Ben Shapiro v Andrew Neil

A. R. Moxon on the Twitters said:
My takeaway is that US cable news was just as badly exposed by this exchange as was Ben Shapiro. US corporate media is the only place where this sort of puerile malicious twerp can thrive as an intellectual.

Right wing “intellectuals” need the safe space of a news media willing to coddle any opinion, no matter how barbaric or ill-informed. Outside of those nurturing waters, they shrivel and run, exposed for what they are. They add nothing to the discourse. They only add to ratings.

Ben Shapiro was casually destroyed in an instant, not by debate, but simply from a single disinterested yet contemptuous chuckle from a man who saw his ******** for what it was and demonstrated he would be neither indulging it or engaging in it.

Ben dissolved like sugar in tea.

But by all means let’s have another dozen takes from Bret Stephens and David Brooks about how vital it is to a free society that vapid shells and hucksters like Ben Shapiro have a stage and a megaphone reserved for them, and how contempt for their vile message is The Real Facism.
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Tweet thread link.

I do wonder how many people are Shapiro fans simply because they haven't yet seen him debate anyone who would/could/did push back against him.
 
AN was not on form, and did not get the discussion off to good start with his description of abortion. Then it just seemed like a barrage of old tweets fired at BS. There's no wonder he got ****** off to be honest.
 
JRS said:
Tweet thread link.

I do wonder how many people are Shapiro fans simply because they haven't yet seen him debate anyone who would/could/did push back against him.
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Why have you quoted this idiot?

'My takeaway is that US cable news was just as badly exposed by this exchange as was Ben Shapiro. US corporate media is the only place where this sort of puerile malicious twerp can thrive as an intellectual.'
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Ben Shapiro doesn't have a regular show on a US cable network. He is part of a quite successful Conservative online news reporting and commentary network and sometimes appears on a variety of cable networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox.

He regularly tours and debates people and encourages people who disagree with him to ask questions first when he does so. He's known for changeling people to debate him so its unlikely he would turn down a serious request from someone on the 'left'. He isn't in need of any 'safe space' and can demonstrably 'thrive' away from US Cable/ US Corporate Media.

All that happens here is that Shapiro misunderstood Neil's aggressive 'playing devil's advocate' position for partisanship. And the Neil was a bit of a **** himself trying to turn the interview into a 'gotcha' style character assassination.

Both Neil and Shapiro seemed rather poorly prepared with Neil making some really fatuous remarks and Shapiro being silly by not playing it calm and staying the course.
 
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Not a fan of Andrew Neil. He tends to run around his interviewees with his tongue out and poke them with a stick. Its low-rent political journalism. That show he presents of an evening with Portillo et al is poor.

I think it's slightly naive to call AN a non-partisan interviewer. Shaprio was right to call him out on the 'barbaric' statement. I think it genuinely was a tell from AN. When Shapiro turned the question around AN couldn't answer because he knew going down that path would be a minefield. In this country we're all very sure of ourselves about abortion but if you start getting in to a nitty gritty science debate, the water gets very murky indeed, and that's where Shapiro wanted to go toe to toe with him.

That being said I think BS is a bell end. His views on abortion and health care are particularly asinine, and he comes across as little twerp who was head of the debates team at college.
 
I think AN just didn't want to waste much time getting tied up over the abortion issue, he wasn't calling the whole pro-life stance barbaric but rather he cited those penalties for even going to another state for an abortion etc.. and called those things barbaric.

Shapiro makes some good arguments on occasion but a lot of the time he's just faced with idiot SJW types or moronic Trump supporters and they tend to set themselves up for a fail, he's also clearly used to journalists (or at least the media outlets they work for) being rather polarised and just coming at him from a particular angle rather than the likes of AN simply adopting the opposing position for the sake of the interview.

Anyway, I think that last line from AN was gold! :D
 
Shapiro's pro life stance and the fact he practices a religion are two things that turn me hugely off him. Everything else I enjoy. Its fun watching him destroy teen-agers in debates. He like most American things, are just a giant characature of what they represent. I can't describe what I mean. He's just incidiously American, smug and conservative. A product of social media.

Given the time difference on the interview, then a character assassination by AM, I guess he just got fed up. I doubt he gets much real opposition to his opinions, although I don't call trawling through someone's social media history and pulling them up on old soundbites "great journalism".

Gotcha bitch
 
I don't know what all the fuss is about. This is classic Andrew Neil. Nobody seemed to care when he absolutely annihilated Owen Jones on this week.

Shapiro regularly debates people who get the better of him, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Douglas Murray etc and they agree to disagree and shake hands. Most of those claiming Shapiro is an intellectual heavyweight are looking at times lefties have tried screaming him down and looked ridiculous themselves.

Shapiro has his views, they're conservative and he stands by them politely 99% of the time.
 
i-bert said:
AN was not on form, and did not get the discussion off to good start with his description of abortion. Then it just seemed like a barrage of old tweets fired at BS. There's no wonder he got ****** off to be honest.
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That's my take on it too, wasted interview really discussing 7 year old tweets taken out of any sort of context.
 
Nasher said:
I don't see anyone getting "destroyed". Just a mild argument and then it ends...
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I think it was intentionally ironic.

There are countless YT videos of Shapiro ‘destroying’ a liberal/feminist/LGBT/etc. when in fact, it’s usually not even a mild argument but a reasonable debate between him and a high school/college student.

At least in this instance there was a bit of hostility, even if it was mild.
 
VincentHanna said:
I don't care about Andrew Neil, Ben Shapiro or Owen Jones for that matter.

Why would it be thread worthy?

If you follow religious American conservatives then more fool you.
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What are you on about? Because I was on about the double standard from people praising AN for going after Owen Jones one week and complaining when he does the same thing to Shapiro the next week. I think you might have read something into my post that wasn't there.
 
Irish_Tom said:
I think it was intentionally ironic.

There are countless YT videos of Shapiro ‘destroying’ a liberal/feminist/LGBT/etc. when in fact, it’s usually not even a mild argument but a reasonable debate between him and a high school/college student.

At least in this instance there was a bit of hostility, even if it was mild.
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That "destroyed" "owned" etc in capitals in the YouTube titles is something to do with the videos getting more exposure and monetisation.

Mind you, the independent has headlined it as "absolution destruction" by Neil with Shapiro "destroyed" I see it forget to turn off it's hyperbole filter today.
 
Thecaferacer said:
I don't know what all the fuss is about. This is classic Andrew Neil. Nobody seemed to care when he absolutely annihilated Owen Jones on this week.

Shapiro regularly debates people who get the better of him, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Douglas Murray etc and they agree to disagree and shake hands. Most of those claiming Shapiro is an intellectual heavyweight are looking at times lefties have tried screaming him down and looked ridiculous themselves.

Shapiro has his views, they're conservative and he stands by them politely 99% of the time.
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This, not sure why this video is trending as much as it is, it's typical AN stuff and no one came out of the video looking good. And Shapiro didn't 'walk off' he just stopped the interview by taking off his ear piece, franky i would have done similar if he was annoying me in the same way
 
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