Ben Shapiro

Benjamin Aaron "Ben" Shapiro (born 15 January 1984, is a American conservative political commentator, nationally syndicated columnist, author, radio talk show host, and attorney.

Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (2005)

 * A man may be judged by his standard of entertainment as easily as by the standard of his work.


 * Nihilism, narcissism, and hedonism are natural results of the chaotic existential subjectivism popularized by the Left. If the hallmark of the baby boomers was rebellion, the hallmark of my generation is jadedness. Nothing really matters—we're cosmically alone.


 * Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents—nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today's teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents—not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there.


 * Real-life teens wish they could live like the teens Hollywood promotes. Everyone has sex, and relationships are deep and meaningful, even if they only last a couple episodes. There are never any consequences to any action, except for experiencing the angst of teenage life alongside the characters. When a generation becomes desensitized to the ramifications of the culture around them, it's natural to seek out any sort of feeling, even angst.

How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them (2014)



 * As a general matter, the left's favorite three lines of attack are (1) you're stupid; (2) you're mean; (3) you're corrupt. Sarah Palin is supposedly stupid; Mitt Romney is supposedly mean; Dick Cheney is supposedly corrupt. Take away those lines of attack and watch the discomfort set in.


 * There will be no conversation in which you call me a racist, and I explain why I'm not a racist. That's a conversation for idiots.


 * When someone calls you a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe because you happen to disagree with them about tax policy or same-sex marriage or abortion, that's bullying. When someone slanders you because you happen to disagree with them about global warming or the government shutdown, that's bullying. When someone labels you a bad human being because they disagree with you, they are bullying you. They are attacking your character without justification. That's nasty. In fact, it makes them nasty.

The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (2019)

 * We believe freedom is built upon the twin notions that God created every human in His image, and that human beings are capable of investigating and exploring God's world. Those notions were born in Jerusalem and Athens, respectively.


 * We receive our notions of Divine meaning from a three-millennia-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Jews; we receive our notions of reason from a twenty-five-hundred-year-old lineage stretching back to the ancient Greeks. In rejecting those lineages—in seeking to graft ourselves to rootless philosophical movements of the moment, cutting ourselves off from our own roots—we have damned ourselves to an existential wandering.


 * Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
 * Shapiro quotes Martin Luther King Jr.

Articles

 * I am getting really sick of people who whine about "civilian casualties". Maybe I'm a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don't really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian.


 * If you pay tuition, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda. If you pay taxes, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda. If your child majors in English, you're sponsoring the militant homosexual agenda.
 * Shapiro has since regretted the column, saying it was a bad attempt at humor.
 * Shapiro has since regretted the column, saying it was a bad attempt at humor.




 * The Arab enmity for Jews and the state of Israel allows for no peace process. The time for half measures has passed. Bulldozing houses of homicide bombers is useless. Instituting ongoing curfews in Arab-populated cities is useless. Roadblocks, touch fences, midnight negotiations and cease-fires are useless. [...] Here is the bottom line: If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It's an ugly solution, but it is the only solution.
 * Shapiro has retracted this column too.
 * Shapiro has retracted this column too.


 * President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms—not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.


 * Is Donald Trump the best Republican candidate for president out there? It would be tough to argue otherwise. He's got all the makings of a breakout star; he's got bravado and the cash to back it up.




 * The answer is deceptively simple: The Jews who vote for Obama are, by and large, Jews In Name Only (JINOs). They eat bagels and lox; they watch Schindler's List; they visit temple on Yom Kippur—sometimes. But they do not care about Israel. Or if they do, they care about it less than abortion, gay marriage and global warming.
 * This is a pun on the term RINO, which stands for "Republican In Name Only".
 * This is a pun on the term RINO, which stands for "Republican In Name Only".


