How to be a Conservative Pundit in Three Easy Traits
Why the right sorts its defenders by age, sex, and color.
By Ezra Klein, UCLA
Tuesday May 10, 2005
“I’m proud I’m a virgin. I’m glad I’m a virgin. I don’t even mind talking about it. So maybe you wonder: Why am I a virgin? It’s actually very simple. I am a virgin because I choose to wait until I get married.”
-Ben Ferguson
Ben Ferguson, the proud virgin in the above quote, is “America’s Youngest Talk Radio Host” and author of the plaintively, pleadingly titled It’s My America, Too. An unnaturally cherubic 22-year-old with little regard for liberals and lots of airtime in which to tell you about it, Ferguson has been riding the airwaves in some capacity or another since the ripe young age of 13, when right-wing radio host Ken Hamblin gave the kid a weekly call-in slot on his Denver-based program and made him one of the country’s best heard young voices. It’s now nine years later, and Ferguson has his own guests, not to mention his own show. Impressive kid, but who is he?
A proud product of home schooling, Ferguson is a charmingly parochial 20-something who attributes his success to time spent in Mom’s minivan. “[W]hile other kids were stuck in boring classrooms, staring at the walls or ripping apart their paper, piece by piece,” Ferguson was firmly planted in the passenger’s seat, listening to Limbaugh in the family Windstar. Ferguson is, further, deeply religious, disgusted by popular culture, in favor of family, in favor of school prayer, and would generally do a great job at dinner with your grandparents (unless they’re America-hating commies).
The funny thing is, Ferguson’s background isn’t unique. In the rarified world of young conservative punditry, it’s no less than archetypal. Joining him in prodigy-hood is Kyle Williams, a home-schooled, deeply religious 14-year-old columnist/author with a stunning mastery of conservative talking points and an unending storehouse of cultural disgust, and Ben Shapiro, a home-schooled orthodox Jew who found UCLA so packed with hardship and adversity that he wrote a column on it for the school paper, a syndicated column on it for conservative papers, and the just-published Brainwashed, a book on all the lefty academicians trying to trick students into tattooing Mao onto their buttocks.
A quick round on Nexis shows that these three boast numerous appearances on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, which, for two writers and a radio broadcaster, marks the multimedia ubiquity that transforms a political savant into a true pundit. And they, just like your retired generals and legal consultants, are called in when their expertise is applicable. From reading the transcripts, typical subjects are being young (Ben, Ben and Kyle), being really young (Kyle), being offended by popular culture (Ben, Ben, and Kyle), being offended by college (Ben S.), being offended by liberals (Ben, Ben and Kyle) and why liberals offend other people their age, too (Ben, Ben, and Kyle).
But having these three represent their generation is like learning about international diplomacy from Don Rumsfeld; the gurus know not of what they speak. The young folk the conservative message machine trots out to speak for Generation Y are not exactly representative members. In 2003, 2.2% of students were home-schooled. Religion, though judged important by 34% of high-schoolers, has less to do with piety for them and more to do with youth groups (read: snowboarding and roller-hockey weekends). As Dale Buss wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “The hard numbers say … that, while they may profess the faith and indeed love Jesus, the vast majority of Christian teenagers in this country actually hold beliefs fundamentally antithetical to the creed.” And the demographic driving Jay-Z and Ashlee Simpson (and downloading, watching, and re-watching Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”) lacks the monstrous disdain Ben, Ben and Kyle hold for pop culture.
So why are these the personalities trotted out whenever the conversation turns youthful? And how did these three get the permanent slots, while they face off against an ever-rotating cast of young lefties, culled from wherever a desperate producer can find them? (I was once invited on to CNN/FN to talk about the youth vote. The invitation came in a frantic e-mail the morning of the show; the car, dispatched as soon as I responded to the e-mail, arrived 10 minutes before the segment, and I breathlessly entered the argument just as it ended.) It’s possible, I guess, that they are true prodigies whose remarkable talents have earned them premature success. But doesn’t it seem just a wee bit unlikely that all three members of this successful trio would be conservative, home-schooled, deeply religious and disdainful of pop culture? In fact, the repetition of this rare combination of traits suggests that they, in fact, are the reasons for the unlikely prominence of Ben, Ben and Kyle.
