The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1252 - Creepy Porn Made The Matrix Director Transgender

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

North Carolina’s Democrat governor declares a state of emergency after Republicans offer students a choice in education, the LA Dodgers reinvite sacrilegious drag queens to jiggle around the ballpark, and a new presidential candidate enters the race. Ep.1252 - - -  Click here to join the member exclusive portion of my show: https://utm.io/ueSEl - - -  DailyWire+: Get 30% of your DailyWire+ membership with code TRUTH: https://bit.ly/3VhjaTs Become a DailyWire+ member to gain access to movies, shows, documentaries, and more: https://bit.ly/3lfVtwK  Pre-order your Jeremy's Chocolate here: https://bit.ly/3EQeVag  - - -  Today’s Sponsors: Ramp - Get $250 when you join Ramp: http://ramp.com/knowles  Genucel - 70% off the Most Popular Package + FREE SHIPPING + Free Spa Essentials at https://genucel.com/knowles - - - Socials: Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3RwKpq6  Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3BqZLXA  Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eEmwyg  Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3L273Ek  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Democrat governor of North Carolina has declared a state of emergency. No, there wasn't any natural disaster. No, terrorists have not set off a dirty bomb. No, no, for Democrats, something far worse occurred. Republican legislators are offering to let North Carolinians choose where to send their kids to school. I'm declaring this state of emergency because you need to know what's happening. If you care about public schools in North Carolina, it's time to take immediate action and tell them to stop the damage that will set back our schools for a generation.

Here's what's happening in the next few weeks. Their private school voucher scheme will pour your tax money into private schools. Oh no! here's what's going to happen in the next few weeks. Their scheme is going to let you send your kid to good schools instead of the bad schools that you're currently forced to send your kids to. The horror! Still, though, that state of emergency declaration seems a little bit odd since nearly 70, 70% of North Carolinians support school choice. Also a little bit odd since the bill has been passed by the people's duly elected representatives who ran for office on school choice. But the oddest part of the

declaration is that Governor Cooper sends his own kids to private school. You know those awful, evil, terrible, unaccountable private schools that you should definitely not send your kids to? He sends his kids to them. That's kind of weird. But this is an emergency to the Democrat political agenda. For liberals, control over the schools, constitutes the foundation of their power. It's the furthest reaching power base they've got. It's a generational power base. They know that if students have a choice to receive a decent education, the kind of education that Governor Cooper's children, for instance, are able to receive, then they'll be less likely to fall for the deceits of the power mad politicians who want to keep

all the privileges for themselves. I'm Michael Knowles. It's the Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. We need a state of emergency. Pretty soon, if we don't stop this, your kids might be allowed to go to school with my kids. We can't have that. My fancy kids got to go to the school that none of you Hoy-Peloi go to. Oh, okay.

All right, governor. Keep up that state of emergency. That's not even the craziest story of the day. We do have coming up a longtime left-wing therapist who made an important observation about wokenness. and the secular salvation for white people's souls. We'll get to that eccentric idea in just a little bit. First, though, huge fight over sports and I guess education,

and I guess the whole way our society views itself. This out of my old home, Gomorrah by the sea, Los Angeles, I was just back there to do some shoots for my Prager You Book Club show. and before I left for California, there was a big hubbub because there's a pro-drag group that is very anti-Christian, specifically anti-Catholic, but broadly, very sacrilegious. It's called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. And this group exists to mock Christianity, mock religious orders, mock our Lord, and mock virtue and pervert all of it into sin and make fun of religious people.

Okay. So they were going to be honored at Dodger Stadium as, part of Pride Month festivities in the middle of June. And there was naturally an outcry over this. This was extremely offensive. And so then the LA Dodgers said, okay, we're not going to invite this degenerate group to the middle of the stadium to honor them in the middle of June. And then there was an outcry from the pro-LGB group. And so the Dodgers have come back and they said, okay, we're re-inviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the LA Dodgers,

