When you’ve been in politics for a long amount of time, you realize that some things are incredibly predictable.
One of those is banal takes from leading conservative pundits. Conservative podcaster and media personality Ben Shapiro has made it a point to be the leading gatekeeper of conservative thinking in the 21st century. His recent perspective on the January 6 protestors further demonstrated this aspect of his behavior.
Earlier this month, Shapiro said that January 6 protestors should rot in prison for their behavior on January 6. While some of the participants of that protest carried out criminal acts — which still paled in comparison to those committed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter— the events of January 6 were still mostly peaceful.
Unlike other liberty conservatives such as Paul Gosar and Louie Gohmert, Shapiro has taken the more establishment line with regards to January 6. In a recent appearance on the HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher”, Shapiro debated Malcolm Nance, an author and MSNBC contributor, on a panel about the events of January 6.
Nance took a deranged leftist approach to the discussion by arguing that former President Donald Trump mobilized 40,000 people “to lay siege to the Capitol.” Shapiro countered by noting that only a small portion of the protestors broke into the capitol.
“Forty-thousand people did not assault the Capitol,” declared Shapiro. “There were maybe 1,000 people. That is not making light of the evil of those people, who all will end up rotting in prison, as they should.”
Over 500 people and counting have received federal charges for several crimes connected to the storming of the Capitol on January 6.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been one of the very few mainstream conservatives who has stepped up to defend the demonstrators. In recent months, Carlson said that the protestors being held in solitary confinement “at some point they become political prisoners.”
A handful of Republican congress members held a press conference right outside of the US Department of Justice headquarters in Washington to call attention to the mistreatment of the prisoners.
“These are not unruly or dangerous, violent criminals, these are political prisoners who are now being persecuted during the pain of unjust suffering,” declared Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar as he was standing outside of the building.
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently accused the Biden administration of treating several of the imprisoned demonstrators “like prisoners of war.”
The events of January 6 were mostly peaceful, as thousands of Trump supporters rallied in Washington, D.C. to protest the results of the 2020 election, which was filled with numerous cases of election irregularities calling into question the integrity of the election. Former president Trump called on his supporters to peacefully protest on that day.
Fast forward to the present, the Justice Department revealed that over 535 defendants have been arrested on related charges. Andrew Blake of the Washington Times observed that at least 165 of the individuals were “charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees.”
On the HBO show, Nance argued that rioters stormed the Capitol “in order to stop American democracy.”
“Now I don’t know about you. But I’ve been around a little bit, and I’ve seen some dictators and warlords and authoritarians. That is authoritarianism,” remarked Nance.
Overall, Ben Shapiro stands out as the most effective and insidious gatekeepers on the Right in the present. From starting out as an average conservative columnist to his current gig as host of the Ben Shapiro Show, Shapiro has built himself a solid career of holding the Conservatism Inc. party line.
As intelligent as Shapiro is, he’s no friend of America First. He’s part of the same neocon Borg that wants America fighting endless wars and not securing our border. No serious liberty conservative organization should ever consider allying with the likes of Shapiro.
Entering any type of partnership with Shapiro and his ilk will set up liberty conservatives for all sorts of sabotage.
