What Is The Woke Right? HEATED Debate with Michael Knowles

And so, what do you want to call them "liberal" or "retards" or "wokeright" wherever the terminology is? Yeah, we can say that those people are not part of the mainstream conservative movement. To say, well, why doesn't anybody know about, you know, the genocide happening in Ethiopia against the Ethiopian Christians? Uh, probably because the Ethiopian flag does not line the halls of the cannon building. The way that I saw the flag of Israel line the halls of the cannon building. They need to leave. Muslims specifically need to leave. As far as, uh, as Israel is concerned, I mean, I was detained by police recently in question, um, my beliefs and, uh, my contentions with the Jewish community here in the UK. Can I just wait, why were you detained? It's funny because you, with all the time you were saying, "Ah, the Israel issue is not a big deal in the UK." And then right at the very end, you say, you're saying the Jews are helping the Muslims, basically? Yeah. Back in the middle of the 20th century, the big divide on the American right was between the conservatives and the liberal Rockefeller Republicans. Then you had the divide between the Reaganites and the Bushes. You had the divide between the business Republicans and the more social conservative types. In the Tea Party, you saw this come to a head with a divide between the Neocons and the Paleocon Libertarian types. Then Trump comes in, brings in this new era of populism and with the rise of the internet, there seem to be a billion different versions of conservatism. You've got everything from classical liberalism to the traditionalists to working class populism all the way when you get all the way to the fringes you basically get to box cars. So what is the online right really about? I bring in people from all over the spectrum, variations from the mainstream to a little more eccentric. I'm very pleased to welcome Shabbos Kestinbaum, who you know from Prager U and also for suing Harvard, one of one of my very favorite things that anyone can do. We also have Kai Schwemmer, the political director of the College Republicans of America. We welcome to the show for the first time, Jake Monroe, who describes himself on YouTube as quote, an alt-right nationalist goth YouTuber from the UK fighting the woke matriarchy in alternative subcultures. What a log line. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thanks for having with us. I want to jump right in on where the divides really stand because I referenced box cars earlier. Is it like a slight exaggeration of what you find on X, but you do see like very, very extreme kind of increasingly ethnic and religious tensions on the super online right. And in the way that that lands, I think most reasonably in politics is in a divide over foreign policy, but to put it really bluntly, when I was a kid, the Christians generally viewed the Jews as people we generally liked and the Muslims as people we generally were not like the not that into because they kept doing it, you know, we've been fighting them for like 1400 years. And now on the online right, it seems to have flipped a little bit. And I don't know, I'm seeing an increasingly kind of Islamophilic move on the right. A lot of that is centered around foreign policy in the gods of war, but you get all the way down to not just people who are skeptical of America's relationship with Israel, which has, that's been around for a long time. But even you even get conservatives who are like pro-Palestine, which that actually kind of blew my mind. So let's start out, let's start out in order, Kai, you're the political director of the College Republicans of America. Am I imagining that? Where the divide on foreign policy, the kind of Islamophilic, even like pro free Palestine stuff, is that real or is that a shadow on the internet? So I think it's, it exists certainly, but I actually don't think it, it really exists in the more authentic parts of the right wing, whether online or, or just in, you know, kind of the youth spheres. It's certainly not in the College Republicans. I mean, the big thing that I see is you have people who kind of co-opped and hijacked some things that maybe historically appear right wing, but they end up not having any kind of ideological actual consistencies. And this is where you get people who really just are motivated by the Israel issue, who begin adopting this kind of ridiculous view of the world. Like I saw it, Jake Shields posting the other day, and I made a post about it, about like this TikTok edit about how Hitler would have supported Palestine. And I think you almost get to the point right where there's this mythical vision where it's like Hitler would have said BLM, and the coalition is all centered around whatever, you know, opposes itself to Israel. And that's not a conservative position at all. So I think we're going to see a big filtering out of those kind of characters who don't have any kind of conservative ideological alignment other than just, you know, maybe disdain for, you know, foreign influence, particularly from Israel. But I do think that that question is a legitimate one, and certainly is increasing, you know, and it's importance within sectors of the young right who are asking the question, well, what is America? And then to whom does it owe its allegiance? And how is it demonstrating that allegiance first to the American people, and especially the young people? Yeah, I get, you know, there's always been, from the beginning of the country, there's been this sense that we don't want to have entangling alliances, but then we became an empire. So we had alliances, but we've always been kind of uncomfortable managing the empire. But that's what I can't tell. Is it, is it just like Rando's on Twitter who are, like if you have to pick in a conflict who lean more pro-Palestine than pro-Israel, is that just like, is that just a Twitter thing? Or do you think that actually reflects growing opinion on the young right? It's, it's tough, but I think, you know, they're in the dialectic. You actually kind of have your answer, which is if you have people saying pro, like they are pro-Palestine, if they're affirming, like the Palestinian position, rather than affirming like an America first position of just seeking our own interests first, then I think they're, you know, they're giving away the game. These are people who are not actually motivated by conservative ideology or America first ideology, mag ideology. These are people who are aligning themselves with what is kind of inherently, you know, oftentimes presents itself as a, as like an anti-colonialist or a very progressive movement. And so in the rhetoric, I think you start to see that, but I mean, those voices are very real. They are very large. I don't think they're, you know, intellectual powerhouses. And I think that, like I said, that filtering is going to occur. And people are going to start to grow tired with the people who are truly just secret progressives, willing to ally with whoever, as long as they're opposed to Israel. And, you know, I'm optimistic that we end up with a lot more people on our side who are willing to say, hey, you know, we don't like maybe the foreign influence, but it's not as if we're going to adopt the terminology of the left in order to, you know, make a stand on this issue. Travis, do we need to worry about free Palestine conservatives? Is that it seems to me opposition to Islam was always a pretty stable rallying cry for the right going back to old Charles the Ham or at the Battle of Tours. Is that, is that now being upended? Yeah, people forget that 200 years before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the first war we ever fought as the United States was against Muslims off the coast of Tripoli because they kept kidnapping white Christian sailors. And of course, Thomas Jefferson dispatches ambassadors saying, why are you doing this to us? We have no quarrels with you. And