These are dream children—living, breathing, maybe even guitar-playing rebuttals to the hostile relationship Republicans are reputed to have with the young. They fit a detailed mold and can be trotted out to cover the conservative flank each time jihad is declared on rap music or Maxim or SpongeBob SquarePants. When it’s old white guys rationalizing the cultural broadsides, they just seem out-of-touch and paternalistic. But if Ben Shapiro is out there, if rap’s target demographic is brandishing a pitchfork and joining the mob, then it’ll throw enough confusion into the argument that the helpless liberal will be lost trying to figure out who he’s fighting for.
In fact, Ben, Ben, and Kyle fit a distinct pattern in conservative media representation. Indeed, leveraging one’s demographic birthright to help the conservative cause is a rich and respected tactic for getting noticed by the Republican Noise Machine. Take Michelle Malkin (please!), an Asian woman who wrote a book defending the internment of other Asian-Americans during World War II and now frequents Fox News demanding a sensible assessment of whether Arabs should undergo similar treatment for the duration of the War on Terror. That Asian internment was warranted isn’t exactly a majority viewpoint, but never mind. Take Ward Connerly, a black pundit who springs forth with jack-in-the-box regularity each time the right trains its guns on affirmative action. And while we’re doing Ward, we can’t forget his partner-in-crime Linda Chavez, a Latina whose primary interest appears to be, yes, assaulting affirmative action. Take Phyllis Schlafly, the woman who led the effort to kill the Equal Rights Amendment, a little constitutional edit that, if ratified, would’ve enshrined gender equality as the immutable law of the land.
In a party that captures a minority of woman, African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics, it’s statistically stunning for these racially (or, in Schlafly’s case, sexually) charged issues to all find their conservative fulcrums in a member of the affected group. But it’s also good politics.
Color-coding your defenders saves a lot of trouble, as the charges of discrimination that might sink a racially charged proposal fall flat when the initiative’s defender has the correct skin tone. It stands to reason that the proposal can’t be too bad for the affected group, or why would that person be on TV defending it? Similarly, no woman, presumably, would defend something that’s bad for her gender, and no young person would fight for what most of his generation opposes. And yet the ranks of conservative pundits swell with advocates whose primary purpose seems to be using their demographic birthright to defuse criticism of offensive policies. So don’t fault Ben, Ben, and Kyle for their odd upbringings and unlikely prominence – their rare combination of youthful looks and throwback sensibilities are the precise attributes that allow them to advocate and oppose where older, stodgier Republicans dare not tread, just like Linda, Ward, and Michelle use their race to go where white Republicans cannot. As a friend of mine once noted, if these folks didn’t exist, Republicans would have to invent them.
In fact, I think they did.
Ezra Klein is a junior at UCLA. He does have a blog, it’s at http://ezraklein.typepad.com. He does not work for the school newspaper. Which leaves him time to respond to your e-mails: ezrak@ucla.edu.
Illustration: Matt Bors
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Comments
So … if all conservatives were old and white and male, you would say: see, all conservatives are old and white and male, and feel smug and self-righteous. But they’re not. So what to do? Slyly suggest that people like Michelle Malkin and Ward Connerly are only prominent because of their race.
— Doug - May 17, 07:59 AM - #Racism has pretty much retreated into the corners in modern America. And one of those corners is a liberal one.
—Racism has pretty much retreated into the corners in modern America. And one of those corners is a liberal one.—
What a fantasy world you live in Doug. Race is an issue here and now. I have distant family from the south that won’t drink Coke because it is ni##er pop. They say Seattle is racist because we don’t have to live with “them people”. I have a friend that didn’t get served in an eastern Washington restaurant because she was a minority. I’ve experienced descrimination myself.
It’s there and it’s real. Pull your head out of your a**.
