Ben Shapiro Turns on the Right

Earlier this week, Turning Point USA held a conference in the United States where the leading luminaries of the conservative right, the Republican right, the MAGA community, got together, had speeches and exchanged ideas. If you are going to truly understand American politics today, I believe you have to seek out the leading lights of the right, the center, the left truly understand, because so often their ideals filter down into, into every other aspect of news coverage, political discussion, your local talk radio shows. So I want to dive into one speech in particular by Ben Shapiro. He is one of the top, if not the top, conservative podcasters. He is an extraordinarily respected media mogul in his own right. His daily wire puts out movies and news services and numerous podcasts. He's wildly influential and he had some things to say that were beyond what you would normally expect at a conservative rally. Now, I'm here today not as a conservative, not as an MSNBC spokesperson or as a Democrat, but as a sane, sensible centrist. As someone who's trying to discern what's really going on in the world, I try to truly understand who are the leading voices? What are they saying? Does it make sense to you? What can you learn from them? And where are the flaws in their reasoning? So let's take a look at some of the more interesting elements in Ben Shapiro's presentation to the Turning Point USA conference.

But today I want to talk about something even more important. How to discern those attempting to speak truth from frauds and grifters.

He is a very forceful speaker, extraordinarily young man. I mean, he graduated from Harvard Law School when he was basically a teenager. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. He is by all accounts someone who has true intellectual firepower to his arguments, does a daily podcast, but does so much more, has had a dozen or so best selling books. So regardless of whether you like him or not, he is extraordinarily influential within the conservative movement. Let's listen to his sense of what's going on with truth in America.

Because something is new. An informational environment rife with both opportunity and chaos. Opportunity because the legacy media gatekeepers are no longer in charge of what we see and what we hear. And chaos because an anarchic informational environment means we actually have to be smart in how we assess the information and arguments that we, by the way, from.

A pure presentation skills perspective, he's obviously a very good speaker. He's doing something that's quite difficult. He is reading his speech, does not appear to be using a teleprompter. He's using paper. But as someone who has been in this game now for half of his Life, more than 15 years, he is extraordinarily comfortable and skilled in front of a crowd, in this case a very large crowd, and working from notes, he doesn't fall into the normal pitfalls that many people do by becoming wooden, stiff, frozen, head down. He really uses his notes in a smart way that we hear.

Why does that matter? Well, because today the conservative movement is in serious danger. It is.

Okay, here's where it gets interesting. Normally, if you look at a CPAC convention or Republican convention, major conventions, you already know everything that's going to be said. You have one side and same is true of the Democratic Party. You have one side saying every problem in the world is because of guys on the other side who are so awful they are destroying humanity. That's not what Ben Shapiro talked about this week at the conference. He instead focused his fire on fellow conservatives.

It is in danger not just from a left that all too frequently excuses everything up to and including murder. The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty, who offer so this is interesting.

He he's calling out fellow conservatives for being charlatans and being dishonest, who offer.

Nothing but bile and despair, who seek to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism by championing enervation and grievance. These people are fraud.

So championing grievance. Now we've long heard from conservatives that the Democratic Party is just about helping people feel sorry for themselves and be filled with grievance. He's turning the tables. He is in fact saying what a lot of liberal commentators, left of center commentators have said, which is the modern Republican Party is nothing but a grievance.

Convention are frauds and they are grifters and they do not deserve your time.

They are frauds. They are grifters. This is harsh rhetoric. We're used to hearing people on MSNBC talk about how Steve Bannon, others on the writer grifters. Here's someone who is not only a member in good standing of the conservative political establishment, he's really the kingpin of the media established. As I mentioned, he has a top rated podcast which I find myself listening to daily, believe it or not. And I would right. If you're going to try to get one sense of what conservatives are thinking in America today, I would recommend his podcast, let's listen more.

And they are something worse than That a danger to the only movement capable of stopping the left from wrecking the country wholesale. So today I want to discuss five obligations that people who speak to you on matters of importance have to you. I want to speak to you about our duties. Our first duty is truth. We owe you the truth. That means we should not mislead you. It means we shouldn't hide the ball. We shouldn't be deliberately obscure about what we're telling you.

So so far he's being somewhat generic and abstract abstractions like truth fraud. But he starts naming names and it's about to get interesting.

We have an obligation to clarity and to honesty. This means that we actually have to be clear in the language that we use. We should not traffic in generality. We should not say things like they shot Charlie without specifying whom we mean by that.