of course, they say, well, you are the infidel and we're committed by the Quran. So this bizarre left-green alliance, it's not just left-green anymore to a certain extent. It's the right-green alliance, it's just so bizarre. I mean, you can hate Israel as much as you want, hate a pack, hate a BB. It doesn't really concern me. What does concern me is is bizarre welcoming of the Islamist ideals in Islamist countries, particularly by the likes of Tucker Carlson, kind of normalizing it amongst the American populists. But I do agree in general, but the Israel question, it's really boring at this point. I mean, I speak on college campuses and I want to talk about tariffs and immigration and gun violence and Trump. And of course, all they want to talk about, especially because I'm, you know, an observant, too. I don't know what gave that away. In fact, in my name is Shabbos, where the funny hat, but they just want to talk about, you know, A-Pack and the Epstein stuff and God's, and it's just so boring. So I've been clear from day one, or I cut the foreign aid, but the foreign aid is a distraction. You know, it's like a circus to make people who are otherwise not politically engaged think that they're actually politically engaged because when we talk about foreign aid, we're talking about 0.8% of the foreign budget. You know, people say, well, there's a genocide. I don't want to support the genocide. We have a side. There is no genocide. I mean, from November of 2020 to November of 2022, in the Tigre war, 800,000 Ethiopian civilians were killed in an actual massacre. A, no one knows that that happened. B, no one talks about it. And C, we give Ethiopian $1.5 billion in foreign aid in every, every single year. You don't really see much college campus protests about that. So cut the foreign aid, but it's such a non-issue. The real issues are the fact that we're spending $4 billion every two days on interest on the debt alone. We're spending more than a trillion dollars on entitlement programs that there's no way we can afford and there's no way our generation will be able to reap the benefits of. So yeah, the Israel stuff, it's a distraction. It's really boring. And yeah, I'm very concerned that we're seeing the normalization of Islam as both a political movement and a religious philosophy. It's totally incompatible with Western civilization, which is why one of the last things Charlie Kirk was talking about before he was killed by Tyler Robinson was the dangers of political Islam. Yeah, look, I, so you're saying that it's real, that that is a growing problem on the right. And I've, I've, I've got a lot of college campuses, a lot of TPSA stops and, and yeah, and others. And I've noticed this and people really care about the Israel issue. So then my question, even if you say it's boring, who cares? It's not a big deal. Why do they all care about it? Why is it that no one, no conservative speaker can go to a college campus? Five years ago, all they wanted to talk about was trannies. Ten years ago, all they wanted to talk about was free speech. Today, in my experience, that's not all they want to talk about, but the modal issue is Israel. What, why is that? Yeah. And, and again, the night before Charlie was killed, he was on a Zoom call with Josh Hammer and Rabbi Paesah Walke to basically say, why are these young people obsessed with a country smaller than the size of New Jersey? I think the right is kind of fallen for a massive noses that the left did with BLM, even though statistically, the idea that, you know, unarmed young black men were just been gunned down by these white racist tops, which is never true. I mean, the data just never supported that. Nevertheless, you had cities being burnt down by the left because they really did believe this thing. So too, you're seeing young people being totally brainwashed and politically indoctrinated to believe that really all of our politics is controlled by a country of 9 million people, a quarter of whom are Muslim Arabs. And, you know, that clip will probably be taken on AF post right now saying that, you know, the Zionist Jewel, of course, says that there is no Zionist Jewish control. But that's kind of the problem. You know, this is a daily wire show. So we come from the school of facts over feelings, but so many young people that I'm interacting with and I'm young myself. We all are, maybe not you, Michael. You're a little bit generationally removed, but you look young. Thank you. But it's very sorry. Flattery will get you somewhere. I, I feel like I'm age, I feel like the cigars have actually aged me to like 55 by 36. But in any case, I'll take the flattery. But, but young people, so many, I shouldn't say young people, many young people that I'm interacting with on these college bases, they come from the perspective of feelings over facts. So I'm actually not interested in the arguments that you have in the data, in the logic, in the statistics, or the numbers. I'm interested in it just feels like a genocide. I'm interested that data centers just feel wrong. I'm just interested that there must be this global Kabbalah pedophiles that, you know, Trump is covering up. Even though I don't have evidence to support that thing, nevertheless, I'm going to posit a theory. And that's really dangerous. It's really dangerous when you have increasing numbers of young people who are actually not in the interest of being swayed by the arguments. But rather, our judging, I'll talk about myself, judging me based on immutable, external, characteristic that I literally have no control over. The fact that my name is Shabbos, I'm an orthodox Jew, and I'm white. And that's why we oftentimes will call them the woke right because they've adopted the worst tactics of the woke left. You know, Anna Kasparin did this masterfully. We were once debating on Pierce Morgan. And I'm forgetting the point I made, but she responded by saying, and I quote, I get your Jewish, so you feel you have to say that thing. That's really dangerous. That would be the equivalent of saying, Michael, yeah, I get what you're saying, but you're a Catholic or kind of you're a Mormon. So of course, you would say those things. I don't care about your sexual orientation. I don't care about your religion. I don't care about your external, immutable identities. I care about the arguments being once. I agree with much of what you just said, but I actually do get, if someone says to me, well, Michael, you're Catholic, so therefore you think this, I actually, that's kind of fair. You know, in a way, like there is a, obviously, there's a theology and there's even a political philosophy that emerges from Catholicism. So I want to push on that point, but I do want to get the global perspective for a second from our pal over in the UK, because I feel like what's going on with the right is not simply limited to the United States. I think it definitely bleeds over to the old Motherland, which now, I mean, I suppose is the tip of the spear when we're talking about the Islam issue, but your name is not Mohammed. Your name is Jake Monroe. What do you get a sense that there's been a shift in the foreign policy, I don't know, desires or a perspective of the young UK or no? The issue is a little hotter for you guys over there. Well, whenever it comes to the right over here, it's kind of a splintered mess of the moment. I don't know if you guys have heard about the splintering from the conservative, the traditional conservative part of the Tories with reform. And then reform also then split to restore. And you've got Rupert Lo that sort of spearheading the restore movement at the moment. And it both both reform and restore both have this sort of anti-Muslim remigration ideology that's going on. And it seems to be reaching a lot of young people. A lot of young people seem to be engaging with this, but as someone who's seen a lot of the crowds that have sort of gathered around, like, you know, the kingdom with Tom Grums and that happened. That was very