The Michael Knowles Show – Ep. 1855

"HORRIFIC: Libs Violently Attack Turning Point USA at UC Berkeley"
Date: November 12, 2025
Host: Michael Knowles
Podcast: The Daily Wire

Episode Overview

Michael Knowles provides an in-depth, impassioned commentary on a violent Antifa attack against a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event at UC Berkeley, using it as a springboard to analyze the ongoing political and cultural disorder in America. Knitting together themes of left-wing violence, university dysfunction, failures of law enforcement and administration, and the broader battle for order and virtue in society, Knowles critiques both specific incidents and underlying trends, coming back repeatedly to the need for assertive governmental and societal response.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Antifa Attack on TPUSA at UC Berkeley

[00:31–09:00]

• A TPUSA event at UC Berkeley descended into violence, with Antifa-affiliated groups (specifically “By Any Means Necessary”) attacking conservative students and attendees.
  • “Massive Antifa attack on a TPUSA event leaves attendees bloodied at UC Berkeley…” [00:31]
• Knowles references a long history of similar clashes at Berkeley, including the "Battle of Berkeley" when Ben Shapiro spoke in 2017, requiring $600,000 in security.
• He specifically highlights a Christian attendee, bloodied and reportedly attacked for wearing a cross, who was arrested while the alleged aggressor was initially let go.
  • “A Christian man was there and he was wearing a cross necklace and he was attacked by... a Muslim. And the Muslim rips his cross off and is assaulting the man...Of course the Christian gets arrested.” [03:12]
• Questions are raised around law enforcement’s lack of preparation, especially in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder (allegedly by a leftist) on campus two months prior.
• Knowles identifies the new UC Berkeley police chief as Yogananda Pittman, previously Acting Chief of Capitol Hill Police during January 6th, suggesting a connection between left-wing administrative incompetence and a lack of will to control leftist violence.
  • “The current UC Berkeley chief of police is the former acting Chief of Police for Capitol Hill... Yogananda Pittman.” [05:27]

Notable Quote

“We all want a flourishing society where we can openly debate ideas and deliberate and have self-government. You cannot have a marketplace of ideas...when bandits keep shooting up the marketplace.”
– Michael Knowles [07:10]

2. Government, Law Enforcement, and Higher Education

[06:00–11:00]

• Asserts that Democratic authorities are both unwilling and unable to police their own side.
• Calls for a forceful response: “round up all of the left wing radicals...make a show of them. Not out of vindictiveness...but for the cause of justice.” [08:10]
• Criticizes universities, including prestigious ones like UC Berkeley, as not fulfilling their educational or moral missions.
  • “The universities… are failing at their mission to educate students... to form good citizens...to form the proper morals and habits…” [08:35]
• Argues that federal funding should be contingent on universities upholding order and fulfilling their purpose.
• Draws a pragmatic political line: left-wing campus violence is a “winning issue for Republicans” as Americans are highly concerned with safety and disorder.

Notable Quote

“When you subsidize something, you get more of it. When you punish something, you get less of it. It’s that simple.”
– Michael Knowles [10:13]

3. The Left, Abstract Ideals, and Patriotism

[13:10–19:30]

• Examines a viral clip of leftist streamer Hasan Piker, confessing a lack of patriotism or connection to his country or to anyone in particular.
  • Hasan Piker: “I don’t have any sort of patriotism in my heart for any... yeah, for America, but just in general.” [15:25]
• Knowles uses this to discuss a social science meme about "in-group" and "out-group" preferences: conservatives feel stronger loyalty to those closest to them; liberals’ empathy swells more for distant strangers.
  • “The left loves humanity in the abstract, but they don't seem to love actual humans very much, because charity starts at home.” [17:05]
• Argues for cultivating patriotism and filial piety as natural virtues, emphasizing that love, loyalty, and meaning must be inculcated, especially through education.

Notable Quote

“A major point of education is to form these characters, to reinforce these axioms...to really cultivate those loves, to form the habits that derive from those axioms...”
– Michael Knowles [19:10]

4. Toy Story 5, Childhood, and Technology

[25:20–28:08]

• Reviews the trailer for Toy Story 5, in which toys fear being replaced by an iPad—a symbol for the end of imaginative childhood play.
• Praises the film’s underlying message: overexposure to screens “lobotomizes” kids, stunts development of delight, imagination, and intrinsic joy.
  • “When you put the idiot machine in front of them, they shut up...you mollify them but you halt their education.” [27:08]
• Encourages parents to resist convenience and foster real play and joy for proper development.

