← The Michael Knowles Show
The Michael Knowles Show
Ep. 1978 - Election Results Prove Trump Is Still the King Of The Party
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This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers. Support the American farmers and ranchers this grilling season by going to goodranchers.com using code knowles k w l a s get free meat in every order and $100 off your first three orders when you start a subscription plan. Libertarian star Thomas Massie goes down in the Kentucky GOP Congressional primary alongside Brad Raffensperger in the Georgia gubernatorial primary. This on the heels of Bill Cassidy in the Louisiana Senate primary, as well as well as five state legislators in Indiana. What did all the losing candidates have in common? Was it ideology, libertarians or neocons or traditionalists? Or was it some particular issue or other immigration, taxes, foreign policy? Was it opposition to Israel? No. All those things definitely factored into the races around the country. But only one thing united all of the losing candidates in the recent elections, and that is that Trump wanted them out. And he got what he wanted in every single case. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. Horrific shooting at a mosque in San Diego. There's a lot of misinformation about that going around social media. It was a couple of neo Nazi teenagers who did it. But the details are even weirder the more that you look into them. Okay, biggest story in the right wing political world today. Thomas Massie goes down in Kentucky. This was a pretty big one. And I thought he was gonna lose. I thought he was gonna lose for a few reasons that we'll get into momentarily. But the main reason I thought he was going to lose. Yesterday morning, friend of mine here at the Daily Wire came into my office, said, michael, do you think Massie's gonna lose? I'm one of the more electoral politics interested people around these parts. Worked on some campaigns. I like the horse race. I like the machinations of politics. So anyway, they were, they said, do you think Massie's gonna lose? And I said, yes. He said, why? I said, because he's acting like he's gonna lose. His recent comments, his recent attitude toward the press, toward the gop, toward the president. I thought, this is a guy who looks like he is setting up the next step, whether that means he's gonna run for president in 2028, whether that means that he is going to do what every single white man in America under the age of 75 does, which is start a podcast. I said, it looks to me like, like he is preparing to lose. And that is what happened. He went down. It was not particularly close. It was a nine point swing. So he was Right on the brink of a double digit loss. And the moment that is going viral from Massie's concession is when he walks out and takes one last shot at the people he now views to be his chief political adversaries. I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede and it took a while to find Ed Gowran in Tel Aviv. I did get the call through, though. I have, I have called and conceded the race. We've been honorable the whole time and we're going to stay that way. I love this contrast. He comes out, he goes, hey, yeah, my, my opponent who won is a dirty rotten sellout controlled by the dastardly Jews over in the Middle East. But listen, we want to keep it classy, you know, we want to, to conduct ourselves at dignity here. And look, in Massey's defense, a lot of pro Israel donors did dump a lot of money into this race. Massie has increasingly made opposition to Israel and the funding of Israel a big part of his campaign. Though the situation is complicated because one of Massey's big donors is a big pro Israel guy. He's a pro Israel billionaire, Jeff Yass. So even that is a little bit strange. But obviously the way that Massey is viewing this is that he was taken out of the race by pro Israel forces. Now, even there, you say, well, is it okay for pro Israel donors to dump a lot of money into a race? And I'd say, well, big politics attracts big money. I mean, that's a facet of American politics. But I think that, well, obviously Massie and a lot of his supporters are gonna put all the blame here on, on the pro Israel forces. And I don't think that quite explains it, especially within the context of the other races that occurred last night and within the context of the race that happened last Saturday, and within the context of the race in Indiana that occurred just a few weeks ago, it seems to me that there were other forces at play. And here's my evidence of this. Had Massey opposed Israel, but voted on the crucial votes that Trump wanted him to vote on, on the big beautiful bill, or even, I don't know, in the House speaker election or even on this thing or that thing, had he done that, I think that Trump would have continued to back him because Massie comes from the libertarian wing of the party, but he had a lot of cred with conservatives and Trump had previously endorsed him. So it seems to me this is the hypothetical you have to ask yourself, had Massey voted for the big beautiful bill, which is the Signature piece of legislation that Trump wanted this year. Had Massey not increasingly voted against the party. You know, his record on voting with the party two terms ago was 95%. Then last term it was 91%. This term it's been 77.7%, which is way below the median GOP congressman who is still at 95%. Had Massie done all of that and still said, look, I don't want to support Israel, I don't want to fund Israel, they're plenty of GOP congressmen who voted against funding bills for Israel. The question you have to ask yourself is, if that were all the case, but he were still anti Israel, would Massie