much a, like a multi eight, like everyone was involved. There was elderly, there was working class people, there were up class people, there was a lot of young people there. And foreign policy so much, so far as it affects young conservatives here in the UK, primarily seems to be around. They need to leave. And I would say that from my perspective here in the UK, this sort of pro-Palestine or free Palestine that's sort of echoed in, you know, certain folk-right circles in the US. It doesn't seem to be as loud here. It's primarily just complete, total country, nation reclamation. And that seems to be the primary focus as far as Israel is concerned. Again, it's kind of a very difficult topic for people over here to touch on. I mean, I was detained by police recently in question on my beliefs and my intentions with the Jewish community here in the UK is directly asked how I feel about them. And there is a. You gotta, you can't just drop that a little bit, a little nugget and not to explain to me. Oh right, yeah. Sorry. I was, it was trending on Twitter because I live in Northern Ireland, right? So you guys, you guys are probably very familiar with the 2023 annual report that showed that over 12,000 British citizens were arrested for words that they expressed on the internet around the nature of immigration or these kinds of things. Basically, this sort of like dystopian surveillance state that we live in, in Americans were like, holy fuck, is this really happening? Is this true? Is this actually happening? People being arrested for things are saying on the social media, yes, that's 100% true. And it's being done by an organization on mainland UK, which is great Britain, England Scotland and Wales, will prevent, prevent is the task force that's responsible for tackling extremism and terrorism and all these sorts of things. Regardless of what the extremism is, it could be Islamism, it could be, you know, just patriotism for your country. And we're the way you think, Jack. I've actually heard from UK friends, that's an example of extremism. Yes, yes, it is. In certain contexts, it is seen as hateful. It's a deliberate demonstration of your hatred of anything that that flag does not represent. And I think it was called raising the colors of some kind of project raising the colors of something like that. And there were two groups responsible, one was to put the flags up. And there was a leftist group that were responsible for going around and taking them all down. And it was seen as a symbol of hatred for certain neighborhoods that had a very specifically large amount of non-whites living in the neighborhood. Yeah, well, this is, you know, on this point of like national identity, I do see the commonality, I see, is a major concern among young right wingers about sovereignty. And so in the UK, the threat to sovereignty is this flood of Muslims. I mean, there are some other issues too, but that's basically it. So I think that's why the Israel-Palestine issue is not really controversial. You know, I was just in the UK month or so ago. And I don't really see that as much here. But you brought up a word as did Shabbos that drives me a little bit crazy. And I want to explore it a little bit, which is this idea of the woke right. Because I say, I have friends of mine promote this this terminology. They think this is a helpful distinction on the right. I think it's useless basically. There are bad elements that have cropped up on the right that are anti-Semitic and anti-American downright and racist and whatever. You know, but I just, the reason I find it so unhelpful is, it seems to me that the people who wield the slogan are accusing anyone who isn't like a 90s Bill Clinton moderate Democrat liberal of being the woke right. And that, so it doesn't just take out the hateful people and the radicals. And it takes out like traditionalists and no classical conservatives. And I don't know. So it's you, Kai, you're nodding in agreement. Yeah, totally. I mean, I see a lot of people who, frankly, were conservative as of yesterday who are talking about this term of the woke right. And I ask myself, who gave you the authority to police? What it means to be conservative? What it means to be a Republican? And increasingly, what it is that makes them feel they have this authority is that when they joined the conservative movement, they were told that it was a much larger umbrella than maybe the term conservative truly is denotative of. And you know, I think this is actually one of the big problems that we've run into. It is the fact that this umbrella has expanded in such a way that begins to tell people or gives people the impression that it includes things that honestly it shouldn't. And so in the conservative movement, you have questions about, well, how important is marriage? I'm sure that a lot of the conservative or Republican movement and mostly conservative, right? Because that term means something more specific, I would say, than even Republican. But a lot of conservatives might be uncomfortable with the idea that a conservative could be against the legalization of gay marriage. When in reality, this is kind of like, in the actual term, it should be included. So I think that idea of the woke right. And I'll be honest, he shabbos. It's like, you are not a life-blowing Republican. You're somebody who maybe is coming to the fold more recently. I think that I see a lot of people who maybe are more ideologically libertarian, who are maybe more aligned with free markets than they are with larger conservative philosophy. Those are the kind of people I see making, you know, or using this term, especially as this like negative label to throw on to people, aligning them by the way with Hitler. I mean, BB Netanyahu said, you know, you compared it to the woke right, which is like, okay, awesome. We're going back to calling people Nazis. That got us really far the first time. Wait, hold on. Netanyahu is using the term too. I mostly see it among like libertarians on Twitter. Netanyahu used it. Hold on. He used it. He was in a meeting with a bunch of influencers, during which he discussed, by the way, you know, the acquiring of TikTok, along with other social media, including X. And in that meeting, he says there's a term that gets used a lot that I really like, which is the woke right, or as I like to call them the woke right. And I'm like, what are we doing, dude? I'm a sucker for a good pun. But so shabbos, what is, you know, the guy who's been promoting this the most, who I like, I actually like personally, even though he drives everyone crazy on Twitter is James. James Lindsay. And James Lindsay calls everybody on the the woke right. And James Lindsay, he's done some things are pretty cool and pretty fun. Like the grievance studies scandal exposed to a lot of the weaknesses of academia. But James is an atheist Democrat until like 37 seconds ago. He's a Democrat until like 2020. He is liberal, like a left liberal by most definitions. And so I say, look, I appreciate his contributions to this broad Republican coalition. But you don't, you can't, you're not the arbiter of conservatism. This is crazy. But so, okay, Kai, you, you don't like the label. I'm uncomfortable with the label woke right. Shabbos, you used it as did Jake. How would you define like what is a good definition of the woke right? Oh, it's cool. First, I would just say we, we can disagree on the application of it, but broadly speaking, in the same way we believe, I think this is Ben Shapiro's point from Amfest, in the same way we believe in like physical borders against a legal immigration. You need ideological borders. So if I said, for example, I believe in general mutilation, right? Like I believe that young people should be able to decide what to do with their bodies. If you wake up one morning and you think that, you know, you're a woman, you should be able to cut off your penis. And then I go and say, you know what? I deserve a platform to speak at Amfest about that thing. I