorsement from Jay Jones. Jay Jones was that attorney general candidate in Virginia who had text messages come out about him in which he was calling for the murder of a Republican opponent. The opponent's kids said that the Republican opponent was breeding little fascists. Said the kids should die in their mother's arms in order to change the father's view on policy. Said that he would urinate on the graves of Republicans. Said that more cops should die to convince politicians to change cop policy. The guy is just a sick, sick animal. And worse than Spanberger winning while endorsing him is the fact that he won too. He won too. When I was at the Senate, I was testifying before the Senate about a week ago. The most viral exchange from that testimony was sitting there. I was asking Cory Booker, following his commentary, if he would withdraw his endorsement of J. Jones because he said, we have to be introspective. We need to admit when we're wrong. I turned to where Cory was sitting and he was gone. He ran away. He didn't wanna face any questions, didn't wanna engage in anything. He stood by that endorsement and got to hand it to him, it paid off. Not morally. It was deeply immoral. It's very deleterious for the health of our republic. But Jay Jones won. Jay Jones went out and he proved the phenomenon that we all saw after Charlie was murdered. Just Charlie was murdered. And Normie, Democrats from across the prominence spectrum, from elected officials and people on tv, all the way down to that girl you went to third grade with, all of them justified, excused, minimized, or even celebrated Charlie's murder. And we said that this was the second national trauma. The first national trauma was seeing a prominent promoter of civil debate murdered on stage just for engaging graciously. The second national trauma was watching all the Democrats celebrate it. Well, this is the apotheosis of that celebration. Jay Jones comes out, says, I wanna murder Republicans and their kids. And Democrats in Virginia overwhelmingly elected him to be the top law enforcement official in Virginia. Deeply, deeply distressing Mamdani in New York. Obviously, there was a hope that the Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey would win. Didn't happen. Mikey Sherrill ran away with the race, really, in New Jersey. It was a clean sweep. Virginia was the biggest bloodbath. It would just the Democrats in Virginia did a great, great job. Now, what conclusions do we draw from this? We've got to be careful about the conclusions we draw because we don't want to just make excuses and say, republicans didn't do anything wrong here. But we also don't want to draw too many conclusions or the wrong conclusions. It was an off year election. Democrats tend to do better. They tend to do better because they have more effective machines to get people to the polls and have for many, many years. It's just a fact. It's an off year election. After the Republicans had won the White House, that is maybe gonna manage our expectations for the midterms. We were looking historically like we might be doing a little bit better in the midterms. Maybe not now. Maybe this will be a jolt and this will spur Republicans into action to invest more money and time and resources into the midterm elections. We don't know. But it should temper Republicans expectations for the midterms and it should inspire us to get out there and actually go get out the vote. Third thing, it could be, maybe people are concerned about rising prices. Maybe people are concerned grocery prices in particular. Maybe people are concerned about the fundamentals of the economy and the political order. President Trump inherited a very, very bad political situation from Biden. And maybe people need more. We've long said if the economy falters at all, that's going to really mess up the Republicans in the midterms. And potentially in 2028, maybe it says, yikes, all right, we gotta really put the focus on delivering more material improvement for Americans. Could be that would be one introspective aspect. And then there's one conclusion that we have to draw, especially from the J. Jones victory. Democrats, huge numbers of Democrats who are normal Democrats want Republicans dead. They don't just disagree with them on certain matters. And they want us dead. And if we died, they would celebrate and they want our kids dead and they want us dead. And I don't know how you can pay attention to the Democrats since the assassination of Charlie Kirk up to the election of Jay Jones last night and not come to that conclusion. I'm open to it. You know me, man, I'm like, pretty open. And I try to be charitable to my opponents as best I can and give me an alternative explanation. I don't see one. And that's a fact we have to deal with. And the way to deal with that is, yes. In our personal lives, to try to change hearts and minds of the people around us. Absolutely. To work on ourselves, you know, to start with the man in the mirror. But there has to be a political solution, which is there have to be political consequences for publicly calling for the death of your opponents. People need to lose their jobs. People need to be socially ostracized. People need to be prosecuted where it's appropriate because the law is a teacher. And so if you enforce the correct standards, you're gonna get better behavior. And then you're not gonna get people like Jay Jones elected. Cause no one would dare elect him. Silver