I was a young conservative around a year ago. Or at least I thought I was.
My ‘conservative’ phase began when I’d just started to become vaguely interested in politics. I was pretty naïve and carefree towards the subject—until I noticed that this guy, Ben Shapiro, seemed to be treated like some sort of God amongst young conservatives. And after watching him debate, it wasn’t hard to see why.
He always seemed so calm, confident and rational—all facts. And when juxtaposed against the hysterical leftist next to him, it became clear. The unbearably annoying yells of these extreme progressives was enough to make me want to align against them ideologically.
I saw fat, frumpy, blue-haired women yelling about mansplaining or some microaggression. It didn’t matter. It was just that Shapiro, as a conservative, seemed so principled, so intelligent compared to these idiots. And I became convinced that my very way of life was under threat by these ‘crybaby college leftists.’
Then due to Youtube’s rabbit hole of conservative figures like Kaitlyn Bennet and Ben Shapiro, I became so captivated I started adopting their views myself.
Again, it didn’t really matter what their views were. They fooled me into believing some pretty sexist, transphobic, and islamophobic things. It was more the extreme overreactions that subliminally roped me in.
Yet it took me far too long to realize Shapiro’s only tactic is to talk rapidly, say lots of facts and numbers all at the same time, and pretend he knows exactly what he just said.
It’s the same show time and time again; accusing his interviewer of bad faith, and “whataboutism” which seems to work remarkably well with college kids. People employ plenty of videos of Ben Shapiro “owning libtards”, but being smart is not the same as arguing faster compared to unprepared or spontaneous students.
Young, impressionable teenagers, like myself, saw a media that they believed hated them and enjoyed seeing someone “destroy” their opponents. I guess it validated my opinions and assured me that I was right. And it also reinforced the idea that liberals are all dumb and dumpy hypocrites with terrible priorities.
He hypes up ‘social issues’ that don’t matter to 99% of the population, and completely ignores the details of foreign policy and economics. Ben Shapiro would also never tell you that you can absolutely identify as liberal and have some beliefs that align more with a conservative platform. Shapiro is a reactionary personality that says what people want to be said.
He knows what he’s doing. Conservativism seriously rebranded itself for the internet age, and boy did it work.
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