The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 2047 - The World Unites To Mourn Dolly Parton

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

The world unites to mourn Dolly Parton, Lindsay Graham’s sister wins her primary, and the first Republican candidate for 2028 might not be from the Trump administration. Ep. 2047 - - - Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers - Right now, you can get $50 off your first Good Ranchers order. Build Your Own Box starting as low as $129. Plus, when you start a plan today, you'll also get double the free meat with every order this month. Visit https://GoodRanchers.com/KNOWLES Word on Fire - "Heaven in Stone and Glass" is in theaters nationwide on September 20th and 23rd. Get your tickets now at https://HeavenInStoneAndGlass.com PragerU - PragerU has no paywall. No smirking newscasters, no bias dressed up as "objectivity." Just the facts presented in an age appropriate, wholesome, all-American way.  Go to https://PragerU.com/dailywire - - - DailyWire: Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dailywire.com/subscribe 🎆 🇺🇸 Celebrate America 250 with 3-Months of DailyWire for just $17.76 📜 Becoming a Daily Wire member allows you to see all of our content ad-free. 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. 🍿 Run Hide Fight: Infidels will premiere on The Daily Wire, Wednesday September 16th. 📘 My book "Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds" is available here: https://dwplus.shop/Speechless 📗 My book "Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide" is available here: https://dwplus.shop/ReasonsToVoteForDemocrats 🕯️ Get your Michael Knowles candles: https://thecandleclub.com/collections/michael-knowles 👕 Don’t dress like a squish. Shop my merch here: https://dwplus.shop/MichaelKnowlesMerch - - - Socials: YouTube — https://youtube.com/@MichaelKnowles Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/michaelknowlesshow Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/michaeljknowles TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@notmichaelknowles X — https://twitter.com/michaeljknowles - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The morning is so widespread that most people realize that grief over Dolly is about more than a country music singer. Some are saying it is about the loss of a monoculture. Dolly was the last person we all liked. Some say it's about the loss of civility and politeness. You know, Dolly got along with everybody, regardless of political culture. divides. I think it is even deeper than that. We will get to what her death means. Then, Lindsay Graham's sister, Darlene, beats Ralph Norman in the South Carolina Senate primary, which gives us a ton of insight into the 28 Republican presidential primary. And speaking of

that primary, it looks like we are getting close to our first declared candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. And he does not work for the Trump administration. I'm Michael Noles. This is the Michael Nulls show. Welcome back to the show. There is a liberal Congress lady who is now arguing that writing laws with words is too onerous. It's too confusing for people. She wants to write laws with pictures. We'll get to that.

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Dolly. Dolly, we didn't get to Dolly on the show yesterday. We filmed a little bit early, and so we missed the biggest international news. It's not the war in Iran. It's not the economy. It's not mass migration. It's the death of Dolly Parton, the great, great Dolly Parton. Everyone is mourning the loss of Dolly Parton. I was in Washington, D.C. two nights ago, and I was in an event in D.C. And then an after party and this and of that. And there were all sorts of stuff going on. I wind up right before I go to bed, I wind up at that statue of my great, great, great great, great grandpa, Simon Knowles that was put up in Washington, D.C. It was really, really cool.

I go there, I'm looking at it, looking at all the other beautiful statues in Freedom Plaza. But then I noticed something strange. I saw that the flags were at half staff. I said, why are the flags at half staff? And the person that I was with said, well, that's for Dolly Parton. So, oh my goodness, even in the imperial capital, flags are at half staff for this country singer. But she's so much more than a country singer, and she represents so much more than a country singer. everyone is paying tribute. Obviously the sitting president, Trump, paying tribute by lowering the flagstaff staff, but all the other ones who are still alive. Bush, Clinton, Obama, Biden, all paying tribute. The Empire State Building was lit up to pay tribute to Dalai Parton, Sears Tower, or whatever they're calling Sears Tower now. Buckingham Palace in the UK, the changing of the guards, they played nine to five. So it's all over the place, certainly all over the west. Why? What is it about Dali Park? The shallow read is it's just because she was such a great entertainer. And she was. She was a consummate entertainer. No one better. Okay, that's that. Then people realize, all right, this is about something more than just a singer. Some people are saying, well, it's because of the loss of the monoculture. The last time we saw this kind of universal outpouring of grief was when Alex Trebek died. And people at that time said, Alex Trebek, he was the last guy that we all liked. Everyone else now is divided on lines that are political or racial or sexual or geographical. But everyone loved Alex Trebek and everybody loved Dali Parton's.

