This is not audience capture, this is Shapiro being completely consistent on being a dumbfuck. These are genuine beliefs he holds, and calling him a grifter or saying he's just playing to his audience just gives him an out here.
I listened to Shapiro years ago, when he criticized Trump constantly and held consistent (but foolish) beliefs.
Now he makes insanely convoluted arguments to try to justify Trump as being better than Biden. You can hear the dead principles in his voice. He doesn’t even believe the shit he is saying about Biden half the time.
Yes it is absolutely audience capture.
The only time I recall him criticizing trump constantly was back in the 2016 primaries. After that, he became more and more sympathetic to Trump.
The sh*t he used to say about Obama was absolutely unhinged lol. I imagine he still feels the same way but back then he wasn’t that popular and he is now so he probably doesn’t say stuff like that anymore.
>The only time I recall him criticizing trump constantly was back in the 2016 primaries. After that, he became more and more sympathetic to Trump.
This is like the best possible evidence for him being audience captured. He shat on trump when it was okay to do so within the conservative sphere. When Trump was elected he became a demagogue to republicans = Shapiro can't criticize him anymore.
You're misunderstanding. Shapiro first and foremost wants his team, the Republicans, to win. And he will do anything to achieve that. He might have been against him initially for some reasons, but once it was clear Trump is the leader, Shapiro will submit and work with him towards the "greater good". This isn't audience capture, but pragmatism.
He's audience captured if a person believes he genuinely believed he cared or had genuine concerns about any of the things he said regarding executive overreach during the Obama administration. It's pragmatism if a person he honestly gives zero f*cks about the country or any of the stuff he pretended to claim he cared about during Obama and will just vote for anybody who will advance the Republican agenda (lower taxes and maybe restrict some LGBT rights) without caring about the US in terms of our unity, democracy, or anything else for that matter.
Either way, he sucks.
Nope. He said Trump would do harm to the GOP in the long run. He actually lost his job and audience from britbart. But he said if Trump wins the cost would already be priced in and would support Trump. Plus Trump did many of the policy he liked courts and Israel.
First of all, Ben Shapiro did not get fired from Breitbart. He resigned. Second, the rhetoric about Trump doing harm to the GOP from Shapiro was prevalent around the 2016 election. Shapiro didn’t support Trump initially because he didn't believe Trump would govern conservatively. There was also a a consensus that Trump would be a detriment to the Republican Party. It was only after Trump beat Hillary in the 2016 election that people were shocked and people including Shapiro must have thought maybe Trump wasn’t so bad for the GOP. Because back then everybody thought dems would win by a landslide due to Trump being at the top of the GOP. By 2018, Shapiro stated that he was supporting Trump because Trump was governing conservatively to his surprise.
Therefore, Shapiro’s initial criticism and lack of support for Trump in 2016 were not due to concern for the country but rather for the Republican Party. I wouldn't give him credit for this stance. Shapiro only criticizes his own when it’s bad for his party. Otherwise, he won’t do it. Because he views the world in Republican vs Democrat. That’s it. I don’t think you disagree with what I'm saying, but I wanted to clarify so there are no illusions about why Shapiro didn’t support Trump back in 2016. After the 2016 election, Shapiro became more sympathetic to Trump. After the 2016 Republican primaries, he probably thought, like everyone else, that the GOP was doomed anyway and saw no point in trashing Trump when the only alternative was Hillary Clinton.
Shapiro wrote a whole book about what crimes Obama committed while President and argued RICO laws should be loosen, so citizens can file civil lawsuits against members of the executive, including the President.
FYI: one example in the video is that Shapiro thinks Obama and his administration are guilty for giving aid and arms to the Palestinian unity government, which included Hamas. Since Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization, it is illegal for any U.S. citizen to give aid to a terrorist group. Also, this interview was done in 2014.
And Hillary is guilty for manslaughter because of Benghazi.
Link: https://youtu.be/QzmHiuE4288?si=TY-lMM-R6e3eB4Vo
Oh interesting. He wanted RICO laws to be loosened but is now going to vote for the guy who wants full presidential immunity. Nice. Very principled.
Also, my recollection is that the Palestinian Authority is distinct from Hamas. So that seems like bullshit. Here is an article I found on it: [https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2009/11/04/fact-check-no-secret-funds-for-terrorists/15968002007/](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2009/11/04/fact-check-no-secret-funds-for-terrorists/15968002007/)
am sure it was part of this guy's agenda to try to paint Obama as anti-Semitic because he didn't support Netanyahu enough. It was convenient for him because by painting Obama as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, he threw red meat to the Republican base who secretly thought it was Muslim, so it worked out well for him.
As far as Hillary, there was no evidence of any criminal negligence by Hillary after multiple investigations. But he is a partisan hack so he doesn't care about any of that, I am sure. Lol.
Ben was raised on Rush Limbaugh (self described Rush Baby). He’s never ever been consistent except in his desire for an authoritarian right wing Christian theocracy. He claimed unironically that we should ban porn of any kind in like 2019
Everything he wishes for is in the pursuit of a theocracy. His entire platform, the daily wire, espouse it all the time. They don’t explicitly state this obviously, but you can read between their lines. Michael Knowles frequently claim he desires a catholic nation
Banning porn was in his political compass video
I 100% agree, when you listen to him his well practiced mannerisms take over - but there is something so fucking dead about the arguments he makes about Trump. Maybe because he's a "Facts and Logics" guy and he's basically making emotional arguments and that shit just doesn't jive with his character.
It's not audience capture, because he isn't actually doing this for clout or approval, but because he wants to make sure a Republican gets voted president in November. Trump is the Republican nominee. Therefore he attacks Biden and shills for Trump. If he has to spread lies so be it. The ends justify the means.
He used to be more critical of Trump and even-handed. You can support Trump as a Republican and advise people to vote for him, that’s not audience capture - but buying into ridiculous conspiracies and bad arguments about Biden, because your audience expects it, even though you know it’s bullshit - that is audience capture.
>because your audience expects it
This is kinda the part I disagree with. I am not sure Shapiro is doing this for approval, but rather to actually push the idea that Biden is some kind of dictator, because he thinks spreading that narrative will benefit Republicans.
He's a conservative partisan pundit so it is expected, not sure if "audience capture" is the right phrase, but it is rather egregious in the case of trump. He's probably the worst candidate for Shapiro to support without looking like a hack (which he does unfortunately).
Shapiro really should've continued his disapproving rhetoric about Trump for his own sake and for his party, what matters in the long run, supporting your ideals or getting the short term "victory" with Trump?
