← The Michael Knowles Show
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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
A live streamer best known for walking up to black people on the street and calling them the n word is now facing 56 years in prison after he shot one of his subjects. We will get to what this totally predictable outcome means for late stage political commentary. Then AOC gets more basic history wrong as she calls for civil war against the South. And Gavin Newsom reassures Democrats that that he will refuse to hand over power in the event that a Republican wins
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the California governor's race. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.
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Welcome back to the show. I have the latest argument for the existence of God, the latest evidence of Providence. It comes to us by way of our friend Clavicular who was totally frame mogged in court by a Gigachad judge who was overseeing the proceedings after Clavicular shot an alligator. It sounds really complicated. It's sort of like a mad lib. But if you deny providence after this
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We have to start with Chud the builder. Do you know who Chud the builder is? I did not either. Until about two days ago, my friend. I was having lunch and he said, michael, how have you not followed the latest hot trend of political commentary? There's this guy, Chud the Builder. I think he's based in Nashville, and his whole shtick is that he goes up to black people on the street and calls them the N word. Chud the Builder was apparently arrested for shooting someone in the totally 100% predictable outcome of his antics. Here is Chud the builder in court
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Judge
bond at 1.25 million, based upon the fact of how many people were in the courtyard, were here at the courthouse, and the seriousness of all these felonies and his bond status. Okay?
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Michael Knowles
Yes, sir. So $1.25 million bond, potentially facing 56 years in prison for shooting somebody outside of a courthouse, of all places, or a bunch of other people around, apparently. For those who are not familiar with Mr. The Builder's oeuvre, here is basically every single video that this guy posts.
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Chud the Builder
We got 18 rounds for you. We ain't got nothing else. Don't follow me in my truck. Like, I mean, you're pandering to the N, bro. We already know that's what you're doing. Yeah, you too. Go chimp out.
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Michael Knowles
Now, you watch what you say. Or what?
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Chud the Builder
You want to get maced right now or what? Come on. Come chimp out. Come chimp out. Come on, follow us over here away from the kids. Come on. Come chimp out. That's what I thought. Come chimp out right here, pussy. Look, he didn't. He wanted to start chimping out or what? That's what I thought.
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Michael Knowles
So that. That's every single video. Every single video is he goes up to black people and calls them the N word to their face and then tries to get them to attack him. And then he says, even if they're not doing anything, he says they're chimping out.
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So he compares them to monkeys.
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And then when white people come up and say, hey, man, you probably shouldn't do that, he calls them. He calls the white people a slur for homosexuals. And that's the whole thing. Now, on top of all of this, Chud the Builder apparently posted on Twitter, he said series finale of this show that he does. Series finale is dead. Chimp on the pavement when you monkeys rioting. When I walk free.
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Stay tuned.
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So we now have here a pretty explicit threat to shoot the black people after he calls them the N word. And what happens? What do you know? He shot a black guy. Now he faces 56 years in prison. The guy's a 28 year old. His name is Dalton Etherle. And what interests me most about this is what it says about political commentary. Because I was told this guy is like a political commentator. He's a live streamer. He is a political live streamer. And I guess technically he is, but the whole thing is just calling black people a racial slurpee. And it made me realize that we are now in this hyperreal, totally abstracted version of political commentary, in which the commentary has really nothing to do about basic politics, which is a trend you will notice that I have been observing for months and even years. I mentioned this about the podcast wars, how it all. I guess it's technically political commentary, but none of it has to do with actual politics. You go up to someone, you say, hey, have you seen Chud the Builder? He's the latest political live streamer. You say, oh, really? What policies does he talk about? What candidates does he advocate for? You say, policies, candidates. What are you talking. This is political commentary. It has nothing to do with policies or candidates. This is just the perfectly hyper real baudrillard and distilled version of political commentary so far removed from anything tangible or electoral that, that it's almost unrecognizable. Just as to quote our old friend Local Distance, the strawberry Jolly Rancher Slushie has basically nothing to do with strawberries. And so on the right, I guess this guy's on the right. This is the right wing version of that. You go around and yell racial epithets at people. But it's not just the right that does this. There's a left wing version too. I think the left wing version is Hasan Piker torturing his dog. The left wing version of the decadent, extreme, abstracted concentrate strawberry Jolly Rancher Slushy political commentary is Hasan Piker live streaming for hours a day torturing his dog. And you say, what does that have
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to do with politics?