Rogers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The LA Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the sisters, members of the LGBTQ plus community, and their friends and families. We've asked the sisters of perpetual indulgence to take their place on the field at our 10th annual LGBTQ Pride Night on June 16th. We're pleased to share that they've agreed to receive the gratitude of our collective communities. Wait for this. For the life-saving work that they have done tirelessly for decades. Life-saving work. So jiggling around for drunk, drug-addled weirdos. That's life-saving work. Mocking Christianity and engaging in extremely

perverse burlesques and cabaret acts, that is life-saving work. Meanwhile, you've got actual Catholic nuns who are literally saving people's lives, taking care of little babies, taking care of the elderly, taking care of the sick. They're never going to get their night at Dodgers Stadium. Not going to happen. But the weird sex troupe that mocks those nuns, they get honored for their life-saving work. And then you got the Dodgers logo there in the rainbow flag, the rainbow flag, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the most dangerous hate symbol in the country. Here are all about all these hate symbols, you know. These are very offensive symbols.

We've got to run away from the hate symbols. To me, nothing tells me that you are on the wrong side of things, quite like that pride flag. The pride flag represents pride is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, and now these maniacs are honoring a group of anti-Catholic, anti-religious perverts. Now, what's the takeaway from this? Well, I guess the takeaway is that the L.A. Dodgers have become L. Gay Dodgers, am I right? But if I had to find any deeper meaning in all of this, the meaning is this. The Dodgers have to pick between actual religious sisters and the sisters of perpetual indulgence, these dudes jiggling around, making fun of Christ. They have to choose one of those things.

Because if they invite this drag troop, they're going to offend the Christians. If they disinvite the drag troop, they're going to offend the sexual revolutionaries and the libs. They have to pick one. And the Dodgers said, okay, we're going to offend the Christians. Who cares about the Christians? We don't like the Christians. So we're going to side with the sexual revolutionaries and all the libs. In the short term, they probably made the right choice because that is where the powerful people in our culture are.

That's the camp that they reside in. So they say, okay, we're going to pick the politically correct one. We're going to pick the side of ESG. We're going to pick the side of the liberal establishment. We're going to pick the side of the media and the colleges and all the rest of it. In the long run, I think they picked the wrong side. In the, let's say, eternal run, I think they definitely picked the wrong side here. But they do have to pick a side.

And the squishes who want to say, well, we'll just be neutral about all this. You can't be neutral. Either the sacrilegious drag queens get invited to the baseball stadium, the public place, this central public place built in part with taxpayer money for the sports and the games, which always have a patriotic public role in any society. Either the drag queens get invited to the center of the field or they don't. Either the Christians get to set the norms or the weirdos get to set the norms. There are lots of different kinds of weirdos, but in particular the lib sexual revolutionary weirdos. But someone's going to set them. Somebody is going to set them. Somebody is going to

them. I would rather it be the people who are in favor of the good, the true, and the beautiful, but that's not the way the culture is looking right now. You want to simplify your culture? Do you want to simplify your business finances? Well, you've got to check out Ramp. Right now, go to ramp.com slash NOLS. Are you looking for a better way to simplify your business finances across expenses, vendor payments, and accounting? If so, Ramp could be a complete game changer for your business. Ramp has a corporate card and expense management software designed to help you save time and money. With RAMP, you can issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. Ramps accounting software automatically collects receipts and categorizes your expenses in real time so you don't have to.

The time he'll save each month on employee expenses will allow you to close your books eight times faster. Businesses that use Ramp, see an average of 3.5% within the first year. Ramp is easy to use. You get started in less than 15 minutes, whether you have five employees. or 5,000. Right now, at $250 when you join Ramp. Go to ramp.com slash NOLS, R-A-M-P-com slash NOLS, K&WLES. Cards issued by Sutton Bank and Celtic Bank members FDIC terms and conditions apply. Speaking of transvestites, so I got in trouble a few weeks ago for pointing out, or even just hosting a woman for an interview who pointed out that pornography is turning. a lot of people trans and media matters, my publicists over there mocked me for this and

criticized me for this. And a lot of liberals have mocked and criticized this idea that pornography, addiction to pornography, increasingly weird pornography, is largely responsible for turning lots of otherwise basically normal people trans. And I wrote a little song to remind you, choice hotels, get you more of the experiences you value. The can be a hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar, have a ball. Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom. Book direct at choiceotails.com. I, you know, I hate to say I told you so.