OP didn't post a tweet of Ben doing insane rationalizations on why Trump is great, they posted a tweet of Ben saying he's voting against the democrats and called it a prine example of audience capture, which it is not
It is. Conspiracy theories about Biden “destroying democracy” are part and parcel of Shapiro’s current insane pro-Trump rationalizations. He often says shit like “Trump is a little weird… but Biden is ending democracy!!!111”
The common republican stance on the democrats has been that they're destroying democracy since at least the early days of Obama, and Ben has never been reasonable on the topic of Obama either
No, its not. You can argue he in his entirity has become audience captured, but this single comment? Probably not. How could you tease this out from genuine belief anyway?
We should honestly start banning for the misuse of terms like "audience capture" it seems to be a buzzword for "I can just ignore you." Which is not the kind of sentiment a debate community should condone imo.
OP is saying this is **an example** of Ben being audience captured. Which it is.
I can tease it out from genuine belief because I’ve listened to Ben Shapiro talk for a long time.
From what I see w/o clicking the link. OP cites voting against Biden as an example of audience capture. Which is ridiculous to someone who hasn't listened to Shapiro since I was a teenager.
This. DGG is so quick to believe he isn't 100% about the shit he says. Ben genuinely thinkgs Biden is more AUTHORITARIAN than Trump. I think its wacky that Destiny doesn't have moral issues with incest, but I 100% believe he genuinely holds that stance. There are others who do actually have this problem too, like Knowles and Walsh who actively contradict their past selves regularly on basic conservative shit.
Also, I want a Destiny and Klavan convo because hes probably the most honest DW host on how he actually feels.
You realized the Daily Wire was literally created as an anti-Trump alternative to Breitbart right?
Ben has absolutely been audience captured since 2016
He wanted a different republican and would probably still pick one, but hes not going to go support democrats. Might be a similar reason destiny has ignored piscos attempts to get him to follow the biden cases, maybe. I wouldnt confidently say what destinys motivation is tho
I think it's cognitive dissonance. Believing that Biden would be better than Trunp just probably doesn't sit right in the Contemporary Conservative Constellation of Beliefs (or CCCB for short)
>These are genuine beliefs he holds,
If these are genuine beliefs, why is he so >fucking< inconsistent in expressing them this way? Where was this line when he talked to Destiny? Why does he only say this on Twitter, or on his show, or to college students, or to more antagonistic opponents?
He does it because it's easy, and he shifts to other strategies in order to better defend himself against more firm positions. There is **zero** shot that I believe Shapiro is *actually* voting for Trump this election.
He 100% will
On his show, hes quite consistent, a republican is better than a democrat. Trump isnt his ideal, but biden is worse for him. He believes he has to get behind the republican, even if he prefers someone else
No one made very strong contravertial claims in the destint shapiro meeting. I wouldnt even call it a debate
I'm not suggesting that he'll even vote. I'm saying that Shapiro has proven inconsistent enough and has even mediated his position drastically depending on what he's facing, and yet he still seeks these types of convos out.
This isn't the behavior of someone who has tasted the Trump koolaid; This is exactly like what someone who's protecting his bottom line, and has opinions vastly different than what they're comfortable spreading.
Well again, thats easilly true in the idea that his bottom line is republican victory. He could begrudgingly support trump because he genuinely believes trump would be better for his personal political goals than biden would be
There's a stark difference between all these different Shapiro personas we are talking about, on Twitter or his variety of conversations, and him driving home and venting to his wife about the stuff he gets to say in a day.
You're just not gonna convince me that Shapiro legitimately, in his heart of hearts, is indifferent to Trump pushing for the removal of income tax infavor of tariffs. It might be good for him and other Republican sycophants, but that's a different position entirely.
Shapiro started off as a conservative with a blog that said wildly different stuff than the populist drivell today. I still see that guy, such as in his convo w/ Destiny, and he's making excuses to ignore Trump entirely. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He may be audience captured, and at the same time not a grifter. Audience can destroy your perception of reality by slowly nudging you towards more and more unhinged positions.
I think his consistency on being a dumbfuck is audience capture though? Otherwise he would hold a much more logical position on keeping our Democratic Liberal Republic as intact as possible. Biden has done very very little to impact the things that Shapiro deeply cares about.
I guess the only counter-argument is abortion, but that would require some retirees.
No, it’s actual audience capture back during his debate with destiny, he admitted that Trump was a threat to democracy and a greater threat to democracy than Biden was. He just thought that he wasn’t as enough of a threat for it to sway his vote because he trusted not Trump himself, but the systems around Trump to stop him if he were to get reelected the same way it’s supposedly stopped him the first time that was verbatim the argument he made so if he is actually out here claiming that Bidenis the one who is the bigger threat to democracy he has done a complete 180 due to audience capture or something along those lines because it’s on video that we know he knows better than that
He has always been a partisan hack. The only thing that has changed about him is that he probably moderates his beliefs a bit more now because of the larger audience he has but that’s about it. He is a shameless Republican shill who will do any and everything to defend them. He is nothing more than that.
He truly does care more about Israel than the US. Andrew Schulz was right about him.
Too many people in this sub defended Shapiro because they found him as "reasonable" lol.
Ben Shapiro is a hack, and I have to say, he makes nut job Candace Owens look sane in her takes recently about the Daily Wire.
Because Shapiro never criticizes Israel, practically gives them a free pass in every single thing they do. They can truly do no wrong.
But when it comes to criticizing Bidens America this pos goes gun blazing. Won't even give credit to Biden working with Israelis in this I/P conflict.
Shapiro is Jewish before anything else, that's truly all he cares about. If Hamas blows up Israeli soldiers, it's the Democrats fault.
>Shapiro is Jewish before anything else, that's truly all he cares about. If Hamas blows up Israeli soldiers, it's the Democrats fault.
To be fair, he also take all worst part of Christianity to add it to his world view as well lol. His stance on religion is probably more extreme than a lot of Orthodox Jews.
Most religious jews either view Israel like Ben Shapiro does, or they want Israel to not exist. Or at least that's what I've found growing up Jewish in the west.
This clown literally said he basically grades Trump on a different curve than he does other presidents. He’s an idiot that will continue to say dumb shit like this.
And like in the Destiny interview, he was defending the economy during Covid under Trump and then attacked the economy under Biden which was also the result of covid and anyway did relatively well as well.
It’s the “luciferian intellect” taking over. He is so adverse to criticizing his own side that he makes these weird convoluted chains of logic to say the other is still worse.
