JPost: 'A conspiratorial Right is rising' in America, Ben Shapiro tells 'Post'
US political commentator Ben Shapiro in candid conversation with The Jerusalem Post: 'You get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda.'
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-869858
>"There is a part of the Right that is extraordinarily conspiratorial and sees Jews as a conspiratorial force… It is rising because social media rewards it," Ben Shapiro said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post last week. "On X and TikTok, you often get more clicks if you push anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric."
>The Post met Shapiro during his recent visit to Israel, days after the announcement at the White House of a potential hostage release and ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Shapiro said during the interview that while hostility toward Israel on the Left is well documented, Israel should not ignore a parallel danger growing on parts of the Right, where conspiratorial thinking finds a ready audience, and algorithms incentivize it.
>"The important thing is the conspiracy itself," he said. "Conspiratorialism is an incredibly seductive storyline, particularly for young people who are being told that the problems in their own lives are not their fault, and they can be solved by externalizing those problems onto a different group."
>He argued that the dynamic is structural rather than episodic. "You get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda than if you are doing the opposite," he said. "Virtually every conspiracy theory ends up pointing at the Jews because the narrative needs a villain, and it is easier to recycle an old one than to make an honest argument."