think we all as conservators would say, no, you have right to say that thing, but like build your own thing. We don't need you in this movement because we don't believe in that thing. So I think it's actually very good to be able to define here are the things we believe in. So I think we would all probably agree that yeah, maybe the application of the woke right is to no pun intended liberal. We might be too generous and who are subscribing to it. But yeah, I'm very comfortable. I don't use the term. What is it? I agree. We all need borders. And I totally agree with that. But just what is it? What does it actually mean? Whether it's woke right, the retard right rhinos, it's individuals who subscribe to at least on paper, conservative philosophy or conservative politics, but very much advance and advocate for things that are very much not in the interest of the conservative movement and very much not in the interest of the Trump Maga agenda. And again, I think it's totally I don't mean to be pedantic about it. But like what what are those? I'm trying to figure out because I totally agree that you need ideas for borders, but what are that? I'll give you specific. I'll give you specific examples. The idea that Donald Trump has been protecting a pedophile sex trafficking ring and then parroting that for more than two years. That is an example of an individual who's presenting feelings over facts who is trying to sell you the conservative movement. The idea that Donald Trump or the Maga movement is being bought or influenced by foreign influence, whether it was Russia in 2016, whether it's in Israel in 2024, that's an example of individuals who aren't presenting an argument who aren't presenting facts or evidence, but are again, engaging in feelings over facts. And so whether you want to call them liberal or retards or woke right wherever the terminology is, yeah, we can say that those people are not part of the mainstream conservative movement. And I'll make one last point, I sort of take issue with the fact that individuals who are new to the conservative movement are being stymied for this. That's actually a really good thing. In order to win in 2028, we need more people to come to the conservative movement. In fact, you can make a really good argument that Donald Trump in large part won in 2024 because he had a broad coalition of disillusioned Jewish Democrats like myself, of disillusioned Muslims in Michigan. In fact, one of the region's mic Rogers is going to win in November is because a lot of Democrats are fed up with a duel else I had in the DSA. We need to encourage that. And yeah, I knew to the conservative movement. I met that openly because it's obviously the case. I became a conservative after October 7th when I saw the literal cheering on of terrorism and terrorists by the quote unquote elites of our society. I saw how Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Yale, UCLA were entertaining and normalizing and acquiescing to the lowest common denominator. And I didn't want to be part of the Democratic party anymore. I didn't want to become a liberal. And I didn't want to be a liberal, I should say. And that evolution led me to a lot of conservative beliefs, whether it's on climate change, whether it's on immigration, whether it's on terrorists, whether it's on a whole host of issues. That's really good. We should encourage people to do that. Isn't that like the whole point? You know, I actually want to convince people to our side. Why should we criticize people? I have to confess, I didn't. I thought you were a lifelong Republican. I didn't realize that you're a new convert. But in the only reason I'll forgive you for how recently you converted is that you sued Harvard. And so to me, that erases a myriad bad election, you know, look, I'm proud of the fact that I'm proud of the fact that I registered hundreds of people to vote for Donald Trump in 2024. In fact, this is a little plug for my Yamaha, but the Trump campaign actually gave us a Trump style keeper. Trump fans 47. It's kind of cool. I'm proud of the fact that I'll be campaigning for Mike Rogers in Michigan, Bruce Blakeman in my home state of New York, Spencer Pratt in LA, although back didn't work. So again, if we want to build the conservative movement, so long as you subscribe, like core conservative ideals, sign on up. I mean, Donald Trump was a pro choice Democrat at one point. JD Vance compared Trump to Hitler at one point. Dennis Prager was a liberal. Larry Elder was a liberal. So most of the staunch conservative hour days were Democrats or liberals. And to criticize those people, I think it's really short, short-sighted. No, but it's not a criticism. It's just, but it's, it's, I, you see me extremely outraged by that coming. My view of it is, it's not that we're criticizing it. It's just like, you don't get to join the team yesterday and then become the team captain today. I mean, I think that's some of the discomfort with the, I agree. I don't think anyone's from the right. I don't think anyone's trying to be team captain. I would agree with that. Sorry, Kai, go ahead. Well, I, I was just going to say that, you know, you use the term short-sighted. I think it's actually the exact opposite of that. You know, if we are unable to have a memory of where people align themselves at pivotal moments, we're actually incapable of maintaining, you know, the true integrity of the conservative movement. You're telling, well, just look past these people's flaws, even if they happened recently, that's the opposite of short-sighted, you know, we're looking long term. And that's really important to do in politics because sometimes the way that people have acted in the past tends to present itself again in the future. And what's funny is, is you use, you know, first before three different terms, you use liberal, retard, right, which I think is a funnier term and then the woke right. But those are different terms. Those three terms mean something different. They have different meanings. And then on top of that, right, when you go and dive in, actually, to what some of these criticisms are, they're coming from the rhinos. They are coming, like the woke right, the people who say that rather, who use the term, these are people who opposed Donald Trump in 2016. These are people who would rather have a challenge in candidate in 2020. These are people who have not been along for the right. Now, I agree with you that it's, it's probably really unproductive to go and say that there's this, you know, pedocabal ring. And in, in this way, by the way, I think the right wing, we kind of dug our own grave. It's been hilarious to watch the flip. You'll go out and talk to a leftist now and they'll tell you about how the elites are drinking baby blood. And it's like, hold on, wait a minute, when this swab happened. But I really think that a lot of the problems we're seeing now are truly just when the right wing has not lived up to what we should have been living up, which is free speech. It is conservative values. When we get questions about foreign influence, the reason it's become such a big problem, and maybe this is addressing your final or rather your original point Michael, this is the question. If we had been open, if we had had more open discourse, more open dialogue, and rather than shunning people, rather than excluding them, the way that you advocate Shabbos allowed difficult and controversial conversations to happen. Even yes about foreign influencer politics, would we be in the same place we are now? I don't think so. And I don't like, by the way, this disingenuous conflation that, you know, if you walk down the halls of Buchanan building, you'll find the flags of Ethiopia or if any other number of countries. There is kind of a outsized variable or rather a, you know, a variable that's being represented as larger than the rest. And to say that that is not true is ignoring reality. And it is when you ignore reality that people start to ask questions. So