He'd say, man, you know, even 20, 30 years ago, we used to have this monoculture. We all saw the same movies, watched the same TV shows, heard the same news. And so that meant that we were all really plugged in together as a community. Now, we don't have that. We all just scroll on our perfectly individually tailored algorithms all the time. So you don't really share anything. Now, don't forget, when we had the monoculture, we conservatives in particular complained about that because the monoculture was run by the libs in Hollywood, in the news media at the universities.

And so we said, this is terrible. We got to crack up the monoculture. That was our argument then. The monoculture is super liberal. It's driving us off a cliff. We need independent media, independent news. We need to make our own conservative Hollywood. That was the argument. We largely succeeded at that. Now we realize that life is all about tradeoffs. And so, yes, we've gained a voice in the culture, but we've lost that monoculture that gave us cohesion as a political community. But I don't even know that it's just about the loss of a monoculture. Part of the reason everyone loved Dolly is she was respectful of everyone. She had that Michael Jordan idea, which was that Republicans buy sneakers too. So Michael Jordan, probably slightly liberal in some of his politics. That's what he implies when he says, Republicans by sneakers too. I think he's probably more conservative even than someone give him credit for, big cigar smoker, fairly traditional type guy. With Dali Parton, I think a lot of people suspected she was a little more Republican, a little more conservative.

She's a countrywoman, very traditional in her own personal life. but she was also a gay icon, you know, she nodded at that a little bit. So regardless, yes, she was very polite. Everybody loved her. She was very loving to everybody. I think it's deeper even than that than politeness and civility. I think what people are mourning in the loss of Dali Parton is the loss of America. I'm not saying America is definitely totally sung forever. There's no hope. But I think people recognize that Dali Parton is an American original. Every so often, you get these American originals. Elvis Presley is an American original. Donald Trump is an American original. You cannot imagine these people coming out of another country, coming out of another culture.

And they represent in myriad ways, some of which are difficult to articulate, something about the American character. With Dolly Parton, you get all that. One, it's the country music. Two, it's the bleach blonde hair. Three, it's the rhinestones. Four, it's this kind of optimism. A hopefulness, yes, but even a in optimism. Things are going to be okay. You know, we're going to look on the bright side. That's very much a part of the American character. Trump is like that. Trump doesn't talk about bad news. Trump focuses on good news and through the sheer power of his will, he wants to make good news. That, Dolly Parton gave us a little insight into this. She gave a health update. This was back in May, I think, so not that long before she ended up dying. And she did not

complain a lot about her health problems. She was, she kept it kind of close to the vest, but she gave an update as to why she wasn't as out there as much and touring as much. Here's just a clip of her update. I have some good news and a little bad news, but the good news is I'm responding really well to meds and treatments and I'm improving every day. Now the bad news is it's going to take me a little while before I'm up to stage performance level because some of the meds and treatments make me a little bit swim-headed, as my grandma used to say. And of course I can't be dizzy, carrying around banjos, guitars and such on five-inch hills, and you know that I'm going to be wearing them. Not to mention all those heavy rhinestone outfits, the big hair, my big personality. But I just want you to know also

that a lot of you've been concerned about me and Carl, and you were so great about that. But But after going through a year first, I mean the holidays, and especially a wedding anniversary and the day of his death, March 3rd, you know, that was hard for me. But I will always love him and I'll always miss him, but you would be surprised at how much your love and concern meant to me during that time. Speaking to Carl and my health, I remember back years ago, I was saying something. They're not dropping about something hurting or this and that. Carl said, now, honey, you've got to remember you're not getting any younger.

I said, well, honey, you've got to remember that as long as there are plastic surgeons in this world, I'm not getting any older. This is an amazing statement made all the more amazing given that she died shortly thereafter. But think about all these constituent parts here. She opens up, I got a lot of good news. This is a woman who's dying, who's talking to her doctors who are clearly quite worried about her health. She goes, I got good news, a little bit of bad news. I'm honest with you, but I'm going to look on the bright side of things. This is a woman who is so over the top, and she jokes about it.

She's self-aware about that. You know, some years ago, not that long ago, Dolly Parton dressed up like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. And on this show, I said, look, we talk a lot about how women should act their age. All people should act their age. and women should act their age, except for Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton is the exception to this rule and to basically every rule. Dolly gets to do whatever she wants. She's an American original.