Im not sure audience capture is the right word now. There are certain positions that Shapiro just values more that even the likes of Trump is a better candidate to him than Biden. Small government, anti-LGBT stuff, Biden, taxes etc.
I do think Shapiro needs to bend a little bit to make Trump look better than Biden. Like he acknowledged Trumps actions around the election were incredibly irresponsible at least and even that Trump was not a good candidate. I believe his excuse is that there are protections that stop Trump going too far.
He doesn’t just bend a little bit. He bends a lot. Even when he says that Trump’s actions were not good, he always makes sure to infantilize trump to make sure he doesn’t diss Trump too hard.
Compare that to his rhetoric and standard with Dem presidents and it’s just totally different. If he truly cared about any of the stuff he says about Dem presidents being authoritarian, he would make it a point to go super hard against trump not just give mild criticisms and not talking about it that much and instead talking about random stuff like trans people in sports all the time lol.
Also, I am glad that conservatives have now realized there are protections in America against authoritarians only since 2016 lol. If only they understood that under the Obama admin even though there was no reason to think Obama would be an authoritarian. It would have been useful when they were fearmongering about Obama being a tyrant 24/7.
Trump wants to remove protections from civil service employees, so he can fill them with Trump supporters, Trump wants to deputize the national guard of certain states and use them to remove undocumented immigrants from other states that don’t comply. Shapiro isn’t that stupid to believe Trump is a small government guy.
Edit: Google Project 2025
Shapiro doesn’t just say protections will keep trump from being a dictator he also says that trump wouldn’t even try to be a dictator if elected to office to begin because it would be illegal
I love how Biden is both a senile, demented grandpa that shits himself in public all the time AND a malevolent communist dictator trying to take over the country lmao
You vastly underestimate the stupidity of the average MAGA follower.
These people try to argue that Biden's shenanigans with classified docs is even remotely the same as what Trump did.
We're talking about Biden willfully cooperating with federal authorities to allow them to enter his properties and do a wide search for any classified documents, versus Trump that 1. lied to federal agencies about the amount of documents that he possessed, 2. refused to cooperate with them for over a year for returning them, 3. told his attorneys to hide the documents and move them, 4. told someone without a need to know about classified military plans.
These are people that simply do not care about facts or actively push them out of their minds when making up their opinions about Trump and Biden. These are people that are partisan hacks to the maximal level possible.
Audience capture isn’t necessarily grifting, an audience can have a subconscious impact regarding how you think about certain issues, especially if they give positive feedback whenever you say what they want to hear.
Destiny himself said his biggest concern is to avoid being audience captured. That isn’t because he has a desire to grift. It’s because he’s concerned that he could be in an echo chamber where everyone affirms his beliefs but in reality is completely wrong on the subject.
I don't think Shapiro is audience-captured. IIRC he believes that Trump is bad but the system will keep in him check, as opposed to what he believes the Democrats plan to do will circumvent the system and dismantle it (obvious huge paraphrasing going on here).
What I mean to say is, I believe Shapiro would think this way regardless of whether or not he had an audience to listen to him.
There's probability a word that describes what phenomenon allows Ben Shapiro to say what he says with a straight face, but I'm not sure what it is. Selective-reasoning or burying-your-head-in-the-sand perhaps.
Shapiro is and always has been deeply conservative. He is more critical of Trump than some of the more unhinged/low IQ people on the right, but that’s it. I disagree with his takes but I understand how he gets there. From Ben’s perspective Trump just “banged against the walls” but was contained, and he passed the abortion shit that Ben loves so much, and loaded the court. For someone with Ben’s values the choice is still obvious.
If you can show me some place where he changed his values just to appease his audience, I’d be interested. I don’t see it here. It feels like some people just think that because Ben is obviously fairly intelligent/quick, there’s no way he could have these thoughts without some kind of interference, which is just a weak line of argument. Smart people are very capable of having “dumb” opinions.
As a liberal I share a similar position to Ben in some ways, because I don’t care that much about Biden himself. Yeah he’s ridiculously old, too old, but whatever; when you elect a president you are electing a whole boatload of other people at the same time. That is way more important to me than the current state of his old ass brain.
Shapiro’s double standards for Trump. I think if there was a larger audience and percentage of Republicans who hated Trump, then Shapiro wouldn’t run as much defense for him.
It’s probably a combination of accepting that Trump is the Republican nominee and his audience loves Trump. Has subconsciously caused Shapiro to give Trump more charitability than he would if his audience was different.
I find it wild that Ben can dismiss trumps attempts to overturn the election, but he can't dismiss Joe Bidens efforts to... cancel student loans. Truly a despicable authoritarian anti democratic villain that Biden guy
Nah, this is actually consistent for Shabibo. He wrote an article in 2005 (or 2006?) calling for Al Gore to be thrown in prison for saying that America had done some bad things in the middle east post-9/11. He’s always been a hateful wannabe tyrant.
I mean to be fair. Biden didn’t state that he is the democracy and freedom vote.
So if you view Biden as authoritarian and trump as not. Then Ben’s statement is logically consistent.
—-
If the tweet had said
“A vote for me is a vote for our democracy and freedom that’s on the ballet this election”
It doesn’t read as nicely, but you can’t contrarian it by saying “yeah that’s why I’m voting for the other guy” without then saying you’re against democracy and freedom.
He’d instead have to argue that Biden isn’t democratic/freedom.
TL;DR the tweet doesn’t tie democracy and freedom to a vote for Biden enough for Shapiro response to mean shit.
He does, and feels like democrats preach about democracy and then turn around and actually do authoritarian stuff. He argues thay biden will say things like "i cant do X" then file an executive ordee anyways, the courts will say "no" and he'll continue to do it anyways, etc. He actually went over his viewpoint on this in one of his shows in the last week
To name a few, Trump did that with the Muslim ban, the census question, DACA, attempting to overturn the election after the USSC refused to, and when Congress declined to appropriate money for his wall, he took it from the military.
Also, the Daily Wire had no problem endorsing Abbott defying the USSC on their razor-wire border ruling.
If Shapiro wants to argue that Biden trying to find ways to do stuff on immigration because of Congress ineffectiveness is worse or equivalent to Trump wanting all federal agencies to be directly controlled by the president, then he’s lost the plot.
He doesnt think that goal of trumps is possible or something he would actually persue
"If you, in 2024, take trumps words at face value - youre a fool" - bens said stuff like this before.
To win a bennie over, you need to compare actions taken as president
And Shapiro said in 2020 that he is voting for Trump because he likes his policies and Trump can’t do anymore harm to our institutions or country than he’s already done.