you're saying, you're saying that's Israel? Yeah, absolutely. I think to say, well, why doesn't anybody know about, you know, the genocide happening in Ethiopia against the Ethiopian Christians? Well, probably because the Ethiopian flag does not line the halls of the cannon building. The way that I saw the flag of Israel line the halls of the cannon building when I went to the State of the Union last year. And it's not to say that that's inherently a bad thing, but it is to say that you can't conflate these two things, which are obviously different in their size and scope. So can I just ask one simple question? Is you brought the example of 2016 to being a never-trumper? And that is shortsighted. So by your own logic, I assume therefore you're not going to support JD Vance in 2028 because less than 10 years ago, he compared Donald Trump to Hitler and said he was a never-trumper. Not at all, but I think I'll examine his motives. I think I'll say, what caused him to fall? There you are. Thank you for presenting my ideological change. Hold on. So thank you for putting that party in that hole. When did I say in this conversation that you can never think that somebody has a development in ideology? That would be ridiculous. And I'm a Christian, so I believe that people can change their entire being. They can change their hearts. Of course, I believe people can change. What you're telling me though is that we should forget how they've been. We should forget the way they've thought in the past and just take it all on their work. And I think that is politically completely irresponsible. And if you were marrying somebody, it would be the worst advice you could give them. Go to pre-born.com/nolescanadavls. Folks, we are living in a defining moment. Today, a woman facing an unexpected pregnancy can order the abortion pill online often before anyone has the chance to tell her she's loved or that she's not alone or that there's hope. 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If you're a business owner, would you consider a larger donation to claim a right off donation of $1,000, $10,000, $15,000? $10,000, will sponsor an ultrasound machine for an ED clinic helping to save countless babies lives for years to come, all gifts are tax deductible, and we'll reach eternity, get involved today. >> Well, now, I want to get the international perspective here also because we're like honing in a little bit on what the woke right thing means, which is, to your point, I love the practicality of your point, Shobbas, which is the guys who are working against the team, I kind of want them to be excluded, though it seems to me a more practical, political point than an ideological point, and I agree with you, Kai, that those terms, woke right, retard right, whatever, they're all these different liberal right rhinos, those do refer to different things, and I don't think we should conflate them, like the, what's called the retard right is just this like conspiracy-minded insanity that you get on TikTok and some podcasts and stuff. Whereas the woke right, but you know, it's always the two factions of the right wing coalition is just accusing the other one of being insufficiently authentic, and then the rhinos are just the squishes. We actually, I can't identify them, though often yes, I agree with you, they, some of them are the ones wielding this term woke right, but not exclusively. So you've also brought it up, Jake, and in, in the UK perspective, what does that mean to you? Are we, can you bring us to a closer definition of what the woke right is? >> I would say honestly, it's almost entirely lacking in the UK to be practically honest with you. I would say it's, the primary concern of almost every single major political party here, even from, from the greens all the way up to restore is just Muslims, one once, more, one once way less, and as far as the Israel situation is concerned, no one seems to want to touch that. The only people still hopping on about Israel and their hatred of it is the, is the left. And that's only because Israel is attacking Palestine and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and the Muslims, you know, even on this point, because we keep circling it bad, keeps coming back to this Israel issue and foreign policy. But the term woke right, it seems to me is used to encompass more things. It seems to encompass economic populism, developmental economic policies, the greater use of the state, not just in economic policies, but even in social policy, this fear that there's an authoritarian emergence on the right. Do you see any of those divisions in the UK or is that it's basically, you have a common enemy among ordinary UK people and it's mass Muslim migration and good for you, because at least you can rally around something even though you're probably going to lose the fight because of the way Sovereignity works. Is it, is it, is it any more complicated than that? Do not draw Mohammed, do not draw Mohammed, whatever you do. Well, it primarily seems to, again, it's just this, again, the issue of Israel, it seems to be this very fringe, I mean, me included, but it seems, it's a very fringe contention that people have. The primary concern is this Muslim issue that seems to be happening. But whenever it comes to this authoritarian regime, this threat of an authoritarian regime that's rising up, there seems to be no one on the right that is suspicious of themselves or each other or any splinter of a faction of the conservative parties. It very primarily is focused on labor, which is, you know, Kierstahmer and all of the things that he's been involved with, all of the things that he has created policies to allow happen with the border crossing and stuff like that and the welfare and the media black out and blind spots for all of the migrant crimes that are happening. And it's also just the fact that the overwhelming amount of migration that is coming into the UK is quite clearly to bolster their vote numbers in order to still masquerade as if we're living in a democracy. But actually, because of the amount of fabricated voter numbers, it's actually just a, and it's saying dynasty, they're just going to keep going. Yeah, they do the same thing here, though we're relatively lucky because they, with us, Mexicans who are generally nice and, you know, we kind of, we've known them for a long time and they kind of have our religion and for you guys, it's jihadis, so that's much harder to deal with. But on the economic point, like beyond foreign policy, I've seen this term woke right bandied about for people who support tariffs or for people who think that we ought to have an industrial policy or for people who think that we ought to curtail certain kinds of speech, you know, band porn or whatever. Is that, I don't know, Shabbist, is that, does that fall into the woke right? Criterion? Yeah. Obviously not, which is what I was saying earlier. The application is probably poorly managed, but the general concept that there are those that exist outside this face of conservatism is so obviously true. I mean, a personal example would be anti-Semitism is like a real thing and when it crosses into criminality, there needs to be consequences, but it's application, particularly amongst the American Jewish leadership, is just insane, that they just label anything they don't like, especially criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. So again, conceptually, of course, there's anti-Semitism, but it's application is silly. Of course, there are nefarious actors with inconservatism who want to hijack the movement. We're probably too liberal in how we characterize those individuals, but to attack people for pointing it out. I think it's again just really, really misguided and I think a really good example because it just happened yesterday was the fact that our vice president was holding a fundraiser with an individual who gave Tucker Carlson $15 million to start his show. Now whether you agree or disagree with whether