And it's true. There's something deeply American about that as well. The idea that you acknowledge that rules exist, but you're going to look on the bright side and break them. America was born out of a revolution. Countries that are born out of revolution fail. They're bad. They cut themselves off from the past. They're radical.

progressive. And yet with America, going back to Edmund Burke during the American Revolution, we find that America is a revolutionary country, but a conservative country. America is a country that is not a confessional state that establishes freedom of religion, but is the most religious country in the West. America is a country that was founded by settling a brand new world, but America is one of the more traditional countries left in the world. America is extremely economic, focused on material prosperity. There's never been a country that is more materially prosperous, and yet we give so much to charity, and yet we focus so much on the spiritual things. So there are all these paradoxes to America, breaking the rules, but trying to also work in accord with these

deeper rules, these eternal principles. I don't think I'm reading too deeply into this, though it is a little bit of a temptation, that America is this country of artifice, where the country of the Great Gatsby, where the country of Fake It Till you May. And it. And yet, we're honest about that. Dali Parton, she's open about, yeah, as long as I can get some plastic surgery, I'm never getting any older. Donald Trump, he's so, he's so open about this. On the one hand, so much of his style is kind of opulent, garish in your face. And yet he expresses a humility about that. It was, oh, me, you know, look, I'm a guy from Queens, you know, there's, I've never had a drink. Imagine if I had a drink, I'd be the worst person.

The only good thing you can say about me is I never had a drink. There's this, this, this extreme pride, this extreme humility. And Dolly represents that right down to the style of music. This is the most American kind of music. She's a country music singer. And I think what people are mourning with her at the deepest level is a sense that that America might just kind of be gone. Down to her, she's a class act on the one hand. She's totally brash, rhinestones and big hair on the other. There's this sense that, gosh, the past is a foreign country and maybe nostalgia's history after a few drinks. But whatever that was, whatever that thing is about America that Dali Parton represents, I don't know that we're going to get another one of those. That might be gone.

And I think that plays on all sorts of anxieties that we feel. On the left, they feel the decay of the political institutions. Now, of course, they are the cause of most of that. But they feel that. They at least complain about that. On the right, we have anxieties about massive demographic change, also brought about by the left because of mass migration. But nevertheless, if you replace all the people in a country with new people, you have a new country. All these fears that the thing that makes us, us, is slipping away, that it might actually be a little bit too late.

That, I think, is what's at the heart of mourning Daly Parton. On top of the fact that she was just sui generis, you know, she was just this unique person, this American original. So it's about her. It's not that she merely represents something. It's about her, but she did in her person represent something, something that we feel is slipping away. And when we say there will be never another one like that who represents the monoculture, who's universally beloved, who, you know, you're having tributes pour in from across the political spectrum, across the country, across the world. That is what I think people are mourning, including people outside of America, because America has been very, very good for Americans and for everybody else. Okay. Now, Speaking of the American political system, Lindsay Graham's sister, Darlene, just beat out Ralph Norman. Ralph Norman, who is a solid conservative. A lot of the conservative activists, people in the movement wanted him to win this race. Darlene Graham, who in a public debate admitted she didn't know anything about foreign policy, Durling Graham won. We'll get into what that means for South Carolina and the race, but more important, we'll get into what that means about the 2028 presidential cycle.

This tells us more about the 2028 presidential cycle. This tells us more about the 2028. at Republican primary than anything we've seen to date. First, though, I want to tell you about Word on Fire. Go to heaven and stone and glass.com. There are some arguments you have to spend years studying before you understand them, and then there are things you simply look at and think, man was made for more than this world. That is where the great Gothic cathedrals come in.

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dot com slash group and support all the great stuff from Word on Fire. Darlene Graham is the winner of that U.S. Senate primary. She's beaten Ralph Norman. It was a little bit close, but not too close.

