You’d think the problem with here would be pretty obvious, but this is Buzzfeed we are talking about. They earned the illustrious honor of being the only media outlet that Robert Mueller ever publicly called out for fake news, and it’s not like he didn’t have plenty of other opportunities.
Some guy in Indiana apparently spray painted a Jewish synagogue with Nazi symobls. It’s a gross act, no doubt, but it’s worthy questioning the motive behind casting it as a national news story. There have been multiple, very recent allegations of minority violence against Jews in New York, including old men being physically assaulted, and Buzzfeed never found it newsworthy. But as I said yesterday, it’s the media’ political prerogative to prop up and elevate white supremacy.
This is how Buzzfeed presented the case.
A man who vandalized a synagogue with Nazi symbols told federal agents his road to radicalization included meeting with the far-right group Identity Evropa and reading Ben Shapiro, Breitbart News, and the Nazi propaganda site Stormfront.https://t.co/z4QomO7ej5
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) May 26, 2019
Ah yes, he was clearly radicalized by the noted white supremacist rantings of (checks notes)…Ben Shapiro?
Shapiro is of course an orthodox Jew who’s strongly against white supremacy and just recently was the subject of death threats serious enough that the FBI made an arrest. He was also the top target of “alt-right” online hate in 2016. The idea that Shapiro helped radicalize this guy is asinine on it’s face. This kind of guilt by association is ridiculous and it doesn’t prove causation at all. I’m sure this guy also ate pizza. It doesn’t mean the pizza held any actual role in turning him into a neo-nazi.
The actual link being perpetrated by Buzzfeed is laughable.
They blamed his teenage wife, who they said had a troubled upbringing and would spend hours chatting on Discord, an app that had become popular among white supremacists. She then shared articles with her husband.
“According to Nolan, she began with rightwing yet mainstream views such as those presented on Fox News. She then moved on to writing by Ben Shapiro and articles on Breitbart News which bridged the gap to the notorious white supremacist and anti-Semititc propaganda site Stormfront.”
I hate to break it to Buzzfeed, but Ben Shapiro is mainstream. He’s about as normal and milquetoast of a Republican as you can get. He holds no extreme views on policy, is fairly libertarian, and doesn’t even really subscribe to nominal nationalist ideals.
BTW, this is the only reference I have been able to find of Ben Shapiro in this case, from a document filed by the defense.
This is weaker than weak tea.
Like saying "He was reading a movie review on the NY Times website that led him down a road to eventually Mein Kampf" pic.twitter.com/rMipKKPRZQ
— Heimish Conservative (@HeimishCon) May 26, 2019
There’s an even simpler explanation to all this.
In so far as Shapiro played into this racist clown’s thinking, it was more likely as a target. White supremacy, as has been shown many times, does not actually take kindly to conservatism. Neo-nazis hate the small government and pro-Jewish positions of the conservative movement.
The lack of logic behind all this belabors the fact that these misrepresentations are purposeful. Buzzfeed is playing a game that’s become a favorite pass time of the liberal media, i.e. to try to paint a picture of white supramacy and the conservative movement as being intertwined. In reality, there is essentially zero crossover. The white supremacist movement actually has more in common with the DSA movement. A quick google search will show people like Richard Spencer stumping for universal healthcare and a new “workers movement,” which is a Marxist ideal. The only caveat is that white supremacists want it all run by white dudes.
Hard to root for Buzzfeed when they accuse an Orthodox Jew of inspiring a synagogue attack just to own the cons. https://t.co/hCJaz2OF83
— Crotchety Old Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) May 26, 2019
Buzzfeed News is a joke of an organization. The fact that they were able to carve out a niche as a credible news agency shows just how low the standards are in the mainstream media. Hate conservatives? Well, you are in the club. Meanwhile, those like Chuck Ross and Mollie Hemingway, who actually do real investigative journalism and produce results, get treated as right-wing pariahs.
Ben Shapiro and mainline conservatives have absolutely nothing to do with radicalizing anyone in the white supremacist movement. It’s laughable to suggest otherwise but the media will certainly keep trying.
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