— Timetheos - May 17, 05:51 PM - #He didn’t “slyly” suggest anything. He just gave the facts about the token minorities in the repub party. For most part, the repubs/conservatives ARE white, male and old.
BTW, just to jog your memory a little – all the southern (white) democrats who opposed the civil rights act ended up in the republican party. For a conservative apologist its rather dangerous to suggest anything about racism in America – the old adage about stones and glass houses come to mind ;-)
— Trish - May 17, 06:01 PM - #If there’s anything Republicans excel at, it’s projection.
— renato - May 17, 08:08 PM - #It’s not projection. It’s calculated.
‘Projection’ is a subconscious desire to assign one’s own problems to others. What’s going on in the Republican party is not subconscious. Their goal, as Klein points out, is to befuddle their opponents into powerlessness.
— Enoch Root - May 22, 03:37 AM - #Not all the racists. Byrd and Hollings are still with the Dems. And…and…well, the rest of ‘em switched sides.
Johnson predicted that his civil rights legislation would lose the Dems the south for a generation. So far, it’s been two.
— Rick - May 22, 02:07 PM - #Wait, Doug, my uncle is severely mentally handicapped, yet even he could tell you that some conservatives are female, that some our young, and that some are non-white. A five year old would know that. There are certainly more than a billion conservatives in the world- it would be quite bizarre if not one of them were white, female, or young.
So your hypothetical is absurd. It is like starting a discussion “If every single fan of punk music, without a single exception, were under the age of sixty…”
— Rick - May 22, 02:12 PM - #I’m glad I learned that Ben feguson was home-schooled as he displays all of the traits of an ignorant southern-fried redneck bigot… He has no knowledge of history, no dealings with people of color, his attack on Hugo Chavez was classic Southern Demogoguery. His spiel is warmed over Rush Limbaugh; another cracker redneck who is ignorant… Also if he got laid he probably be saying all this crap.
— Lee Mouche - Sep 24, 02:48 PM - #“another cracker redneck”
Fuck YOU racist POS!
— LibsRLosers - Apr 16, 07:05 PM - #To the Youth of the Nation,
I am writing to you today, not as a republican or a democrat, but as a fellow young American. And I am asking that for a few moments, you set aside your party lines and your politics, or your lack thereof, and listen to what I have to say, if for no other reason than the fact that you too, are an American, and that because of this bond, we share a common cause.
My story is not so different than that of many others; I am a 24 year old mother fresh out of nursing school, doing my best to raise my daughter alone while paying off student loans and putting food on our table. I do not have a lot, and yet I know that I have more than some. I did not go to college for riches or fame, but rather to find a foundation on which I could build the American Dream for me and my daughter.
It’s funny how the American Dream can mean so many different things to so many different people. To me it is not the pot of gold at the end of rainbow, although I admit that this would be nice. It is not just about having the house with the picket fence, the career that I’ve worked hard for, or even about having the family that I love. My American Dream would not be complete without the knowledge that the liberties and values that define this country that we share and love will be there to hand down to my daughter. For me, the absence of these liberties would be the absence of the dream altogether, and as a mom it is up to me to ensure that my daughter not only receive the same dreams, hopes and opportunities that I have had, but that she receive these and more. And so you see, I can not consciously continue to work hard for the American Dream without also working to secure the liberties that give life to the dream in question.
I am not a political science major, a historian or a constitutional scholar, but I have always known that this country is unique, and that the promise that she has embraced since her creation is one worth fighting for. I also believe that, even with her flaws, we have inherited the most exceptional nation in the world; one that was given to us, not to squander, but to protect with the same fevered spirit that embodied those who have given their lives for the Promise of America. Those who came before us battled foreign nations who sought to squelch the flames of liberty, and shed their blood to ensure that we would not have to. George Washington once said that, “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” And although our brave soldiers continue to battle foreign enemies that wish to bring about the destruction of America and all she stands for, I believe that there may be a greater threat to the American Dream, lurking not on foreign soil, but in our own indifference.