 * The Jewish people has always been plagued by Bad Jews, who undermine it from within. In America, those Bad Jews largely vote Democrat.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * This is a clarifying election. We've learned that certain media members were willing to sell out long-held principles for ratings. We've learned that certain conservative voters were willing to let conservatism go by the wayside to hero worship a godking. Now we're learning that the Republican leadership is everything we thought they were. We will remember their names. It's time for a new brand of conservative leadership—and those who kowtow to Trump shouldn't be a part of it.


 * Conservatives used to care too much about values and republicanism to buy ends-justify-the-means logic. But it increasingly appears that political expedience now outweighs basic morality. At least one side of the seemed to care about truth. Now both sides are competing to see who can race to the bottom fastest.
 * Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?,  (December 5, 2016)


 * This is pure ends-justify-the-means logic. And the means are pushing falsehood. The notion here seems to be that Trump is helping America avoid perdition, and thus must be given leeway to lie; if we didn't allow him to lie, the left would continue to do so, and then they'd win and drive us straight into Hell. But that suggests that truth no longer has the capacity to drive voters or Americans. If that's true, is finished as a principle—if we can only lie to voters to get them to vote for us, that undermines the decency of republicanism altogether.
 * Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?,  (December 5, 2016)


 * These demagogic non sequiturs undercut conservative claims to value the truth. And that has policy consequences: the supposedly conservative Pence and company have been pushing the lie for a week now that the free market is a failure and case-by-case economic fascism from above is the solution to lost American jobs. When truth doesn't matter, lies about policy are sure to follow.
 * Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?,  (December 5, 2016)


 * Just because the left has ignored and disparaged truth for years is no excuse for the right to do so as well. And unfortunately, truth-free politics seems to be growing exponentially on the right.
 * Is Truth Becoming Irrelevant to Conservatives?,  (December 5, 2016)


 * Very often these days, we hear about the wonderful richness of the international community. Americans are chastised for failing to go along with the international community on climate change; failing to follow the consensus of the international community on health care; failing to mirror the priorities of the international community in foreign policy.But here's the reality: There is no international community. There is merely a group of states motivated by self-interest. Sometimes those self-interests overlap. Other times they don't. But let's not pretend that the international community somehow maintains a sort of collective moral standing merely by dint of numbers. In fact, precisely the opposite is often true. .. Hamas isn't hiding the ball. It is evil. It celebrates evil. It pays terrorists to commit acts of evil. But the international community isn't hiding the ball either when its members refuse to condemn terrorism as terrorism when it is directed against disfavored members of the international community.


 * Here's the truth: Radical Islam is dangerous. The Islamic world has a serious problem with radical Islam. And large swaths of the Muslim world are, in fact, hostile to Western views on matters ranging from freedom of speech to women's rights.


 * So, what would tempt the New York Times to print an illustration directly from the mind of Julius Streicher? The fact that the Times, like many of today's mainstream media outlets, has been completely and utterly willing to cover for and, indeed, engage in anti-Semitism, so long as it is disguised as anti-Zionism. .. Back in 2015, the New York Times printed a list of lawmakers who voted against the anti-Israel Iran deal—listing them by the percentage of Jews in their districts and noting which ones were Jewish themselves. Back in 2014, the public editor of the newspaper, Margaret Sullivan, advised reporters to cover the Palestinians as "more than just victims," thanks to the paper's insanely one-sided coverage. ... The mainstream Left has engaged in self-flattering blindness when it comes to Jew-hatred. And all too often, that blindness veers into outright anti-Semitism.


 * A pluralistic democracy requires three factors to function: a shared cultural space; a shared belief in key ideas, largely embedded in the Constitution; and a shared willingness to leave one another alone. As each component erodes, so, too, does the possibility of a united country.

The Ben Shapiro Show

 * If tyranny is going to come in the United States, it's going to come from people who are so fearful of the liberty of Americans, that they believe that the government should shut down all sorts of freedoms that we hold dear.


