EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Michael Knowles talks impeachment, campus culture, socialism
Campus Reform interviewed Michael Knowles for a lengthy discussion on his new podcast, The Verdict.
Knowles also discussed his career, his experiences speaking to students on campus, and the rise in socialism among millennials and Generation Z.
Campus Reform Digital Reporter Eduardo Neret recently sat down with The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles to discuss his new impeachment podcast with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Knowles also shared his thoughts on the state of conservatism and speech on campus, and the history behind his political ideology.
Knowles began the interview by sharing insight into the subject and production behind the Verdict with Ted Cruz.
“These impeachment trials are so boring,” Knowles said. “Nobody has ten hours a day to watch this droning nonsense.”
“We watch the impeachment all day and then in the middle of the night the senator will come over from the capitol straight to this studio, we’ll record the show, rinse and repeat, do it again the next day.”
Later in the interview, Knowles reflected on his experience being attacked by Antifa.
[RELATED: Conservative speaker doused during UMKC speech slams chancellor over response]
“I was giving a speech titled ‘Men Are Not Women,’” Knowles explained. “I guess you’re not allowed to say that.”
“For 25 minutes this group of leftist protesters was screaming,” Knowles recounted. “This masked Antifa weirdo came in with a SuperSoaker full of God knows what…[and] sprayed me with it.”
[RELATED: Conservative speaker doused during UMKC speech slams chancellor over response]
Neret also asked Knowles to analyze the rise in Antifa and leftist violence on campus.
“Their parents have in many cases failed them, failed to raise them with any sort of sense of moral order, or manners, or politeness, or historical understanding, or political wisdom,” Knowles explained. “Same thing with their teachers. In many cases, they’ve not only failed to learn real history and real scholarship but instead what’s been substituted is a patently false ideology.”
Knowles added that a lack of culture has contributed to the rise of leftist youth.
“I’m actually a little sympathetic towards them because we’ve got now two generations, millennials and Gen Z, who have been raised without culture and without education. These are people--I’m not saying they’re unintelligent--but they don’t know anything. They don’t know anything about their history. They don’t know anything about literature. They don’t know anything about philosophy or theology.”
“And so I think their anger is legitimate. It’s misplaced...they’re looking around and seeing a totally broken culture, a worldview that is utterly senseless, increasing polarization without any understanding, and increasingly without the ability even to speak to one another. And that makes them anxious, and it makes them stressed, and it makes them angry.”
Knowles also told Neret that it is probably “too late” to fix the problem once a student is in college.
[RELATED: Antifa rears its head on campus in 2019]
On socialism, Knowles called upon conservatives to abandon the traditional pragmatic counterarguments.
“We’ve got to stop arguing from utility or maximizing market efficiency. Or saying ‘well under capitalism you get more material stuff. You get more cheap plastic goods. Isn’t’ that so wonderful,’” Knowles said.
“You have to make a moral argument…[Socialism is] wicked, it’s evil, it is the gospel of envy.”
Neret finished the interview by asking Knowles about his acting career, and how he found his way to political media.
“Since I was a kid, I was always involved in acting and politics,” Knowles told Neret. “I was running political campaigns from the age of 18 onward. I think that show business and politics have a lot in common. The bad version of that is that they both have to do with lies and vanity. That’s what you see from bad politicians and bad actors.”
“But from good politicians and from good actors, they’re concerned with two things: they’re concerned with the truth. To act well is to live truthfully in imaginary circumstances. To be a good politician, to work well in politics, is to pursue truths about how we all get along together.”
“And the other thing is you have to love people. If you want to be a good actor you have to love people. You have to love building characters. Same thing: if you’re a politician and you don’t like people, get another job.”
Follow the author of this article on Facebook: @eduneret and Twitter: @eduneret
