this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
1557 points (98.0% liked)

Political Memes

5272 readers
1827 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civilJokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformationDon’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memesRandom pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotionFollow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] glimse@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I unfortunately know a lot about Ben Shapiro and have heard HOURS of his show due to a coworker a few years ago. He's a failed screenwriter who saw a niche he could fill in right wing media targeting the youth.

He's genuinely conservative and does believe a lot of what he says but when you've been doing it for as long as he has, hyperbole catches up to you. You have to raise the stakes. That last thing was bad but this thing is VERY bad!

You also can't keep complaining about the same thing if you want people to keep tuning in...so you find smaller and smaller things to rage about. That's where we've been with Shapiro for the past several years.

But what I'm really trying to get at is that it's a cop out in his favor to call him stupid. Stupid people can claim ignoranc and get an eye roll. Call him evil, a provocateur, a greedy bastard profiting off misinformation, whatever...because it's the actions he willfully takes that are the issue, not his level of intelligence.

[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've said for years that offhandly claiming someone is stupid trivializes the damage certain people can do.

It is easy to call someone stupid and write them off, because they're stupid. It comes with the unspoken rule that you think they're stupid and not worth thinking about.

Which is exactly what someone like Shapiro wants. The less you think it's important to counter his claims, the more damage he does. You can apply this to most conservatives.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. It's like giving them an excuse.