Leftist author Judith Butler claims in her latest book that Daily Wire host Michael Knowles is a fascist because of his views that society should not accept transgenderism.
Butler, a well-known feminist and proponent of gender ideology, takes aim at Knowles in her book, “Who’s Afraid of Gender?” In the book, Butler argues that comments Knowles made at CPAC in 2023 about eradicating the ideology of transgenderism from public life were fascistic.
According to an excerpt from her new book, Butler discusses a viral quote from Knowles’ CPAC speech where he said that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” for the good of society and “the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion.”
After the speech, Knowles was attacked by many on the Left who accused him of promoting “genocide.” Even the Biden administration weighed in, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre falsely claiming that he called for the “eradication of transgender people.”
In her book, which was published in March, Butler repeats attacks on Knowles for the speech, quoting the part about eradicating the ideology of transgenderism.
“The language of eradication belongs to fascism, and today it is directed not only against trans people but against all those who have been clustered under the signs of ‘gender’ and ‘critical race theory’ and ‘wokism,’” Butler wrote. “The ready definitions for fascism tend to rely on the study of its twentieth-century form, so new vocabularies are required to understand new iterations of fascism that have emerged in the last decades.”
Butler’s book has been thoroughly criticized by investigative journalist Chris Rufo, who points out that it is riddled with factual errors and mischaracterizations about Rufo’s own work targeting gender ideology.
Knowles responded to Butler’s accusations on his show on Thursday where he critiqued the Left’s ever-changing definition of fascism.
.@michaeljknowles had the honor and privilege of being accused of fascism by infamous feminist, gender theorist, and “pioneering lunatic,” Judith Butler. Here’s his response: pic.twitter.com/s6DsYmEQAO
— The Michael Knowles Show (@MKnowlesShow) May 9, 2024
On his show, Knowles pointed out that prominent liberal figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would all be considered “fascists” because they all opposed gay marriage at one point in their political careers. The same would go for support for transgenderism, Knowles said, the explosion of which is a very recent phenomenon.
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“Everyone agreed with me until about 2015, until Obama started to enshrine protections for transgenderism in public life,” Knowles said. “Everybody agreed with me, there was essentially no one in the world who disagreed with the point that I was making at CPAC. So, according to Judith Butler, does that mean everyone was a fascist, except for her?”
“This means that the definition of fascism has to change to: whatever the liberals oppose now,” Knowles added. “It’s always changing. For Judith Butler, it’s not being a progressive leftist.”