 * Okay, well, the fact is that if you had to work more than one job to have a roof over your head or food on the table, you probably shouldn't have taken the job that's not paying you enough. That'd be a you problem.
 * Responding to Kamala Harris's assertion, "In our America, we must agree nobody should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table."
 * Responding to Kamala Harris's assertion, "In our America, we must agree nobody should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table."


 * They're talking about this dumb story that President Trump wanted to nuke hurricanes. Which, by the way, I don't care whether it does anything, I just think it sounds cool. I mean, what if there are sharks in the hurricanes? What if it's a sharknado? What then, guys? Have you thought about that? Just the idea—any time you're talking about nuking a random thing that's not really going to hurt anybody, I'll admit, the 13-year-old boy in me is kinda for it.
 * , quoted in


 * There was a national apology for slavery. It was called the Civil War where 700,000 Americans died.
 * , quoted in


 * Meanwhile, the polarization of the American public continues apace with wokescolds doing their best to ruin every aspect of American life. I'm very excited that Merriam-Webster Dictionary has now added the non-binary pronoun they to the dictionary. Because when I look at a book for definitions of words, what I want is a made-up definition of a word that has never been used this way in all of human history: a plural noun, used as a singular noun, to refer to a singular gender. We're gonna use a plural noun, and Merriam-Webster is gonna go along with this, which just demonstrates once and for all that logic has gone out the window. People are tailoring science to meet politically correct demands, people are tailoring language to meet politically correct demands.
 * , quoted in




 * "I am a Jew." Those have been the words of the Jewish people for three millennia. Those were the words of the men, women and children of Masada. Those were the words of the followers of Bar Kokhba. Those were the words of Jews in Granada in 1066, and the Rhineland in 1096, and Khmelnytsky from 1648 to 1657, and Kishinev in 1903, in Hebron in 1929. Those were the words of Jews in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Those were the last words of Daniel Pearl. And those are my words, too.
 * "I Am a Jew" (2023-10-10). Excerpt from "The Face of Absolute Evil" (2023-10-09), about the 7 October attacks. Also published in Jewish World Review, Jewish Press and The Daily Times.

Appearances on other shows

 * There are a lot of Jews in Hollywood who feel the obligation—they have a perverse leftist view of history, pushed by the Soviet Union, that what really destroyed Europe was Christianity. It was not fascism, it was not communism, it was not leftism, it was Christianity. And therefore, the cure for intolerance is to bash the hell out of Christianity.




 * There certainly is a war on Christianity. It's coming from some people who are secular Jews. It's coming from a lot of leftists. Most Jews in America don't care about Judaism.


 * Ben Shapiro: Why are we mainstreaming delusion? Drew Pinsky: It's not delusion. Samantha Schacher: Why would you call it delusion? Ben Shapiro: Because Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner—I'll call him Caitlyn Jenner, because that's … Samantha Schacher: No, it's her. You're not being polite to the pronoun. Disrespectful. Ben Shapiro: Okay, forget about the disrespect. Facts don't care about your feelings. It turns out that every chromosome, every cell in Caitlyn Jenner's body, is male, with the exception of some of his sperm cells. It turns out that he still has all of his male appendages. How he feels on the inside is irrelevant to the question of his biological self.
 * Dr. Drew On Call,


 * Ben Shapiro: You know, honestly, this is a giant waste of time, in the sense that the entire interview is designed for you to shout slogans or old things that I've said at me. I don't see how this forwards the debate. You talk about undermining the public discourse. 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. Andrew Neil: There are not many bucks to be made on the BBC, unlike American broadcasts, Mr. Shapiro.