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What does that have to do with candidates? What does that have to do with policies? You say, nothing. It's just the extreme version. Because for the left, the growing theme was which becomes abstracted from anything tangible is just this rage, the kind of rage, violent wrath that you see reflected in the opinion polls after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, where a huge number of leftists say they would murder their political adversaries no matter how moderate or centrist they are. Same thing goes for this guy on the right, where some people on the right might point out that there are problems of mass migration, say, or not enforcing the law and therefore having crime on the streets. The most abstracted, unjust, crazy version of that is just going up to random
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black people on the street and calling them the N word.
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So you have to trace it throughout history. Originally, there was not really much of any such thing as political commentary per se. You think about early America, who were the political commentators? Who were the live streamers of their day? It was John Jay and James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. It was the Federalist. You had these guys who were writing op EDS in the newspaper defending the Constitution, but these were the guys who were framing the Constitution. These were the statesmen who were building the government. These were politicians. These were guys who'd fought in the Revolutionary War. And then as time went on, you saw, I don't know, some debates again between politicians, Lincoln and Douglas debates. That was the political commentary of the middle 19th century. And then as it goes on, it develops more into a journalism that is a little bit separated from the actual politicians. So in the early to mid 20th century, you had these journalists who were. Maybe they would purport to be neutral. You know, they would say, well, we're reporters reporting on the news, but we're also offering some commentary on what it means. Then this developed into the AM radio era, where the commentators really weren't reporting on the news. They were giving mostly their opinion. Same thing goes for cable news. That developed into podcasts, where the podcasters all of a sudden became their own personalities. People would start to follow the podcasters even more than the politicians. What kind of conservative are you? Oh, I'm a Ben Shapiro conservative. I'm a Tucker Carlson conservative. Neither of those guys actually holds public office. Neither of them actually passes policies. But nevertheless, it was still grounded in something kind of like the political. Then you get into live streamers, you say, what kind of conservative are you? I'm a clavicular conservative. Wait, wait, what? That guy doesn't even care about electoral politics. And now the extreme version is Chud the Builder. It's so decadent, it's so extreme, it's pure entertainment. There's always some entertainment in politics, but this is just pure entertainment.
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Pure provocation, pure wrath or shock or
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scandal or what have you. And the end of it is, in both cases, violence. The end of it is Shud the Builder shoots a guy in the courthouse, or Hasan Piker tortures his dog, or Steven Bonnell destiny, you know, calls for
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the murder of ordinary conservatives in the streets.
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That's the extreme of it. It is a kind of political commentary that has burst through thanks to the impetus of liberalization and thanks to the decadence of our culture, it is totally superseded all the limits of actual politics. So now, now, ironically, the people chimping
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out are the pundits themselves.
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They're the live streamers, they're the commentators who are not commenting on anything real. And probably they should all go to prison. Okay, speaking of hysterics, AOC is calling for civil war. We'll get to that momentarily. First though, I want to tell you about ExpressVPN.
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They will not last. Gather your family. Crack open a cold one. Find out who in your life secretly wishes King George had won. The yes or no? America 250 expansion pack available exclusively@dailywire.com shop pre order now. AOC did not do very well on the America 250 game. She would not succeed at yes or no. She is getting basic facts about American history wrong as she calls for civil war.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)
It is time for the north to pull up to the South. It is time for New York to pull up to Alabama. It is time for all of us to come to Georgia, to Louisiana, to Tennessee, to Mississippi and let them know exactly what they have uncorked with this injustice. They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened because it is not a coincidence. And our whole country must understand that. It was not until voting rights were ratified in this country that we got the Great Society. Because when black Americans have the right to vote, and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are protected, health care gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward.
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Michael Knowles
So the only problem with AOC's historical thesis here is it's totally wrong. You know, when AOC says Americans need to understand, you know, you're about to hear something that is completely contrary to reality and that people don't understand cuz it isn't real. AOC says she begins by pointing out that all this great stuff started to happen only when black people got the
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right to vote, which she says was in the 1960s.
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Now, of course, black people got the right to vote in about 1870, and not only did they get the right to vote in 1870, many of them
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also served in Congress, notably as Republicans.
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But then she makes a very specific claim. She says Americans need to understand that we only got the Great Society.
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The Great Society is the signature legislation of President Johnson, Lyndon Johnson.
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She says, we only got the Great Society. It's no coincidence we only got the Great Society after the Voting Rights Act. I say, okay, well, hold on. I'm not an academic historian, but if memory serves, President Johnson became president in 1963, and then he began to enact the Great Society programs.
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The very first Great Society program was
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ratified in 1964, and then the Voting
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Rights act was passed in 1965.