have his seat today? And I think the inescapable conclusion is, yes, he would. Obviously that was a factor in the race, but I think Trump would have still backed him. Cuz then you look at the other candidates who went down, including last night, like Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, Israel was not the issue in that race. The 2020 election was the issue in that race where Raffensperger became a darling of the left because he was positioning himself as the man upholding the Constitution against the predations of that awful, terrible autocrat, Donald Trump. And he went down, and he went down real hard. You look at Bill Cassidy. The issue in that race wasn't Israel, wasn't even really the 2020 election. Trump felt he was unreliable and that he had opposed him too much. You look at the Indiana state legislators who went down. Trump went after five of those state legislators. He took them all out. That issue was redistricting. That had nothing to do with foreign policy or the big beautiful bill or the 2020 election. So the only common thread that you're looking at here is opposition to Trump, which is why this was my prediction. Well, yesterday certainly, and in the days before that, I said, the question that this election's gonna answer, this election's really gonna be a referendum on whether or not Trump still has control of the gop. And I said, if Massey goes down, it's gonna be evidence chiefly that Trump still has an ironclad grip on the GOP, which is pretty impressive. Look, Trump took over the GOP 10 years ago, a little over 10 years. It was really when he was coming down that escalator, 2015, that was a hostile takeover of the GOP. The business class hated him. The policy wonk, bowtie think tank class of the conservative movement hated him. The conservative media hated him. Everybody hated him. And he took over the party 10 years later, now almost Halfway through his second term, when he should be a lame duck, he is still flexing his muscles. So all of these candidates, Massey, Cassidy, the state legislators, Raffensperger, they're all gonna blame some issue or other. But in the context of all of them going down, I don't see how you can deny that the chief issue here is that they put themselves in opposition to Trump, some of them increasingly. So, I mean, Massie, you can love Massie. You can say he had a great voting record, at least until relatively recently. You could say he had a great voting record even. Even up through the present. But the thing you can't deny is they put themselves increasingly, in the case of Massie, in opposition to Trump, and Trump took them out, which means this is still Trump's party, and that's going to have massive consequences. So the partisans, the supporters of the people who went down last night, Massie being the most prominent of them, but all the others, too, what they are going to argue now is, okay, well, Trump won the battle, but he's gonna lose the war because he took out all of our good candidates in the primaries. But now we're gonna be in an even worse spot in the general election. Now, in some of these cases, I don't think that's true. I mean, I think in this district in Kentucky, nobody seriously thinks it's gonna go to a Democrat, but we'll get to the Texas Senate race in a second because Trump just made a fairly shocking endorsement. He endorsed the challenger, who has some PR problems, against the incumbent, John Cornyn. So all these guys, maybe Raffensperger, maybe in Indiana, they're gonna say, well, okay, you took out our good candidates in the primaries. Now we're gonna be in an even worse spot in the general election. I don't buy that, really. But that's gonna be their argument. They're gonna say, Trump, maybe he shrunk the political coalition, he's alienating the libertarians, he's alienating the moderates, he's alienating this, that, and the other thing, they're all gonna make those arguments. But what you can't say is that Trump isn't still the chief influence. And then the other consequence that this is gonna have, not just necessarily for the midterm elections, but looking at 2028, is, it is now clearer than it has ever been, that barring some global financial crisis, barring entry into World War Three, barring Trump's approval within the GOP just collapsing, which obviously it has not, the 2028 nominee is gonna be picked by Donald Trump. That's it. That's how it's gonna go. Barring some massive change and two years, two and a half years, a long time. Barring some massive change, Trump is going to pick the nominee, which helps to explain another thing that we'll hopefully get to today if we have time, which is the ways in which the vice president, J.D. vance, who's the heir apparent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's also very prominent in the Trump administration and who's getting a lot of plaudits from the conservative movement that's going to dictate how they are going to run against each other or by all evidence, in tandem with one another. It's about Trump. It's still about trump. I remember 10 years ago, at the beginning of this whole journey, people kept trying to make the argument. They say, it's really not about Trump. It's about this issue. It's about immigration. It's really not about Trump. It's about foreign policy. It's really not about Trump. It's about this, that or the other thing. And I think the inescapable conclusion from the standpoint of just nuts and bolts electoral politics is, no, it really is about Trump. It really is. It actually is about Trump. This guy is an American original sui generis. He's just. He's the guy. Maybe a world historic figure that remains to be seen in the history books, but he is the guy. And he won last night. You can be furious at