The two guys who made The Matrix, the Wichowski brothers, they both went trans. It was kind of strange that two brothers around the same time would go trans. There's a video now circulating. It's been dug up of one of the Wachowski brothers, Andy Wichowski, explaining that I'm totally right. To be honest, like for me, the people that I saw, the first images that really struck a chord with me were, you know, trans women and pornography. And there was something that unlocked in my brain that I saw these wonderful, fearless performers becoming these, becoming desirable.

and I in my head I could take the leap where I felt like well if I could be desirable then maybe I could be loved and for me that's like one of the keys that trans people have to like struggle through you know will somebody love me and so yeah that's that's my answer Nick Adams that's an excellent answer Lily Wichowski so Andy now goes by Lily What he described as his experience, this is one of the most prominent trans identifying people in America, is exactly what I said happened for which I was criticized by all the libs. But of course that happens. What did Wichowski say?

He said, I was watching this kind of weird porn, so I was going down a rabbit hole, and then something got unlocked in my brain. And I viewed myself differently, and I cultivated a new kind of desire, a new vision of how I desired, even to be desirable, to others. And then I viewed myself as a woman. Yeah, I think that happens for a lot of people. The only ones talking about this are the feminists and the actual conservatives. The squishes and the libs and the center right and the center left and the people in the middle,

they refuse to acknowledge that porn and, and depravity and vice are largely responsible for the spread of the transgender identity and ideology. But this is how desire is formed. Desire is not just something that you're born with, and it remains exactly the same over time. It's not merely something that pops up one day, and now you've got this desire for the rest of your life. Desire is a complex interplay of aspects of your nature and aspects of your acculturation that develop and deepen or they lessen over time. The scientific jargon for this always involves neural pathways. And I don't mean to mock the scientific jargon too much. If that helps you to see what the phenomenon is,

then that's great. But people will say, well, look, if you're a big fat guy and whenever you're feeling a little down or anxious or bored or so you go eat an ice cream pop, then you're going to deepen the neural pathways, you're going to deepen the reward mechanism. And so whenever you start to feel that way, you're going to eat the ice cream pop and it's going to make you fatter, but it's going to be harder to break that. But you could make the same kind of observation about a heroin addict. You can make the same observation about a pornography addict. You could make the same observation about anybody engaging in any kind of habitual behavior. That is how desire is formed.

The reason the science jargon is not all that persuasive is because we're not just bodies. We're not just bags of chemicals and brains inside a skeleton, but we're body and soul. And so the way that I think is simpler and more precise to talk about it is that this is how our desires are formed. And that's exactly the kind of language that Wachowski is using. So on the one side of transgender,

observations, you've got Michael Knowles and one of the most prominent transvestites in America. And the people who say we're wrong are a bunch of libs over at media matters. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? But that's obviously, I think we're on the right side of that. Speaking of desire, I've got a great story. A very rare, great story in the news that has nothing to do with weird sex stuff, has nothing to do with immigration, has nothing to do with the Democrats destroying our culture. This is just a great story. story. He's a 45-year-old high school custodian and part-time barber who just earned his high school diploma. This is a guy. I saw this story pop up. Local news story,

45-year-old Elmo De Silva. This was reported by Atlanta News First. He's custodian for the Indian Creek Elementary School in Clarkston, and he just joined over 40 other adults who got their high school diplomas during a recent ceremony. He said, it wasn't easy. It was a struggle for a while and to achieve and get through it. And looking back, I'm very proud. This guy had to drop out of high school to take care of his younger brothers. Now, all these years later, he's gone back, gotten his high school diploma. I think it's great. Big congratulations to that guy. And the political lesson to take and the personal lesson for all of us is, it's a reminder that it is never too late to improve yourself. We are often tempted to think, oh, it's too late, I can't fix my situation, my family

situation, my professional situation, my maleducation, my vice, my bad habits, my addictions, it's just too far gone. You know, old dog ain't going to change its spots. And people are tempted to think this way from the time they're five years old. We're always tempted to think this way. But it's just not true. It's never too late. Jeremy, the God King Jeremy, Boring, just made this point on Twitter today on a fairly unrelated topic. He said, it's never too late until it is.