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So her premise is entirely Wrong. Entirely wrong. Demonstrably false. Wasn't even that long ago. There's no historical debate over this whatsoever. If AOC's thesis is, you need to believe me, because I know, I'm telling you that we only got this one specific program after this one specific law was passed. And you say, well, actually you got it reversed.
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Is totally reversed.
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And based on that premise, she is
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calling for civil war.
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She says we need the north to roll up to the South. We need to head on down there and take over all these states. Why?
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Because in some states, the people have elected Republicans who drew congressional districts that were favorable to Republicans.
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Why?
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Because the U.S. supreme Court shot down racial gerrymandering. And the strongest opinion in that case was written, I will note, by a black guy, Clarence Thomas.
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Why?
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Because in a purple commonwealth, Virginia, the state Supreme Court just shot down the illegal gerrymandering that took place after Democrats deceived voters in a fraudulent ballot referendum.
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Is that why?
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In other words, our constitutional system of
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our democratic republic did something that AOC doesn't like?
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And as a consequence of that, she
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is, I can't say, lying about American history because she's probably just ignorant.
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She probably just doesn't know.
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But telling a falsehood about American history
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and then calling for civil war. Ironic, because this is what the Democrats accuse Trump of doing.
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They say Trump won't give up power.
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Trump's trying to overturn our constitutional system.
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I just had that debate at Dartmouth
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with Mehdi Hasan, the left wing commentator, on whether or not Trump is upholding the Constitution. I'm on one of the most liberal campuses in the country, a liberal Ivy League campus.
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And yet when we just presented the
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facts, guess which side won?
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I won that debate and Mehdi Hasan lost that debate. And really the resolution is what won
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that debate, the resolution that Trump is upholding the Constitution.
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Because even at a super lib campus like Dartmouth in the Ivy League, when you simply present the facts, they're pretty much undeniable. So not only do you have hypocrisy from the Democrats here, not only do you have historical ignorance from the Democrats, you have something very, very dangerous. They're calling to overturn the Constitution and
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declare a civil war.
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And it's not just aoc. Gavin Newsom was just asked about what would happen if in California's gubernatorial election process, if we got to the end of that process and the Republican won, what would happen? Could you imagine a Republican governor of California?
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We haven't seen that in a long time.
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Gavin Newsom says, don't worry. If the people elect a Republican, we
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just won't give up power.
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Gavin Newsom
We all have agencies. We can shape the future. There's still a lot. Look, I've said this before, so I'll repeat it. I don't anticipate this need to be the case, but there is a break the glass scenario. And there's many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats were locked out. And we're gonna do everything to make sure that doesn't happen.
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Michael Knowles
I'll leave it then.
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Yeah, yeah, don't worry.
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There's a break the glass scenario.
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What does break the glass mean?
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That's an emergency scenario in which all the ordinary procedures and rules of engagement are suspended. In which Gavin Newsom says he will get his way.
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Don't worry, don't worry. A Democrat's probably gonna win governor of California. But if somehow a Republican wins, that is if the people elect a Republican,
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don't worry, we're gonna keep controlling all the agencies. We have a break the glass fallback plan and we're not gonna give up power.
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So it's fine, the people can have their stupid, petty little election, but it doesn't matter if the people want Republicans.
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We just, we're gonna effectively remain in office.
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That's what he's saying. Ironic, of course, cuz this is exactly
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what the Democrats accused Trump of doing.
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Trump who left office, who voluntarily left
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office even after a rather dubious election in 2020.
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Every Democrat. Projection.
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Sorry.
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Every Democrat confession is a projection. Projection is a confession. Sorry. And what they're saying is that elections
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in which Republicans win are illegitimate. These are the kinds of people that we're up against.
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Which it's why the Republicans, who are
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a little complacent or who are black pilled and who say, you know, whatever, it doesn't really matter.
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We only got 700,000 formal deportations last year.
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I wanted 800,000. You know, these Republicans, I don't know, I don't really like this war in Iran or whatever. I get it. Like it was some legitimate complaints about the administration. These people who think that we ought
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to let this group back into power,
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this group which openly, brazenly says they will shred the Constitution and do their very best to undermine elections, even when we do win them, they cannot be
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permitted back into power.
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And it's not just one weirdo. It's not just Hasan Piker torturing his dog on Livestream.
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It's all the Democrat candidates campaigning with
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Hasan Piker and it's AOC who's the
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most prominent Democrat in Congress, who is today the leading presidential candidate for the Dems in 2028. And it's also Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, who's the number two presidential
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candidate for the Democrats in 2028.