that. You can think he made bad endorsements. You can. You can pull your hair out and rent your garments, but he won. He got exactly what he wanted in every single one of these races. And the way he got it is that the voters gave him what he wanted. The Republican primary voters, the base of the party, gave him what he wanted. And so for the people who got these predictions wrong, forget about their desires, just the people who got these predictions wrong, I think what you have to conclude is they do not have a good sense of where the actual GOP is. They're confusing the GOP for a social media platform. They're confusing the GOP for podcasts. They're confusing the GOP for cable news, for that matter. But those are different things. This is a reaffirmation amid a time of some confusion that there actually is a distinction between hardcore on the ground politics and the political media and the podcasts and social media and the pundit class, and on and on and on. Okay, now, I mentioned that very contentious Senate race in Texas. Huge, big risky move Trump made last night. Trump has endorsed the Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, who has some kind of personal scandals and bad PR over the incumbent, John Cornyn. We'll get to what that means in a moment. First though, I want to tell you about good Ranchers. Go to goodranchers.com, use code KNOWLES K N A W L E s Most people don't realize this, but a huge percentage of the grass fed beef sold in the United States is imported from overseas. 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She said, Mac, can you grill me up a good rancher steak? And I did it. And then I had envy cause I wanted that steak for myself. Start your plan today. You get free meat included in every order plus 100 bucks off your first three orders with code KNOWLES. Go to goodranchers.com, use code KNOWLES at checkout. Free meat with every order and $100 off your first three orders. When you start your subscription plan this month, only if you just want to try it out, you get 40 bucks off your first order with code KNOWLES. K A W L e s Instead, Trump comes out one of these very, very lengthy truth social posts. I won't read the whole thing, says the highly respected Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, an America first patriot and someone who's always been extremely loyal to me in our amazing MAGA movement is running for U.S. senate to represent a place I love. And I won big three times with 6.4 million votes in 2024. The most votes in history of the state by far. I'm the Man, I'm the man. I know Ken well, have seen him tested. He's a winner. So he goes on about how great he is. We're gonna make America bigger, better, stronger than ever before. Then he goes on and he says, look, I like the incumbent, John Cornyn. We've gotten along, but he's voted against me too many times. He's opposed me too many times. He hasn't been a strong enough supporter. And so I'm going with Paxton. For those who have not followed this race all that closely, this is an unbelievable political coup by Ken Paxton. Once again, when I'm analyzing primaries, I've tried to, in my role here as a political analyst, conservative pundit, I've tried to be a little bit objective. Even if I might have a preference for this candidate or that candidate, I've tried to be a little bit objective to try to understand what is going on with the nuts and bolts of the party. I always try to do that in the primaries, obviously not in the general elections. You know, I'm on our side. I'm not on the Democrat side. But in the primaries, I'm trying to see exactly what's going on here. And this was an amazing political coup because all of the scuttlebutt coming out of the White House was that Trump was gonna endorse Cornyn. Cornyn is a little more moderate, a little more centrist, a little more diplomatic in his speech, a little. He's opposed to president sometimes, and he was gonna go with him because we just need that reliable incumbent vote in the Senate. Ken Paxton's got this bad PR because of some personal scandals. And so, you know, that was too risky. Even if the base likes Paxton more than they like Cornyn, you know, Trump was gonna play the safe bet here. That was all the scuttlebutt coming out of the White House. And then Ken Paxton did something amazing. Paxton comes out and he says, hey, I'm going to drop out of the Texas Senate primary. I'll just drop out of the race if my opponent, John Cornyn, and the Senate leadership abolish the filibuster, to pass the Save America Act. The Save America act, which requires voter ID to prove that you're actually a citizen if you're gonna vote. Very simple. He says, look, I'll drop out of the race. This isn't about me. This is about the issue. This is about the people. This is about the sovereignty of our country. So I'll tell you what. I'll drop out of the race if Cornyn, my opponent and the Senate leadership blow up the filibuster to pass this bill. That's an 8020 issue, more than an 8020 issue. The vast majority of Americans across every demographic think we should have voter id. That's his chess move. He goes, okay, now it's your turn. Where are you gonna move? And it was so beautiful, because as Paxton was on the brink of losing, he says, hey, if you just support the president's agenda, I'll back out. It was such a dare. It was such a risky move because Cornyn and the Senate leadership wouldn't do it. Because of that, all of a sudden, Paxton has positioned himself to say, look, I'm the Trump guy. And, hey, Trump, these guys that you're about to endorse, they won't do what needs to be done to pass one of the most basic aspects of your. Of your agenda, one of the easiest political wins. Now, abolishing the filibuster is not an easy