Ben Shapiro

Commentator, media host, licensed attorney.

Ben Shapiro is a name synonymous with American conservativsm in the 21st century. In 2012, not long after graduating law school, he became the editor-at-large for Breitbart News at the age of 28 - a position he held until 2016. In 2015, he co-founded conservative media giant The Daily Wire, home (and former home) to several of the movement’s most influential pundits. That same year would see the premiere of his long-running eponymous daily show, which he continues to host today. He has also published several best-selling books, tackling the likes of leftism in entertainment, Barack Obama, authoritarianism, and censorship. His latest work - Lions And Scavengers: The True Story of America (And Her Critics) - was released earlier this year.

Why did we invite him on?

Last week, Tucker Carlson - former cable news heavyweight and the most influential conservative in America - invited Nick Fuentes - the right’s divisive problem child - onto his show. Since then, MAGA has collapsed into a vicious, panicked frenzy.

For years, Fuentes was relegated to shadowy corners of the internet. Banned from all major platforms, he spent years in obscurity hosting his show on a website of his own making. The prospect of a figure as controversial, as esoteric, and as deliberately antagonistic as Fuentes being ‘platformed’ by any host of consequence would have been unthinkable even 12 months ago. Now, he’s on the biggest show there is, and Tucker Carlson put him there.

To some, it was a welcome microcosm of a changing media landscape. After years of tattle-tale finger-wagging, the shackles of pearl-clutching censorship have been shaken off for good. Now, Americans are free to discuss the issues that really matter without fear of reprisal, and others are free to listen. Love it or hate it, this is what free speech is all about.

To Ben, it was a line in the sand. Soon after the interview premiered, he hosted an episode of his show. Unlike a typical episode where Ben might dissect developing news stories, he used his platform to share a ‘highlight reel’ of Carlson and Fuentes’ most shocking comments. Among them, praise of Putin and Arab dictators (from the former), advocacy for sexual violence and fascism (the latter). Ben didn’t call for the ‘cancellation’ of either party. Instead he stressed that if conservatives fail to keep the Hitler apologists and Holocaust deniers at the gate, they’ll have no choice but to surrender their movement to its worst actors.

Is he right? We wanted him to make his case to you so you can decide for yourself.

What happened?

”There is a bleed-over of terrible ideas into the mainstream area. Tucker Carlson can interview whoever he pleases, but it’s not cancellation to criticise him. He treated Nick Fuentes with kid gloves; he simply brought him on and proceeded to gloss him. That was treated as normal in some quarters, and I think that’s a very serious problem.”

It’s easy to paint this as a black-and-white issue. There are the Nazi-fanboy basement-dwelling “groypers” and the Zio-shilling neocon warhawks, and never the twain shall meet. However, even in a civil war, some pundits have found themselves in the middle. They might not agree with or endorse Fuentes’ brand of shock-jock identitarianism, but they can’t bring themselves to criticise Tucker for ‘platforming’ it. Or perhaps they do condemn the interview, but think it’s not a serious enough problem to dedicate so much energy towards. The right has only just won back the culture, is it really good strategy to squander it over this?

”Some on the right are trying to embrace it. ‘No enemies to the right’, ‘this coalition must stand together’ … It’s just wrong pragmatically. Zamdani won in New York, but New York is 127% Democrat. If the Republican Party continues to move in a direction that is racialist, religiously exclusivist… that is not an electorally sound strategy. The American people do not like the politics of Nick Fuentes.”

That may be true, but these are not fringe figures advocating for right-wing harmony in the midst of civil war. Some of them have had major impact on the movement. Namely, Matt Walsh.

Matt Walsh is a podcast host, director of hit documentaries What Is A Woman? and Am I Racist?, and - relevant to our conversation - an employee and colleague of Ben’s, having worked at the Daily Wire for over 8 years. Ben is full-throated in his criticism of Tucker, while Matt seems to despair at the infighting, instead insisting his fellow conservatives focus their attention back to their real enemy: the left. How does he square that circle?

”We at the Daily Wire have a wide variety of views on a wide variety of subjects. Matt is free to have his opinion. He’s wrong, but I’m sure he thinks I’m wrong. He’s also not glossing Nick Fuentes.”

Fundamentally, it’s a question of definitions.

This whole issue becomes much less heated when we reframe the meaning of ‘cancellation’. After over a decade of big tech censorship creating a culture of silence and compliance, those once exiled from polite society are back, and they have something to say. Predictably, the pendulum has swung as far back as it swung away in the first place, and those on the outer limits don’t want to lose the precious momentum. To those defending the Carlson-Fuentes summit, the likes of Ben are reviving ‘cancel culture’ for their own aims; the same weapon once used against them.

To Ben, it’s a false comparison, arguing many on the right simply misunderstood why cancellation was such a social ill. Cancel culture wasn’t bad because of what it is, but who it hurt.

”The left shut the Overton Window so tight that if you said “A man is not a woman”, that was cause for you to be ostracised. You couldn’t say baseline, normal things without losing your career. The response by the right wasn’t to move the Overton Window, but to eviscerate it. They’ve taken to the idea that if you take a lot of flak, it’s because you’re over the target, and also the idea that criticism is some kind of silencing or cancellation. By that logic, it’s worse to criticise a Nazi than to be a Nazi.”

But what’s wrong with curiosity? We have ourselves invited Fuentes on the show (although we are yet to hear back). We’d undoubtedly handle it differently to Tucker, but, whatever you think, it’s a fascinating moment in politics. Nick Fuentes represents a rising faction; the NYT reported that 40% of GOP staffers under the age of 30 in the DC area identify with the “groyper movement”. All this was achieved without ever having a moment in the sun. What is his message and why is it resonating? Can you learn either of those things by shouting him down? Have we learned nothing from the era of wokeism?