Daily Wire host: “Authoritarian just means you wield your authority when you've got it”
Michael Knowles: “That's what every state has done for all of history”
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From the March 9, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show
MICHAEL KNOWLES (HOST): You can no longer drive down a street if you – if the street has a Pride flag painted on it and you are not sufficiently reverent toward the rainbow stuff and the transgender whatever, you're not allowed to drive down your street. That's a hate crime. This is what a totalitarian society looks like.
I use that word really, really carefully, because a lot of times you'll hear people on the left and on the right use the word authoritarian. I don't think the word authoritarian really means much of anything at all. Authoritarian just means you wield your authority when you've got it. That's what every state has done for all of history. But the word totalitarian has a meaning. The word totalitarian means that the regime's ideology has to penetrate every single aspect of life. There can be no dissent ever in any way, not even private dissent, not even in your local little community. You have to go along with whatever the ruling party says at every single level, including when you're driving down -- if you drive down the street in a way that seems a little politically incorrect, that will launch an investigation and a national news story.