political win, but the Save America act, that's an easy political win. And what he was essentially saying to Trump is, hey, you're gonna back this guy? This guy won't do the bare minimum to support your agenda. Why would you ever back him in the primary? And it worked. Just even take out the substance of the Save America act and take just. The political machinations here were so brilliant. This was an. Regardless, if you like Cornyn, if you like Paxton, probably more people like Paxton in the conservative base, but regardless of what you think about them, this was an absolute political masterstroke. He ripped that endorsement right out of John Cornyn's hands. Trump was on the brink of handing him over the endorsement, and Ken Paxton comes in there like the roadrunner and just rips it right out of his hands. And it worked. Cornyn, now he's reeling from this. It's hard to see how he comes back from it. There's still a chance. There's still a chance that the voters in Texas buck the President's endorsement. But after this record, Massie Cassidy, the Raffensperger in Georgia, the five legislators in Indiana, it's hard to see how that actually happens, especially because Trump's playing on all these different issues. It's not just one. It's not just the 2020 election or Israel or redistricting or this or that. He's playing on all of them, and he's winning on all of them. It looks like a kill shot to Cornyn's reelection chances. It's a very gutsy endorsement. And who knows, there is a chance the kind of establishment Republicans are saying, well, Paxton's got too much baggage. And now James Tallarico, who we call the Gay Pete Buttigieg. Now, he's gonna win in Texas. I'm not convinced of that. They say this every year. They always say, oh, Beto o', Rourke, he's gonna flip Texas purple. He's gonna flip Texas blue. Who was the next one there was that Colin Allred, the guy ran against Ted Cruz, the football player who wanted to put boys in girls sports. Allred's gonna beat Cruz. Oh, this is it. This is the one. And it never really seems to happen. And so I think Paxton could win against Talarico. I think Talarico is a paper tiger. I think he's right. Now, Talarico, he's getting the Beto treatment. He's getting the Buttigieg treatment. The political media are building him up to be something more than he is. They see the nuts and bolts on paper. They say, well, you know, we have this problem because our whole party is so woke and full of DEI and radical, and the voters hate us. Well, I know what we'll do. We'll just run an ordinary looking white guy, ostensibly straight, and, oh, here's the cherry on top. He says he's a Christian. That'll fool him. James Tallarico, whose statements are much closer to what you'd expect from the Antichrist than they are from Christ. Total subversion of Christian teaching every step of the way when it comes to life, when it comes to gender, when it comes to marriage, so on and so forth. So I think Cornyn would beat Talarico, I think Paxton would beat Talarico. Very, very gutsy move. Okay, enough of the inside baseball. Let's get back to the libs. We'll get to that momentarily because one of the most disgusting statements I've ever heard from the left on the point of political violence. And this one does not involve Trump. This one does not involve Charlie Kirk, which is where we've seen most of the calls for political violence on the left. This one is just more evidence to add to the pile that the left, if they get back into power, want to kill you. We'll get to that momentarily. First, I want to tell you about Hillsdale. Go to Hillsdale. 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I love it. The trailer is absolutely killer. I care about this subject, obviously, cause I'm an American and also in part cause two of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution. And one of them, the son, Simon Knowles, fought throughout the entire revolution, largely under George Washington. This revolutionary America movie really, really brings it to life. It's just magnificent at a time when history is often distorted. Go check out what really happened right now. You do not want to miss it. Go see this on the big screen. Go to Hillsdale. Edu Revolution. It's Only in theaters May 31st through June 2nd. Hillsdale. Edu Revolution. Find a local theater. Buy tickets now for Revolutionary America. One more time, Hillsdale. Eduardo, you remember Brian Thompson. He was that United Healthcare CEO who was murdered in cold blood by Luigi. Luigi Mangione. And then the left, a lot of the left rallied to Luigi's defense. Brian Thompson, not a politician, not passing policies. He was an executive at one of the health insurance companies and he was murdered in cold blood. And a lot of the left came out and said he had it coming. Well, here are some, some Luigi Stans. Here are some classic demo of the party. Millennial women, liberal women, describing how it was such a good thing that Thompson was murdered. I said what? I said, I don't give a. His children are better off without him. They need to learn to not be like their dad and enjoy the bloodman kids. Was that. What was that? I didn't get that. What you said. I'm standing on business, Brian Thompson. I don't give a flag. So by the way, that first woman who's speaking, she has a press pass. So this is a journalist. This isn't just a random activist though. There's really no difference on the left anyway. She says, yeah, I said what? I said, yeah, I don't care about this guy. I don't care that he got murdered. And then that other woman, even worse. Can you imagine this she said, yeah, his kids are better off without him. Maybe it's just because I have little kids now. And in politics now, all conservatives have a target