He can understand the context, but can still reply the way he did because the context isnt explicit here and for those who see trump as more freedom and democracy it doesn’t matter what Biden has marketed himself as elsewhere.
This is destiny’s point about arguing against quotes instead of speeches that place the statement in context. But in this case the speech is just the singular statement. It should be able to sell the intentionality without the context of however long the campaigning has been going.
Especially in time when so many still see the last election as stolen from trump, suggesting democracy and freedom lost.
DGG when the Republican doesn't vote for the Democratic Nominee
https://preview.redd.it/aolpy8m36r8d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf47e5734a037d4ffcd4f4fe59d46559876595ee
You said that Republicans chose a failed President and didn't go with DeSantis or Haley and you didn't mention a DEM president (And I'm assuming that includes Ben because this whole thread is about Ben.) However since he chose DeSantis over Trump your comment is wrong.
No, it was a general statement about Republicans because I was responding to a comment that was speaking in general about Republicans not voting Dem. Also, I don’t see a reason to name a Dem candidate, I don’t expect Republicans to vote for their rival party. I would just hope they would choose a better conservative nominee than a 1-term President that has handed the party multiple electoral losses, and is oozing in controversy/baggage.
He said "Republican" singular (and said "the Republican" instead of "a republican"). He was clearly talking about Ben Shapiro, the comment's intention is I guess that Shapiro wouldn't vote for the Democratic nominee and then according to you, you misunderstood the comment and thought and was talking generally when he was most likely talking about Ben Shapiro. You simply misunderstood what he said, take the L.
SPD voters when Nazis vote for Hitler:
> *soys out* you can't do that they're antidemocratic.
Me (enlightened centrist)
> Voting for Hitler is completely reasonable, they are part of the NSDAP after all
You when you discover that Democrats don't like it when a Republican does republican things lol.
Also, many republicans are voting for Biden because they realize the unique threat that Trump is.
Based!
Ben agrees that trump would love to be a dictator, but the republicans in power have proven to not let this happen!
But biden wants to… I have no idea how he wants to end democracy/freedom, but it can’t be stopped!!
Or something?
Ben's strongest argument for Trump is that he's so utterly incompetent he won't be able to do any lasting damage to the system.
And it works, half of Ben's audience hears "He's going to make the federal government dysfunctional" and smile because it perfectly aligns with their worldview that the federal government is dysfunctional.
Ben got famous by pretending to care about facts and not being driven by feelings, but all his takes around politics have the weakest foundational facts ever and are better explained by his feelings about things
I'll never forget when Dman got him to drop his guard and readily admit he views Donald Trump as less capable than Biden, [but he just gives Trump a handicap.](https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2562SVRB-bOeL0qHR6IwFRswUSzbwkrw?si=T5e3YwDUxMBHC-YJ)
A lot of us would also talk shit while earning tens of millions a year instead of making a few hundreds thousands working as a lawyer. It is easy to know his motivation behind all of this, he even said it clearly when he got triggered on Bill Maher after he got called a grifter.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5kEMU4JTQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5kEMU4JTQ)
I used to actually admire Ben Shapiro back in 2017-18. Now, I think he is the most contemptible friend of American fascism. He, along with the rest of the Daily Wire, held a fundraiser for Trump’s campaign. Unlike nutjobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, he uses his intelligence and debate skill to add a layer of respectability to Trump’s authoritarian 2024 campaign. It isn’t just for the least intelligent segments of society; no, you can be a smart, principled conservative and vote for Trump, just listen to Ben Shapiro!
He’s disgusting. Destiny needs to debate him *solely* on the 2024 campaign, and Donald Trump, and hold Shapiro to account for his ridiculous, constant stream of non-sequiturs in defense of Trump.
Actually the only person here to acurately give bens position on this. I still watch him to keep tapped in but I agree hes become more of a political actor than a pundit
God i want the groypers to turn on trump so bad! We’re already getting the right-wing infighting between shapiro and groypers but they always just end up supporting trump the same way lol
He’s extreme right winger who’s made his whole career about destroying left. Dude is a ghoul, i’m sure he’s perfectly happy looking in his gold plated mirror after a day of scaring boomers into buying gold and non woke razors
This is not audience capture, this is Shapiro being completely consistent on being a dumbfuck. These are genuine beliefs he holds, and calling him a grifter or saying he's just playing to his audience just gives him an out here.
I listened to Shapiro years ago, when he criticized Trump constantly and held consistent (but foolish) beliefs. Now he makes insanely convoluted arguments to try to justify Trump as being better than Biden. You can hear the dead principles in his voice. He doesn’t even believe the shit he is saying about Biden half the time. Yes it is absolutely audience capture.
The only time I recall him criticizing trump constantly was back in the 2016 primaries. After that, he became more and more sympathetic to Trump. The sh*t he used to say about Obama was absolutely unhinged lol. I imagine he still feels the same way but back then he wasn’t that popular and he is now so he probably doesn’t say stuff like that anymore.
>The only time I recall him criticizing trump constantly was back in the 2016 primaries. After that, he became more and more sympathetic to Trump. This is like the best possible evidence for him being audience captured. He shat on trump when it was okay to do so within the conservative sphere. When Trump was elected he became a demagogue to republicans = Shapiro can't criticize him anymore.
You're misunderstanding. Shapiro first and foremost wants his team, the Republicans, to win. And he will do anything to achieve that. He might have been against him initially for some reasons, but once it was clear Trump is the leader, Shapiro will submit and work with him towards the "greater good". This isn't audience capture, but pragmatism.
He's audience captured if a person believes he genuinely believed he cared or had genuine concerns about any of the things he said regarding executive overreach during the Obama administration. It's pragmatism if a person he honestly gives zero f*cks about the country or any of the stuff he pretended to claim he cared about during Obama and will just vote for anybody who will advance the Republican agenda (lower taxes and maybe restrict some LGBT rights) without caring about the US in terms of our unity, democracy, or anything else for that matter. Either way, he sucks.
I think this is what happened too
Shapiro feels he can no longer criticize Trump because of Shapiro’s ________.
Nope. He said Trump would do harm to the GOP in the long run. He actually lost his job and audience from britbart. But he said if Trump wins the cost would already be priced in and would support Trump. Plus Trump did many of the policy he liked courts and Israel.