that was a good decision, we should be allowed to talk about it and we're allowed to ask questions and I don't mean asking questions in the Candace Owens way. I mean, asking questions not for the sake of positing a theory, but to actually get an answer. And to shut down criticism of that is really wrong. And that's where I take issue with what you were alluding to, Kai, earlier about this idea that we can't ask those questions pertaining to, I don't know, like foreign influence. I mean, I have debated non-stop individuals who believe that Israel controls every single American policymaker, albeit Vegas on Monday, to debate 10 people on Sean Kelly's podcast. Every time Nick Fuentes attacks me, I always tell him, let's debate anytime, anywhere. I went on Peer's Morton show to announce the British government because I was meant to debate Chekweiger in London and then Chek's visa was canceled. And I said, that is a terrible thing because Charlie always taught me you combat bad ideas with bad ideas. So no one, no one is saying you can't ask questions. What many people are saying, though, is you're not really asking questions. You're trying to so dissent and try to create demoralization, particularly amongst young people who are new to the conservative movement. And that's not in the interest of the Magga agenda. That's not in the interest of conservatism. And ultimately, it's not the interest of the American people, which is why I think Gen Z is the most likely, it's not, I think, is with the statistics bear out. Gen Z is the most likely to be medicated, the most likely to report feelings of suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, and the most likely to engage of acts of political violence on both sides of the aisle. And I believe a large part of that is because of there being demoralized by individuals with large platforms who tell them the reason you have economic anxieties, however justified they are, is because of this, like, shadowy undefined cabal of, like, elites or pedophiles or Jews or whomever, and that's a really bad message to be telling young people. Well, if you don't mind me just jumping in kind of tackling that, I would say, yeah, I think right now the state of discourse is far better than it has been, at least in the sense that people are debating these ideas. And I would argue the best thing that ever happened for Israeli public relations is the fact that now you have a large crop of new debaters who are tackling the issue and pointing out that a lot of, like, who you call the woke right, who make these kind of, you know, up in accusations or arguments against Israel really have no idea what they're talking about. And that actually to me has been staggering to see I'm somebody who obviously criticizes the relationship between the United States and Israel. But when I think up, you know, well, who would be the debaters to tackle this subject? As I had to do when I went on to Jubilee recently to debate it, I couldn't really come up with a long list of names despite the fact that this issue is now more saturated than ever. There are more people critical of Israel than ever. And so few of them who actually know what they're talking about. So I think that the open discussion is the best thing that has happened for both sides. But I don't think that historically that was the case. Historically, this was a taboo subject. And to say, you know, that it isn't is, you know, to spit on my head and tell me it's raining, right? You're just absolutely saying something that is not the case. What I'll say though is to hone in on this actual definition because Shabbos, I don't know if you've come up with a great one. One of the things that I see attributed to the woke right is any kind of use of identity or any kind of allegiance or at least alignment with it. And I think identity is actually something that is relevant, certainly the left, you know, have engaged in identity politics in a harmful way in a way that has targeted the founding stock of America that has demonized the people who built this country, making them all out to be evil slavers. When obviously we know they were far more virtuous men than many of us. And certainly all of those people levying the accusations, but I think that that is really what gets to it. I mean, when you look at the people who say the term woke right, they apply it to anybody who is willing to say that the founding stock of the American nation was white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It seems that you can't even talk about the identity of the country without being labeled woke right. This is a really good point because to me, the fairest claim that comes from the people who use the accusation of woke right is that this faction of the right is wielding identity politics, and that's bad because we don't like identity politics on the left. And therefore we shouldn't like identity politics on the right. And identity politics is another term that we could debate for like three hours. But yeah, obviously the ID politics we saw from the left was truly horrific. But it doesn't mean, obviously it doesn't mean that in politics there's no role for identity. I mean, what is politics? Politics refers to the political community. So I actually think that's a pretty fair honing in on it, but then what does that mean? I mean, what are the limits of talking about identity? We're not going to have like a skinhead party in the United States, which would be bad, and also politically not viable at all. So what are the limits of this? And job is, do you think that's a fair definition? Yes. No, first of all, Dan Bosair and very much tried having a skinhead party. So we came very close. We were only 98 percentage points away. I don't know. There's a donor. It's my disagree with you. I know. Yeah. There you go. Look, I can't really talk about other individuals who you're not naming because I just don't know. What I can do is defend the things that I believe in and things that I have said. So when I talk about the woke right, I'm referring to guys like Thomas Massey who voted with the Democrats repeatedly to defund the DHS and to open the borders. I'm referring to people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who again voted with the Democrats and believe that Donald Trump is sex trafficking young girls. I'm referring to people. Hold on. I want to hold in on. This is a very good point you bring up because Thomas Massey until he turned on Trump, he had a very good voting record with the Republicans. He was routinely considered one of if not the most conservative members of Congress, whatever that means. He was more libertarian. But when he turned on Trump, he kept voting with the Republicans a lot, but then on crucial issues where they needed his vote, where he would give sucker to the left. He would he would pal around with guys like Rokana and these guys who were, you know, even if he had a 93% voting rating with the Republicans, it was on the crucial issues that he turned on the Republicans and Trump. So is your point that the moniker really has more to do with alliances, with less with ideology and just more with, do you show up when we need you kind of politics? Yeah, I mean, ultimately politics is the art of the pragmatic. It's what can you actually pass? And yes, when you need things to pass, and then you have Republicans who campaigned with Donald Trump. I mean, even a week before the election, Thomas Massey was putting out these advertisements with him and Donald Trump, falsely implying that Trump had endorsed him and not telling the voters that that was actually four years ago. Then yeah, you're kind of useless. And why would we want you as a Republican? Because you're essentially a Democrat in Republican clothing. So again, I think we're getting caught up in the labels here. If you want to call that woke right, if you want to call it just acting as a liberal, if you want to call that just being a politician, then sure, but ultimately I'm interested