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The hyperbole, the abstraction, the radicalism that
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you're seeing from the pundit class is also being reflected in the actual elected political class, too. And we cannot allow those people to get back into power.
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So what is the future of the Democrat Party? We have the Democrat candidate for Senate in Texas, James Talarico, who some of
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us have called the gay Pete Buttigieg.
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James Tallarico, who positions himself as the
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true Christian in the race.
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He's a Christian white male, but he's a liberal Democrat.
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And it just so happens that he contradicts basic aspects of Christian teaching.
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Well, there's a big announcement from him. You know, we've called him the gay Pete Buttigieg. Big announcement.
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James Talarico has a girlfriend.
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We'll get to that momentarily.
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shocking political news that I've seen in many years. It has nothing to do with policies. It has everything to do with the fact that the Democrats candidate for Senate
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in Texas has a girlfriend.
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Interviewer
Apparently, the biggest question. Not even close. The most popular question that we got asked is, are you single? Are you single? So you have a girlfriend?
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James Talarico
I do.
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Interviewer
Of many years.
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James Talarico
I do. And she is my rock. She is my best friend. I. I don't know if I could have gotten through the last six months of this crazy race if. If she hadn't been by my side. So. Yeah, thanks for asking about. About her as well.
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Interviewer
Do you want kids one day? What? What do you. What can you share with us about that?
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James Talarico
Well, now you sound like my mom asking when I'm. When I'm going to give her another grandbaby. I definitely do. I definitely do want to have kids one day. You know, it's kind of hard in the middle of this campaign to think, you know, it's not hard the next week ahead.
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Michael Knowles
Yeah, it's not hard at all.
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James Talarico
Certainly hard to think that far in advance, but it's definitely something that I want to do one day.
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Michael Knowles
Oh, yes. Yeah. Oh, yes. Notice he tries to shut the line
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of questioning down immediately.
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Yeah. Do I have a girlfriend? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. I love my girlfriend, Especially her anatomical features. Those are really attractive to me. I love them. What's her name? Oh, her name is. Her name is Penelope. Microphone.
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Yeah, no, that's. She goes to a different school. So that's why you haven't met her before. My girlfriend, who I'm really attracted to, by the way.
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Hubba hubba. Ha ha.
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She goes to a different school in
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Canada, which is why you've never met her. So, anyway, thank you for asking. Please move on now.
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But the podcaster won't move on because she. I don't know, she doesn't get it. She doesn't get what he's putting out. So she says, oh, well, do you want to have kids?
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Oh, yeah.
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Yeah.
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You just imagine instead of James Talarico,
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just imagine this woman is interviewing Oscar
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Wilde, Cole Porter, Noel Coward, and Paul Lind. You say you want to have kids someday. Oh, yes. Yes, I very much do with my longtime girlfriend.
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Hold on.
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Guy running for senate says longtime girlfriend. Red flag. Do we have a red flag on the play?
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Hold on.
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You're an adult man. You're running for senate. You're not in high school.
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You're not in college.
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You're not even just like, some single guy bumming around An American city, working a job. You're running for Senate.
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Why do you have a longtime girlfriend?
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You're no spring chicken. You got gray in your hair.
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Why aren't you getting married?
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Oh, someday. My mom keeps asking, but I just. Just a little longer I want to wait and.
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Do you want to have kids with your girlfriend?
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Sorry. No. It's just really. It's really hard to think about that disgusting act that would lead to my having children. So it's just really hard. I mean, I can't. But someday. Someday I will have children with my very longtime girlfriend who goes to a different school in Canada.
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James Talarico
Hmm.
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Michael Knowles
Not a great answer. Not a great answer. I don't. I don't know. I still.
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I have questions.
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I still.
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Interviewer
Far.
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Michael Knowles
Far be it for me to speculate, but I. I would like to meet
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this girlfriend of tell. I have qu. Why is he not married and with the kids and why. I don't know. Can we go back to Talarico for a second?
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Can you just put him on screen for a second?
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Yeah.
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He parts his hair on the right
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side of his head.
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Hmm.
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Yeah. One of the signs.
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One of the. Anyway, I'm not gonna speculate on anything. Let's get to another Texas politician, a
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much better Texas politician.
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That would be Brandon Gill. Our pal, Brandon Gill, one of the rising superstars in Congress.
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Brandon Gill was just questioning a high school student who was testifying before Congress on a very strange fact at his
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school in Texas, the school library has
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a Quran in the library, but not a Bible.
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Interviewer
Is it true that your school's libraries offer Islamic literature like the Quran and other things?
