Meet Ben Shapiro, America's Best Conservative

Love him or hate him, pundits without candidates to lie for in the 2016 election are far more interesting than #ImWithHer and the #TrumpTrain

He’s the host of the #1 conservative podcast in the country, and he became a syndicated columnist at the age of 17, taking Al Sharpton to task and attending UCLA while most people his age were chewing erasers. He’s a best-selling author, a devout Jew, a #NeverTrump conservative, and a hawkish free market advocate.

He may also run for president in 2020.

As a progressive who deeply admires Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, I have recently become a regular listener of The Ben Shapiro Show. Not to accept his ideas, but to understand them.

According to Shapiro, Trump will “hollow out the conservative movement from the inside”, because he’s “not a conservative”, he’s a far-right European populist, and a nationalist who doesn’t believe in the constitution.

For Shapiro, American exceptionalism is earned purely through the civic value of the US constitution. There is nothing intrinsically special about America, save for its commitments to civil liberties and individual freedom.

Once that is gone, American exceptionalism is gone.

For this reason, Shapiro rejects Trump and his brand of nationalism. ‘Country for country’s sake’ is not enough. Real patriotism can only be built upon principles, not place of birth.

I agree with him.

And this is why Shapiro has stood out during this election season – he is acting out of the principles of American constitutionalism as he sees them. He is a conservative Republican who cannot back his party’s nominee, because his candidate will betray his values. He has nobody to lie for, and he will not compromise his principles purely for the victory of the party, despite how much he hates Hillary Clinton.

Sound familiar?

As a former Bernie supporter, the idea that Hillary will betray progressives after she wins in November is all but a fact.

Progressives and conservatives are politically homeless this election season. Progressives like myself, who rail against Wall Street and endless empire, have no leg to stand on when it comes to Hillary Clinton. All we can say is “she’s not Donald Trump ”. And this gets old fast.

In 2016, lying on behalf of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is the only mainstream political capital there is. And it’s terrible.

Apparently, Trump never backtracked on immigration. Even though he did.

And now, liberals confronted with the question of the Clinton Foundation are bending-over backwards to argue that big money in politics does not equal corruption. It does.

If you are lying for a candidate, muddling the truth about how they have compromised the core principles of their base, you are a propagandist and should be ashamed.

Conservatives like Ben Shapiro, who refuse to be Trump’s propagandists despite ideologically backing right-wing policies on every topic, have mettle.

Their spirits outweighed the dishonest demands of their times.

Just this March, Ben Shapiro was the executive editor of Breitbart.com, Trump’s personal Fortress of Solitude.

Shapiro left his position after Corey Lewandowski grabbed a Breitbart reporter at a Trump rally, and the entire website threw that reporter under the bus to absolve the Trump campaign of any wrongdoing.

Since abandoning Breitbart over its dishonesty, Shapiro has come under fire from Trump supporters and the alt-right.

They Tweet anti-Semitic memes at him , call him a cuck, the standard fare.

Perhaps similar to how progressives who reject Hillary are called sexists, mansplainers, ‘bros’, and privileged white boys who don’t care about black people.

It’s a different breed of propaganda, but the principle is the same – smear those who act out of principle, and demand they compromise for the agenda of a corrupt politician.

But those who sacrifice principle for victory, as we know, end up with neither.

Trump will hollow out the conservative movement just as Hillary has hollowed out the progressive movement.

This bizarre situation won’t last forever, but in fall of 2016, the politically homeless can at least be united in their honestly, abiding by principled critique rather than fear-mongering and conformism.

Of course, once Trump loses, those who refused to board the #TrumpTrain may be conservatism’s only future.

Ben Shapiro, to me, seems an obvious choice for the future of the Republican Party .

He is a true ideologue, he speaks more eloquently than anybody else in the room, he knows policy, he knows conservative values, and he knows how the game is played. He knows how the media works and how election cycles are sold like products to the consumers of democracy. He exudes all this knowledge in spades in his columns, books and podcasts.

Ben Shapiro isn’t going anywhere.

In early 2016, it seemed that Trumpism was the future of the Republican Party.

But now that Trump’s electoral humiliation looms near, I think the opposite is true.

Whether you’re a conservative or a progressive, Ben Shapiro is worth listening to. He will either be your favorite mentor or your greatest adversary.

Either way, you’ll need to understand him.

Alexander Blum is the author of 21st Century Slave .

His website on politics, philosophy, religion and art can be found here: www.alexanderblum.net