It would be conservative sacrilege, if it wasn’t more or less accurate.
Matthew Continetti argues over at the Washington Free Beacon that “Ben Shapiro resembles no one so much as the young William F. Buckley Jr.” And he is right.
Continetti dubs the current political epoch “generation Shapiro” for good reason. Shapiro commands the attention and respect of the emerging conservative youth like no other thinker and, more importantly, like no other politician. President Trump may or may not be their political leader but Shapiro is their de facto guide for the current, convoluted political landscape.
And for him, this has worked out pretty well. He has an army of followers who read his articles, visit his website, and download his podcast. His name, as Continetti notes, is the one most often asked about by budding conservative politicos outside the Beltway.
The success has been so great that Jonah Goldberg of National Review recently quipped that his many detractors might be right. Maybe Shapiro is actually an evil genius with a creepy lair and a secret plan to brainwash the youth. There is truth to that kidding that shouldn’t be dismissed. Shapiro has everything needed to become a decent evil genius. Luckily, he has not given in to that tribal temptation.
Any owning of the libs is incidental for Shapiro. Rather than insulting for insult’s sake, the fast-talking, yarmulke-wearing, pop culture-referencing conservative makes good arguments in good faith and in an entertaining way. Seldom partisan, his articles and podcasts are always ideological.
Consider his approach to Trump. While others fall over themselves to justify the president at every turn, Shapiro criticizes him one day, praises him the next, and never loses sight of hard-rock constitutional principle. It’s a rare refuge for the conservative 18-to-24-year-old demographic battered daily by partisan hurricanes blowing across the spectrum.
This isn’t to say that Shapiro is always right (for one, he has some garbage opinions about comedic national treasure John Mulaney). But Shapiro is consistent making disagreements possible in the process. He isn’t corrupting the conservative youth at the moment. He is teaching them. We’re lucky for that.