A four point race, 52 to 48. And what really matters about this is that Trump endorsed Darlene Graham. And a lot of conservatives, a lot of Trump supporters were upset with Trump for doing that. And I think the reason that he did it is that he's loyal to Lindsey Graham. That's actually, that's I think why he nominated her to fulfill the rest of his Senate term, which is a short period of time, and why he went even further. A lot of people are okay with that. But he went even further. He said, well, look, I backed her for that. I was friends with Lindsey Graham. I'm going to back her for her own full Senate term. Now, this cuts against one of the criticisms of Trump. One of the criticisms of Trump is that he's not loyal. And I think

this is preposterous. It's true. He fires cabinet secretaries by tweet sometimes. But for the people who are loyal to Trump, Trump is very loyal to them. You saw this in the Minnesota race when he endorsed Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy. Mike Lindell did not have a chance in that race. Trump knew that by endorsing Mike Lindell, it would hurt his average of winning endorsements. But he did it anyway. He did it because Mike Lindell, was very loyal to Trump and gave up a lot for Trump, sacrificed his company for Trump. And I think, reading the tea leaves,

I think that he felt he kind of owed it to him and that it was the right thing and the good thing to do. I think probably a similar factor was to play with Darling Graham, even though Ralph Norman was almost certainly more conservative than Darling Graham, certainly had way more experience. I mean, don't forget,

it was a brutal moment of the debate when Darling Graham admitted she didn't know anything about foreign policy. On the national security question as well, Senator, are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? If so, why? I'm sorry, could you repeat the question? Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States, and if so, why or how?

I'm just going to be honest here. I'm not on national security. I'm not that informed on national security, but I do support the military. Oh my goodness. So a brutal moment. This should have destroyed her candidacy. So what does this tell us? Forget about the primary. It's over. Maybe you wanted Norman to win. Maybe you think the darling Graham thing was a bad idea. She's going to be the senator from South Carolina. So then the question is, all right, what can we learn from this? And what we can learn is a valuable insight looking ahead to 2008. Trump is the king of the Republican Party. All this chatter you hear from the podcast, people of, oh, Trump's betrayed us, he's lost support among MAGA. It's not true. It's obviously not true. Darling Graham's debate performance suggested that she is totally unqualified to be a senator and Republican primary voters voted for her simply because Trump endorsed her. That's what that was about. So that just tells you, Trump is most likely, almost certainly going to pick the nominee

in 2028. I was trying to think, is there any argument for Darlene Graham? You always want to steal man the other side. And there actually is kind of an argument. And the argument for Darlene Graham is actually identical with the criticism of Darlene Graham as the senator. The criticism is, this is a democracy and these Senate seats should not be inherited from one family member to another. You've got to go earn it on your own individual merit. You have to represent, you have to show voters that you are competent and educated and informed, and, you know, this should not just be passed down generation to generation. Interestingly, though, of all the aspects of our government, the Senate was kind of intended to be the aristocratic part of the government. I know that now in our modern

age, we say that America is a democracy, and then Republicans objected to that. They say, we're not a democracy, we're a republic. But those do mean substantially the same thing. Democracy could mean a direct form of government, and a republic is a sort of indirect democratic form of government. But regardless, we're not even totally that. The American government was intended to be a mixed regime that includes monarchical elements, aristocratic elements, and democratic elements. John Adams wrote about this extensively. John Adams following the lead of Machiavelli, Machiavelli, not just writing his sort of devilish advice in the prince, but also writing about the structure of government in things like Florentine histories or in the discourses on Livy and other writings.

John Adams has a letter to John Taylor in 1814. This might be the only place you're going to hear about the South Carolina Senate primary relating to a John Adams letter from the 19th century. But it's important to help us understand how the framers and the founders thought about the structure of government. He writes to John Taylor, who said there's no aristocratic form of government in America. He says, dear sir, you are, quote, unable to discover in our form of government any resemblance of aristocracy as every branch of executive authority committed or entrust exclusively to one resembles and is properly called a monarchical power, and government in proportion

as its powers legislative or executive are lodged in one resembles monarchy. So, whatever authority or power of making or executing laws is exclusively vested in a few is properly called aristocratical. And a government in proportion as it is constituted with such powers resembles aristocracy. Says, now, sir, let me ask you whether you can discover no quote resemblance of aristocracy in our form of government are not great, very great, important and essential powers entrusted to a few, to a very few in the form of the Senate. Adams is saying, hey, slow your roll, buddy, it's not a democratic government. It's a monarchical government and an aristocratic government and a democratic government. It is a mixed regime that is intended to break loose from this pattern throughout history, which is the cycle of regimes, that monarchy decays into tyranny and aristocracy can decay into oligarchy and democracy can decay into anarchy or mob rule. And so you need all of these different forms of government to counteract. each other and to balance each other so that you have a stable government. In a defense of the constitutions of the United States, which was written about the state constitutions, also by John Adams,

he writes, if there is then in society such a natural aristocracy formed partly by genius, partly by birth, and partly by riches, how shall the legislators avail himself, how shall the legislator avail himself of their influence for the equal benefit of the public? So all of that to say, all of these 18th and 19th century writings to say, the Senate was conceived, by the founding fathers and the framers, as the aristocratic part of the government, which is formed partly by birth. I don't want to overstretch it because we have democratized our Senate, certainly since the 17th Amendment, which stops the states from appointing the senators, destroys state power in the federal government, and makes the government more clearly a democracy.