Okay, so now he's getting to the meat of a conspiracy theory that has really created turmoil among the right because Charlie Kirk was famously on live stream, murdered, assassinated. There are some on the right who say that's not really what happened. It was somehow some bad mass conspiracy. Believe it or not, if you hadn't heard that, it means you're not living in the fever swamps of right wing media. But it has been a big thing and Ben Shapiro addresses it now they.

The person who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk and whom all the evidence points at, all of it is a gay, trans loving, furry. If we are going to target ideological movements, we should talk about the fact that the radical trans movement treats all those who oppose it as existential threats. Or if we're going to talk about the Democratic Party making room for the radical trans movement and echoing its inflammatory.

So here he's doing some of the obligatory. He has to prove his bona fides in front of this audience and seem legitimate. So he does do some sort of standard boilerplate attacks on the so called left. But bear with me, it gets interesting to rhetoric.

Well, we should talk about that. Those are specific problems and they require specific responses. When people say they shot Charlie, however, they are instead trafficking in vagary that results in increased hatred without proposing any effective response. They are fostering despair and rage and that makes things worse. We must also be honest about what people say and do, regardless of what that means. Coalitionally. It is the job of politicians to build coalitions. It's the job of those of us who try to shape public opinion, to hold politicians to account and to hold them.

And I think you could see whether you agree with him or not, he's extraordinarily articulate, comes across as forceful, confident and knowledgeable.

Hold them accountable to our values. We must not let fear of audience deter us from telling the truth. We must not let fear of other hosts deter us from telling the truth.

Okay, here's where it gets interesting. He starts attacking other hosts, which is usually not done on any side of the political spectrum.

So, for example, if Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk.

So this is pretty fearless. Candace Owens is very popular among a lot of people in the Turning Point community and he's now attacking her.

So if Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions at TP USA and the people who work here, who works with Charlie every single day, his best friends. To cast aspersions at Mikey McCoy and Andrew Colvin and Blake Neff and Tyler Boyer and yes, at Erica Kirk, and to imply or outright claim complicity in a cover up over Charlie's murder, to spew absolutely baseless trash implicating everyone from French intelligence to Mossad to members of TPUSA in Charlie's murder or a cover up in that murder, then we as people with a microphone have a moral obligation to call that out by name.

So that's very forceful and that's rare among the conservative commentariat. They tend to band together and focus all of their attacks on the left, so to speak. Here he is attacking Candace. And by the way, yes, what he's saying is accurate. Every single day since the murder of Charlie Kirk, she is implied there's all sorts of conspiracies among her own, his own followers to have him murder. Absolute nonsense. And yet she has, according to some ranking services, the number two most listened podcast in America.

Erica Kirk and tpusa never, never should have put in, never should have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against such specious and evil attacks, particularly in a time of mourning.

So calling a fell out a fellow conservative podcaster as specious and evil, very forceful language.

And the people who refuse to condemn Candace's truly vicious attacks, and some of them are speaking here, are guilty of cowardice.

Yes, calling his fellow conservatives cowards. And he starts to name more names. One thing you can say about Ben Shapiro, most of the time there is one big exception, one big orange exception where I believe he is cowardly. But he is, among his tribe of conservative commentators, utterly fearless compared to the rest, cowardice.

The fact that they have said nothing while Candace has been vomiting all sorts of hideous and conspiratorial nonsense into the.

Public vomiting hideous and conspiratorial nonsense. He does have a great gift of language and has just a prolific vocabulary. Again, regardless of whether you agree with him, you it is sort of music to the ears and to English lovers. To hear him speak to the public.

Square for years is just as cowardly. Second, because we owe you the truth. We owe you the duty to speak out of principle, not personal feeling. It should not matter whether we despise someone or whether we love someone. The question is what they say and what they do and whether those things are morally decent or not. On a political level, do they foster freedom, justice and prosperity? On a personal level, do they treat others as they would wish to be treated? Personal feeling is not a substitute for moral judgment. To take again, the Candace Owens situation as an example. Friendship with public figures who say or do evil things is not an excuse for silence on the matter. Politics is not the sisterhood of the traveling pants. Politics is about principle. And if you are willing to sacrifice basic truth and simple principle in favor of emotional solidarity, you have betrayed your fundamental duty to the American people.

Grand Canyon okay, so a lot of fascinating stuff here. He in a moment is going to specifically go after Tucker Carlson, who is currently, depending on what rating service you look at, the kingpin, the number one conservative voice in America, even to the point where some are anticipating he could be the next GOP nominee for president.

Our best friends, our very best friends. That does not relieve us of our duty to speak out of principle and not to cover up evil or shy away from addressing it out of friendship.

Okay, that's the abstract principle. Most people would say, okay, that makes sense. But now he gets specific.

