Ben Shapiro vs the crank right

Say what you want about Ben Shapiro – he believes what he’s selling. The same cannot be said for many other prominent conservatives in America right now.

The Daily Wire founder used his opening speech during Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference – the first one held since founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination – to launch a blistering attack on the grifters and charlatans on the right.

Shapiro singled out Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens for peddling despicable conspiracy theories and falsehoods. And he was right to do so.

Carlson’s recent highlights include interviewing revisionist historian Darryl Cooper – who claimed it was Churchill, not Hitler, who was the true villain of the Second World War – and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.

Owens, who left Shapiro’s Daily Wire back in March amid tensions over alleged anti-Semitism, has flooded social media with baseless claims about Israel, including that its spy agency, Mossad, was involved in Kirk’s death. She has also alleged Jews were ‘in control’ of the slave trade, and urged her X followers to read an anti-Semitic book from the 19th century.

Before the usual suspects start accusing me of shutting down legitimate debate about Israel’s actions in Gaza, it’s worth pointing out that this taste for conspiracy theories extends far beyond an obsession with Israel. For one thing, much of Owens’s ire is now reserved for supposed shady cabals of Jews, not the policies of the State of Israel. Owens has also made bizarre claims about French first lady Brigitte Macron, Covid vaccines and the moon landings, while Carlson peddles nonsense about Ukraine, UFOs and 9/11.

If this contrarianism were simply about ‘owning the libs’, it would be of no real consequence. However, ‘just asking questions’ has become a right-wing ploy to promote conspiracy theories while maintaining plausible deniability. And in a world where clicks generate cash and algorithms favour outrage, there’s a financial incentive to go all in on the outlandish. All this matters because it’s doing significant brand damage and shattering trust in institutions.

Douglas Murray’s recent bust-up with podcaster Joe Rogan and comedian Dave Smith demarcates this new dividing line on the right. The two-hour conversation hit a brick wall over whether to trust experts or spurn them.

This schism is having real-world effects in the realm of foreign policy. Thanks to the America Firsters, Uncle Sam can no longer be seen as a reliable ally, even at a time when Europe is facing Russian aggression.

This new form of conservatism is also redrawing the battle lines of the culture war. In recent years, the right has seemed like a paragon of reason compared with the left, which has imbibed woke orthodoxies, from critical race theory to trans activism. That is no longer the case.

I don’t sign up to everything Shapiro has to offer. I part ways with him on abortion and gun control, for example. But he’s right to stand up for traditional conservatism, which approaches new ideas with suspicion and defends institutions.

What does this new intake stand for?

Adam Chapman is a writer and editor.