lining. I told you there'd be a silver lining. And the silver lining is not just that Zarafoui can wear her burlap sack in New York. Again, the silver lining is not. I don't know. There are some people trying to offer. Here's one good one. An analysis just came out from the public polling project conducted by Big Data Poll. Interviewed a Bunch of People October 26 to October 28 this year analyzing Trump 2024 voters and the distinction it has. Here is America first in the Trump sense of that phrase. MAGA, Republican or traditional Republican. Again, these phrases are really slippery because they meant a lot of different things over a really long period of time. But I understand traditional Republican here to be something akin to Mitt Romneyism or George Bushism. America first being a little more maga, a little more Trumpy, a little more what Reagan was in the 80s. Not what Reaganism means today, but what it was in the 80s, the more hardcore stuff, and looks at all Trump 2024 voters and says, okay, well, obviously much more America First MAGA than Bushy Romney. Traditional Republican 51.9% versus something like 35% among all Republican voters. It narrows a little bit. You have more traditional Republicans, fewer America First. That makes sense, obviously, because Trump is bringing in people who are outside of the ordinary traditional Republican framework. So that makes sense. But then something very interesting. We've been told, and I have even believed, that Zoomers are the most right wing cohort. They're the most hardcore, most likely to be maga, most likely to upend the tables of Bushism or Romneyism. Yeah, they're pretty hardcore. 55.3% versus 26% traditional Republican. But you know, the most hardcore right wing generation. Stop the. If you're driving right now, stop. Pull over. Take a deep breath. It's the millennials. It's the Millennials. How weird is that? It's my generation. My generation, which gets beat up all the time, which I beat up all the time because I've always thought of the millennials as Being just kind of cringe, disproportionately like gay, lgbt. Ish. Obama, Bland, progressive. No, baby, we're like, we're to the right of Franco, apparently. Look at this. 30 to 44 year old voters, 63.6% to be America first, MAGA, Trumpy, right wing, versus fewer than the zoomers. Fewer to be traditional. Whatever. Bush, Romney. Okay, then it tightens way up among Gen X and tightens up even more among Boomers. Let's go, baby. This is good stuff. I'll take that. Because the zoomers. The zoomers have youth on us. You know, the zoomers, they've got. In many ways, they seem a little bit more. A little more grounded, but no, Millennials are leading the right wing lurch. I'll take it. I'll take it. It's a nice little. It's a nice little white pill. Is that zoomer lingo or millennial lingo? I don't know. I don't care. Millennials in charge. Millennial patriots are in charge of this country. And I guess that's a good thing. I guess. Okay, now what do you know? What do you know? Minutes after the election. That's not even fair. Just before the election, results were in. Democrats all of a sudden are changing their tune on the shutdown. This may be shocking to some people, but at the Daily Wire, we do not always agree. Friendly Fire is the show where Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Andrew Clavin and I get together to disagree live for the entire Internet to see and comment on what could go wrong. A new episode of Friendly Fire premieres in two weeks on DailyWire. Plus, this time we will also world premiere the official trailer for the Pendragon cycle, the Rise of Merlin, only on friendly fire, November 19, 7pm Eastern on daily Wire. I want to tell you about my favorite comment yesterday from PNWvibes, who says the timing and irony of Dick Cheney dying the same day as a Muslim communist becomes mayor of New York City is not lost on me. You know, that was lost on me. I didn't notice it until you. Until I read your comment. That's a great point. History does have these weird coincidences, doesn't it? The fact that Adams and Jefferson died on the same day and it was the 4th of July, and the fact that it was 50 years right after 1776. It's amazing. These little Winx. And that should be a consolation because people are legitimately upset about these, as they should be. This is not good. This is very bad for the country. It's very Very bad for New York. Very bad for New York. And so we try to lighten the mood a little bit. I posted yesterday, I said, look, okay, unpopular opinion here, but can I say it? Hijabs, they can be tasteful. They can actually be more tasteful than a lot of modern Western clothing. And it's a little bit of a joke. Not totally a joke, though. I like a good mantilla at church. You know, I like if you took out the specific cultural context of how Muslim the hijabs are. I don't know. They can be very tasteful. Modesty is nice. Anyway, I was lightening the mood a little bit, but people are down and they should be down. This is a big disappointment. However, there are these little winks of history. You're using the example of Dick Cheney dying the day a Muslim becomes mayor of New York. That is kind of a weird wink of history. The winks of history, though, even when they occur during bad things, especially when they occur during bad things, are a kind of a consolation because it does remind you that there is an author of history and there actually is providence and there actually