Ben Shapiro: Politics, Kanye, Trump, Biden, Hitler, Extremism, and War | Lex Fridman Podcast #336

Shapiro opens by condemning Kanye West's antisemitic comments and dissecting the different forms antisemitism takes, then argues that evil lives in every human heart, using Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler as a warning about how democracies collapse. The middle of the conversation focuses heavily on free speech, the history of media, Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and the difference between misinformation and censorship. He and Lex debate Trump versus Biden, the war in Ukraine and possible off-ramps for Putin, and the ethics of abortion at length. The final third turns philosophical: God and the problem of suffering, Shapiro's 'role theory' of meaning, climate change adaptation versus mitigation, tribalism, mentors like Andrew Breitbart, and a sustained friendly disagreement about whether love or respect should anchor how we treat strangers.

• Shapiro calls Kanye West's antisemitic rhetoric 'Sherman Nazism' and ties it to a possible manic bipolar episode.
  00:02:34
• As a pro-life advocate he says he was NOT offended by Kanye comparing abortion to the Holocaust, because he sees abortion as a tragedy on the scale of a holocaust.
  00:16:38
• Lex reveals the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooter had checked Shapiro's Twitter 93 times in the month before the attack; Shapiro says he never blames a commentator for others' violence unless they advocate it.
  00:23:58
• Shapiro says even Alex Jones and Donald Trump should be allowed back on Twitter, despite Jones personally attacking him.
  00:41:37
• Argues the West's pre-war Ukraine policy was the 'worst possible' option and that Biden may need to force an off-ramp giving Putin Crimea and parts of the Donbas.
  01:06:38
• Recounts losing his cool and walking out of his BBC interview with Andrew Neil, candidly listing the mistakes he made.
  01:21:10
• States he opposes abortion exceptions even for rape and incest, allowing only an exception for the life of the mother.
  01:47:26
• Tells Lex he does NOT believe in the natural goodness of mankind, marking a core philosophical disagreement between them.
  02:09:25

• Shapiro keeps a public list on his website of every dumb or wrong thing he has said, explaining whether he still believes it.
  00:15:37
• At his wife's urging he removed Twitter from his phone; he can only access it from a computer to protect his mental health.
  00:31:18
• He has three kids (ages eight, six, and two) who wake him around 6:15 AM; he says they think he has no job.
  01:25:26
• An observant Jew who keeps Sabbath, he reads only physical books, tabs them with stickers, and once owned about 7,000 volumes before moving from LA to Florida.
  01:29:06
• He claims to read roughly three to five books a week and writes all his own show material.
  01:30:42
• In a previous life he worked as a ghostwriter 'turnaround specialist,' once writing 60,000 words in three weeks.
  01:31:12
• While writing he listens only to Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, and jokes that WAP is not the peak of Western civilization.
  01:28:35
• Cites William Nordhaus and the IPCC to argue at least 1.5C of warming is baked in, and that humans are better at adaptation than mitigation.
  01:55:16
• He is writing a book on 'role theory' - the idea that meaning comes from fulfilling life roles like parent, spouse, and community member.
  02:01:36
• In 2016 the ADL measured him as the number one target of antisemitism on the planet.
  02:22:27