Daily Wire host Michael Knowles spoke at the University of Kentucky Tuesday night, delving into the world of “conspiracy theories,” or at least what the Left deems them to be.
Knowles’ speech, hosted by the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), highlighted how the Left and legacy media call conservatives wacky conspiracy theorists for opinions that many times turn out to be true. In the speech, Knowles gave examples of how he believes the legacy media and institutional elites use the negative term to silence views that oppose their narrative.
“After ‘racist,’ ‘conspiracy theorist’ is probably the single worst thing that you can be called in our society,” Knowles said. “The minute you get labeled a conspiracy theorist, pretty much everything that you have to say ceases to be taken seriously.”
The Daily Wire host then went into how so-called conspiracy theories during the early days of the COVID pandemic turned out to have some truth. Knowles mentioned that COVID originating in a Chinese lab in Wuhan was quickly dismissed as a ridiculous idea by the experts on the pandemic and the establishment media, but then months later, the experts admitted that the virus most likely came from the Wuhan lab. U.S. health experts reportedly did not want the lab leak theory to be discussed by the media so as not to harm “international harmony.”
Knowles gave more examples of conspiracy theories that have appeared to come true regarding gain-of-function research, COVID vaccines, “structural shenanigans in the 2020 election,” and Big Tech censorship at the will of the federal government. The conservative talk show host also reminded his audience how the legacy media peddled the Trump-Russia conspiracy following the 2016 election, but just moved on after the theory couldn’t be proven.
“The true function of the label ‘conspiracy theorist’ is not to separate truth from fantasy, but rather to simply get dissidents to shut up,” the host of “The Michael Knowles Show” commented, adding that the Left’s accusations of “conspiracy theorist” often “destroys a man’s label in the public square.”
“In an age such as ours, the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is often not the difference between delusion and reality,” Knowles concluded. “As our liberal ruling class has shown so clearly over the past few years, in an age such as ours, the real difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is about three to six months.”