So no, Tucker Carlson, it is not an excuse to go silent on Candace's targeting of tpusa.

So this is bold and brave. Very few conservatives, virtually no Republican politicians are willing to criticize Tucker Carlson by name. Here's Ben Shapiro doing it.

Or to mirror her bull lines of questioning because you love Candace personally. The same holds true of Megyn Kelly, a person I consider a friend. Charact characterizing Candace as a young mother and thus shying away from condemning her actions or filming about them. That is a non starter. Meghan Markle is a young mother. Ilhan Omar is a young mother. That doesn't matter. And when Megan said this and he.

Is applying a level of intellectual honesty here that's rare in public life. He's not letting his friends, his ideological allies, get away with refusing to criticize someone by using sort of bs, things like comments oh, well, they're just a mother. His point is absolutely right. There's all sorts of people who are mothers and you criticize them for their policies and their votes and their politics on a daily basis. So be consistent.

This week, quote, my goal and my job here is to try to understand. Yes. Where Candace is coming from on this and says she sees no purpose in inserting herself quote into this. On one side that is a moral and logical absurdity. There is only one moral side here. Erica Kirk's side. You know, the side of the widow with two children whose husband was shot live on camera in front of all of us. Friendship with the person accusing TPUSA of a cover up of Charlie's murder is no excuse for cowardice. Third, and relatedly, we have a duty to take responsibility for what we say and do. If we hire awful people, we're responsible for that. I have some experience there, as you might suspect. That means that if we.

What he's alluding to there is all of these people at some point have worked for each other. They've all cross pollinated, they've all done shows with each other.

If we offer a guest for your viewing, we owe it to you to ask the kinds of questions that actually get at the truth. If we agree with the guest, that's fine, but we should own it. So for example, if you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi loving, anti American piece of refuse like Nick Fuentes.

Very, very powerful. Nick Fuentes we've talked about on this show before is a rising voice among Republicans. Reputedly is a favorite among Capitol Hill Republican staffers. Also a well known anti Semite, but has received favorable treatment from conservative podcasters like Tucker Carlson. Ben Shapiro is having none of it. Listen to what he says.

You know the Nick Fuentes who said that the Vice President of the United States is a quote, fat gay race traitor married to a jeet. The person who said that Charlie Kirk was a quote, retarded idiot. The person who said, and pardon my language here, it's his quote that he quote took Turning Point USA and it. And that's why it's filled with gripers. If you have that person on your show and you proceed to glaze him, you ought to own it.

You could tell he's quite angry and quite passionate here and very sincere. And if you're not familiar with him, if you're trying to look at the screen, in fact, yes, he is wearing an a yarmulke. He is an orthodox Jew.

There is a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes. And indeed, even chided Dinesh d' Souza for debating him. He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up.

Is an act of so calling Nick Fuentes an evil troll. Again, that's commonplace among centrists, among liberals, among progressives, among the Ms. Now crowd. It's not so common among conservative podcasters. That's what makes it interesting.

Act of moral imbecility. And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson.

And I cut it off there. But he said this is moral imbecility. Again, his command of the English language is a beautiful thing, regardless of whether you agree with his principles or not.

Did he built Nick Fuentes up? And he ought to take responsibility for that, just as he ought to take responsibility for glazing pornographer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate or for mainstreaming fake historian and pseudo Nazi apologist Daryl Cooper as America's best and most honest popular historian. Hosts are indeed responsible for the guests they choose and the questions they ask.

So he's covering a lot of ground here. He's covering a lot of people by name. And it is a scorched earth path.

Those guests.

And there's more.

Fourth, because we have a duty to truth, we also have a duty to provide you with evidence of the claims that we make. Emotive accusations, conspiracy theories, and just asking questions. That's lazy and stupid and misleading.

He's. He's repeatedly talked about this. Just asking questions. What he's referencing there is it's very popular among conservative podcasters to ask all sorts of wild conspiracy theory premise questions and plant seeds of demagogic nonsense into the public sphere of conversation. And to just have a cover of, oh, I'm just asking questions. He's calling that out in an interesting argument.

Listen, none of them are a substitute for truth. None of them are a substitute for evidence. So when Candace Owens says, I don't know, no, but I know that is retarded, and we are all more retarded for having heard it. When Steve Bannon, for example, accuses his foreign policy opponents of loyalty to a foreign country, he's not actually making an argument based in evidence. He's simply maligning people that he disagrees with. Which is indeed par for the course from a man who was once a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.