on our backs, quite demonstrably. That is about the worst thing I've ever heard anybody say. That is about the most repulsive, vomit inducing thing I have ever heard anybody say. This guy, this business executive, this just like ordinary business executive was murdered in cold blood. He's got little kids who are going to have to grow up without their father. And with the knowledge that their father was murdered, taken from them, and with the knowledge that a lot of the mainstream left supported that or excused that or dismissed that. And these kids, when they're crying themselves to sleep every single night, these kids who are going to have massive trauma for the rest of their lives, are told by relatively ordinary women, not just the fringe, that it's actually good that their dad was murdered. It's good. It's good for them. That's as horrible a thing as you can possibly imagine. And it's not abnormal. I guess the part that makes it even more horrible is it's not abnormal. I'm trying to think of the most charitable view I can take of these women. And the most charitable view I can possibly take is. Is to blame it on the SSRIs. That's the most charitable view. Because these women, just statistically, these women in particular are probably all on SSRIs, all on these psych drugs. Cause these liberal women are totally nuts. And the way that we deal with that now is not telling them no. And it's not trying to help them. And it's not trying to point them to things that will be helpful to them. It's just we drug them. And part of the SSRIs is that they blunt emotion and they basically turn liberal women into psychopaths. So much so that these women, one some activist chick, one a member of the press, what's the difference? Say, oh, yeah, I'm glad. I'm really glad that those kids had their dad murdered. I'm really glad. It's good for them. Enjoy the blood money, kids, the ads. Blood money. The guy ran an insurance company. And I know some people don't like insurance companies. Y' all buy insurance, though, and you like insurance companies when they pay out and it's just a business, you don't want there to be insurance. Should there not be insurance now? Look, there's some companies we don't like, but some companies are kind of annoying. We complain when the doctor's office Makes us wait too long in the waiting room. We don't like going to the dentist either. Okay, but we don't want to get rid of dentists. So you say, hey, kids, I'm glad your dad got murdered. And also you kids, you are doing something immoral. Enjoy the blood money. Just kicking little orphans. Little kid orphans. That's what the left is doing. And look, this relates to what we were talking about just moments ago on the primaries. There are a lot of people who love Thomas Massie. I've liked Thomas Massie over the years. I don't know, I've liked a lot of things he's done. I don't love the turn he's taken recently, especially in opposition to the president. But okay, whatever. You know, libertarians, they're always. Look, we love our libertarian friends. They're kind of annoying sometimes. You know, they gotta be the sole vote against something, and they don't really accomplish all that much in politics. And sometimes they kind of preen and puff themselves up, but whatever. Libertarians are an important part of the conservative coalition. But I love Thomas Massie compared to all of these libs, all of these Democrats, or let's take a totally different kind of Republican, Brad Raffensperger. Yeah, he's kind of annoying, and he went kind of squishy. And he appealed to the liberal media. And okay, sure, I love Brad Raffensperger. Brad Raffensberger is Charles Martel to me, compared to the Democrats or the five guys in Indiana or Bill Cassidy or what have you. The real fight here, the real fight is against the left. The left which wants to kill you and then wants to mock your kids when you're dead. That's the fight, okay? And so the gop, we have squabbles. We have fights. That's why we have primary contests. We are much more intellectually and ideologically diverse than the left. The left, which is uniformly progressive. And we duke it out. And I can tell you 10 ways till Sunday how awful the neocons are. I've said that many times. The neocons, the radical interventionists who are liberal imperialists, really. Alternately, how the libertarians are super annoying and misunderstand human nature. Alternately, how the business Republicans sell out the country because they encourage mass migration. Alternately, on and on and on and on and on. I can give you all sorts of reasons why these random Republicans irritate me. Those are primary squabbles. And then we need unity. And a lot of what Trump is demonstrating last night, whether your candidate won or your candidate Lost. What he is demonstrating is he wants unity within the party. And unity is a good thing. Some people come out and they say in a petulant and dare I say, childish way, they'll say why? I don't want a guy who's gonna go along with the party. I want people who are independent, maverick, who buck the party, who. Yeah, okay, maybe, occasionally, maybe. Unity is a virtue. Unity is a virtue. You want to take this all the way down to the level of religion. In the Nicene Creed, which all Christians should recite and most Christians do recite. There are four marks of the Church. One, holy, Catholic and apostolic. And the first mark of the church is unity. Unity is a good thing in your own family. Do you want unity or do you want division? Do you want anarchy? Do you want people constantly at odds with each other? Do you want everything to be some bare knuckle brawl and debate over what gonna have for dinner tonight? Or do you want unity within your family? Do you want unity