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Student
Yes. So McMillan Junior High in Washington, Wiley ISD, offers a Quran, but no Bible available.
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Interviewer
But no Bible. So there's a Quran, but the Bible's not allowed?
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Student
Correct.
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Interviewer
Is that true? In multiple libraries?
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Student
From what I know. Confirmed, it's McMillan Junior High is one that I know of.
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Michael Knowles
Junior high. Not even high school.
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Student
I'll send them to you if I find any other findings.
- [29:13]
Interviewer
Okay. Have you talked to the school about why they would allow a Quran but not a Bible?
- [29:19]
Student
So I don't. I haven't. That the principals actually run away from me and hide. So I can't have a discussion with my principals because I act like an adult and they act like children.
- [29:28]
Interviewer
Yeah, you very much are acting like an adult. They probably don't want to be on the record with that policy, given how egregious it is.
- [29:38]
Michael Knowles
So, first of all, first comment. Brandon Gill is so good at this. The other one I've Noticed.
- [29:44]
Who's really, really good at this?
- [29:45]
I noticed it in my own Senate
- [29:46]
testimony six months ago is Josh Hawley.
- [29:50]
He's just got it nailed down. The straight face, the perfectly probing leading questions, the great little zingers at the end of it.
- [29:59]
Yes, you absolutely are acting like an adult given how absolutely egregious their policy is. Just perfect. Very well done. Straight outta central casting, Brandon Gill is killing it.
- [30:08]
And on the substance here, I'm really
- [30:10]
glad that Congressman Gill is calling this to our attention. Why would a school library, a middle school library, have a Quran in Texas have a Quran but not a Bible?
- [30:25]
I'm trying to think of the most steel man charitable argument, you could say. Well, you know, in the Bible there's
- [30:29]
a lot of violence.
- [30:31]
Have you ever read the Quran? Yeah, there's a little bit of violence. I read the Quran at age 14, and the reason I read the Quran, I don't think I made it all
- [30:38]
the way through, but I read a lot of the quran at age 14.
- [30:40]
And the reason I did it, I went to my library, I got the
- [30:43]
Quran, probably ended up on a list. I read the Quran because my teachers and the news were telling me that Islam was a religion of peace.
- [30:51]
And even at 13, 14, I remember
- [30:54]
9, 11 pretty well. Grew up in New York.
- [30:56]
I remember thinking, that doesn't seem right. I'm a little skeptical. Color me skeptical. So I read it and it's not all that peaceful. I mean, there are some peaceful passages,
- [31:06]
but it's kind of a fever dream of contradictions and shallow religion.
- [31:11]
And so, you know, there are lines
- [31:12]
about hacking at the necks of the Jews and the Christians and things like that while they pray.
- [31:16]
And so it can't be that the violence is it that the Bible includes weird sex stuff? Which it does.
- [31:23]
It condemns the weird sex stuff. But there's still some weird sex stuff. There's like incest and stuff that happens.
- [31:28]
But again, if you're talking about weird sex stuff, Islam not only expresses a
- [31:36]
lot of that and depicts a lot of that in the Quran. But Islam is a particularly carnal religion
- [31:41]
in which even the conception of paradise
- [31:43]
is not spiritual, it's carnal.
- [31:45]
The Christian conception of paradise is that we will go up to see the
- [31:50]
beatific vision face to face with our Lord as spirit. The Islamic conception of paradise is you go and have sex with a bunch of virgins. So even that is very carnal.
- [32:02]
So I don't see any excuse other than the current political order is anti Christian.
- [32:09]
It pretends to be indifferent to Religion, it pretends to be neutral and secular, but it is not in fact neutral or indifferent. It is specifically hostile to Christianity and it is encouraging of every other kind of religion. And that's how political orders really work. Because there's no such thing as a neutral political order. Because politics has to encourage some things and discourage other things. Because the basic charge of politics is that good is to be pursued and evil is to be avoided. That's what it comes down to. Because politics is about the common good.
- [32:49]
A civil law is an ordinance of
- [32:51]
reason for the common good by him who has care of the community and promulgated. That's what it is. So you can't avoid conclusions and enforcement of what is good and what is bad. And neutrality, supposed neutrality in a Christian society means nothing other than discouraging our religion, Christianity, and thereby encouraging all of the others. That's what it means.
- [33:18]
Racial neutrality and affirmative action was just about punishing the majority population, the white
- [33:24]
people, and promoting all the other people, with the weird exception of Asians sometimes, and sometimes Jews. That's all this can possibly mean.
