Essay:Ben Shapiro's Milquetoastery

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Ben Shapiro is a mainstream conservative. He is not a RINO, neoconservative, or establishmentarian. He is not part of the Never Trump movement (anymore) or Conservative Inc. But at times, Ben Shapiro can be painfully milquetoast.

• In an article which is still up at dailywire.com published in 2016, Shapiro declared himself "#NeverTrump," and interestingly compared Donald Trump to John McCain to criticize Trump. Shapiro believed that Trump's governance would not be conservative, that Trump was all talk and no action, and that Trump was no better than Hillary Clinton (see Cruzites). In 2020, Shapiro explained why he would vote for Trump despite not voting for him in 2016, admitting that he was "just wrong" about Trump on policy.
• In 2018, Shapiro compared British conservative activist Tommy Robinson to Shapiro's rival Milo Yiannopoulos and insinuated that Tommy Robinson was alt-right and far-right. Within the week, Shapiro corrected himself and acknowledged that Tommy Robinson is a principled conservative rather than far-right.
• On Twitter, Shapiro called Elijah Schaffer a "dope" for being skeptical of Pfizer's vaccine for COVID-19.
• Shapiro condemned conservative Republicans who advocated the removal of Mitt Romney from the GOP for voting to remove Trump from office.
• Shapiro put out a mild defense of the French Netflix film Cuties, which engaged in softcore child pornography. Shapiro argued that the film condemned the hypersexualization of young girls, even though the film itself sexualized underage prepubescent girls.
• Shapiro condemned Todd Akin.
• Shapiro condemned Steve King.
• Shapiro maligned Corey Lewandowski and accused him of assaulting fellow Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields, in an incident which eventually culminated in Shapiro's resignation from Breitbart News.
• Shapiro defended The New York Times for refusing to fire anti-white racist Sarah Jeong.
• Shapiro called Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) a "crazy person," ironically, for controversial past social media posts.
• Shapiro condemned Kelli Ward as "the fringest of the fringe" for censuring Arizona's weak Republican Governor Doug Ducey. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) responded by tweeting, "Shapiro=controlled opposition."

Apparently, Shapiro was involved in secret meetings with Mark Zuckerberg along with a number of establishment conservatives, but this on its own does not prove that Shapiro himself is an establishment conservative, and Shapiro has condemned Big Tech censorship of conservatives. Some have asserted that Shapiro initially condemned the Covington Catholic kids, but all Shapiro did was retweet two of Rich Lowry's tweets condemning them. Shapiro has apparently had the Covington kids on speed-dial for a very long time, and interviewed four of the kids on his show.

Some have compared the outlet owned by Shapiro, The Daily Wire, to establishmentarian dumpster fire Fox News. This is incorrect for a few reasons.

• The Daily Wire has criticized Fox News numerous times.
• Fox News permanently banned The Daily Wire host Michael Knowles in September 2019.

Strong anti-establishment right-winger Gavin McInnes responded to the divisive, extreme, and bigoted "groypers" of 2019-2020 by stating, "Ben Shapiro should be at the bottom of your hit list."

Ben Shapiro has never disciplined or censored people to the right of him. In fact, he gave Candace Owens her own paywalled show for The Daily Wire in spite of 2018 Twitter spars with her. Owens herself is a strong, consistent conservative who is willing to fight for what she believes in, and she has even had the heavily blacklisted Bryson Gray on her show. On top of that, Ben Shapiro has openly refused to comply with Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses despite supporting the vaccines. Ben Shapiro un-cancelled the right-leaning actress Gina Carano shortly after the latter was fired by Disney from the hit Star Wars series The Mandalorian for political incorrectness. Ben Shapiro called out the Republican Governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson for blocking legislation to ban transgender hormone therapy for children. Ben Shapiro exposed Klaus Schwab, who Tom Pappert of National File claims "gives the marching orders to George Soros" and "runs the world," as driving corporations leftward.