Notable Quote

“If you do it long enough, you legitimately lobotomize them for the rest of their lives.”
– Michael Knowles [28:04]

5. Cultural Rot and Political Blindness

[30:42–35:00]

• Critiques Charlotte Jones (Dallas Cowboys co-owner/brand officer) for lauding Bad Bunny (controversial singer) at the Super Bowl, under the guise of “bringing people together,” while ignoring his overt political activism.
  • “I don't think our game is about politics. It's about bringing people together...”—Charlotte Jones [31:25]
• Knowles retorts that left-wing activism is now so normalized that elites don’t regard it as political, exposing cultural and institutional double standards.
  • “This is an example of the left not knowing what it doesn’t know.” [33:13]
• Insists that cultural education—formal and informal—must return to foundational virtues, explicitly rejecting moral relativism.

6. Political Civility, Republican vs. Democrat Dispositions

[38:55–40:00]

• Bill Maher and Cheryl Hines (both Democrats) observe that Republicans have been kinder to them than Democrats, lamenting the growing meanness on the left.
  • Cheryl Hines: “The Republicans have been very kind to me... I can't say that for the Democrats.” [38:55]
  • Maher: "How mean they've become." [39:35]
• Knowles sees this as politically potent, arguing that human beings are social, mimetic creatures who gravitate toward charity, loyalty, and warmth—which the right now exemplifies more than the left.

Notable Quote

“There’s a lot of political power. Do not underestimate how behavior, comportment, style, care, charity can affect a political order. It can shift things overnight.”
– Michael Knowles [39:38]

7. Democrats Flip on Dominion Voting Machines

[44:02–44:31]

• Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D) suddenly expresses distrust in Dominion voting machines, mimicking earlier Republican concerns that led to lawsuits and media purges after 2020.
  • Crockett: “We don't want the Dominion machines...I believe that ally purchased Dominion so that he could potentially play with the machines…” [44:02]
• Knowles seizes on the irony and inconsistency, noting that Democrats now parrot the very arguments they previously denounced, exposing the insecurity and manipulability of digitized voting.

Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “Antifa is just an idea, of course. Some more reporting out of this event…” [03:00]
• “...the administration needs to come down with an iron fist, specifically on Berkeley. They started to do it at Harvard, they need to do it at Berkeley.” [08:10]
• “When you outlaw something and you enforce the law, you get less of it.” [10:55]
• “Charity starts at home. The vice president talked about this...the ordo amoris, the order of love.” [17:39]
• “One thing that government shut down in the elections…for the Democrats is they shifted the conversation away from where it should be, where it had been since the murder of Charlie Kirk, which is on the radical left wing violence.” [12:53]
• “These kinds of behaviors...they get into our bones...because we're memetic, because we imitate the people that we are closest to. Because we're the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” [40:12]
• "If you go to a college like UC Berkeley, you're there for four years. If that's your whole education, you're gonna have a very weak, paltry life." [19:47]
• “When I see a flag touch the ground, I get... uneasy. I feel an anxiety. I have to pick it up.” [19:38]

Thematic Takeaways

• Order and Security: Knowles emphatically calls for real action against leftist violence on campuses, citing both a crisis of safety and the importance of modeling virtue in public life.
• Universities as Battlegrounds: Higher education is depicted as ground zero for culture war—a place both failing in its stated mission and actively undermining moral order.
• Virtue, Patriotism, and Moral Formation: Throughout, Knowles ties debates over violence, education, and technology to the need to foster personal and civic virtue, loyalty, and proper loves, especially from a young age.
• Technology as a Disruptor: From iPads replacing toys to voting machines, Knowles threads technological change as both a symptom and accelerant of social disorder.
• Political Double Standards: Repeatedly illustrates how the left's activism is often invisible to itself, leading to hypocrisy and blindness in cultural governance and political life.

Suggested Listening Timestamps

• Berkeley TPUSA Attack Recap: [00:31–09:00]
• Failures of Law Enforcement, University Critique: [06:00–11:00]
• Hasan Piker and the Psychology of the Left: [15:25–19:30]
• Toy Story 5 and Reflection on Childhood/Technology: [25:20–28:08]
• Super Bowl, Cultural Blindness, Brand Critique: [30:42–35:00]
• Cheryl Hines & Bill Maher on Political Kindness: [38:55–40:00]
• Jasmine Crockett on Dominion Machines: [44:02–44:31]

For listeners seeking a summary: This episode is a vigorous call for restoring order, virtue, and meaning across American society, using the Berkeley incident as both example and warning. Michael Knowles weaves current events, long-standing social science, and personal anecdotes in his characteristically incisive and emphatic tone.