is meaning to history, and things do happen for a reason. And I know this is going to be particularly offensive to modern liberal post Enlightenment sensibilities, but the traditional Christian understanding of the political order is that we're grateful when God sends us good leaders. Political leadership is appointed by God. Civil authority is there for our good and does not bear the sword in vain, as scripture tells us. And so we're very grateful when the Lord gives us good political leaders. And we're grateful when the Lord gives us bad political leaders because he gives us bad political leaders to chastise us. And we're grateful for that chastisement because we trust in the Lord. I know it's very difficult for a post revolutionary kind of modern politics to hear that, but it's Christian and it's true, so there's that. Okay, just as the election is wrapping up. What do you know? What do you know? Democrats changed their tone on the government shutdown. It remains a little unclear if the government will reopen. But already yesterday evening you had the headlines, a group of Democrats would like to reopen the government. Chuck Schumer, who had previously been saying, no, no, we're holding the line. We're keeping the government shut down. It's all Republicans fault. They need to come to the table on health care. Chuck Schumer then gives an answer to. I think it was the Hill. He says, oh, we're weighing our options. Yeah, we're weighing. There's a tone shift, which means, again, I hate to say I told you so, but the shutdown was a Hail Mary for Dems. The Democrats knew they were on the wrong side of virtually every 80, 20 issue, certainly almost all the ones that mattered. They own the shutdown. Republicans own the federal government, unified government in all three branches. This was a Hail Mary to say, look, healthcare is our best shot at pushing an issue and government shutdowns are our best tactic. They haven't really worked according to the opinion polls. However, they said, okay, it's before the election. We need to juice our numbers with something. Now the election's over, probably the government reopens relatively quickly. Unless Democrats take from the election night the idea that the shutdown has really worked to juice their numbers. And they say, okay, well, the strategy hadn't seemed to be working so far. Now perhaps it will. And if Republicans hold on because they say no, actually it is more likely being blamed on Dems than on Republicans. There's a way in which I guess this goes on for a little while, but there is no question that the purpose of the shutdown was to juice the Dems numbers before the midterms. And perhaps it worked. Okay, I want to turn to an issue, a more tragic matter. I talked about it a little bit at the end of the show yesterday. But beyond domestic politics, Christians are being very, very seriously persecuted in Nigeria. We've talked about this on the show a number of times. I've posted about it to social media a number of times. Trump is talking about it. Trump posts quote, christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a country of particular concern. This designation with the State Department. But that is the least of it. When Christians or any such group is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria, 31,000 versus 4,476 worldwide. Something must be done. I'm asking Congressman Riley Moore, Riley Moore is great. Together with Chairman Cole, love Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee to immediately look into this matter and report back to me. The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries. We stand ready, willing and able to save our great Christian population around the world. Donald J. Trump President of the United States of America I love this. I love this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is it does vindicate my view of Donald Trump. When Donald Trump says he's America first, some people hear that and they say that means he's an isolationist. That means he's an ardent nationalist. No, I've long said Trump is an imperialist. He recognizes America's role throughout the world and he wants to, in his good judgment, in his practical, prudential judgment, he wants to preserve America's capital, he wants to maintain the world order, he wants to establish peace, he wants to prioritize American citizens over everyone else. But he does care about everyone else and he wants to expand America's reach, which is why he wants to buy Greenland and that's why he wants to invade Canada. And here he says, look, we want to defend our Christians around the world. Our, in two senses of the word, our meaning we, America, are the global hegemon. We're the empire of the world. And so they are in a certain sense our constituents. That's Trump's implication. It's not even just my statement to our we're a Christian country and they're Christians and we have a solidarity with them because of that. Also beautifully accurate. So this got a lot of plaudits, including from Nicki Minaj. Barbs totally vindicated. Nicki Minaj writes. Reading this made me feel a deep sense of gratitude. We live in a country where we can freely worship God. No group should ever be persecuted for practicing their religion. We don't have to share the same beliefs in order for us to respect each other. Numerous countries all around the world are being affected by this horror and it's dangerous to pretend we don't notice. Thank you to the