in the policies that policymakers are invested in amplifying and actually passing. And I have found that way too many Republicans campaign with the president and then when push comes to shove, they abandon him. And that's why 2028 is going to be so remarkable because you're seeing this like odd splurging of, you know, the Tucker Carlsonites who believe that MAGA has somehow been abandoned and they're going to find their own party in 2028. So if you keep saying that MAGA's dead and conservatism is dead, then fine, leave. Is John Cornean woke right? Say that again. Is John Cornean in Texas woke right? No, but he wasn't really effective and I'm glad he lost and I hope can taxed and wins. He was actively, he was actively like opposing the president's agenda. I mean, by your definition, we would say that John Cornean is woke right, but he's obviously not. And again, to my point, what do you want to call him woke right? What do you want to call him a Democrat? He's not advancing the MAGA agenda. So therefore, I'm glad he lost. Yeah, no, I mean, that's fair, but I, Kai's objection is an interesting one, which is on the discrete point when we, whatever the term woke right means, no one includes John Cornean or like Susan Collins or somebody. So it obviously means something more specific than that. I agree with you, Shabbos. I think it's way more practical than ideological. It's way more team politics and, you know, we use this word tribalism as a, as a pejorative. I like tribalism in politics. I think politics is a team sport. But yes, I think you're right. It means something more specific and it, but what, what is that? I don't, I can't quite articulate it. Yeah. And then if I were to say that, well, you know, if I'm still manning the woke right, maybe it's that we look at a case, like John Cornean versus Paxton, and we say Trump's choice here should be obvious. The fact that we've spent what upwards of $30 million in this primary when we should have a very obvious endorsement in this race, this is the kind of stuff that, you know, we look at and say, hey, the president could be doing better here. It's not because we hate the president. And the reason I say we is because James Lindsay himself dubbed me woke right. So I think, you know, I've earned the right to say it. It's not that we hate the president. It's that we look at some of the decisions we, that he makes and we say, these are really unforced errors. There are easy decisions here. And some of the moves that he makes seem to betray what he actually did in 2016. People who use the term woke right against anybody who doesn't automatically support everything that is happening in the administration forget that in 2016 Donald Trump raised his hand to say that he would not support any of the other Republican nominees if he were not the nominee for president. That is what we're trying to, you know, live up to. Is that actually, like holding ourselves to a higher standard, but it seems that if people who hold themselves up to a higher standard disagree with whatever the admins doing, they get thrown these labels. Okay. There's one last point I want to make before I let you guy know we're running kind of late, but it seems like it's far afield, but it actually does relate. It seems like a lot of what you're getting from the woke right conspiracy, right, whatever. A lot of it is even beyond ideology. It's just like getting facts wrong and being generally psychotic, if not sociopathic. And the apotheosis of this, all the conspiracies and all the everything with these women showing up to the Lindsey Clancy trial with their children supporting the murderer of her own children, bringing their kids there. And it does, it does seem like I love debate the paleo neocon debate and debating foreign policy. Do we have two or our allegiance is too tight or tariffs good? Should we have industrial policy? Like I'm, I'm all for it and I like, I think, you know, a number of us have mentioned Charlie Kirk on the panel. He was really good at cultivating healthy debates on the right and excluding kind of stupid debates, but it does seem like some basically all of the internet debates or most of them are just nonsense, like conspiratorial fever-minded, stupid nonsense that ultimately comes up to this Lindsey Clancy step. So my final question I have for everyone is we've mentioned my friend and colleague Ben Shapiro saying facts don't care about your feelings. That's true. Also politics exclusively cares about your feelings or largely cares about your feelings. So just on the political psychology of where the young right is and where the, I don't know, the political order is generally, are we totally cooked? Are we, are we all just living in like Lindsey Clancy land debates are useless. The free marketplace of ideas is dead. The left shot it up and the right ain't going to rebuild it. How, how late is the hour? Anyway, anyone, let's start the UK now. So the UK, sure. Okay, well, the, the new wave of young right wingers here in the UK is neo-Nazism for the total remigration of Islamists as a whole. As long as they're gone, problems go away with them. I'm of the persuasion that some of the sort of sporadic Jewish members of leadership that we have are responsible for spearheading some of the, some of the, the human rights issues that have forced the general public to be far more sensitive whenever it comes to addressing Muslims and until that is addressed, the Muslim issue will continue. It'll keep coming back. But you're saying that it's funny because you, with the whole time, you were saying, ah, the real issue is not a big deal in the UK with her. And then right at the very end, you say, you're saying the Jews are helping the Muslims basically? Yeah. Well, that's a mistake. They probably should cut that out. I don't know. The gold is green attack that happened recently. You had a, you had an Islamist that wandered into the, the Jewish reserve in London. Gold is green and just started slashing like crazy. Yeah, no, I would be, if I were a Jewish leader, I would not be, I don't know, you know, if I could just, if I could just say very quickly, my, my grandmother lives on Golders Green Road, my whole family's British. And I can assure you that the most outspoken critics against Islamic migration to the United Kingdom are the Jews of Golders Green. But I digress. Yeah, yeah. That's a great, that would be me. I'm the most outspoken. On the, on the psychology point is that, is it all cooked? I mean, that's, I basically want to know, should I keep holding debates? Or is that all pointless? And I should just do monologues from now on because debate is dead and no one cares. And the left mostly killed it, but the right let it die too. I think it's a good idea not to platform infighting, I guess. I mean, it's all of this, this infighting, I guess, is, especially if it's going to be sensationalized for content, I guess it does damage. But sensationalized infighting is bad. Is there, is sober infighting, like actual debates? Is that good? Is that conducive to like growing and strengthening the right or not? Maybe ascertaining those who want authentic, I guess, but even whenever if someone isn't entirely authentic, if someone doesn't have a tenure long enough for someone to agree that you're Republican or conservative or whatever, as long as they show up to the polls, as long as they're telling the, if you're an influencer, as long as you're telling the people that follow you, that listen to you, to vote in the correct direction, which is always the preservation of your nation. Then it doesn't really matter. Just you get the end result. That's all that, yeah. So I guess the question is, how do we get the end result? Travis, are we totally cooked? You're a Harvard grad, valued debate in like 50 years ago? Yeah, exactly. 