Ben Shapiro Still Throbbing Dickhead
Ben Shapiro is being an idiot in public again. The rightwing thought leaderer has a new dumb book out, titled The Right Side of HistoryIn it, he explains Western Civilization is Good, so we'd better stop trying to wreck it by turning our back on the values that made us great and brought us all together, which by the way are the values Ben Shapiro believes in.
On Twitter yesterday, journalist Alexander Nazaryan asked Shapiro to clarify a passage from the book's concluding call for Americans to come together and find new moral purpose, which as far as we can tell means agreeing with Ben Shapiro.
We are so angry at each other right now. That anger is palpable. Where did it come from? It came from the destruction of a common vision. We used to believe in the Founding vision, supported by a framework of personal virtue culled from Judeo-Christian morality. We used to see each other as brothers and sisters, not "the 1 percent vs. the 99 percent" or "the privileged vs. the victims." We weren't enemies. We were a community, forged in fire and tethered together by a set of values stretching back to the Garden of Eden—a community of individuals working to understand the value of each other as images of God, a community of individuals who believed in our own capacity to change ourselves and the world around us.
Narayan genuinely wanted to know, "What time period in American history are you describing here?"
It's a really good question -- when did we all share that vision, and when did we become so divided? Certainly, Shapiro offers some hints: We were unified until somebody noticed that one percent of the population controls a RIDICULOUS portion of the wealth. Worse, they had to go and say that might be bad! We were unified until complainers suggested anyone had ever been oppressed, too. Thank goodness, Shapiro knows exactly when that dream of unity went out the window: Exactly a decade ago. Thanks, Obama.
I was describing a particular aspirational viewpoint that was seen as an American ideal as late as 2009, and which… https://t.co/HG6Kgf0AI4— Ben Shapiro (@Ben Shapiro) 1554393667.0
Oh, the good old days, before 2009, when we all gave up on common dreams and became divided. Mostly by Barack Obama, who believed his own line about bringing red and blue America together. In fact, he believed it so completely that he watered down his Republican-inspired healthcare bill, agreeing to kill the "public option" in the vain hope that a Republican might vote for it.
Republicans, meanwhile, held very serious discussions on whether Obama more closely resembled Hitler or the Antichrist. He was that divisive!
Until 2009, American patriots believed in brother/sisterhood. Like Lee Atwater, the Republican consultant and GOP chair who in 1981 explained how the Southern Strategy brought Americans together. Feast on the aspirational kumbayahs!
You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. Now, you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
It's downright inspiring how we all came together before Barack Obama ruined our common dream of brotherhood.
Or consider Newt Gingrich, who in 1995 explained to Republicans that they needn't ever feel shy about Luntzing up their descriptions of Democrats.
Sometimes we are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.
decay, failure (fail) collapse(ing) deeper, crisis, urgent(cy), destructive, destroy, sick, pathetic, lie, liberal, they/them, unionized bureaucracy, "compassion" is not enough, betray, consequences, limit(s), shallow, traitors, sensationalists, endanger, coercion, hypocricy, radical, threaten, devour, waste, corruption, incompetent, permissive attitude, destructive, impose, self-serving, greed, ideological, insecure, anti-(issue): flag, family, child, jobs; pessimistic, excuses, intolerant, stagnation, welfare, corrupt, selfish, insensitive, status quo, mandate(s) taxes, spend (ing) shame, disgrace, punish (poor...) bizarre, cynicism, cheat, steal, abuse of power, machine, bosses, obsolete, criminal rights, red tape, patronage.
Truly a man who loved the vision of America as a common community, forged in fire and bound to each other as children of God.
We suppose maybe it would be even more rude to point out that at one time, one group of Americans could legally own another group of Americans because that latter group was specifically defined as not part of humanity. And even after the little 1860-65 dust up over owning other human beings ended, some American Human Beings were officially inferior under the Constitution. Thank goodness we fixed that and it was never an issue again!
Ben Shapiro has always sought to see himself in his brother, like that time he marked his baby daughter's birth by sneering at America-hater Barack Obama, or that time Shapiro celebrated Father's Day by explaining Barack Obama didn't know the first thing about a father's love for his children.
We suppose we'll miss out on Shapiro's full argument, since here at Wonkette we are reading a book about Herbert Hoover's attempt to murder the New Deal! Get your copy of Eric Rauchway's Winter War,and we will all chat about its first four chapters this Sunday, April 7. Among other things, we can discuss how Hoover and Roosevelt saw the idea of "we Americans" a little differently! Ben Shapiro, for his part, agrees with Hoover's fiction that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, so we think we can skip his book.
[Ben Shapiro on Twitter / "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" / The Nation / Mother Jones / Image: Crop of photo by Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons license 2.0 ]
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