Until you're going into the ground, it's not too late. So you can improve yourself. And a lot of people think that in our culture, which is so depraved, it's got just such madness and addiction all around. We're in the throes of the worst opioid crisis ever. We've got the average life expectancy decreasing these of deaths of despair. Obviously all the weird sex stuff going on, family breakdown, loneliness epidemic. It's very easy to think, oh, well, it's all too far gone. There's no way we can ever. The way you can ever. The way you overcome it, one is to turn to God and accept God's grace, and then to cooperate with that grace and just take it one day at a time.

and you just go back to that classroom for one day, and then you go back the next day, and you go back the next day, and you keep doing your job, and guess what? After a while, you've got a high school diploma. After a while, you've cured that addiction, after or greatly abated the addiction. After a while, you've grown in virtue. After a while, it's not too late. You're a human being with reason and will. You can do a lot.

Speaking of education, Chip Roy, Republican congressman from Texas, all around national treasure, Chip Roy just gave a great education to the chief legal and strategy officer for the National Abortion Federation. In 2015, the Center for Medical Progress released a video on which you stated, quote, I'm like, oh my God, I get it. When the skull is broken, that's really sharp. I get it. I understand why people are talking about getting that skull out, that colvarium. Colvaryum being an incomplete skull. When abortion has crushed the skulls of babies to kill them, what physical risks are there for the baby?

So, Congressman, thank you for the question. It allows me to clarify that the media products you're referring to stoked a massive uptick in violence. Those heavily edited, misleadingly edited media products caused three murders and nine woundings in Colorado Springs in 2015. The question was about the baby and the skull crushing that is, I think, a direct quote attributed to you. Well, Congressman, look, this is the deceptively edited, you don't know what the, and he says, hold on it, you said this. We have your words about crushing baby's skulls. We got video. It's from the Center for Medical Progress.

And she's just trying to back out of it. She's trying to deny her own words. She's trying to deny the reality. But Chip Roy won't let it go. The folks who distributed those media products may have attributed something to me. I can't speak to it. So true or false, did you say that? I'm like, oh my God, I get it.

When the skull is broken, that's really sharp. Did you say that? It's impossible to know, Congressman. Would you have said that? Is that something you would have said? I don't know. You don't know. You don't know if you talked about the crushing of the,

the skull of a baby. You don't remember having said something like that. I'm pretty confident I've never said something like that. I'm quite confident my colleagues here have never said something like that. Have you ever said something about crushing the skull of the baby, particularly in that kind of a setup? I believe, Congressman, that we all came here today to agree that violence is never an appropriate response to policy differently. That seems pretty violent, the crushing of the skull of a baby. I love this. It goes on. We don't have time to play the whole thing. He won't let her change the subject. What does she do? She pulls this lib card at the moment he says, hey, we got you on video talking about crushing the skulls of little babies and how that's really what abortion is.

You said that, huh? She goes, people who, if you oppose the slaughter of babies that you're encouraging violence. What are you talking about, woman? I'm talking, I'm quoting. your words back to you that we have on video, you're demanding violence against the sacred, beautiful, virtuous abortionists? No, I'm not, I'm not advocating whatever you're talking about.

Did you say what you obviously said? Well, there's no way of knowing. What do you mean there's no way of knowing? You're calling the video a deep fake? There's no way of knowing. That's also not much of a denial, as Chip Roy points out. Because I'm pretty sure I've never advocated crushing the skulls of babies.

Have you? I don't think I've said, those words. You're not sure if you said those words. And he won't let her change the subject. Very often what Dems want to do is they'll, if you say, hey, we probably shouldn't slaughter like 800,000 little innocent babies a year, right? They'll say, well, do you support increased welfare payments? Like, I don't know, maybe. Yeah. Let's talk about that after. That has nothing to do with what, we shouldn't murder babies, right? Well, do you support Planned Parenthood education in elementary schools? No, I don't. Stop changing the subject, lady. Don't kill the babies. End of discussion.