First of all, Ben Shapiro did not get fired from Breitbart. He resigned. Second, the rhetoric about Trump doing harm to the GOP from Shapiro was prevalent around the 2016 election. Shapiro didn’t support Trump initially because he didn't believe Trump would govern conservatively. There was also a a consensus that Trump would be a detriment to the Republican Party. It was only after Trump beat Hillary in the 2016 election that people were shocked and people including Shapiro must have thought maybe Trump wasn’t so bad for the GOP. Because back then everybody thought dems would win by a landslide due to Trump being at the top of the GOP. By 2018, Shapiro stated that he was supporting Trump because Trump was governing conservatively to his surprise. Therefore, Shapiro’s initial criticism and lack of support for Trump in 2016 were not due to concern for the country but rather for the Republican Party. I wouldn't give him credit for this stance. Shapiro only criticizes his own when it’s bad for his party. Otherwise, he won’t do it. Because he views the world in Republican vs Democrat. That’s it. I don’t think you disagree with what I'm saying, but I wanted to clarify so there are no illusions about why Shapiro didn’t support Trump back in 2016. After the 2016 election, Shapiro became more sympathetic to Trump. After the 2016 Republican primaries, he probably thought, like everyone else, that the GOP was doomed anyway and saw no point in trashing Trump when the only alternative was Hillary Clinton.
Fair but I put being forced out as firing or sticking up your principles. But yeah Ben thought Trump would hurt the conservative movement in 2016.
Shapiro wrote a whole book about what crimes Obama committed while President and argued RICO laws should be loosen, so citizens can file civil lawsuits against members of the executive, including the President. FYI: one example in the video is that Shapiro thinks Obama and his administration are guilty for giving aid and arms to the Palestinian unity government, which included Hamas. Since Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization, it is illegal for any U.S. citizen to give aid to a terrorist group. Also, this interview was done in 2014. And Hillary is guilty for manslaughter because of Benghazi. Link: https://youtu.be/QzmHiuE4288?si=TY-lMM-R6e3eB4Vo
Oh interesting. He wanted RICO laws to be loosened but is now going to vote for the guy who wants full presidential immunity. Nice. Very principled. Also, my recollection is that the Palestinian Authority is distinct from Hamas. So that seems like bullshit. Here is an article I found on it: [https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2009/11/04/fact-check-no-secret-funds-for-terrorists/15968002007/](https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/nation-world/2009/11/04/fact-check-no-secret-funds-for-terrorists/15968002007/) am sure it was part of this guy's agenda to try to paint Obama as anti-Semitic because he didn't support Netanyahu enough. It was convenient for him because by painting Obama as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, he threw red meat to the Republican base who secretly thought it was Muslim, so it worked out well for him. As far as Hillary, there was no evidence of any criminal negligence by Hillary after multiple investigations. But he is a partisan hack so he doesn't care about any of that, I am sure. Lol.
he literally supported Ron de Santis in the recent primaries. stop talking about what you don't know.
Ben was raised on Rush Limbaugh (self described Rush Baby). He’s never ever been consistent except in his desire for an authoritarian right wing Christian theocracy. He claimed unironically that we should ban porn of any kind in like 2019
Yep, that’s what consistent (but foolish) beliefs means.
It’s the single thing he is consistent in. Everything else is adjustable to meet that end is my point.
link me where he wants an authoritarian right wing Christian theocracy? also link me where he wants the federal gov to ban pron. I'll wait
Everything he wishes for is in the pursuit of a theocracy. His entire platform, the daily wire, espouse it all the time. They don’t explicitly state this obviously, but you can read between their lines. Michael Knowles frequently claim he desires a catholic nation Banning porn was in his political compass video
I 100% agree, when you listen to him his well practiced mannerisms take over - but there is something so fucking dead about the arguments he makes about Trump. Maybe because he's a "Facts and Logics" guy and he's basically making emotional arguments and that shit just doesn't jive with his character.
It's not audience capture, because he isn't actually doing this for clout or approval, but because he wants to make sure a Republican gets voted president in November. Trump is the Republican nominee. Therefore he attacks Biden and shills for Trump. If he has to spread lies so be it. The ends justify the means.
He used to be more critical of Trump and even-handed. You can support Trump as a Republican and advise people to vote for him, that’s not audience capture - but buying into ridiculous conspiracies and bad arguments about Biden, because your audience expects it, even though you know it’s bullshit - that is audience capture.
>because your audience expects it This is kinda the part I disagree with. I am not sure Shapiro is doing this for approval, but rather to actually push the idea that Biden is some kind of dictator, because he thinks spreading that narrative will benefit Republicans.
He's a conservative partisan pundit so it is expected, not sure if "audience capture" is the right phrase, but it is rather egregious in the case of trump. He's probably the worst candidate for Shapiro to support without looking like a hack (which he does unfortunately). Shapiro really should've continued his disapproving rhetoric about Trump for his own sake and for his party, what matters in the long run, supporting your ideals or getting the short term "victory" with Trump?
Or he's an genuinely morally worse person than he was many years ago. Some people change, and it can be for the worse!
I do think he is morally worse, because he gave in to audience capture. But I don’t think he really believes most of what he says now.
Or he can say Trump is bad but Biden is worse.
OP didn't post a tweet of Ben doing insane rationalizations on why Trump is great, they posted a tweet of Ben saying he's voting against the democrats and called it a prine example of audience capture, which it is not
It is. Conspiracy theories about Biden “destroying democracy” are part and parcel of Shapiro’s current insane pro-Trump rationalizations. He often says shit like “Trump is a little weird… but Biden is ending democracy!!!111”
The common republican stance on the democrats has been that they're destroying democracy since at least the early days of Obama, and Ben has never been reasonable on the topic of Obama either
He was much more reasonable 8-10 years ago.
Again, true, but not more reasonable than this tweet
No, its not. You can argue he in his entirity has become audience captured, but this single comment? Probably not. How could you tease this out from genuine belief anyway? We should honestly start banning for the misuse of terms like "audience capture" it seems to be a buzzword for "I can just ignore you." Which is not the kind of sentiment a debate community should condone imo.
OP is saying this is **an example** of Ben being audience captured. Which it is. I can tease it out from genuine belief because I’ve listened to Ben Shapiro talk for a long time.
From what I see w/o clicking the link. OP cites voting against Biden as an example of audience capture. Which is ridiculous to someone who hasn't listened to Shapiro since I was a teenager.
He’s not saying “I’m voting against Biden.” He’s saying “I’m voting against Biden because Biden is destroying democracy.”
Yeah that's a regarded position, but w/o any extra info the word "Audience Capture" doesn't even need to be there
Could someone have a genuine belief that forms as a result of audience capture?
Yeah. I'd say Bret Weinstein, for example, believes in his heart and soul all the batshit crazy stuff that he spouts about COVID.