No coincidence that since then we have seen more aristocracy, more capriciousness of the mob, more mob rule. But regardless, there actually is an argument. I guess what I'm saying, ultimately is. There is an argument to pick someone whose family has been in politics for a long time. There is an argument to have a senator who is not super ideological, who doesn't have a PhD in political science or economics. There is an argument to this part of the government just coming from a kind of familial habit, you know, probably better over many generations, but at the very least, you know, with some familiarity. It's kind of like in the UK, there's the efficient form of the government in the House of Commons, but there's also the

dignified part of the government, which is in the royal family. And you need both of those things in a state. So anyway, here, it's a moot point at this point because Darlene Graham has gotten the nomination and she'll be a U.S. Senator. now for a full term. The fact that Trump picked this person over the objections of the, you know, leveling, egalitarian, individualist, meritocratic democracy people, over the objections of the hardcore conservative movement types who preferred Ralph Norman, what that tells you is Trump owns the GOP.

And this is very important to who the primary winner is going to be for 2028, because we are now approaching, perhaps our first declared presidential candidate for 2028, and it's not J.D. Vance, and it's not Marco Rubio, and it's not Pete Hagseth. It would appear to be a friend of mine named Ted Cruz. We'll get to that in a second. First, I want to tell you about Prager You. Go to Prageru.com slash Daily Wire. The decaying old gray lady might as well line your cap box. New York Times readership among young Americans is totally cratered. No one wants a scolding lecture pretending to be journalism. Here's the thing. While legacy media across the board, hemorrhage trust, Prager You is the rising generation's last best hope.

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Senator Cruz, who's just on Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's podcast. You know, I've been on a podcast or two with Senator Cruz. with Dan Patrick for that matter. And so he's on this podcast and he is asked about 2028. One, has the GOP coalesced around J.D. Vance, who seems like the heir apparent. Is there even a need for a primary or has the, has the GOP just settled on a candidate? And two, Senator, are you going to run for president? It's no secret that I want to be president. I ran for president. Are you going to run again? Are you going to run again? Time will tell. I will say this is a bug. that history has proved is rarely ended. It is a permanent and often fatal bug.

I think going forward, we're in the midst of a debate about who our party is and what we believe. And I think economically we've got a debate. Are we a small government free market conservative party? Are we a big government nanny state party? Is this a party that has coalesced already behind J.D. Vance? Oh, no, there's going to be a full discussion about who we are and what we believe. Are you going to be part of that?

There'll be time to figure that out. I'll certainly be part of the discussion. Okay, so right off the bat here, I love, it's very refreshing to see this honesty from a politician. And no surprise that it's coming from Senator Cruz. But usually in these interviews, they say, well, you know, do you want to run for president? And they say, oh, well, I don't want to run for president. Oh, it's the furthest thought from my mind. Why do you think that I, a senator, I a governor, I a member of the cabinet?

Why would I want to run for president? No, no. I just want to go clear brush on my farm. And then five seconds later, they're running for president. And it's always such BS and it's ridiculous. And so it's so refreshing that Senator Cruz comes out. He goes, oh, yeah, I definitely want to be president. You remember that I ran, right?

You remember that I was like the number two guy in 2016, you know, and I'm like still a senator and obviously I want to be president. So he says that. But it's not just about him. If he just said this is just about my ambition. I've had this bug for a long time. If it were just that kind of honesty, which is true of every politician who runs for president, but if it were just about that, you'd say, okay, well, I don't care about a race.

It's just about you. But Senator Cruz is smarter than that and more principled. So he says, no, no, it's about what is our role, what is our relationship to economics? Are we going to be a little more libertarian laissez-faire? Are we going to be a little more interventionist and developmentalist in our economics? It's about global leadership. Are we going to be a little more focused, just? on domestic policy, or are we going to be a little more focused on managing and rebuilding the world?

