Editor of Current Affairs Magazine, Nathan J. Robinson, explains why Ben Shapiro is a pseudo-intellectual uninterested in actually engaging with the arguments of the political left.
Ben Shapiro Throws Temper Tantrum
A host on the BBC asked Ben Shapiro to back up some of his more controversial opinions. He didn’t like the way it was going and shut the interview down.
“Squirming under questioning about his own controversial statements by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, conservative writer Ben Shapiro got so angry that he walked out of the interview. Shapiro accused Neil — who is a conservative — of trying to make him look bad due to a liberal agenda. “You purport to be an objective journalist, BBC purports to be an objective, down the middle network,” Shapiro said after Neil asked if the heartbeat abortion bans sweeping the nation are bringing America back to the “dark ages.” “It obviously is not, it never has been. And you as a journalist are proceeding to call one side of the political aisle ignorant, barbaric and sending us back to the dark ages — why don’t you just say you’re on the left.” Neil runs The Spectator, which also leans to the right. “You talk about undermining the public discourse,” Shapiro continued toward the end of the interview. “It seems to me that simply going through and finding lone things that sound bad out of context, and then hitting people with them, is a way for you to make a quick buck on BBC off the fact that I’m popular and no one has ever heard of you.” Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Francesca Fiorentini, Dan Evans Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Francesca Fiorentini, Dan Evans
America Needs Virtue before Prosperity
Ben Shapiro: America Needs Virtue before Prosperity
Vice Is Just More Anti-Conservative Vitriol
The same Left that despises President Trump despised George W. Bush long before him.
.. What’s driving McKay? The need to live out his anger against Bush. McKay recalls attending the victory party for John Kerry — who, needless to say, did not win. “Everyone you could imagine was there,” McKay describes, including Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Ferrell... According to McKay, Cheney was far more powerful than W... This, of course, is untrue. But the punch line is this one: “I would choose Trump over Bush and Cheney.” Why? Because, according to McKay, “Donald Trump has no belief system. So I would take the hyenas, the random wild animals running through the White House over Cheney any day of the week.”This is how you got Trump... Trump, for the Left, isn’t a departure from conservatism. He’s just another variation on a theme: All conservatives are evil... Which is why, of course, Trump is the president right now. Leftist contempt for conservatives seeps through Hollywood and drips off our television and movie screens. And conservatives responded in 2016 to that contempt by nominating a man who wouldn’t take an insult, who wouldn’t respect the office of the presidency enough to forgo a cultural fight. Those on the right elected Trump more to fight those like McKay than to fight those like Nancy Pelosi... That’s why they revel in Trump’s tweets (see Schitt, Adam) and his willingness to slam anyone who knocks him (see Admiral McRaven). Trump doesn’t take, for lack of a better word, schitt. And conservatives have been taking it for far too long... There’s one problem for conservatives, however: They’re missing that McKay and his colleagues aren’t the target audience. The anti-Bush films bombed because most Americans don’t see politics the same way McKay does
They do appreciate class in the Oval Office, and they do take dignity seriously. That’s why Bush won reelection in 2004, to McKay’s horror. The best revenge against Hollywood is political success, not temporarily cathartic blowback. Which is why Republicans — and President Trump — would do well to remember that strategic cultural warfare is useful, but if conservatism isn’t advanced, McKay and his ilk will sleep better at night.