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Michael Knowles: Conservative Cultural Victory and the Call to Action

Date: July 12, 2025
Source: Michael Knowles Speech at Turning Point USA Student Action Summit
Topic: Conservative Cultural Shift and the Imperative for Real Action Beyond Performance

Core Thesis​

Michael Knowles declares that conservatives have achieved a historic cultural and political victory, but warns that this moment will either be remembered as the greatest blown opportunity in American history or the beginning of a new golden age, depending on whether conservatives move from performance to substance, from talk to action.

The Great Conservative Victory​

Political Dominance​

"Conservatives right now run every branch of government. Both houses of Congress. We got the Supreme Court. We have the White House with the popular vote. That is a very great sign of the times."

The Deeper Cultural Shift​

"But at a deeper level, something has shifted. At the deepest level, actually, for decades now, we have been lamenting the decline in American religious identity. 5 months ago, Pew Research reported that is finally leveling off. The momentum is shifting."

Christ is King: The Religious Revival​

The Spontaneous Declaration​

"Christ is king. Christ is king. Christ is king. Here we go. Now in Latin. Now in Latin. I wanted him. No one does it in Latin. We have too many Protestants in the room. I'm joking. I'm joking."

Government Officials Embracing Christian Doctrine​

"The vice president of the United States is tweeting about the Ordo Amoreies. We are getting lessons on St. Augustine from the White House. Do you do you realize how weird that is? That's so weird, man. That's weird. Do you have any understanding of how fantastic that is?"

The State Department's Transformation​

"The State Department, historically the most liberal department in our government. This is a department that has employed actual communists at very high levels. The State Department published an essay extolling, quote, the rich western tradition of natural law, virtue, ethics, and national sovereignty. It grounded the founding of America in the ideas not of Thomas Payne or some other radical, but of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas."

Cultural Victories Across Multiple Fronts​

Immigration Policy Transformation​

"For decades, the immigration debate previously centered around whether we would flood our country with illegal aliens or uh legal aliens, too. That was the whole debate. Those were your two choices. Now, the majority of people are voting for mass deportations. That's good stuff."

The End of Transgender Ideology​

"For almost 10 years now, conservatives have had the preposterous task of persuading people that men cannot be women. All of a sudden, that issue is just over. It's done. It's dead than disco. It is on the brink of being eradicated from public life entirely."

The Decline of LGBT Activism​

"Speaking of the LGBT, it is not just the tea that is fading from the public square. After decades of non-stop lavender propaganda, pride parades are getting cancelled for lack of attendance, lack of interest. Jojo Seiwa is no longer a lesbian. Nature is healing."

The Return of Traditional Marriage and Family​

"Divorce rates are about the lowest they've been in 40 years. Young women are increasingly rejecting the corporate rat race, the widget factory. And to the horror of the feminists, they are aspiring to be wives."

The Tradwife Phenomenon​

The New Normal That's Actually Old Normal​

"Now, tradife is kind of a funny term because a trad wife is a woman who gets married, has kids, and maybe bakes bread once in a while. In the old days, that was called a wife and but now we have a new term for it. That's fine. It's been so long since normal behavior has been considered normal that we now have to distinguish it with a special term like it's some new discovery. It's a rediscovery."

The Philosophical Revolution: From Procedural to Substantive​

Rejecting the Common Good Allergy​

"For decades, conservatives were allergic to the phrase the common good. We thought it sounded leftist or something, which is ironic because the left hates the good. The common good, the uncommon good, all kinds of good. The left hates it."

The End of Hapless Subjectivism​

"We were too cowardly to make substantive claims about what is good and what is bad. We retreated to the same hapless subjectivism that we accused the left of promoting. Now all of a sudden this long-standing fetish for procedural norms has all but disappeared and we are once again finally talking about substantive goods."

Simple Political Philosophy​

"The egghehead abstractions are out. The political philosophy of the day is that we want more good and less bad. That's my political philosophy at least."

The Great Rejection of Liberalism​

No Longer Defending Liberalism​

"The real kicker is that for decades, the justification for all that impotent ideology was that we wanted to be liberals... for decades, the right would accuse the left of being insufficiently liberal. We'd accuse them of betraying liberalism, as if liberalism were a good thing. Can you imagine that?"

The Complete Break​

"We would say things like, 'I am a conservative because I'm a liberal. I'm a conservative because I'm a conservative.' I don't know about you. I'm not a liberal. I'm not an old kind of liberal. I'm not a new kind of liberal. I'm not any kind of liberal. I think liberalism is bad."

What People Actually Voted For​

"Actually, I think people deserve an alternative to liberalism. I think people voted for an alternative to liberalism last November."

The Diagnosis of American Decline​

The Logical Conclusions of Bad Ideas​

"For decades we believed and said and did lots of obviously wrong things. We said criminals were actually victims and then we let them out of prison. We said foreigners were Americans and we gave them privileges that we do not afford to American citizens."