 * Andrew Neil: Why don't you just try and answer the questions? Ben Shapiro: I don't frankly give a damn what you think of me, since I've never heard of you. Andrew Neil: And I've never heard of you before I briefed myself for this, but that's not the issue. You haven't— Ben Shapiro: Then why the hell are you interviewing me, sir? Andrew Neil: It's an interesting book. But my point is, your book claims that society— Ben Shapiro: Well, it would be nice if you would quote it from time to time. Andrew Neil: Well, actually, I've done so several times, and I'm about to do so again, if you would let me just finish the question. Your book claims that— Ben Shapiro: Frankly, I don't think that—you know what? Honestly—honestly, sir— Andrew Neil: —society is turning its back on Judeo-Christian values. What are the values it's turning its back on? Ben Shapiro: You know, I'm not inclined to continue in an interview with a person as badly motivated as you, as an interviewer. So I think we're done here. I appreciate your time, sir. Thank you so much. Andrew Neil: All right. Well, thank you for your time, and for showing that anger is not part of American political discourse. Now, Mr. Shapiro, we'll say goodbye.
 * Interviewed by Andrew Neil,


 * Piers Morgan: One of the consequences of this war has been a lot of very high passions on both sides, a lot of angry disagreements. You and your company have been at the center of a very high-profile one at the moment, with Candace Owens. She has now left Daily Wire. Was she fired, or did she leave of her own volition? … I am only curious because I know what a a staunch defender of free speech you are, and it would surprise me if it had been someone's opinions that would make you want to part company with them, however contentious. Ben Shapiro: Suffice it to say, the only thing I will say is what I have said all along with regard to Candace or with regard to any of our other hosts: I am not in hiring and firing position with The Daily Wire. I am a co-founder of The Daily Wire. I am a co-owner of The Daily Wire. I am not actually in management. Jeremy Boreing and Caleb Robinson are in management positions with regard to Candace or anyone else. And as far as the free speech situation, what I will say is that no company has the obligation to literally pay anyone. The Daily Wire is a publisher, it is not a platform. I have never called for Candace, or anyone else, for that matter, to be banned from YouTube, to be banned from X, to be banned from any platform. That is a different story, obviously, when it comes to any publisher. Any publisher gets to make decisions about what it wishes to purvey and not.
 * "Piers Morgan vs. Ben Shapiro: On Israel–Hamas, Candace Owens and More" (10:22–12:04). Piers Morgan Uncensored, 2024-03-26.

Talks and debates

 * So the only other reason you should ever have a conversation, or be friends, with anyone on the left is—and not even be friends—if you are in public in front of a large audience, and then your goal is to humiliate them as badly as possible. That is the goal of the conversation. The goal is not to convince the person. The goal is not to make friends with that person.
 * Speech to Young America's Foundation at Reagan Ranch,


 * So let's say, let's say, for the sake of argument, that all the water levels around the world rise by, let's say, five feet over the next hundred years—say, ten feet over the next hundred years—and it puts all the low-lying areas on the coast underwater. Which—let's say all of that happens. You think that people aren't going to just sell their homes and move?
 * "Ben Shapiro VS Climate Change", YouTube,, 5:37
 * On the Lex Fridman Podcast #336, Shapiro has clarified what he meant by this statement: "The argument that I am making is over time. I don't mean that if a tsunami is about to hit your house, you can list it on eBay. That's not what I mean, obviously. What I mean is that human beings have an extraordinay ability to adapt, it's actually our best quality, and that as water levels rise, real estate prices in those areas tend to fall. That over time, people tend to abandon those areas. They tend to leave. They tend to, right now, sell their houses, and then they tend to move. And eventually, those houses will be worthless, and you won't have anybody to sell to. But presumably, not that many people will be living there by that point, which is one of the reasons why the price will be low, because there is no demand."


 * But, what we can't do, is suggest, as the Bernie Sanders left does, that healthcare is an inalienable right and therefore you can put a gun to my wife's head—she's a doctor—and you can force her to provide care at any cost you wanna pay. You can't do that and hope to increase the supply of healthcare.
 * Debate with Cenk Uygur, Politicon 2017,


 * You can't magically change your . You can't magically change your sex. You can't magically change your age. .. Trump won the nomination because he was anti-left, not because of any political viewpoints, he was slapping people on the left and people on the right went, 'Yeah, those people need to be slapped!'
 * As quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative ‘Gladiator,’ Battles to Win Young Conservatives (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, .


