TWIBS: Ben Shapiro Takes Shots at Infertile People
Annoying right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro has come out swinging against Chuck Schumer’s cheeseburgers and… people who are infertile?! Shapiro has something to say about lesbians, IVF/adoption and Father’s Day, but you probably just shouldn’t listen to him now that I think about it.
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
So I’m sort of confused by Ben Shapiro.
Sorry, I don’t mean like… in general. I know what his deal is. He’s a writhing worm happily bathing in the muddy slurry that is online conservative grifting. He entered into “journalism” as Breitbart’s editor-at-large in 2012, generated a serious digital footprint in the mid-2010s by Gish Galloping over any fool unwise enough to be recorded “debating” him, then co founded conservative media company and monstrous evil hate machine The Daily Wire in 2015. He’s well known as a podcaster, failed fiction novelist and, regrettably, the lovely Mara Wilson’s cousin (disavowed).
I guess what I’m confused by is just… Ben’s general worldview? I don’t know. This existential Shapiro-shaped crisis was brought up by remarks he made about Chuck Schumer’s lacking grill skillz and lesbian daughter on The Ben Shapiro Show—slamming both Chuck’s burgers and his grandson’s parentage—which I heard thanks to Media Matters because good fuck I would never willingly subject myself to this guy’s vocal slop.
I don’t say it enough: Media Matters staff are braver than the troops. Braver than the Marines. Shit, they’re braver than Marines who are being brave about a tummy ache. If you don’t keep up with their reporting on stuff like this, or maybe their super cool timeline of terrorism related to Chaya Raichik/Libs of TikTok, you should start doing that now.
The reason Shapiro was yapping about historically ineffectual Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on his lame ass podcast is because Schumer posted a since deleted tweet to Twitter, formerly X, in which he was celebrating Father’s Day by masculinely grilling at his daughter and daughter-in-law’s new home.
“Our family has lived in an apartment building for all our years, but my daughter and her wife just bought a house with a backyard and for the first time we’re having a barbeque with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!” read the tweet. After it was deleted, the sentiment was reuploaded sans photo, simply saying, “Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!”
And when I say “masculinely grilling,” I mean grilling wrong; the picture shows Schumer having placed cheese to melt on top of the raw side of his burgers, a move so boneheaded it has Twitter randos accusing Schumer of staging the photo.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but like… I’d buy it? Politicians do weird things, and the fact that his celebratory “grilling with my gay daughter, who I love” picture doesn’t include his gay daughter or her gay wife feels kinda strange. I guess they could be jointly taking the photo for Chuck, but it seems maybe equally likely that he just got a staffer to snap a fake photo op pic for Father’s Day.
None of that is super relevant, though. What’s got me all twisted up about my boy Shapiro is not his thoughts on Schumer’s poor cheeseburger etiquette (which he also points out isn’t very “good Jewish boy” of Chuck, but I highly doubt Ben Shapiro keeps kosher, to be honest), but the statement he makes next about IVF/adoption.
“Father's Day … typically involves, you know, fathers. And, like, he's a father, but you know who's never gonna have a father? Any adopted or in-vitro fertilized children of his daughter and her wife. So celebrating two female households on Father's Day is a bit of a weird look. It's a bit of a weird look,” Shapiro said on The Ben Shapiro Show.
Plenty to unpack there. For a start, kids don’t inherently need a father, or any specific gendered influence upon their lives as long as they are loved and cared for by whatever guardians they happen to have. Next up is, obviously, the “celebrating two female households on Father’s Day” remark. Like… obviously the father being celebrated here is Chuck? Who is (allegedly) at his daughter’s house? Do you need help, dude? Should I make a flowchart?
He’s like, factually correct, but mentioning it at all is an obvious slight against queer couples, who have been fighting against systemic homophobia in adoption for decades. To say nothing of how often LGBTQ+ people make less money than their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts, which makes it difficult or impossible to pursue expensive procedures like in vitro fertilization. Does Ben, whose besties plan to “outbreed the left,” truly believe minorities shouldn’t have the right to adopt or pursue IVF? Does he fail to see how easily that sort of rhetoric can be turned on Jews like us?
Probably not. For Ben, it’s all just a smoke and mirrors game to keep his pathetic career afloat and generate as much cash as possible. As long as the ROI is sound, Ben Shapiro couldn’t care less who he hurts.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