What is, that's a very legitimate debate. So he points out, there is that fight in the GOP. Now, some of the activist types have been trying to project that onto J.D. Vance versus Marco Rubio. And I think that's kind of silly. One, Rubio's not going to run against Vance. I don't think. I could be proven wrong. I just don't think that's true. Two, Vance and Rubio don't disagree that much. You know, some people say, J.D. Vance is talking about the common good, and therefore he's a socialist. Marco Rubio is the guy who coined the phrase common good capitalism. There's not a lot of daylight between Vance and Rubio on economics. Some people are saying Rubio is a neocon, Vance is an isolationist. I don't think either of those things are really true. And also, let's not forget, Rubio has effectively, multiple times now endorsed Vance for the nomination.

So I don't see those guys running against each other. In other words, The role that some Republican activists are trying, and some donors and some factions of the party are trying to project under Rubio, I think, is probably better held by Senator Cruz. So we have the Kalshi markets right here. The Kalshi, our great sponsor, Kalshi, as this question, who will run for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination? Who will run? We've got J.D. Vance at 82 cents. Yes, he's going to run. That's the clearest guy who's going to run.

Duh, he's the vice president. Trump picked him to be the VP in the second term. He obviously is going to run, I think. But who's the number two guy? Who's the obvious to run? It's not Rubio. It's not DeSantis. It's not Massey. It's Ted Cruz, who right now, as of this morning, is at 71%, I think it is? It keeps changing. You can buy it at 79%. DeSantis down there at 65%. Rubio down there, 62. percent in Massey at 48. Okay. I think Senator Cruz really has a lane here. Now, he has an immense uphill battle, but the uphill battle, I don't think is really about ideology or winning some debate or some argument or this. The uphill battle is Trump's dominance of the party. If Trump, if Iran goes to pot, if the economy goes to pot, if everything falls apart, and Trump loses

his grip on the GOP, then Vance is going to have a very hard time, Rubio's going to have a very hard time, really anybody in the administration is going to have a hard time, all of a sudden there, guys like Ted Cruz or Ron DeSantis are looking really good for the nomination if everything falls apart with Trump's hold on the party. And actually, things look better for Ted Cruz than they do for Ron DeSantis because the pitch for DeSantis in 24 was he's just like Trump, but a little better in various ways. That was the pitch. With Ted Cruz, that wasn't the pitch in 2016. With Ted Cruz, it was, this is an alternative vision for the Republican Party and for the country. If you like Trump, vote for Trump. But if you don't like Trump, vote for me. And so there, I think the ideological lines make it a little clearer for Senator Cruz. I think he has a much better shot than Ron DeSantis. The issue for any non-administration campaign, for really anyone other than J.D. Vance right now is the Darling Graham race shows.

you as of today in August of 2026, Trump owns the GOP. So the primary is not primarily about convincing rank and file voters. The primary is about convincing Donald Trump to back you. And Trump has signaled that he'll back Vance and he keeps saying, I want it to be a Vance Rubio ticket. So that's where the uphill battle is. But for people who are discounting Senator Cruz, you know, he makes a pretty good pitch here, which is I was the number two guy in 2016 and I represent a portion of the GOP that is a little uneasy with Trumpism and with, even if they like Trump personally, with the future of Trumpism. So I think if there is to be a primary, if Trump dominates the GOP, there effectively won't be a primary. If Trump weakens in any way,

then I think the primary really could come down to the Trump picked candidate who's probably going to be JD Vans and Cruz. He has a lane. There is no question that he has a lane in the race. Speaking of legislators, there is a Lib Congress lady, Representative Marie Gloosencamp Perez, who is very upset that laws are written in words. She's a Democrat. You'll be shocked to hear. Rep M.GP. They all keep doing the letter thing. AOC, RBG, even the kind of Republican ACB, Amy Coney-Barrie. So now we got M-GP, Marie-Gluzenkamp Perez. She posts. have you ever thought that it's really weird that you can't add pictures to laws? I see so many laws that would be clearer and more logical if we could just include a map or a blueprint.