within your polity? Do you want unity on a sports team? On a sports team? Do you want everybody just out for their own? And when the shortstop disagrees with the catcher, the shortstop's gonna do what he wants to do and the catcher's gonna do what he wants to do. No. Cause then your team loses. Unity is very important. You wanna be moving in the right direction, you want the right strategy, you want the right manager making the right calls, you want all those things and you can disagree over that and you can kind of duke it out, but you need unity. Because not to put too fine a point on it, the mainstream left wants to kill you and then mock your children when you're dead. Keep your priorities straight, okay? Now, speaking of violence, this horrific shooting at a mosque in San Diego, this happened a couple of days ago. I killed three people. A security guard was killed, apparently the security guard and a father of eight. This guy, Amin Abdullah. A father of eight. Imagine what a great country would be if everyone were having eight kids. This guy, he, according to police, prevented more deaths, but he was killed. Eight kids gonna grow up without a father. Along with a grocery store owner and another guy. They were all killed. They were killed by two teenagers. The guys who killed him were teenagers and they were apparently neo Nazis. So what we know details are still coming out, but they were wearing swastikas and the Sonnenrad, which is another neo Nazi symbol. But what gets especially weird here is I'm not gonna say their names, but one of the neo Nazis has a Hispanic name which you Don't, I don't know. I don't think Hitler would have been all that welcoming of some Quechua speaking indigenous from Latin America. It's kind of odd to have a non white neo Nazi. And then the other kid, I think these guys were like 17 years old. One of them, I guess he was a white guy. There were some rumors going around that one of them is kind of trans, but I don't see a lot of support for that. Did they have long hair then? The way that he did his hair, it kind of seemed like he wasn't even totally white. But maybe he is white. I don't know. What. Just like we were talking about in the races last night over the past couple weeks, what is the unifying thing here? What helps to explain what really motivated them? Well, the obvious symbols they're wearing are the Neo Nazi symbols. You say, okay, they're these extremely radical right wing Nazis, but according to their social media posts and diaries or all of their writing, they really hated the Jews. But then they attacked a mosque. That's kind of strange. That doesn't make total sense. They were Neo Nazis. One of them at least wasn't white. They wanted to start a race war, I guess. The guys killed themselves in the car. The parents of one of the shooters called in, said my kid is suicidal. So was it a suicide pact, what was it? The clearest thing that I can see is that these guys spent all of their lives online. We don't know very much about the Hispanic named killer, but one of the guys, I won't say his full name, but his first name is Cain. And this is kind of significant. We say noman est omen, you know, the name of this guy who commits the primordial murder. Cain, who murders Abel, his name is Cain and he apparently attended high school online. So some of the reporting was, oh, he was just about to graduate high school, but he wasn't going to a high school. All these kind of shooter kids are usually loners and weirdos, but this guy wasn't even attending the high school, he was doing it online. And when you look at the real radical ideologies, the violent ideologies on the left and on the right, seems to me the common thread is always that this grows up online. And as a country increasingly lives in the virtual world, you're gonna get a lot more disorder, a lot more dysfunction. Dangerous too. We were talking, I think it was last week, about how high school kids are drinking less and people are celebrating that. But I said it's actually a Bad thing. You don't want the high school kids to be drinking less because what that signifies is not that they're less prone to vice. What that signifies is they're socializing less. In any case, very, very sad story. So obviously we should pray for the people who died. We should pray that there's not a rise in vigilante violence or the spread of radical ideologies. But I think the core of this is we need to pray that we stop being a virtual society. A virtual society in which we ignore, obviously, the bonds of charity that unite us to our neighbors, but in which we begin to live in virtual reality in ways that are contrary to reality. Chris Ruffo wrote a good piece in City Journal, this was a couple months ago now, in which he pointed out that Neo Nazism, like Nazism as an ideology, is not a living ideology. It's dead. Nazism was destroyed in the 1940s. And so it's not that people can't call themselves Nazis or it's certainly not that people can't oppose others of being Nazis. They do that all the time. If you're slightly to the right of Zoran Lamdani, you're called a Nazi these days. But. But it doesn't really mean what it would have meant in the 1940s. It's kind of a hyperreal ideology. There's a lot of incoherence between what these teen shooters were writing and what they were actually committing, what they seem to have accomplished, what they were getting at. Was it homicidal? Was it suicidal? Was it anti Jewish, was it anti Muslim? Are they Nazis or are they non white or what the. Well, just to bring it full circle, how do you have a non white Neo Nazi? You only have a non white Neo Nazi in a world in which the body no longer really matters to identity. A theme that we've talked about through the rise of the