That's it. That's it. That's enough. And Chip Roy, he will not be distracted. She goes, well, you're encouraging violence. Yeah, I'm pretty sure murdering babies is violent. Take a lesson. Chip Roy, National Treasure. He sounds good. He looks good doing it. When you want to look good, you got to check out GenuSel. Right now, go to genuCel.com slash Knowles. Did you know our friends at Genyacell have upgraded their most popular package to feature their top-selling, deep-firming vitamin C serum plus ultra-retinol moisturizer with natural retinol alternative. Did you know that? Right now, you can take advantage of this limited time package upgrade for 70-0% off. Why waste time and money to go get work done to your face when you can get GenuSel skincare shipped right to your door? Here's a JaniaCel.com review from

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Noles. Try Janiusel's most popular package for 70%, 70% off featuring both JanuSel's ultra-retinol and genuels firming serum. Get a complimentary spot, central spots with every package order, plus free upgrade to priority shipping. GenuSel.com slash Noles. You might have been one of the tens of millions of people who watched Netflix's hit show Making a Murderer. If so, then you are going to love Daily Wire Plus's new exclusive 10-part docu-series with Candace Owens, convicting a murderer coming this summer. Whether it's exposing Black Lives Matter or the fallacies in the healthcare industry regarding COVID, Candace is never afraid to challenge the official narrative.

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This is your last chance for 30% off, so do not wait until the series comes out this summer. You'll also get all of the other premium content from DailyWire Plus, including the greatest lie ever sold, what is a woman, and the largest collection of content from Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Join now at Dailywire.com slash subscribe to become a member and see the truth when it finally comes out. Speaking of conservatives standing up, it's not just Chip Roy. Tommy Tuberville, also Senator Tuberville, is holding up a defense spending measure, and he's doing it specifically over abortion policy. Taxpayers are paying for, I mean, it's just politicized it, and I'm standing by my word.

sent them the memo that Secretary Austin, you know, put out that we're going to do it this way. And, of course, I went right back at them. So if you do, you're not going to do any promotions as long as you do it. They think they're going to get me to change it. That's not going to happen. So we're just going to keep on with this. And hopefully they'll come to a realization that we've got a few people over here to fight. Yeah, most of them are.

We've got a few that I'm disappointed in. As I stood up in a caucus being other day, I said either we're pro-like. And to me, that's one of the top policies that we have in the Republican Party is that we're pro-life. And I understand there's some exceptions. And we've always used exceptions in the military of rape, incest, and health with mom. And we've never had a problem in the military, but they're trying to politicize the military so much radicalize it. It's just everything that they're doing, everything they touch, you know, turns to socialism. And so if we don't stand up in the Republican Party, it doesn't get some backball.

this country. Okay, so what is Senator Tuberville talking about military policy that would give benefits to people who want to kill their kids and say, okay, you get some time off, you get this kind of subsidy, so that's going to be the military policy. We don't need to pass this through the legislature

because it's just going to be set by the bureaucrats over at the Pentagon, and that's that. And Senator Tuberville, he frames it in a way that's quite clever. He's saying, listen, we accept the exceptions that are longstanding practice by the Pentagon. Now, do pro-lifers really accept the exception that in some cases a baby's life matters, but in other cases it doesn't or something like that? From a principled standpoint, probably not. From a practical standpoint, okay, if you can reduce 99% of abortion, not a bad place. to begin. But he says this new policy, no, we're not going to allow the Defense Department to start subsidizing abortions with our taxpayer money. That's not going to happen. And so I'm going to

hold up this defense spending bill until they fix it. And you're going to hear the squishes say, we can't hold up the defense spending bill. We've got to give all that money to Ukraine or something. We're about to be on the brink of World War III because of Biden's stupid foreign policy or something like that. But Tuberville says, well, I'm going to hold it up, so I guess you better change the policy. If you're so afraid that we're about to descend into World War III, then I should hope that you're not willing to throw the whole country away, turn us into a slave to China or something like that, because you want to give some extra time off to people so they can go kill their children. Yeah, I'm not backing down, so I hope you do, but I'm going to call

your bluff. Let's play chicken. And I think this is exactly the right strategy. Why not? Why not? The people have very little control over the government at all anymore. No matter what the holdups are in the legislature and the executive, the government always seems to get funded. There seems to be no shortage of money for the federal government, no shortage of power for them. And so Tuberville is saying, yeah, you're not getting my assent to this. No, fix it or we're done. We're pro-life or we're not. Absolutely the right strategy. Speaking of mass murder, there's a somewhat breaking news story. I haven't seen updates about it this morning. I just saw it come across last night. A U-Haul, driven apparently by Nazis, crashed into a poll in Washington, D.C.