Congress recently passed my initiative to bring legislation into the 21st century and explore including images in the text of bills. This is a long overdue step in the legislative process. So this is a perfect encapsulation of the Democrat relationship to our political order because she's, literally wrong. It's both like a stupid suggestion, but she's also just wrong about the facts. You can include images and laws. You've basically always been able to include images and laws. Here's part of the U.S. Code, which includes an image of an American flag, talking about the flag and the seal, the seat of government in the states. There's a picture in there. She says, this is crazy that you can't include images and laws. She doesn't even think to Google. Can you include images and laws? She's a legislator. Her job is to write laws. She didn't even Google. Can you include images and laws? Oh, yes, you can. Oh, you've been able to do that basically forever. Okay. Never mind. It's like the Dems just start with wrong premises and then they reach even crazier conclusions. But it's like, you know, if wishes were fishes, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If fiss and butts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas. If you begin with a dubious premise, you're going to arrive at erroneous conclusions. You can't. This whole thing could have been erased with like a Google search. Anyway.

let's get past the fact that you actually can include images and laws. What is she really asking for? Is she asking for, you know, very narrowly circumscribed ways in which you have to include images like if you're talking about the American flag? No, I think probably what she's talking about is more ambitious and broader than that. And what she's saying is, I have trouble reading words. You know, the Democrat legislators on Capitol Hill are not. famous for their literacy. They're a little bit weak, both in interpreting the meaning of the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes, but also just in terms of word, they don't use words that well,

like AOC. Some of them don't speak English that well, like the various immigrants and children of immigrants who the left has exalted. Regardless, this is idiocracy, right? This is the total dumbing down of our country. They want law by meme. And the left can't meme. So that's a brutal situation. They want law by picture, by pictograph. We're going to go back to being the people in the caves in France, drawing pictures on the walls of the cave. We're going to need, we're going to bring our laws into the 21st century. They say, this is so progressive. Meanwhile, they don't even realize this is something that has existed forever. So, it's such a, the libs think they invented sex. They don't, you know, the libs think they invent everything anew. They've built the world anew.

They fail to recognize these perennial, eternal things that crop up in human nature. Like, we've never thought about this before. But as I say, we're going to bring it into the 21st century by doing what we've actually always been allowed to do. But then furthermore, they just are going to dumb it down. We've got to pass out crayons. This is the new Democrat legislative campaign. Pass out crayons.

Because all that black ink is really boring. You know, we need colors. Can we get some smiley faces? Not good. You know, the founders and the framers, they did a very good job. they probably should have constrained democracy even more than John Adams already did. Even more than he did. Okay. Speaking of the decay of thought, there's a shocking new study that shows that transvestites are violent.

Shocking. Pull over your car. Stop what you're... I am sorry. I hope you didn't have a sip of water when I said that. I'm sure you spit it out. We'll get to that shocking new study first, though. My favorite comment yesterday is from Daniel, who says, circumcision is surgery on a kid's dingling is a political quote for the history books. Yes, this was, I didn't mention it actually when we were talking about that interview between Abdul al-Sayed and Jesse Waters on Fox yesterday. In that interview, he said, do you really think we should trans the kids? And Abdul-Al-Side says, are you circumcised? And then they go on and on, you know, debating whether or not a little medical snip to

reduce STDs is the same as like permanently castrating a child. So much of the discourse is the left pretending to understand things, thus making communication impossible. But the real crowning achievement of that interview was when Jesse provoked Abdul and said, when do you think we should cut off a kid's dingling? And then Abdul took the bait. And he said, circumcision is cutting off part of a kid's dingling. If you're running for Senate, just some political advice. If you're running for Senate, don't use the word dingling.

Definitely don't use the word dingling after the word kids. You are not beating the allegations, neither are the weird sex allegations nor the allegations that you're not a serious person who wants to draft laws and crayon. Don't, if you're running for Senate, dingling should not be in your vocabulary. And good on Jesse for getting him to say that. Okay. Speaking of dingalings, there's a new study that's just come out of the Manhattan Institute. that has come to the shocking conclusion that people who think they're the opposite sex might be a little violent. This is a trope that has existed in our culture forever. This is the premise of silence of the lambs and

psycho, which is that trannies are, they're a little off, they're a little off kilter, and sometimes they're a little violent, certainly against themselves, because they chop off those aforementioned body parts, but against other people as well. So what does the study show? reading from the study these findings suggest that gender ideology is associated with left-wing authoritarianism and willingness

to justify political violence. The study is called where the clinic meets the movement does gender ideology arm left-wing authoritarian psychology. Obviously, you're seeing this play into the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a guy, allegedly,

we'll wait until the conviction, but allegedly a guy who was dating a tranny furry. You saw this in the Covenant School shooting. where we have the diaries, the manifesto of the trans shooter who murdered little Christian kids, who talks about the relevance of the gender ideology to that massacre. On and on and on and on and on. It's not just in the movies. It's not just in the stories.