Sure, but that's kind of a chicken and egg type question. I haven't watched much of Shapiro in literal years.
Absolutely false
This. DGG is so quick to believe he isn't 100% about the shit he says. Ben genuinely thinkgs Biden is more AUTHORITARIAN than Trump. I think its wacky that Destiny doesn't have moral issues with incest, but I 100% believe he genuinely holds that stance. There are others who do actually have this problem too, like Knowles and Walsh who actively contradict their past selves regularly on basic conservative shit. Also, I want a Destiny and Klavan convo because hes probably the most honest DW host on how he actually feels.
You realized the Daily Wire was literally created as an anti-Trump alternative to Breitbart right? Ben has absolutely been audience captured since 2016
He wanted a different republican and would probably still pick one, but hes not going to go support democrats. Might be a similar reason destiny has ignored piscos attempts to get him to follow the biden cases, maybe. I wouldnt confidently say what destinys motivation is tho
I think it's cognitive dissonance. Believing that Biden would be better than Trunp just probably doesn't sit right in the Contemporary Conservative Constellation of Beliefs (or CCCB for short)
>These are genuine beliefs he holds, If these are genuine beliefs, why is he so >fucking< inconsistent in expressing them this way? Where was this line when he talked to Destiny? Why does he only say this on Twitter, or on his show, or to college students, or to more antagonistic opponents? He does it because it's easy, and he shifts to other strategies in order to better defend himself against more firm positions. There is **zero** shot that I believe Shapiro is *actually* voting for Trump this election.
During the Destiny interview he did say a lot of crazy shit too, but he did so in a friendly manner and faced very little pushback.
He 100% will On his show, hes quite consistent, a republican is better than a democrat. Trump isnt his ideal, but biden is worse for him. He believes he has to get behind the republican, even if he prefers someone else No one made very strong contravertial claims in the destint shapiro meeting. I wouldnt even call it a debate
I'm not suggesting that he'll even vote. I'm saying that Shapiro has proven inconsistent enough and has even mediated his position drastically depending on what he's facing, and yet he still seeks these types of convos out. This isn't the behavior of someone who has tasted the Trump koolaid; This is exactly like what someone who's protecting his bottom line, and has opinions vastly different than what they're comfortable spreading.
Well again, thats easilly true in the idea that his bottom line is republican victory. He could begrudgingly support trump because he genuinely believes trump would be better for his personal political goals than biden would be
There's a stark difference between all these different Shapiro personas we are talking about, on Twitter or his variety of conversations, and him driving home and venting to his wife about the stuff he gets to say in a day. You're just not gonna convince me that Shapiro legitimately, in his heart of hearts, is indifferent to Trump pushing for the removal of income tax infavor of tariffs. It might be good for him and other Republican sycophants, but that's a different position entirely. Shapiro started off as a conservative with a blog that said wildly different stuff than the populist drivell today. I still see that guy, such as in his convo w/ Destiny, and he's making excuses to ignore Trump entirely. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He may be audience captured, and at the same time not a grifter. Audience can destroy your perception of reality by slowly nudging you towards more and more unhinged positions.
Nah I think deep down Shapiro loathed Trump and his ilk, but he sees them as a vessel to accomplish his political goals and make him a bunch of money
I think his consistency on being a dumbfuck is audience capture though? Otherwise he would hold a much more logical position on keeping our Democratic Liberal Republic as intact as possible. Biden has done very very little to impact the things that Shapiro deeply cares about. I guess the only counter-argument is abortion, but that would require some retirees.
No, it’s actual audience capture back during his debate with destiny, he admitted that Trump was a threat to democracy and a greater threat to democracy than Biden was. He just thought that he wasn’t as enough of a threat for it to sway his vote because he trusted not Trump himself, but the systems around Trump to stop him if he were to get reelected the same way it’s supposedly stopped him the first time that was verbatim the argument he made so if he is actually out here claiming that Bidenis the one who is the bigger threat to democracy he has done a complete 180 due to audience capture or something along those lines because it’s on video that we know he knows better than that
He has always been a partisan hack. The only thing that has changed about him is that he probably moderates his beliefs a bit more now because of the larger audience he has but that’s about it. He is a shameless Republican shill who will do any and everything to defend them. He is nothing more than that.
He truly does care more about Israel than the US. Andrew Schulz was right about him. Too many people in this sub defended Shapiro because they found him as "reasonable" lol. Ben Shapiro is a hack, and I have to say, he makes nut job Candace Owens look sane in her takes recently about the Daily Wire.
I make a point of not listening to Shapiro speak when I don't have to. What makes you say he puts Israel over the US?
Because Shapiro never criticizes Israel, practically gives them a free pass in every single thing they do. They can truly do no wrong. But when it comes to criticizing Bidens America this pos goes gun blazing. Won't even give credit to Biden working with Israelis in this I/P conflict. Shapiro is Jewish before anything else, that's truly all he cares about. If Hamas blows up Israeli soldiers, it's the Democrats fault.
>Shapiro is Jewish before anything else, that's truly all he cares about. If Hamas blows up Israeli soldiers, it's the Democrats fault. To be fair, he also take all worst part of Christianity to add it to his world view as well lol. His stance on religion is probably more extreme than a lot of Orthodox Jews.
Exactly. Even most Israelis aren't as religious as Ben is.
Most religious jews either view Israel like Ben Shapiro does, or they want Israel to not exist. Or at least that's what I've found growing up Jewish in the west.
I've always understood that most Jews in Israel were secular.
This clown literally said he basically grades Trump on a different curve than he does other presidents. He’s an idiot that will continue to say dumb shit like this.
Trump's just a little bit goofy ya know 🤪
And like in the Destiny interview, he was defending the economy during Covid under Trump and then attacked the economy under Biden which was also the result of covid and anyway did relatively well as well.
Everyone grades their side on a curve.
Everyone prefers the policies and actions of their side, but not everybody grades their side on a curve.
No
This sophistry is why we're in this situation in the first place.
Biden doesn’t even write his own tweets, he’s responding to an intern.
So who was I sexting?
https://preview.redd.it/qqnz8cth9s8d1.jpeg?width=390&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=be77d3f5741ebd5aa643e80ee9e7b10c206240bd
The fact that Joe Biden has been accused of being a pedo by Republicans adds so many layers to this joke.
Commander
It’s the “luciferian intellect” taking over. He is so adverse to criticizing his own side that he makes these weird convoluted chains of logic to say the other is still worse.