97% of the faculty identifies liberal. We're not totally cooked. I think debate is very healthy. If you were to show Khan and I 100 different Republican candidates, we would probably agree on 95 of them. If you were to present 100 different issues, we would probably agree on 95 of them. Yeah, there's some infighting. I think we spent too much time on like terminologies, which I don't think is particularly helpful. But at the end of the day, we want to see conservatives get elected this November. We want to see Republicans expand the majority in the Senate and the House. What I will say, though, and this is just a broad point. Number one, you mentioned liberal women. It is astounding to me that so much of the mainstream media talks about like young white men are becoming increasingly radicalized and there is statistics on that to somewhat support the claim. But ultimately, there's like middle age liberal women who will jump in front of like an ice truck to make sure a legal immigrants who sexually abused a child are not deported. They will shut down highways to ensure that abortions on demand are met. So we also have to talk about like the radicalization of white liberal women who are also holding like Hamas flags. And then the last one, I'll say very, very quickly, because I just did an episode on this yesterday with that Prager U. There was a study by, I think, as the American Enterprise Institute, and it found that 42% of Gen Z has been diagnosed with a mental health condition. Only one in four Gen Z men are having sexual intercourse and I'm an orthodox Jew, so we don't believe in premarital sex. But most of American young people are not religious Jews, or they're not practicing abstinence, so they actually should be engaging with like the opposite gender that's really healthy. It also found that basically 30 years ago majority of men had at least six friends. Now it's only like 20% have six friends. 15% of men in America have no friends at all. Amongst Gen Z men, and this to me is insane, amongst Gen Z men, 30% have no friends. So Gen Z men in America, 30% have no friends. I think when we talk about politics, we kind of ignore the fact that there are lots of people in this country who are hurting and one of the antidotes, and I say this very comfortably and confidently as an orthodox Jew, and Michael, you've been on my show. One of the absolute best things that young people need to be doing is you have to be going to church. I was in San Diego last month. I got a private tour of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple. We need a lot more young LDS individuals going to those temples. We need more Catholics going to Mass. We need more young Christians learning the New Testament and the Old Testament. I'm a fan of the original, living in a life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus, and really having role models, particularly male role models, who can convince them of the righteous path because we know what happens when those young people don't have male role models. They're still going to look for answers and community and solace, and they're going to find it in the darkest worst corners of the internet. So all policymakers need to be encouraging young people like find God, find community, find church, and you will find that our politics will be a lot healthier as a result. And even though Kai and I probably disagreed with a lot in these last 40 minutes, there's a lot we do agree with, and let's continue this conversation and debate in person, and I look forward to it. Yes, I totally agree with your point that more LDS should be going to the traditional Latin mass as a great point, Shabbos. On the psychology thing, it's not just Lindsey Clancy, though, yes, the women are way more radical. The middle-aged SSRI, wine women are way more radicalized than the most hardcore right wing to the right of Mussolini kind of 25-year-old right winger. But yes, that's all true. Is it, is obviously you actively engage with TPSA and the college Republicans and all the rest of it, but, but are we, are we wasting our breath? I know, I know, like the nice answer at the end of a debate is, no, it's actually really hopeful and we just got to get out there and keep debating ideas. I don't know. I actually don't know the answers to that. And I feel like debate has lost some of its verb a little bit. Yeah. Well, I'll say, Michael, we can take some comfort in the fact that this is a consequence and a product of success. Republicans and conservatives have succeeded. We have taken the majority of, you know, the cultural capital. We are by far and away kind of the popular culture. And so what's really difficult is that you are starting to see a lot of people who became conservative when it was, you know, kind of the rebellious thing to do when it was the cool thing to do. You're starting to see them filter out into more extreme ideologies that now present themselves as countercultural, even against the conservative movement that they joined when it was countercultural. So I think some of this comes from the fact that the right wing has succeeded in taking control of popular culture, especially over social media. I think debates are incredibly useful. I think the fact that we have not had enough or rather that we've been resorting to podcasting rather than debating has, has been our townfall. I was somebody who was brought into the conservative movement because I would watch Stephen Crowder, Ben Ben Shapiro, others as well debate, your self debate. I was falling to other 26. You see this? Do you see the difference? I said yourself. I said yourself. I said yourself. But I was somebody who's brought into the movement because I was able to see kind of the rhetorical and just true logical position that the right wing has. And if we are now to filter out some of the elements that exist currently in the right wing, which are not intelligent, are willing to align themselves with any conspiracy theory, we are going to do it by doing exactly, for instance, what Andrew Wilson did with Stu Peters, asking any amount of questions and showing that these people have no idea what they believe they have no way of substantiating it. This is the way forward. This is how you find the elite human capital on the right. So absolutely, Michael, we do have to keep debating never black pill always. Never black pill. Never black pill. Even if you're, even if you're wearing black makeup and you're supergotten, especially Jake, has this very practical view of politics, which is so refreshing in an ever abstracted, stupid, divorced from reality world of the internet. Very, very practical. I see a smile on it. It's a little woke, that's right. It's a little woke pill. Gentlemen, thank you all. Obviously, you can find all of these gentlemen online very quick down the line. Where can they find you? You can find me on YouTube at Kai Schwimmer and also on Axe at Kai Schwimmer and Instagram as well. If you find it, it's Kai Clips, Clips with a K. Clips with a KKK, like that woke right. I bet. Anyway, Travis. On Instagram and Twitter, just type in my name. One of the only good things about having a funny Jewish name is there are no other Shabbos Kestemams in the world, except for the one on TikTok, which a grouper actually bought the domain for. So if you go, Shabbos Kestemams Twitter is not me. TikTok is not me, but the Shabbos Kestemams Twitter and Instagram, that is me. Those edits weren't yours. Yeah. Jake, did you buy that account? It's a Nick Swentes. We're not mine. That wasn't me, not a co-worker. No, Jake, where can they find you? You can find me. If I'm not banned, you can find me on YouTube.com/jagmanraw. If I am banned on YouTube, you can find me on rumble.com/jagmanrawshow. And as long as you get the spelling right from Monroe, which is M-U-N-R-O, it's the old Scottish spelling. You can pretty much find me anywhere. Same with Instagram, same with the Twitter, Jake Monroe. You talk about the futility of debate. I found out right before the debate that Jake is currently banned on YouTube. So this is probably not even going to be on the internet ever. Sorry for wasting all your time, guys. See you later. I'm Michael Knowles.