It happens in real life all the time. Even the other political events when I was at the University of Pittsburgh and a couple Antifa guys threw an explosive at the building. That was because we were debating transgenderism. First, I was attacked with a squirt gun filled with who knows what. many years ago at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. It was during a speech on transgenderism by a guy who I think identified as trans. That's just my personal experience.

So many more stories of that. So the Manhattan Institute concludes that experimental research is needed to determine causality, but also gender ideology may function as an ideological accelerant telling left-wing authoritarian psychology who the enemy is, why the situation is urgent and in those already disposed toward force that violence is legitimate. So this is a key part here. It's not saying that trans identity is the thing that necessarily causes you to become violent. There are people, I've met a number of people who deal with gender, dysphoria, feelings that they're the wrong sex or whatever,

who are not violent and who are even kind of conservative and they're just dealing with this problem. It's not necessarily, experimental research is important here, but it's not necessarily that that is what causes the violence. What the researchers have concluded is that it's an accelerant. It's an ideological accelerant. So people who already have aspects of this left-wing authoritarian psychology, the trans ideology just turns everything up to 11. It tells you who your enemy is. It tells you that you're in a moment of crisis, that things are urgent. When I gave my speech at CPAC about how we need to eradicate the trans ideology, people accuse me of genocide. The reason I had all sorts of threats and was doxed and all that kind of stuff,

was because of this claim pushed by Rolling Stone, and I think it was the Huffington Post, one of some of the liberal media outlets, who accused me of calling for genocide. Now, obviously, I did nothing of this sort, but the trans ideology, which is just an extreme form of delusion,

convinces you that everything is a crisis, everything is existential. And it tells people who are already predisposed to violence that violence would be legitimate. Last bit from this study, they say, We also assessed catastrophizing beliefs such as the perceived likelihood that a genocide of individuals that identifies transgender is currently underway and associate extremist responses such as belief in the need to censor and punish those who oppose transgender dogmas and ignore Supreme Court rulings on gender ideology issues.

Yeah, duh. The next report to come out will say that the sun shines. It's a breaking, shocking study, the sun shines. Breaking. water, rainwater gets you wet. A lot of people are going to say, why do we need this study? Duh, of course the trans ideology inclines toward violence. Yeah, duh.

But it is important. It's very good that the Manhattan Institute put this study out. Not because it tells us anything new. It doesn't tell us anything new at all. We, conservatives who are kind of skeptical of a lot of these social science studies, but because it deals in the culture. Studies are the language of the culture. I've said for many years. I say, I think statistics are basically fake, but I cite them when they serve my purposes.

A little bit of political honesty here. I cite the studies, not because I think they're necessarily dispositive, but because we live in this materialist, scientific age, in which people only believe studies. So I can make arguments from the natural law, from teleology, from history, from philosophy, but that's not going to reach a certain segment of people. Those people are only reached by peer-reviewed papers that come out of universities and think tanks, that cite statistics. So, fine, I'll be all things to all people. I'm happy to cite that as well. We have to speak the language of the culture because, one, I think a lot of people suspect in recent years that the weird sex ideologies do have an association with violence.

And two, because the ideology isn't going away. Because Abdul al-Saiat running for Senate doubles down on chopping off a kid's dingling, in his words. So because of that, that does remain. an urgent political problem. That actually is something we have to address. We're not just beating a dead horse. The left won't let it die. Okay.

Speaking of psychos, here's a story. I'll just tease it. Won't be able to get to it. I'll tease it. But good news, some crazy vanity fair writer was just fired. And she was fired because she goes to the Lindsay Clancy trial. I guess she knew Lindsay Clancy growing up.

And as the cameras are panning over to her, she looks crazier than Lindsay Clancy. She's smiling. She's winking. she looks happy as a clam. This is the best day of her life, listening to Lindsay Clancy. All while we get new news in the Lindsay Clancy trial that a lot of the defenses of Lindsay Clancy from all these crazy women who are showing up with their kids outside the courthouse, that a lot of those defenses are totally bunk, the postpartum depression, the acute psychosis,

would appear to be bunk. Okay, we'll get to all of that, but I'm a tease. We'll get to that tomorrow. Today is Theology Thursday. The rest of the show continues now. You do not want to miss it. Become a member. Use Code Knowles, KnaW, LAS, or check out for two months free on all annual plans.