transgender ideology. A theme that we've talked about through the rise of looksmaxing. The theme that we've talked about through the decline of socializing among teens and 20somethings. You can only have a non white Neo Nazi in a world in which the body doesn't matter as much, in which your identity can be totally divorced from your physical reality, which will always lead to disorder and ultimately to a kind of a suicide, which is literally what you get at the San Diego shooting. Okay, speaking of trends among the various generations, really disturbing viral video that people think is cute. A viral trend of millennials who don't have kids bragging about all of their fancy travel. There's a lot more to say first though. Go to CatholicVote.org America250 I will be at the Zeal for America 250 rally this June. This is a uniquely Catholic moment to come together, pray for our nation and mark America's 250th birthday with real purpose. I will be there with Raymond Cardinal Burke, his Eminence and a strong lineup of speakers for a full day of faith conversation and celebration. It is not to be missed. If you are in or around Wisconsin, you need to get there Saturday, June 13th at the La Crosse center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. If you are within driving distance, I encourage you to make the trip. Bring your family, bring your friends. Do not wait. Get your tickets right now. This is gonna be a big, big event. Get your tickets@catholicvote.org america250 on some nicer news, it's America's 250th birthday. America's turning 250 years old. To celebrate the quarter millennium of the greatest country that we all love so much, I am thrilled to announce the limited edition America 250 expansion pack for the Daily Wire's bestselling game yes or no Pre order right now@dailywire.com Shop over 120 brand new cards covering the great American debate. Was the Civil War about slavery? Should Greenland be the 51st state? Was Truman right to drop the nuke? I have my answers. I want to know yours. Pre order now@dailywire.com shop this is a limited release. These will only be available this year. America's 250th. You have to secure yours now because they will not last. And it's really beautiful. It looks really really nice. The yes or no? America 250 expansion pack is available exclusively@dailywire.com Shop pre order now. I did not pick the comment yesterday. I had the producers do it. Let's see if they did. Well, this is from magamag4547 who says has Panda Express responded to this event? If not, I think they need to be boycotted. I wonder. Yeah, corporate. I don't know if they have responded to this event and I'm not opposed to a boycott. Mostly because Panda Express isn't that good. If this were Arby's Heaven forfend it would never be. It would never be Arby's kicking out right wingers. But if it were, I would be more loath to boycott them cause their food is so delicious. But Panda Express. I could give up Panda Express. That's fine. Okay. Speaking of trends, a couple of millennials who just look the most millennial you could possibly imagine. They have gone viral on TikTok. For this little demonstration. People ask them, when are you two having kids? Here's their answer. They point to a stack of books, picture books of them traveling everywhere. Japan, Indonesia, Paris. Look at them. They're taking pictures on balconies, and they took a big picture of their paella. Look at all the tasty, exotic food that they got when they traveled to Costa Rica. Of course, you can get all of this food in virtually any American city now. But no, look at how. Look, why would you want to have kids when you could take a picture on another beach? This is the most millennial TikTok. Some are calling it the most millennial TikTok that has ever been published. Every generation has its inclinations and its vices and its virtues. So you think of the Greatest Generation. That's the name Tom Brokaw gave to the generation that lived through the Depression and fought World War II. And you say, okay, what typifies the Greatest Generation? What were they after? What motivated them? What inspired them? What did they want? And the thing that defines that generation, and it's the reason Brokaw called them the Greatest Generation, is sacrifice. Some sacrifices that were foisted upon them without their consent, like the Great Depression And World War II, I guess you would say. But in some cases, they volunteered. They signed up to fight in World War II. They were a generation that really prioritized and valued sacrifice. After them, you get the Silent Generation. That's Joe Biden's generation and the Silent Generation. What defines them? Basically nothing. That's why they're called the Silent Generation. They were a kind of keep your head down generation. They wanted safety, they wanted security, they supported institutions. They weren't too radical. Kind of like Joe Biden. He was brought along by the radicalism of his party, but he was never the avant garde of that. And he didn't really believe anything. And he would just kind of go along with where his party went because he was an institutional man. Worked in the Senate for 750 years, and then he ended up being vice president and president, and nothing he did really mattered because he didn't have any particular vision, but he was a guy who just wanted to defend institutions, have safety, security. Okay, what about the boomers? The thing the boomers were after is material wealth. This is why the boomers don't understand the millennials. So you don't want a car you don't want a house. This is crazy. We need to get a big house. We gotta get a nice car and lots of cars. And the boomers, who were forged initially in the cultural revolution of the 1960s, they