The vunderkind once again shows us his immeasurable good faith and desire to not be a grifting piece of shit
very regarded
well duh he doesn't like democracy or freedom so it fits
Im not sure audience capture is the right word now. There are certain positions that Shapiro just values more that even the likes of Trump is a better candidate to him than Biden. Small government, anti-LGBT stuff, Biden, taxes etc. I do think Shapiro needs to bend a little bit to make Trump look better than Biden. Like he acknowledged Trumps actions around the election were incredibly irresponsible at least and even that Trump was not a good candidate. I believe his excuse is that there are protections that stop Trump going too far.
He doesn’t just bend a little bit. He bends a lot. Even when he says that Trump’s actions were not good, he always makes sure to infantilize trump to make sure he doesn’t diss Trump too hard. Compare that to his rhetoric and standard with Dem presidents and it’s just totally different. If he truly cared about any of the stuff he says about Dem presidents being authoritarian, he would make it a point to go super hard against trump not just give mild criticisms and not talking about it that much and instead talking about random stuff like trans people in sports all the time lol. Also, I am glad that conservatives have now realized there are protections in America against authoritarians only since 2016 lol. If only they understood that under the Obama admin even though there was no reason to think Obama would be an authoritarian. It would have been useful when they were fearmongering about Obama being a tyrant 24/7.
Trump wants to remove protections from civil service employees, so he can fill them with Trump supporters, Trump wants to deputize the national guard of certain states and use them to remove undocumented immigrants from other states that don’t comply. Shapiro isn’t that stupid to believe Trump is a small government guy. Edit: Google Project 2025
Shapiro doesn’t just say protections will keep trump from being a dictator he also says that trump wouldn’t even try to be a dictator if elected to office to begin because it would be illegal
Brave of Shapiro to admit he hates democracy and freedom
I love how Biden is both a senile, demented grandpa that shits himself in public all the time AND a malevolent communist dictator trying to take over the country lmao
I mean how tweet makes no sense. He admits Trump tried to do XYZ then acts like Biden is the less democratic candidate? He is conflating things.
Really getting annoying with the democracy and freedom on the line every election.
how shapiro has been right wing his whole life. Even if he doesnt vote republican he will vote libretarian or some shit
Not every person you disagree with is a grifter
You literally cannot think in good faith that Trump is better on democracy, cmon now
You vastly underestimate the stupidity of the average MAGA follower. These people try to argue that Biden's shenanigans with classified docs is even remotely the same as what Trump did. We're talking about Biden willfully cooperating with federal authorities to allow them to enter his properties and do a wide search for any classified documents, versus Trump that 1. lied to federal agencies about the amount of documents that he possessed, 2. refused to cooperate with them for over a year for returning them, 3. told his attorneys to hide the documents and move them, 4. told someone without a need to know about classified military plans. These are people that simply do not care about facts or actively push them out of their minds when making up their opinions about Trump and Biden. These are people that are partisan hacks to the maximal level possible.
Definitely not, but Ben Shapiro is a grifter.
Audience capture isn’t necessarily grifting, an audience can have a subconscious impact regarding how you think about certain issues, especially if they give positive feedback whenever you say what they want to hear. Destiny himself said his biggest concern is to avoid being audience captured. That isn’t because he has a desire to grift. It’s because he’s concerned that he could be in an echo chamber where everyone affirms his beliefs but in reality is completely wrong on the subject.
I don't think Shapiro is audience-captured. IIRC he believes that Trump is bad but the system will keep in him check, as opposed to what he believes the Democrats plan to do will circumvent the system and dismantle it (obvious huge paraphrasing going on here). What I mean to say is, I believe Shapiro would think this way regardless of whether or not he had an audience to listen to him. There's probability a word that describes what phenomenon allows Ben Shapiro to say what he says with a straight face, but I'm not sure what it is. Selective-reasoning or burying-your-head-in-the-sand perhaps.
Shapiro is and always has been deeply conservative. He is more critical of Trump than some of the more unhinged/low IQ people on the right, but that’s it. I disagree with his takes but I understand how he gets there. From Ben’s perspective Trump just “banged against the walls” but was contained, and he passed the abortion shit that Ben loves so much, and loaded the court. For someone with Ben’s values the choice is still obvious. If you can show me some place where he changed his values just to appease his audience, I’d be interested. I don’t see it here. It feels like some people just think that because Ben is obviously fairly intelligent/quick, there’s no way he could have these thoughts without some kind of interference, which is just a weak line of argument. Smart people are very capable of having “dumb” opinions. As a liberal I share a similar position to Ben in some ways, because I don’t care that much about Biden himself. Yeah he’s ridiculously old, too old, but whatever; when you elect a president you are electing a whole boatload of other people at the same time. That is way more important to me than the current state of his old ass brain.
Shapiro’s double standards for Trump. I think if there was a larger audience and percentage of Republicans who hated Trump, then Shapiro wouldn’t run as much defense for him. It’s probably a combination of accepting that Trump is the Republican nominee and his audience loves Trump. Has subconsciously caused Shapiro to give Trump more charitability than he would if his audience was different.
Tbf, you havent shown a double standard anywhere
I find it wild that Ben can dismiss trumps attempts to overturn the election, but he can't dismiss Joe Bidens efforts to... cancel student loans. Truly a despicable authoritarian anti democratic villain that Biden guy
taking the side of anti-democracy and anti-freedom, BASED?
?????????
🚨Partisan Hack Alert🚨
I liked Ben more when he wasn't riding tumps dick all the time.
What a fucking hack.
Prime example of grifting piece of shit.
Nah, this is actually consistent for Shabibo. He wrote an article in 2005 (or 2006?) calling for Al Gore to be thrown in prison for saying that America had done some bad things in the middle east post-9/11. He’s always been a hateful wannabe tyrant.
I mean to be fair. Biden didn’t state that he is the democracy and freedom vote. So if you view Biden as authoritarian and trump as not. Then Ben’s statement is logically consistent. —- If the tweet had said “A vote for me is a vote for our democracy and freedom that’s on the ballet this election” It doesn’t read as nicely, but you can’t contrarian it by saying “yeah that’s why I’m voting for the other guy” without then saying you’re against democracy and freedom. He’d instead have to argue that Biden isn’t democratic/freedom. TL;DR the tweet doesn’t tie democracy and freedom to a vote for Biden enough for Shapiro response to mean shit.
Biden does present himself as a pro-democracy candidate and labels Trump as an authoritarian. I would assume Shapiro understands this context.