Wow. Now that is an extraordinarily powerful takedown of Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon, the bane of Saturday Night Live. And liberals and Democrats, progressives everywhere, they've been calling Steve Bannon a grifter for a long time. But here's someone deep in the bowels of the conservative movement flat out calling Steve Bannon a grifter, reminding everybody that he was, in fact, a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein, which nobody seems to care about or ever remember. Okay, what are we going to make of this? I'd recommend you look at the entire speech and you may say, well, T.J. i've got better things to do than listen to conservative commentators. Okay, but if you were only to listen to one in the next year to get a sense of kind of their disarray and the different divisions, this would be a good one to do it. All right. I do think on the, on the scale of conservative commentators, Ben Shapiro is much, much more intellectually honest than any other conservative commentator. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Here's what I've noticed listening to his show daily for about the last 10 days is he will start off a news segment and play some clip of President Trump or a supporter of President Trump, and he'll say something to the effect of, well, he's not wrong about such and such, however. And then he'll spend the next half hour ripping apart the particular policy that Trump has endorsed, never once mentioning Trump. It. I do find it a bit rich and a bit thick that Ben Shapiro talks so much about honesty, intellectually, honesty, when I do find him in one major area. But it's something that dominates every single show throughout the thread of every show. I find him profoundly, intellectually dishonest. And it's the following. I am 100% certain that if you injected Ben Shapiro with sodium pentothal or any other drug that can make someone speak the truth, he would say, of course I can't stand Donald Trump. Of course he's not a conservative. Of course he's an anathema to America. Of course he's anathema to every conservative value I hold dear. Now, why am I saying that? Am I a mind reader? No, I actually listen to what he says on a daily basis on his show on issue after after issue. He'll say, you know, it's not wrong when President Trump says other countries have taken advantage of us. And then he'll spend 20 minutes talking about how the tariffs are the worst policy ever. It's big government, it's socialism, it's tax raising, it's destroying alliances. He'll do it again and again and again. He'll say, you know, it's not wrong that when President Trump says some in Hollywood are deranged against him. And then he'll spend 30 minutes talking about how a statement somehow put out by Trump, almost as if he had nothing to do with it, is vile and despicable. Attacking Rob Reiner. Now, he was a little more forceful in attacking Trump, but most of the time, whether it's on taxes, whether it's the government taking over, socializing industries partially by taking stakes in intel, Ben Shapiro makes a principled, intellectually honest case as to why that is incompatible with conservative principles, American principles, free market principles. But he's never intellectually honest enough to connect the dots and say it's Trump pushing it. He makes it sound like Trump is this, you know, this unwitting victim to evil forces. Well, no, it's Trump doing it. He likes to talk about how, you know, there's a loss of traditional values in America, how people have become uncivilized. And yet again and again and again, Trump says wildly obnoxious, racist, sexist, nasty, vile things. And for the most part, he gets a free pass from Ben Shapiro. That's what I find intellectually dishonest. Now, I've made out the point. As a sane, sensible centrist, I'm not coming from the same perspective as Ben Shapiro, but I've certainly made the case that if you oppose socialism, you have to oppose socialism. The Trump administration, he has socialized companies like Intel, US Steel. He is in favor of big government overreach, of putting tariffs all over the world. There's so many things he's done to inject socialistic principles into our economy, and yet he's not called out on it in a way that a Democrat would be. He has consistently trampled the division of powers in our country, the separation of powers. He's, he's, he's continually taking powers of taxation, of tariffs, of spending, and just ignoring 250 years of precedent in this country. Here's what I, I do think if President Trump simply had a D next to his name rather than an R, if instead of maga, he was mala make America liberal again and did everything a hundred percent the same as he's been doing, I have no doubt that Ben Shapiro would be denouncing him viciously every single day of his presidency and calling for his impeachment and conviction. Absolutely no doubt. But Ben Shapiro does have a principle that's higher than truth, and it's called money. Being successful, being profitable. He knows his audience, he knows his audience loves Trump, and he's therefore afraid to connect two and two, put it together and spell out to people, this guy's not a conservative. He's not a traditional values guy. He's not a free markets guy. He is, in fact, the very enemy you have warned against for the last 50 years in America. And he's destroying what has, in fact, made America great. But he's too cowardly to say that. So, again, fascinating character, wildly successful media entrepreneur, more intellectually honest than any other conservative commentator out there. But the big picture, he's lying to you because he's somehow suggesting that all of these principles and policies that he doesn't support somehow shouldn't be pinned on Trump. And therefore, Trump still deserves your support. He goes out of his way to talk about how he supports Trump. Why? Why would you support someone when you oppose virtually every single policy they are promoting? Sam.