- [33:34]
So really good depiction from Brandon Gill here.
- [33:37]
Really shocking testimony from the student. Great student. You can see that the administrators running away from him.
- [33:44]
Total role reversal. The grownups acting like children, the children acting like grownups.
- [33:50]
And it's in Texas. So for the people who say, can't happen here.
- [33:54]
Oh, come on. This is still, this is a Christian nation. We're not.
- [33:59]
Don't worry about the fears of rising other religions, notably Islam.
- [34:03]
Nah, it can't happen. Maybe it happens in Europe, maybe it happens in the uk, but it can't happen here.
- [34:08]
Guys, we're talking about not just the promotion of Islam, the suppression of Christianity in a middle school in America, it's happening in Texas.
- [34:16]
Okay, speaking of schools, what seems like good news but might actually be kind of bad news? After we reached peak college admittance, after
- [34:26]
we reached peak college cost, colleges now cost what? About $100,000 per year to attend. The year after I graduated high school, you had the highest number of students going on to college. I think it was 70% or something. And the colleges who are indoctrinating people largely into radically false, not to say anti American sort of teaching, the colleges are collapsing. Right now, UVM is noting a 15% drop in its freshman class.
- [34:56]
So part of me wants to say, awesome, great, don't threaten me with a good time. But the reason that's happening is quite
- [35:03]
scary for our country. We'll get to that in a second.
- [35:04]
First, I did not pick the comment today. I told Mr. Davies to do so.
- [35:08]
We'll see if he picked a good one. This is from EdwinJ5205 who says Trump, you wanna screw up the universities?
- [35:15]
Me?
- [35:15]
Yes, more than almost anything. Wow.
- [35:16]
Oh my goodness.
- [35:17]
That was, was that providential? That was an amazingly picked comment given the story we're about to talk about.
- [35:23]
Big story. UVM projects 15% drop in freshman class
- [35:28]
and therefore faces a $12 million deficit
- [35:31]
because the schools are spending based on
- [35:33]
their projections of the class at least remaining the same if not growing. The costs of going to these schools, even the state schools are really, really high right now. So when 15% fewer students show up, you're going to face a major deficit.
- [35:48]
A big drop in enrollment.
- [35:50]
University of Vermont is causing financial concerns with undergraduate enrollment down 7% and the incoming first year students for next fall projected to come up 15% short of last year. Okay, so you say this is great, right?
- [36:02]
Finally these schools, people are waking up. They're not going to send their kids to get indoctrinated. And they've spent 18 years raising their kids to be good children and citizens
- [36:14]
and grow in virtue and morality.
- [36:16]
And then they go to these schools for four years. It screws them up and turns them all into liberal lesbian trannies. Good, that's stick it to the schools. They're not gonna show up anymore.
- [36:25]
I don't think that's actually what's going on.
- [36:26]
I think the reason that this is
- [36:28]
happening right now is much more simply explained by the fact that people stopped having babies after 2007.
- [36:38]
That's what really happened. We've had a below replacement birth rate
- [36:45]
since or roughly about a below replacement birth rate since 1971. So this is a 50 year trend, 55 year trend now.
- [36:52]
But 2007 was the last peak since 1971. You can see the effects of decadence and prosperous societies.
- [37:02]
2007, right before the global financial crisis, you had the peak and the peak there was 2.12. That was the birth rate replacement is 2.1.
- [37:10]
So you got just a little hair above replacement. Very, very briefly. It was a blip and then it started to crater afterwards.
- [37:16]
By 2020, the birth rate was 1.64. So couples certainly not replacing themselves.
- [37:22]
Now it ticked up a little bit
- [37:23]
again, but it's at 1.79, still safely below replacement. That's why 2007. Now we're fast forwarding to 2026 and the fact that people stopped having kids, the birth rate went way, way down, means that there are Gonna be fewer kids who can go to these universities. So that's a bad indicator.
- [37:44]
It'd be one thing if all of the people with a stable birth rate
- [37:47]
or a growing birth rate just decided, you know what, we're gonna pursue alternative education opportunities. We're gonna send our kids to Hillsdale
- [37:53]
and Ave Maria and Franciscan and Liberty and Thomas Aquinas College. And, you know, they're gonna pick the schools that are really solid.
- [38:02]
But that's not what's going on. It's just that we're not having kids. And so that fiscal crisis that you're seeing at the schools, 15 million, sorry, $12 million deficit, you're gonna see that throughout the society. And we don't wanna only measure society by money. You're gonna see this coming up all sorts of places in terms of skills, in terms of national defense, in terms of social solidarity. It's crumbling. The key.