I know that in recent years it has become convenient to distance ourselves from patriotic pride, and that many influences on our generation would rather us embrace foreign ideology than to stand united behind our own. I have seen how the political agenda has shifted from encouraging freedom in personal initiative to instead embracing entitlements and complacency. I have also witnessed our generation fall under attack from those who wish to advance this new “progressive” agenda. I have been told that we are but sheep to be herded, putty to be molded, into mindless proponents of this progressive ideology. Those who prey on our young and eager minds do not find merit in us as individuals, but rather exploit our naivety to advance their own agendas. They believe that we would rather stand united in support of something that is popular, yet wrong, than to stand apart in defense of something that is unpopular, but right. To accomplish this they overwhelm our senses, invade our conscience, weaken our sense of judgment and flood our sensibilities with propaganda aimed entirely on distorting logic just enough to fade the lines between right and wrong; reality and delusion. Once this distortion has been accomplished, it is no feat at all to convince us that what is not, is, and what is, has never been.
At this point you may find yourself affronted with the concept that I would have so little faith in our generation that I would make these assertions, and you may contend that we are too swift and too smart to fall for such underhanded tactics. Let me assure you, I do not underestimate any group of Americans, I simply understand the force and determination behind those who wish to exploit us for their cause. If you still find these conclusions to be unfounded, let me ask you this:
When, in the history of he United States, did it become more important to ‘protect’ the environment than to protect our families and national sovereignty? How is it reasonably acceptable or even partially tolerated that people who beat their dogs get more jail time in this country than those who brutalize and rape our children? Why do we know more about the celebrities on t.v than we do the people we put into office? When did it become okay for our children to receive potentially harmful medication from the school nurse without parental consent or knowledge? Why do public officials seem to care more about the contrived rights of international terrorists than the rights of their own constituents? When did we start to allow the government to think for us, parent for us, and provide for us? When did we replace common sense with convenience? Why is it that a child must have parental consent to go on a field trip, but not to take a trip to an abortion clinic? How has it become more popular to denounce your country than to serve your country? Why do we turn our cheek when conservative women and their families are verbally attacked, berated and denigrated, yet we demand three different types of apologies from someone who called misleading statements from the President a lie? Why does calling an ‘undocumented worker’ an ‘illegal alien’ illicit more outrage than the Speaker of the House and other public servants calling fellow Americans “Swastika carrying, un-American domestic terrorists” for simply disagreeing with them? When did we stop believing that nothing in life is ever free? Why have we rationalized living in debt, both in our personal lives and in the government? Why have we become so complacent that indebting our children to the government so that we may continue to live outside our means does not even make us pause for reconsideration? Since when did we start allowing greed and corruption to override our liberties and personal freedoms? And when did we start doubting the Might of the American People and start believing the government that we are an ignorant people that need them to make our decisions for us?
George Washington said, “It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.” And so I ask you: Have we forgotten that, with the blood of our countrymen, we have been entrusted with securing the Promise of America, not just for ourselves, but for those that come after us; and to what cost have we neglected our duty to preserve that freedom for the coming generations?
My friends, we have been indifferent for too long. We have allowed both individuals and entities with deep-seated or otherwise misguided contempt for America to dictate our beliefs, our values, our education and our choices for far too long. Now is not the time to blindly follow what is popular, but rather it is time to search within for what is right. French Philosopher Charles de Montesquieu proclaimed that ‘the tyranny of a prince is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy,” and I believe this to be true more so now than ever. I ask, not that you believe what I believe, or value what I value, but that you and you alone make that choice for yourself. If we shed the propaganda and the deceit that has silenced our common sense for so long and look instead to our own moral compass, I believe we will find that the American Dream, as unique as she is for each of us, will continue to stand strong on the same foundation for all of us.
I am and will continue to fight to ensure that my daughter enjoys a better America than I have; this is my cause. Providing her with happiness, protecting her liberties and proclaiming her freedom…that is my American Dream. And I leave you with but one request; find your cause, search for your American Dream, and protect them both from those who wish to replace your dream with their own.
Thank you, and God Bless the USA!
Heather Winn
“Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it.” John Adams
— Heather W - Oct 30, 05:14 PM - #