And nobody seems to have been hurt. Nobody really can tell what the point of this attack was. no one can really tell what it was attacking. But the one thing we do know is the U-Haul gently crashed into some polls, and then a bunch of media came out, and the people in the press, and the first responders come out, and they open up the back of the U-Hall, and there's not a lot in the back of the U-Hull, but they find a big Nazi flag, like a big swastika red flag. And these first responders, this is really, really meticulous how they did this. They laid out that big Nazi flag. Looks brand new, crisp and shiny. And they lay it out right on the pavement, just perfectly set up for the cameras to take those photos. And then cameras get their photos, and they kind of put it away, and that's all we know about it. I can't help but notice that.

That kind of weird. It's just weird. I didn't think there were a lot of Nazis in America. I don't see Nazis. I don't run into them on the street. I don't know that's kind of interesting. And I don't see what the point of this attack would be. I don't even really see how it's an attack. And you'd think if these were old-timey Nazis, they'd probably have a nice battered, tattered, weathered flag. Not like a brand new one. It looks like it was just purchased. It's just kind of strange. Just kind of strange. I was laid out just perfectly for the cameras. So I don't know. I just think that's all a little bit weird. Call me crazy. That's all I have to say on the alleged. Nazi attack. Who knew? Good old America, just teeming with Nazis. We never find out very much about all those Nazis that we seem to sort of disappear, but we read a lot of headlines about them. A liberal establishment loves talking about all of these elusive Nazis. Really strange. Now, speaking of our crazy political environment, we have a new candidate for president. That man's name, Tim Scott.

I'm announcing today that I am. running for a president of the United States of America. You see, they're attacking our American values, our schools, our economy, and our security. But not on my watch, not on my watch. That won't work. America is not a nation. Okay, so you see here, the audio cuts out. That's not a problem with the podcast. And Tim responds to it. He goes, America is not a nation in. Let's see. This doesn't work. All right. It goes on for a while. We'll skip ahead. Okay, Mike's back on.

Good catch. But under Joe Biden, our nation is not a nation in decline. But under Joe Biden, we have become a nation in retreat. The timing. All nature is but art unknown. to the all chance direction, which thou can't not see. Tim Scott, very, very nice guy. I really personally like Tim Scott a lot. We expected that he would probably run for president. That was teased, I think about a year ago by his publisher. And so he'll now join the fray. Tim Scott, to his credit, is launching a different kind of campaign than his competitors in the Republican field. Tim Scott is launching a campaign premised on America is not in decline. Every other candidate, Trump, DeSantis, Babake, Nikki, or there are other candidates? Maybe Asa Hutchinson, I don't know,

there's some other candidates in the race, Joe Exotic. They're running campaigns based on how America is in steep decline. We've got to turn that around. Tim Scott says, we are not in decline. but the providence, the coincidence of, we are not a nation in, oh, wait, our microphones don't even work. Is our electrical grid strong? Can we communicate anymore? And so it cuts out for a while that comes back on. He says, okay, where was I?

Oh, yeah, America's not a nation in decline. It's a hard argument to make. It could be an appealing campaign thesis in the same way that Ronald Reagan was so appealing. warning in America, make America feel good about herself again, well, I believe America's best days lie ahead of us. You think, well, listen, Gipper, I'm all for hope. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and, you know, you've done a great job restoring America, but are you sure about that? I don't know. We've got, like, sacrilegious drag queens jiggling around Dodger Stadium. Are you sure America's best days are ahead? You're sure that's better than, say, I don't know, the white picket

fences of the 1950s? You're sure that's better than 1776? I don't know. I don't know. Call me a little bit skeptical. But that's what Senator Scott is running on. He's saying, we are not in decline. It's just that Joe Biden's a jerk. Could be an appealing campaign. And he's also giving himself his own lane now. So he's going to be the nice guy. He is genuinely one of the nicest guys in politics. It's going to be upbeat. It's going to be optimistic. Maybe that plays. Maybe that place. Who knows? I mean, everyone laughs because everyone believes that the race is totally set