 * The left believes in a hierarchy of victimhood, if you are L.G.B.T.Q., then we suggest that you are very top of the victimhood hierarchy. You have been most in the United States and therefore your opinion must be taken with the most gravitas. ... Black folks have been historically victimized in the United States, which of course, is true. But the idea that every black person now is being individually victimized by the United States is not true. ... Way down at the bottom are white straight . Those are people whose opinions do not matter at all. Because those are the people who are the beneficiaries of the system. They don't get to talk about the system because they were the ones who built the system.
 * About, as quoted in Ben Shapiro, a Provocative 'Gladiator,' Battles to Win Young Conservatives (November 23, 2017) by Sabrina Tavernise, .


 * The argument, I guess here, is that would you kill baby Hitler? And the truth is that no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler, because baby Hitler wasn't Hitler, adult Hitler was Hitler. Baby Hitler was a baby. What you presumably want to do with baby Hitler is take baby Hitler out of baby Hitler's house and move baby Hitler into a better house where he would not grow up to be Hitler, right? That's the idea.
 * 2019 March for Life,




 * Questioner: Hey Ben, I am Will. I have a religious question for you. So, I figure you've probably heard this before, but C. S. Lewis makes the argument that because of Jesus' exclusive claims, that he is either a liar that intentionally led people astray, a lunatic that believed he was the son of God and he wasn't, or he is Lord. Would you put him in one of those categories, or would you put him in another, separate category? Ben Shapiro: So, I mean, because I'm a Jew, I'm just gonna, I mean … look, I'm a Jew, so obviously, for those who are not particularly versed in Judaism, the reason we are not Christians is because we don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah or a physical iteration of God. So the answer that is typically given here is that there is a fourth option, which is the belief, in Judaism, that the Gospels are unverifiable and that they don't relate Jesus' own self-perception. So I've said this before: that it is not that Jesus was a liar or that he was a lunatic, it's that in Judaism, we don't actually believe that a lot of the claims that Jesus makes in the Gospels jive well with what Jews even at the time would have claimed. Which is actually the claim that Christianity makes: Christianity also makes the claim that Jesus is making transformative claims that would have existed outside of Judaism. So obviously, if you are a Jew, and you see those claims made, you're like, "No Jew would have made that sort of claim. That's a weird claim to make." Christians are like, "Right. No Jew would have made that sort of claim, because he's God." So the option from within Judaism is to suggest that Jesus was actually a historical figure who was saying a lot of things which Jews would agree with, because if you read a lot of the New Testament, it, as you would expect, mimics a lot of things in the Old Testament; and that he was actually a political figure; and that the Romans crucified him because he was a political figure who was attempting to lead a rebellion against their tyranny. That's the Jewish historical claim about Jesus. Now, again, I'm not saying that Christians agree with that. They don't. This is why I am Jewish, this is why you are Christian.
 * Q&A session at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (39:56)
 * It is to be noted that in all four Gospels, Jesus never utters a single word against the Romans. Rather, in Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17 and Luke 20:25, he instructs his followers to "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's", i.e., to submit to Roman tax policy.

Twitter

 * Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock
 * Twitter,, quoted in
 * However, this is misleading. He later (that same day, in fact) clarified that he was "clearly talking about Israeli and Arab leadership, as well as terror-supporting people in the Arab world."