The Attack on Fundamental Institutions​

"We tried to redefine marriage, the fundamental political institution, the most basic human relationship. We tried to blow it up and turn it into something else. We even had the temerity to try to erase God... We tried to banish God from our politics."

The Miserable Results​

"The reason it hasn't worked is that we followed all those ideas to their logical conclusions and the conclusions made us miserable. We went soft on criminals and what do you know? We no longer feel safe in our neighborhoods. We opened up our borders and who could have guessed it, now we feel like strangers in our own country."

The Marriage and Family Collapse​

"We blew up marriage, now we don't have kids. We blew up marriage then we lost the baby carriage. actually to be we kept the baby carriage and then we just put dogs in the baby carriage. We know but baby carriages are not for dogs. It's there in the name. It's a baby carriage. Don't do that."

The Spiritual Crisis​

"We turned our backs on God and all of a sudden people started dying deaths of despair. Funny how that works."

The Existential Crisis: America is Dying​

The Demographic Reality​

"Our country is literally dying. And I don't mean that in the abstract way that hysterical politicians sometimes mean it. I mean it in a really basic way. More of us are dying than are being born. We have not had an above replacement birth rate in half a century."

Failed Solutions Making It Worse​

"We've tried to hide the problem with desperate policies like mass migration and those halfcocked solutions have only made the problem worse. Now we are running out of time to fix it."

The Call to Move from Performance to Substance​

The TikTok Tradwife Problem​

"I am glad that women are promoting the tradife on TikTok. I really am. I like it. I'm not on Tik Tok, but I'm glad. That's That's wonderful. But trades aren't on Tik Tok. That's not where they live... Going to Tik Tok to be a trad wife is like moving to Skid Row to get over your heroin addiction. It's not going to work."

Having Kids vs. Talking About Having Kids​

"I am glad that people are saying that we should have more kids, but you know what's more important than talking about having more kids? Do you know? Yeah. Having more kids, that's the more important thing."

The Reality of Child-Rearing​

"And it's harder to do that, by the way. It's actually easier and more fun to do it. The first part of it to do it is easy. But the raising them, the having, the paying for them, that that's a little bit harder, but it's infinitely more important and we have to do it."

Real Faith vs. Internet Faith​

"I am glad. I'm really glad that the fashionable atheism of the fedora tippers on Reddit has become a punchline. That's great. I'm glad that the Zoomers are posting crusader memes and doing internet apologetics. I love it. I look at a lot of it. But you know what's more important than all of those performances? Going silently to church and praying every day and availing yourself of the sacraments."

Substance Over Social Media​

"Keep posting the memes. I like the memes. But spiritual and corporal works of mercy, that's more important. Cultivating charity rather than a railing and reviling spirit. That's more important. Those things don't get you as many likes, but they matter. They are what we need to do to get us where we need to go."

The Historic Moment and Its Stakes​

The Age of Trump​

"We are living in an extraordinary time. We're living in the age of Trump, okay? It's a it's a wild time, man. No matter what happens, no matter what we do, this period right now is going in the history books."

The Binary Choice​

"What we have to decide and really what you all have to decide is whether this moment will go down as the biggest blown opportunity in American history or if we will be known by our posterity if we have posterity as marking the improbable and magnificent beginning of a new golden age."

Key Themes and Analysis​

1. Victory Lap with Urgency​

Knowles celebrates conservative victories across multiple cultural fronts while emphasizing that the window for action is closing rapidly due to demographic realities.

2. Performance vs. Substance Critique​

A central theme is the distinction between social media performance of conservative values and actually living them out in concrete ways.

3. Philosophical Revolution​

The speech marks a transition from procedural liberalism to substantive conservatism based on natural law and Christian principles.

4. Demographic Existential Crisis​

The speech presents America's below-replacement birth rate as an existential threat requiring immediate action, not just discussion.

5. Return to Christian Foundations​

Knowles sees the current moment as a return to America's Christian founding principles, evidenced by government officials openly discussing Christian theology.

6. The End of Cultural Liberalism​

The speech declares the end of various liberal cultural projects (LGBT activism, transgender ideology, feminism) as evidence of a broader cultural shift.

7. From Ideas to Implementation​

The central challenge identified is moving from saying the right things to actually doing them, from ideological victory to practical implementation.

Significance and Context​

This speech appears to be delivered at a moment of conservative confidence following electoral and cultural victories. Knowles positions this as a potential inflection point in American history, where conservatives have the opportunity to move beyond defensive positions to actually reshaping American culture and society.

The speech reflects a post-liberal conservative movement that has abandoned the classical liberal framework that previously guided American conservatism in favor of a more substantive, explicitly Christian approach to politics and culture.

The emphasis on demographic crisis and the need for immediate action suggests a sense of urgency that transcends typical political cycles, positioning current cultural and political victories as potentially America's last chance to reverse what Knowles sees as civilizational decline.

The critique of "performance conservatism" suggests an internal debate within conservative movements about the difference between cultural signaling and meaningful change, with Knowles advocating for the latter even when it's less visible or glamorous than social media activism.