Following Kanye West’s antisemitic “death con 3” tweet, American conservative political commentator Candace Owens leapt to his defense, stating that anyone who finds his comments antisemitic is being dishonest.
Given Owens works for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, I wondered how Shapiro would respond; at the time, he was offline for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, so I was not expecting an immediate response.
Sure enough, he did respond after the festival, albeit not the way I would have liked.
I was not impressed by his characterization of Owens’ defense of Kanye and insulting Jews who found his tweet antisemitic as merely a wide variety of opinions and a “feature, not a bug.” Heck, I was appalled by this limp response, which looked to me like putting business interests over integrity.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting Shapiro should have fired Owens on the spot. But at the very least, he should have condemned her comments in no uncertain terms, without the “feature, not bug” palaver. He could have perhaps even debated her and explained how she was oh-so wrong.
What he shouldn’t have done is so soon after promote her documentary (this was actually his very next tweet mentioning her):
Meanwhile, Kanye has since doubled and tripled down and so has Owens, who expressed her excitement over her antisemitic friend making clear his intention to buy social network Parler (of which Owen’s husband is the CEO).
She has also continued to thumb her noses at those who find her comments and defense of West offensive (mostly Jews):
even going as far as to “publicly lynch” an Orthodox Jewish woman who used hyperbole in response to Owens’ conduct:
Meanwhile, crickets from Shapiro and his Daily Wire is still actively promoting Owens:
Ben Shapiro has, until now, struck me as a person of integrity, and not one to shy away from doing and saying the right thing.
It would be fair to say I am disgusted.