 * Renewable energy: dumbest phrase since climate change. See the first law of thermodynamics, dumbass.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * Occupy Wall Street is just like the Arab Spring. Both are run by people who don't shower, hate American capitalism, and despise Israel.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * So Jason Collins is a hero because he's gay? Our standard for heroism has dropped quite a bit since Normandy.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * If you wear your pants below your butt, don't bend the brim of your cap, and have an EBT card, 0% chance you will ever be a success in life.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * would have turned 21 today if he hadn't taken a man's head and beaten it on the pavement before being shot.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * Your "safe spaces" should be renamed "fascist areas," you jackbooted intellectual weaklings.
 * Twitter,, quoted in


 * Hey, @SusanWojcicki, would love to discuss this with you. Do you think your employees should be cavalierly labeling those who militantly hate white supremacy "Nazis," and then shaping algorithms on the basis of such lies?
 * Twitter, in response to Project Veritas' leaked e-mail, highlighted by Washington Examiner

Quotes about Shapiro

 * While his peers are dodging sniper bullets and IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr. Shapiro is bravely urging them to invade five more countries in the establishment of global empire from the safety of his Harvard dorm room.
 * Theodore Beale, The chickenhawk clucks, World Net Daily, August 29, 2005


 * It is entirely possible that my WND colleague [Ben Shapiro] has a perfectly good reason for not serving his country in its moment of need. For all I know, he may have a weak heart, a wooden leg, a predilection for San Francisco bathhouse sex or some other condition that prevents him from joining the military. But devoting two columns to criticizing a single word [Chickenhawk] strikes me as a lady protesting a bit too much.
 * Theodore Beale, The chickenhawk clucks, World Net Daily, August 29, 2005


 * The Littlest Chickenhawk [Shapiro] wouldn’t serve in the US military while he was calling for the US to invade the Middle East and establish an empire there. It’s fascinating to see that despite all his endless squawking about Israel over the years, he won’t even lift a finger to personally defend it either.
 * Theodore Beale, The Chickenhawk Contemplates, Vox Popoli, 10 October 2023


 * It’s not exactly news that the Littlest Chickenhawk is absolutely terrified of anyone who isn’t a college student, and therefore, is capable of unmasking what a mediocre little midwit he is
 * T. Beale, Ben Shapiro is “a Sneaky Rat”, Vox Day, 2 May 2024


 * Remarkably, neither [New York Times] article mentioned Shapiro’s naked bigotry toward Palestinians and Muslims. In 2003, he published a column demanding that Israel “transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper.” Citing precedents from World War II, he insisted that, “expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements.” Shapiro has since repudiated that proposal, but his view of Palestinians has not changed. In 2007, he declared that “the Palestinian Arab population is rotten to the core” and that since “an entire population is that “Palestinian hatred of Jews is religious and cannot be satiated except via Jewish suicide.” And last year, he personally promoted an article written on the website he edits, The Daily Wire, which called the Muslim presence in Europe a “disease.” Muslim men, it declared, are “uncivilized”...Shapiro isn’t referring to a particular Palestinian or Muslim political party, regime or practice at a particular moment in time. He’s generalizing about the immutable characteristics of an entire national or religious group...while Shapiro opposes Trump, he embraces Trumpism as it relates to Palestinians and Muslims. There are, in fact, fewer and fewer prominent conservatives who don’t.
 * Peter Beinart ["Why Doesn’t The New York Times Mention Ben Shapiro’s Islamophobia?" (November 30, 2017)


 * Shapiro has always been deeply conservative and does not pretend to be objective. But he says his market niche is giving cleareyed reads of current events, not purely partisan rants. He is often compared to his former colleague at, Milo Yiannopoulos. On the surface, they seem the same. Both speak on college campuses. Both draw protests. Both used to work for Mr. Bannon at Breitbart. Both are young. In fact, they are very different. Mr. Yiannopoulos, a protégé of Mr. Bannon, was good at shocking audiences, saying things like "feminism is cancer." But critics say that he was empty of ideas, a kind of nihilistic rodeo clown who was not even conservative. Mr. Shapiro broke with Mr. Bannon last year, saying Breitbart had become a propaganda tool for Mr. Trump.


 * And even some former fans say Mr. Shapiro is a brilliant polemicist, but in a tribal nation, he's just one more partisan mobilizing his troops.


 * If Rush Limbaugh is someone your dad listens to on his car radio, Mr. Shapiro, 33, a graduate of Harvard Law School, is the cool kid's philosopher, dissecting arguments with a lawyer's skill and references to Aristotle.