President and his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let's remember to lift them up in prayer. Love takes courage to come out if you're Nicki Minaj and endorse Trump in this way. And it's so beautiful to see her care about this issue and really promote this issue. What is very interesting about this from the analysis of the left and the right and the changing scope of the right, the right loves to be navel gazing and introspective and always trying to figure out exactly where we are is we've heard for many years now that America is sick of forever wars. Fighting wars on behalf of other populations in other countries on the other side of the world don't affect us. We want to focus on the American homeland. Isolation. America first. And yet I think many of those people will cheer this on. President Trump is threatening to intervene even militarily in Nigeria. And I wonder, will people cheer that on? Will the same people who don't want forever wars in the Middle east cheer on a military intervention in Nigeria, because I think they are more likely to do so and I don't think they're hypocrites for it. What you're gonna hear from the neocons and the squishes is you're gonna say, well, you're hypocrites. You care about Nigeria, but you don't care about Syria or whatever. But I don't think they're hypocrites exactly. I'll double down on this with another observation. I've been meaning to talk about this for weeks and I've mentioned it one or two times, but it looks like we're gonna go to war in Venezuela. Looks like there's been a lot of CIA activity in Venezuela. We're blowing up a bunch of drug routes off the coast of Venezuela and only Venezuela. You know, there are drug boats coming from elsewhere, but we're really focused on Venezuela. Regime change in Venezuela has been a priority of the State Department for a long time. And we tried to get rid of Maduro and then he held onto power after that election. And it just looks like we're sick of this Venezuelan regime, which is anti American. There are a lot of good resources in Venezuela. They're doing a lot of things to screw up our country. And so it looks like we might intervene in Venezuela to some degree or the other. And the same question holds all those people who were decrying wars overseas and regime change and all this, will they support this or oppose this? I think even the anti war people are more likely to support a war in Venezuela than they would in the Middle East. I think nature is healing. I think we're basically in the 70s again. We're getting back. We've got socialists running our cities, we have political violence in the streets, we have radical ideologies, we have economic crises. It's the 70s, we're living in the 70s. And we got economic interventions, we got the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon's reputation. We have freezing federal spending. We have anyway a lot of things. Everyone's on drugs. There's institutional distrust, left wing terrorism. It's the 70s. And I think Americans are gonna be more comfortable with military intervention in our own hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine has been a policy of the United States for a very long time. I think even intervention in Nigeria, I think even the anti war folks will be more likely to do it. One, because it's on behalf of Christians who are a Christian country. Two, it's to stop a very serious atrocity. Call it a human rights abuse, I guess, but in ways that are a little clearer cut. Now, again, I don't know. Some people are gonna say, no, keep your Try to use soft power. Don't intervene in really hard ways. But to say we should protect Christians from being wiped out by Muslims is different to saying that we need to topple regimes in the Middle east to install Madisonian democracy. Those are different. A prudent and restrained intervention to protect Christians is different from some kind of liberal crusade to spread the end of history ideology of liberalism. Those are different things. And those substantive differences make a difference. Military intervention within our hemisphere in Venezuela is different from military intervention in Iraq or Syria. They're different. But it reminds us that the politics of intervention or isolation or whatever, that is simply too simplistic. Even the politics of prioritizing American citizens and being the global hegemon, that's too simplistic. Politics is a practical science that requires nuance, subtlety of thought, art. This was the subject of my speech at the Nixon Library, which I think you can get online and you can get on YouTube. This is something that Trump is really, really good at. Every time you try to pin Trump down into some stupid faction or camp or ideology, he slips away from you. And Trump's enemies on the right, and they've been doing this since the Never Trumpers in 2016, his enemies say, that means he's unprincipled. That means he's unsophisticated. That means he doesn't have a finely crafted ideology. No, it means he's a good politician and a good statesman. That's what it means. And conservatives would do well to learn from his prudential, dare I say classical and Aristotelian understanding of politics, beyond all the factual infighting and the ideologues. Okay, now I want to talk about autism, and I want to do it with my friend Leland Vitter. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles K N A W L E S Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Sam.