Michael Knowles received a warm welcome at East Tennessee State University for the latest installment in his speaking tour for Young America’s Foundation, titled “How The Left Hoaxes Its Way To Power.”
“When I got into the lecture hall for my last few speeches, there was also a lot of screaming,” Knowles noted, before adding that the thunderous applause was “a little different.”
He also thanked the school’s Young Democratic Socialists for “proving the point of my speech before I even began to write it.”
The aforementioned organization publicly lobbied the university to rescind the Daily Wire host’s invitation to speak, claiming that Knowles threatened “the lives of trans and all queer people” and advocated for “genocide.”
Their claims echoed the libelous falsehoods shared by prominent Left-wing media outlets and even sitting members of Congress after Knowles delivered a speech calling for “the complete eradication of transgenderism from public life.” Knowles made clear in the initial speech that he was sympathetic to people with gender dysphoria and was not calling for any sort of violence against them, instead directing his ire at the ideology at the root of many people’s confusion, but many outlets claimed Knowles was calling for genocide of transgender people.
Knowles also cited LGBT activist and former Tennessee state senate candidate Kate Craig, who tweeted that Knowles “Literally called for trans people to be exterminated … there’s nothing civil about him.”
This dovetailed neatly with the topic of Knowles’ lecture — Knowles went so far as to say that they “relieved [him] of the responsibility of writing a speech” because the outcry against him proved his premise more succinctly than anything else could.
“The Left, bereft of facts and arguments, hoaxes its way to power.”
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Knowles argued that similar tactics dated as far back as the 1960s, citing an incident where student activists at Cornell University staged a cross burning outside of black student dormitories to justify armed militants storming and seizing university buildings and to demand concessions from the school.
Knowles also cited the case of Jussie Smollett — immortalized by comedian Dave Chappelle as “Juicy Smoo-yay” — who falsely claimed that he was assaulted by Trump supporters in an attempted lynching. Knowles said that even after Smollett’s story was proven false, those who had previously promoted the story argued that it “spoke to a greater truth,” namely that it advanced a narrative about race hatred that was politically beneficial to Democratic interests.
“Time and time again, the incidents that liberals tout as justification for advancing their political agenda on race, on sex, on everything, turn out to be hoaxes. It is all Jussie Smollett, it is Jussie Smollett all the way down — especially on campuses.”