really came of age in the 80s. And there. That's when they became yuppies. That's where they started pursuing material wealth as goals. Okay? And the millennials want experiences. That's what the millennials want. And they say, this is better than the boomers. You know, your car is gonna rust, your house is gonna fall apart. But these experiences, man, they're irreplaceable. That's what I want. I don't need fancy stuff. So in a way, the millennial view is an improvement over the boomer view. The millennial view was that we want these things that are unique, that can only be had by me, that are immaterial. They're not really immaterial. Cause all these trips are very expensive. But they're immaterial in the sense that we just have these memories that we build together. We live really exciting lives. Now. The Zoomers, I think, are defined by a desire for authenticity. That's what they want. They don't really care as much about experiences. They don't go out and socialize. They don't really care about material wealth. They're not getting their driver's licenses. They don't want to buy a car. They don't want to buy a house. They're kind of dropping out of society. They're sort of loners. But what they want is authenticity. They want to be most truly themselves. And if my authentic life is just chilling on my own, I'm going to do that. If my most authentic life is pretending to be the opposite sex, if I think that's really, truly me, I'm going to do that. Divorced of material consequences. You see that on the gender ideology and eschewing physical goods. But also even divorced from experiences socializing, going somewhere. It's really, really all just about me, me, me, me, me. Gen Alpha. I don't know. They're still pretty young. But let's zoom in on the millennials here, because they think that this is a virtue. Every generation, in a way, seeks to correct what they perceive to be the downsides of the previous generation and do something that they view as better. Obviously, that's what they want. And it's why I don't even get all into the, okay, Boomer down on the boomer kind of talk. I was on Tucker's show whenever it was almost A year ago now, and he gave me a layup question. He goes, michael, are you as down on the boomers as everybody is? I said, not really. I mean, the boomers made horrible choices, and in some ways, they ruined the country. But they're my parents. I like my parents. I don't. I'm not into intergenerational warfare. I like tradition. If I had to pick a lane of conservatism, I'm probably closest to a traditionalist. So I like that. And, you know, we want to correct the vices of the previous generation. Okay, fine. But when you see the silent generation looking at the greatest generation, saying, we don't want upheaval, There was way too much upheaval with their generation. We want security. The boomers saying, you guys were too safe. We want expressive individualism. We want cultural revolution. We want to get a lot of material wealth. We want all this stuff. Millennials, I forgot about Gen X, because the totally forgotten generation, Gen X probably wants flexibility. They want to just be kind of cool, go with the flow. They want flexibility. They're the least defined generation. But the millennials are wrong here, too. Millennials say, okay, I want an immaterial experience. I want an immaterial good, which is an experience. But they don't. They don't want the real immaterial good. The real immaterial good is spiritual. It's religion, ultimately. That's what all of the generations since we got kicked out of the Garden of Eden till the end of time, that's the one thing that they're all gonna kind of be lacking. If they try to replace the ultimate good, who is God, the summum bonum, with anything else. They're gonna lean and say, I want something a little more immaterial. But they don't quite get to the spiritual reality. I want something that is, you know, that builds, that grows. Kind of like the boomers, you know, I want stuff, okay, but the stuff is going to rust. I want sacrifice, okay, but the sacrifice has to be for something good. And it can be for your family. It can be for your country. But ultimately, the only sacrifice that's ultimately going to be sanctifying is a sacrifice that unites yourself to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. They all miss it a little bit. And now we make fun of the millennials because they miss it. And the real sad thing for them is they have given up kids. They've largely given up having kids. To bring it full circle, they say, we don't want to have kids so that we can go to brunch, have that experience, and then go travel to Cabo. And we're going to have that experience. And I say I travel all the time. I travel all the time. I've been to a lot of places around the world and I really like it. A week of travel in the most exotic location is not worth five minutes with your kids, even when your kids are kind of annoying. It's just a sublimity that is very difficult to express. And to give that up for experiences is not just a mistake that they'll come to regret. It is a social suicide. Okay, so much more to get to. So much more to get to. Luke Rosiak. Daily Wire's Luke Rosiak absolutely killed. It just destroyed an Ohio liberal lawmaker on this fraud issue with facts and logic. We'll have to get to that tomorrow. We'll have to get to the dynamic in Washington tomorrow because today is work from on Wednesday. And I once again forgot I'm once again asking for your moral support because I forgot to assign work from on Wednesday. So we'll see what the producers have planned for the member room segmentum, which continues now become a member use code knowleskandawles at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.