- [38:27]
This is a Pyrrhic victory.
- [38:29]
Yes, yes, we've damaged the universities only because we're going extinct.
- [38:35]
It's the point I made last week that celebrating that there was a steep
- [38:39]
decline in peanut allergies in Nagasaki in 1945. Technically true.
- [38:44]
Technically it's true. But the cost was not worth the benefit.
- [38:49]
Now, speaking of the good old days, a feel good story. There is an entrepreneur in middle America who is buying up Pizza Hut franchises. Pizza Hut franchises, which are now clinical and sterile with that millennial drab gray prison architecture where you just go in and out, get your pizza, you don't sit down, you don't enjoy anything. You wouldn't want to even if you could. He's replacing them with the glorious Pizza Hut scheme of the thriving 90s.
- [39:22]
Tim Sparks
In the hills of Tunkanock, Pennsylvania. A familiar red roof catches the eye inside the vinyl booths, Tiffany style lamps and yes, the salad bar you may remember from decades ago.
- [39:34]
Unnamed Speaker (Pizza Hut Franchisee or Employee)
I mean, it's amazing. The comments we have about.
- [39:37]
Michael Knowles
They have the red cups. Yes, we do.
- [39:40]
Tim Sparks
Tim Sparks got his start working at a Pizza Hut that looked like this. He's now president of Dalen Corporation, which owns this franchise and more than 80 others around the country. They've redecorated many restaurants to rewind the clock. It looks exactly like the one that I remember from when I was a kid.
- [39:57]
Unnamed Speaker (Pizza Hut Franchisee or Employee)
Yeah, that's what we were after.
- [39:59]
Tim Sparks
Some Pizza Hut classics are now top performing locations. Customers show up for a piece of their childhood.
- [40:05]
Unnamed Speaker (Pizza Hut Franchisee or Employee)
People come from two and three hours away, and I'm not making that up. If we can get them in here as a family, they do tend to Put their phones down and actually have conversations and speak with each other. I'm not gonna tell you I know how to fix the world, but I do think that family is a good place to start.
- [40:21]
Michael Knowles
I love this. And not just for the nostalgia.
- [40:24]
People are gonna look at this and
- [40:25]
say, yeah, well, it's because the millennials
- [40:27]
are middle aged now, so they're nostalgic for their childhood. And this guy is basically playing into their nostalgia by remaking chain pizza places to look like they remember when they were kids.
- [40:38]
And everyone thinks that the era in
- [40:40]
which they were raised was great. But because childhood is a time of innocence and play and a lack of responsibility. And so as we get older, people die, you take on more responsibilities. So we say nostalgia is history after a few drinks.
- [40:54]
If this were just about nostalgia, I
- [40:56]
wouldn't care about it.
- [40:58]
It's not like Pizza Hut.
- [40:59]
Pizza is the pinnacle of pizza.
- [41:00]
I'll tell you, back in the day,
- [41:02]
it was all right as far as chain pizza goes. It was all right. And I'm a New Yorker, okay? And so I take my pizza very seriously.
- [41:07]
But it was for chain pizza.
- [41:09]
It was pretty good.
- [41:09]
But more than that, you get to
- [41:12]
what the old Pizza Hut meant, which
- [41:13]
was you could go out, you could
- [41:16]
take your family out for a dinner
- [41:18]
at a place that was pretty nice. It had those nice cool lamps and they had a very good salad bar. You could go and take your family
- [41:24]
out to dinner for not very much money. And it was pleasant. And the point wasn't even the food. The food, which was perfectly fine, but the point was to go out to dinner to break bread. This is the central social act in human society, is breaking bread together.
- [41:42]
This is indeed the Blessed Sacrament in
- [41:44]
Christianity is a representation of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary that is instituted at the Last Supper. So this is a central act. And the fact that we don't have dinner together anymore is a sign of and a great predictor of social decay and collapse. You can't have a society if people aren't having dinner together.
- [42:09]
But where do you take your family out to dinner?
- [42:10]
Now, I was lamenting this a few weeks ago. My kids have never been to a McDonald's. They've been to Chick Fil A. They've been to. What's the one in California? Not Shake Shack. Well, I can't believe I'm from In N Out. They've been to In N Out, which just came to Tennessee, which are kind of pleasant in store dining experiences. But McDonald's is not the same. McDonald's of 30 years ago. McDonald's used to be kind of nice.