in stone. There's no changing the outcome of the race. It's either going to be Trump or maybe it'll be DeSantis. Presidential campaigns are crazy and unpredictable. The only thing that you can reasonably expect is the unexpected. Now,

how does the race stand? As of right now, despite what you may have heard in the news, despite the constant negative press, FAA, Trump is leading by a lot, by a lot. According to Morning Consult, these numbers are about a week old at this point. Trump is up 43 points over DeSantis. It's not that Trump's at 43. Trump is at 61. He's 43 points above DeSantis, who's at 18, Pence at 6, Haley at 4, Vivek at 4, Liz Cheney for some reason is there still. Greg Abbott, Tim Scott's at 1%. Asa Hutchinson. So Trump is way up and the race is moving more and more in Trump's direction.

Okay, how is DeSantis doing? Trump is up on DeSantis in Georgia by a fair bit. Trump is up even in Georgia by 7.8%. DeSantis's favorability is down. DeSantis's favorability is still pretty strong. It's just down. Trump's the most favorable GOP candidate at 78%. 20% view Trump unfavorably. Trump had been at 79%, but he's still basically around there. DeSantis has the second highest favorability. He's at 66%. But that's a decrease. So the number's moving in the wrong direction.

That's down from 72% who viewed him favorably the week before. It's down from 73% of people who viewed him favorably the week before that. So it's moving in the wrong direction for him. What does DeSantis say? DeSantis' response. is that he, Ron DeSantis, is the only Republican who can win. He said you have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole thing, Biden, Trump, and me. And I think of those three, two have a chance to get elected president, Biden and me, based on all the data in the swing

states. Now, this is a good response to all of these polls, which nationally are not looking great for Ron DeSantis. Because what DeSantis is saying is, hey, the primary isn't a national contest. The primary is a state-by-state contest. And so, yeah, maybe Trump is way up on me nationally, but that's not going to decide the nomination, and that's not going to decide the general election. What's going to decide both of those things are a handful of states, and those handful of states that tend to be a little bit more moderate, and maybe they don't like Trump as much. Now, Trump is going to say, actually, they do like me much more than they like other Republicans, because I brought out voters who previously would not be a Republican, and probably wouldn't even vote. But DeSantis is going to say,

no, those suburban moms, those people in the middle, they're going to pick me. over Trump. So don't focus on the national numbers. Focus on Ohio. Focus on North Carolina. Focus on Florida. Focus on Arizona. Focus on Wisconsin. Focus on Michigan. That's going to be where the election is decided. Who's going to win? I don't know. What are you asking me for? My favorite comment yesterday is from J.J. Hervey, who says, we're not grooming kids, says the company named Target. Maybe Target will change its name from Target to tuck it. Tuck it. That's pretty good. I came across a video of a therapist. This is a 15-year veteran therapist. She's been in the job for a long time. She's very clearly a lib. And she gave one of the

most precise and insightful definitions of wokeness, a word that has eluded definition in certain quarters that I have ever heard. It's only really over the past six or seven months that I've understood my racial identity and begun to really deconstruct it personally and from within and understanding that in terms of the psychology of white folks who are my people. I grew up in Seattle, very liberal whiteness environment, and that is, I'm in that environment still. So yeah, and I work as a therapist. I've been working as a therapist for about 15 years. So I really see this as a healing journey and to me really the only real spiritual path

of meaning available to white folks. So, and I, yeah. There it is. Wokeness, she says, is the only real spiritual path of meaning available to white folks. folks. That is how they view wokeness by which they mean a particularly virulent form of leftist politics. And that

is true. It's not literally true, but that perception is accurate to them. That's how they are perceiving this thing. This is why the sisters of perpetual indulgence

have to be allowed to mock Christianity at Dodger Stadium because the libs have foreclosed the possibility that Christianity is a path of spiritual meaning, that God is a path of spiritual meaning, that a relationship with our maker and our savior will give us spiritual meaning. That is foreclosed to them. The concept of original sin, they have rejected that. They don't believe that. They do recognize that sin and death pervade the world, which are the consequences of original sin. So how do they make sense of that? the way that they try to make sense of that is by saying that this is not a consequence of original sin, but it's a consequence of institutional sin that over the years, man-made traditions