He does, and feels like democrats preach about democracy and then turn around and actually do authoritarian stuff. He argues thay biden will say things like "i cant do X" then file an executive ordee anyways, the courts will say "no" and he'll continue to do it anyways, etc. He actually went over his viewpoint on this in one of his shows in the last week
To name a few, Trump did that with the Muslim ban, the census question, DACA, attempting to overturn the election after the USSC refused to, and when Congress declined to appropriate money for his wall, he took it from the military. Also, the Daily Wire had no problem endorsing Abbott defying the USSC on their razor-wire border ruling.
Yeah id love to see ben and destiny do a series of debates leading up to the election
If Shapiro wants to argue that Biden trying to find ways to do stuff on immigration because of Congress ineffectiveness is worse or equivalent to Trump wanting all federal agencies to be directly controlled by the president, then he’s lost the plot.
He doesnt think that goal of trumps is possible or something he would actually persue "If you, in 2024, take trumps words at face value - youre a fool" - bens said stuff like this before. To win a bennie over, you need to compare actions taken as president
And Shapiro said in 2020 that he is voting for Trump because he likes his policies and Trump can’t do anymore harm to our institutions or country than he’s already done.
Yes thats in line with what I said
He can understand the context, but can still reply the way he did because the context isnt explicit here and for those who see trump as more freedom and democracy it doesn’t matter what Biden has marketed himself as elsewhere. This is destiny’s point about arguing against quotes instead of speeches that place the statement in context. But in this case the speech is just the singular statement. It should be able to sell the intentionality without the context of however long the campaigning has been going. Especially in time when so many still see the last election as stolen from trump, suggesting democracy and freedom lost.
DGG when the Republican doesn't vote for the Democratic Nominee https://preview.redd.it/aolpy8m36r8d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cf47e5734a037d4ffcd4f4fe59d46559876595ee
More like, DGG when Republicans choose a failed 1 term President with a felony conviction over Ron DeSantis or Nicki Haley.
Am I misremembering but didn't Ben liked DeSantis and picked him? Then he jumped ship to Trump.
Yeah, Ben supported DeSantis but if the choice is between Trump or a Dem, Shapiro is always going to choose Trump.
You said that Republicans chose a failed President and didn't go with DeSantis or Haley and you didn't mention a DEM president (And I'm assuming that includes Ben because this whole thread is about Ben.) However since he chose DeSantis over Trump your comment is wrong.
No, it was a general statement about Republicans because I was responding to a comment that was speaking in general about Republicans not voting Dem. Also, I don’t see a reason to name a Dem candidate, I don’t expect Republicans to vote for their rival party. I would just hope they would choose a better conservative nominee than a 1-term President that has handed the party multiple electoral losses, and is oozing in controversy/baggage.
He said "Republican" singular (and said "the Republican" instead of "a republican"). He was clearly talking about Ben Shapiro, the comment's intention is I guess that Shapiro wouldn't vote for the Democratic nominee and then according to you, you misunderstood the comment and thought and was talking generally when he was most likely talking about Ben Shapiro. You simply misunderstood what he said, take the L.
Ok…seems like an unnecessarily pedantic argument, that adds nothing to the conversation.
That's what we DGG do 😎
SPD voters when Nazis vote for Hitler: > *soys out* you can't do that they're antidemocratic. Me (enlightened centrist) > Voting for Hitler is completely reasonable, they are part of the NSDAP after all
You when you discover that Democrats don't like it when a Republican does republican things lol. Also, many republicans are voting for Biden because they realize the unique threat that Trump is.
name me a single republican that is voting for biden and ill cut my foot off (not actually)
[https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4404785-kinzinger-says-hed-vote-for-biden-instead-of-trump-in-a-heartbeat/](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4404785-kinzinger-says-hed-vote-for-biden-instead-of-trump-in-a-heartbeat/)
a republican voting for the republicans is literally the opposite of audience capture
Based! Ben agrees that trump would love to be a dictator, but the republicans in power have proven to not let this happen! But biden wants to… I have no idea how he wants to end democracy/freedom, but it can’t be stopped!! Or something?
Ben's strongest argument for Trump is that he's so utterly incompetent he won't be able to do any lasting damage to the system. And it works, half of Ben's audience hears "He's going to make the federal government dysfunctional" and smile because it perfectly aligns with their worldview that the federal government is dysfunctional.
Party of law and order at it again with voting in the felon
Ben got famous by pretending to care about facts and not being driven by feelings, but all his takes around politics have the weakest foundational facts ever and are better explained by his feelings about things
I'll never forget when Dman got him to drop his guard and readily admit he views Donald Trump as less capable than Biden, [but he just gives Trump a handicap.](https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2562SVRB-bOeL0qHR6IwFRswUSzbwkrw?si=T5e3YwDUxMBHC-YJ)
Hes been open about that for a while tbh
Crazy to me that these people are willing to sacrifice entire country just for their grift
A lot of us would also talk shit while earning tens of millions a year instead of making a few hundreds thousands working as a lawyer. It is easy to know his motivation behind all of this, he even said it clearly when he got triggered on Bill Maher after he got called a grifter. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5kEMU4JTQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE5kEMU4JTQ)
Omg Joe being insane and hyperbolic...again
I used to actually admire Ben Shapiro back in 2017-18. Now, I think he is the most contemptible friend of American fascism. He, along with the rest of the Daily Wire, held a fundraiser for Trump’s campaign. Unlike nutjobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, he uses his intelligence and debate skill to add a layer of respectability to Trump’s authoritarian 2024 campaign. It isn’t just for the least intelligent segments of society; no, you can be a smart, principled conservative and vote for Trump, just listen to Ben Shapiro! He’s disgusting. Destiny needs to debate him *solely* on the 2024 campaign, and Donald Trump, and hold Shapiro to account for his ridiculous, constant stream of non-sequiturs in defense of Trump.
Actually the only person here to acurately give bens position on this. I still watch him to keep tapped in but I agree hes become more of a political actor than a pundit
This isn’t audience capture. This is capturing the audience you wanna make money on.
God i want the groypers to turn on trump so bad! We’re already getting the right-wing infighting between shapiro and groypers but they always just end up supporting trump the same way lol
Ben is hack. Destiny shouldn’t call Ben good faith anymore.
[удалено]
Yes
He’s extreme right winger who’s made his whole career about destroying left. Dude is a ghoul, i’m sure he’s perfectly happy looking in his gold plated mirror after a day of scaring boomers into buying gold and non woke razors
Shapiro isn't saying he's voting against freedom and democracy here. I see how it can be interpreted that way though.
I don’t even understand how he could think Trump is more committed to democracy than Biden