- [42:31]
You'd sit there, there was a little play court and a little ball pit
- [42:34]
and all just homeless people and illegal aliens. When you can even sit inside because there are very few people even working inside because we just put our orders in at robots and take them out. And so what this guy is offering
- [42:46]
is he's saying, hey, we can go
- [42:48]
back not just for nostalgic purposes, but
- [42:51]
because there was a key aspect of
- [42:54]
society that has broken down. And I'm gonna do my small part into restoring that, which is getting people to put the phones down, go out, be able to afford dinner together, actually sit down, converse, grow as a family.
- [43:05]
That's crucial. And what I love about this is you can do that, you can do that.
- [43:11]
It's possible. We don't need to just throw our hands up in doom and gloom and despair, despair, which is a sin, and say, well, that's gone and we'll never get it back again and it's all over, so might as well just doom, scroll, plug my head into the matrix and play video games for the rest of my life. We were talking last week about how teen drinking is down, and that's actually bad. It's not down because of the rise of temperance, down because teens aren't socializing
- [43:34]
anymore, and that's bad. But you can do things to change that. We are not like the left, prisoners
- [43:43]
to our ideology of the inevitable science and progress of history. We can recognize that some things used to be worse and now they're better, and that's good.
- [43:50]
But some things used to be better and now they're worse. And we should go back to the good thing. You can do it. You can go out and buy the
- [43:56]
lamps at Pizza Hut. You can go to Pizza Hut at least if you live in Pennsylvania.
- [44:00]
Okay, before we go
- [44:03]
talk about Providence, talk about the existence of God.
- [44:06]
It's funny, I've mentioned Clavicular on the
- [44:08]
show now like twice in the last month, but it was a big interview when we. I wasn't totally certain it would be
- [44:14]
a big interview, but it ended up
- [44:15]
being a big interview when we sat down with clavicular, the looksmaxing then teenager. Now he's a 20 year old who
- [44:22]
has appeared in court because he livestreamed
- [44:25]
himself shooting an alligator in the head. And that's a crime in Florida. So he gets dragged into court for this.
- [44:30]
And that actually has nothing to do
- [44:32]
with the meaning of the story. The judge who was presiding was a total gigachad. Looks Maxer, who ironically mogged Clavicular, two
- [44:47]
News Reporter
social media streamers accused of firing a gun in the Everglades during a live stream. They have now pleaded no contest to the charges. Andrew Morales, known online as Cuban Tarzan, and Braden Peters, who goes by Clavicular, they were each charged with crazy dis.
- [45:02]
Michael Knowles
It's totally nuts. If you're only listening to the show right now, you just have to take my word for it. Look, most judges, when you see, especially
- [45:09]
these lower level kind of judges for these offenses, like shooting an alligator in Florida, most of these judges, you know, they're not supermodels, okay?
- [45:17]
A lot of them are like middle
- [45:18]
aged women who don't, they haven't, you know, they don't totally have their act together.
- [45:23]
This judge could be an Abercrombie and Fitch model. This judge, total, I don't think he smashed himself in the head with hammers during law school because, you know, he's kept up the iq. He obviously passed the bar, became a judge. But this guy, he looks good, okay? Got a little bit, A little scruff a little. And the reason that it matters is
- [45:45]
because if you're one of these people who doubts the existence of God, if you're one of these people who doubts the providential unfolding of history, how do you explain that? How do you explain that Clavicular, whose
- [45:56]
whole shtick is that you need to
- [45:57]
look really, really good so that you can mog people because looks are really all that matters and so you can ignore your schoolwork, you can commit crimes, you can be kind of a jerk sometimes to people. It doesn't matter if you really, really look good. That's all that matters.
- [46:13]
What are the odds that this guy would walk into the courtroom of the one gigachad judge in the entire country? Probably. I don't wanna sound like gay about this, but this is probably the best looking judge that has ever passed the bar in the United States. What are the odds? The odds are infinitesimal. It's like when people make the argument for God based on the cosmological argument, fine tuning. The idea that if any one of the single measures of, of the cosmos were just slightly off the earth, or maybe the whole cosmos would be uninhabitable,
- [46:52]
totally hostile to life.
- [46:53]
But because every single thing is fine
- [46:55]
tuned so perfectly, we get to live and think and dream and argue and converse and interpret the world. If you're not persuaded by Thomas Aquinas five ways, if you're not persuaded by the ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury if you're not persuaded by any of the arguments that have come since, explain to me the Gigachad judge who is handing down the sentence to the looks max and clavicular. Explain that to me. You cannot. And so you should go to church. The rest of the show continues now. It's Music Monday. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code knowlescanawles at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.