and institutions have built up and they have oppressed people and they've kept people down. Now, a logical question for this in response would be, okay, well, how did those institutions and practices and traditions get corrupted in the first place? They don't answer that part. But there are many people who believe that. There are many people who even say that they're on the right. There are some people who even say that they're Christian who are very anti-institutional, very anti-tradition, very anti-ritual. They partake to some degree of this same skepticism of, and frankly disdain for tradition, institution, history, the weight of practice, the democracy of the dead that has been built up, our whole culture, a whole civilization. And so for the libs, in despair, they say, okay, I don't, God isn't real, Christianity isn't true, I probably don't even have a soul, nothing seems to have meaning at all. And so the only way that I can

impose some sort of meaning on my life is through what is most perceptible to me, which is my flesh, my skin color, there, by orienting my entire moral view around just flesh and just literally the color of my meat of my flesh, that will give me some kind of spiritual meaning. Obviously, it is not going to work, but that's how they view it. That's why they've got to allow the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to jiggle around the stadium. They believe that the real sisters, the real religious sisters, the Carmelites, the nuns, that they are the threat, because what they represent is a restriction on individual autonomy, which is evil, which is, it comes from the devil. That's the sin, the institutional sin we've got to

fight back against. And so the sacrilegious character of the Sister of Perpetual Indulgence's performance, that's not a bug of their troop. That's a feature. That's the whole point. That's why they have to be exalted at Dodger Stadium. Because the alternative would be, okay, we boot out these weird jiggling trannies, and we allow the religious nuns to come in and, I don't know, say a prayer or benediction before the baseball game.

But then to do that would be to say, okay, well, Christianity, is true. Traditional religion is true. And this woke false religion, that's false. And we're going to suppress that from the public square because that way lies madness. That way lies true oppression, spiritual oppression. That way lies decay and decadence and degradation. You've got to pick one. You can't simultaneously have them both. Okay, there's a very important point that I've got to get to, which is from the New York Times Magazine, from the ethicist. my husband flies first class and puts me in coach is that fair this question written into the the ethicist is just the kind of gossipy advice column sort of saucy little advice column for the new york times

magazine they try to dress up and make it seem more erudite so the question is my husband flies first class and puts me in coach is that fair everyone's talking about it so i guess i'll weigh into especially someone who likes to take my free upgrades on my airplanes. But sweet little Alisa, it doesn't always want to do that because then she would maybe have to leave the kids in the back. And she doesn't want to leave the kids in the back. I would throw the kids in steerage. You know, listen, it's tough out there.

It builds character. Daddy will give you a hug once we land wherever we're going. So she says, my husband loves to travel and always either pays for it gets an upgrade to first class. We travel with our children. He buys himself a ticket and first. It puts us in economy or economy plus. Even did this to Paris. and he justifies flying alone in first because of the cost,

and the fact that our kids might feel alone if I were to travel in first and leave with him and leave them in the rear cabin, I feel that this is unfair. Okay. Oh, and she says, I don't think our kids would mind if they were an economy plus, and my husband and I sat together, but he says, no, can't do that. So the husband is wrong here. It's unshivalrous, not nice. You should offer your wife the upgrade, even if you're only getting one upgrade, as this happens, sometimes, and you should slum it and coach if you have to. But if given the option here, you're talking 12 and 16, these are kids who are pretty big. All right, I got my first job I was

working at 14, walking up hill in the snow, both directions, okay? 12 years old, you're old enough to sit alone. 16, that certainly you are. It's okay. The parents can sit in first class. the kids can sit back in economy or even Economy Plus. It's pretty nice. I didn't fly Economy Plus until I was in my 20s. But the husband should be chivalrous. Wives submit to their husbands, and husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves his church. And I think that probably involves giving up your first class upgrade. Today is, what is today, Tuesday? Today is, I don't have a good, I don't have a good alliterative title for this. It's James Bond Tuesday. I I don't know. Ben Davies tells me that there are new odds out there for who the next James Bond is going to be.

We're going to be playing the odds game here. I want to get your thoughts on who that is. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Nolesk, NWLAS, a checkout for two months free on all annual plans. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and Get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Being the best version of yourself is an everyday journey,

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