 * Again, it may just be my failure to understand Facts and Logic, but I am having trouble understanding how population-level generalizations about the moral characteristics of particular ethnic groups can be anything other than bigotry.
 * Nathan J. Robinson, "The Cool Kid's Philosopher" (1 December 2017), Current Affairs.


 * It's amusing that Shapiro can see Gazan children swimming in sewage and think "Wow, Arabs must just really have a thing for sewage," a train of reasoning roughly akin to "Wow, Haitians must really love dying in earthquakes, since a lot of them seem to have done it."
 * Nathan J. Robinson, "The Cool Kid's Philosopher" (1 December 2017), Current Affairs.


 * What dispirited me about Shapiro's approach is that he's clearly not actually very interested in Facts at all.
 * Nathan J. Robinson, "The Cool Kid's Philosopher" (1 December 2017), Current Affairs.


 * According to the Times, there is a wide gulf between Trump/Yiannopoulos-style vulgar conservatism and Shapiro-style Logical conservatism, but I just am not sure that I see in "Go to hell, you communist piece of garbage" the kind of "polemical brilliance" that Shapiro is reputed to demonstrate.
 * Nathan J. Robinson, "The Cool Kid's Philosopher" (1 December 2017), Current Affairs.


 * I'll admit that I was not immediately dazzled by the force of Shapiro's intellect.
 * Nathan J. Robinson, "The Cool Kid's Philosopher" (1 December 2017), Current Affairs.


 * According to his supporters, and even many who might not support him, Ben Shapiro loves facts. Why? Well, because he says he loves facts. He's not basing his assertions on feelings, and we know this because he says that he isn't. [...] By insisting on this interpretation of his own character, over and over, buoyed by the idolatrous support of his loyal fans and the snarky titles of his clickbait videos, Shapiro conjures into being an image of himself as The Rational Man. Say the magic words enough times, and the spell will be cast over your audience.


 * Yet this uncritical embrace of nationalism has also led some Jews to describe their liberal co-religionists in terms that validate anti-Semitic perceptions of Jews more broadly; the conservative pundit Ben Shapiro has referred to liberal Jews as "JINOs" and "bad Jews" who "vote Democrat" and therefore "undermine [the Jewish people] from within." Shapiro and his comrades seem unaware that by validating anti-Semitic stereotypes about liberal American Jews, who comprise the majority of American Jewry, they are affirming the ideological beliefs of anti-Semites while presenting themselves as worthy exceptions. If the vast majority of American Jews are "bad Jews," as Shapiro maintains, then hating them is rational. This is why Shapiro, himself a frequent target of anti-Semites, has drawn the interest of white-nationalist terrorists, including Alexandre Bissonnette and Anders Breivik, and is praised on white-nationalist forums. They may not like Shapiro personally, but he is saying what they want to hear. When the president said that liberal Jews are dumb or disloyal, he was echoing a prevailing theme of right-wing Jewish discourse in the Trump era.
 * Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)
 * Serwer references Shapiro's 2011 essay "Jews in Name Only" and a 2011 tweet.


 * Ben Shapiro at Seder is a reclamation of Jewish religion, culture, and narrative after years of Shapiro’s hateful invective directed towards American Jews. Shapiro has denounced the majority of American Jews as ‘Jews In Name Only’ because we express our traditions outside the Orthodox mold and because our progressive politics are reflections and extensions of our Jewish commitments. Critics call it ‘anti-Semitic’ not because of the art but because to them it is an outrage that a non-Zionist Jew on the left has the chutzpah to say: This is my tradition, this is my culture, and I will not let you distort it in favor of your white supremacist agenda. My art exposed the absurdity of an Alt-Right figurehead such as Shapiro, who has built a career attacking the vulnerable, laying exclusive claim to Jewish tradition, values, and ethics.
 * Eli Valley quoted in Article (2019)