Essays, January-December 2015

Unlike many folks my age, I don’t listen to Podcasts much. Occasionally at the end of a day when it’s time to wind down, though, I’ll run over to The Daily Wire to see what’s available (for free, sadly—I couldn’t maintain my membership past the 2024 election).

Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh—any of these fellas is great for a Conservative take on the news of the week. These high-IQ intellectuals each speak from his own religious tradition:

• Michael Knowles (Roman Catholicism)
• Ben Shapiro (Judaism)
• Matt Walsh (Non-denominational Sarcasm)

I learn from each—not about biblical doctrine necessarily, but about a proper, Judeo-Christian take on America’s change-every-minute cultural moors.

The Writings of Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro recently published Lions and Scavengers (2025) about the American founders, and it got me wondering about his full bibliography. I was shocked to find that, although he’s a whole year younger than I, he’s published at least 24 books already! Of course, someone who writes multiple monologues per week for his various broadcasts must have a great system for publishing these writings after the fact. But still, that’s a lot of writing!

I recently came across a whole lot of Shapiro e-books, and during my travels through Asia, I thought it high time I give them a try. I began with a shot in the dark, Evil in America (2017), and was surprised to find that it’s a collection of weekly essays from 2015.

The Year 2015 – A Calm before the Storm

The year 2015 was our first full year in China as a family, so in recollection, I paid far less attention to American news and politics then than I normally do. Some key words from that year, however, certainly spark some memories: Charlie Hebdo, Same-sex Marriage, and Ashley Madison. There was also the Republican Primaries (for the 2016 election), Hillary’s run for office, Obama’s war on America, and the fallout from the terrorism in Benghazi.

It was quite a year, 2015, and I found this book to be a healthy, enjoyable time capsule. It allowed me to review these issues in retrospect, now a decade later, and to be comforted that my opinions on most of these matters haven’t changed.  My gut reactions were and still are driven by discernment—that is biblical discernment, which results in conservative beliefs.

This was also a year before the cultural hurricane that is Donald J. Trump. Wokism was stirring but didn’t yet have a name. And the trans movement was merely pupating through the “courage” of Caitlyn Jenner, about which Shapiro remarks:

It’s cruel to allow a mentally ill person to exploit himself in public, but the political left is happy to do so in order to perpetuate the pseudo-scientific nonsense that a man can magically turn into a woman. (Jun. 3, “Left Exploits Menal Illness to Push PC Agenda”, 44).

Shapiro attacked many other issues in his essays: antisemitism, vaccinations, and the threat of multiculturalism. He’s long had a way of enticing his readers with wit and hard truths in prose that’s easy to read and even easier to hear. Take this smattering of examples on 7 main topics that Shapiro covered over the year to get a flavor for his thinking and style.

About “Islamaphobia” (that is, before CRI and theories of oppression):

Obama defends radical Islam because he does not think in terms of ideology, but in terms of power dynamics. If radical Muslims commit terror, it is because they feel helpless and hopeless. If they feel helpless and hopeless, it is because Westerners made them feel that way. If Westerners made them feel that way, it is because Western ideology must be exploitative and evil. (Feb. 11, “Shut Up, Because the Crusades”, 15)

How do proponents of this victim/victimizer identity dichotomy determine who falls into which category? They simply look at the socioeconomic status of those involved and make a determination of who is worse off. (May 13, “Shut Pam Geller Up, or We Will All Die”, 39)

About Anti-Semitism—especially Obama’s:

Were Israel a Muslim country, the rest of the world would see it as a beacon of light and hope for the future of an entire religion. Because it is Jewish, Muslims target it for destruction, and the rest of the world tut-tuts Israel’s nasty habit of attempting to survive…The formula is simple: Love Jews; love Israel. Hate Jews; hate Israel. Opposing Israeli action may not be anti-Semitism, but it sure does have a funny habit of backing the agenda of anti-Semites. (Feb. 18, “Is Israel the Problem, or Are Jews the Problem?”, 17)

Like most Europeans, Obama sees America and Israel as greater threats to world peace than Iran or North Korea. His top priority in the Iran deal was forestalling action by the United States and Israel. He achieved that, at the cost of Saudi Arabia and Egypt seeking nuclear weapons, Hamas reinforcing its position as a terrorist cancer in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah retrenching as the controlling force in Lebanon, Bashar Assad ensuring his continued leadership, Iraq turning into an Iranian client state, Afghanistan preparing for Iranian-influenced sectarian violence, and Houthi-caused chaos in Yemen, for a start. But at least Israel won’t drop a couple of bombs on Iran’s nuclear reactors. (Jul. 15, “Why Obama Turned Iran into a Regional Power”, 56)

About the Fall of Democracy:

Democracies die not with a whimper or a bang but with a shrug. (Mar. 4, “The Hillary Cover-Up and the End of Democracy”, 21)

More good people with guns fighting tyranny make the world a better place. (Oct. 14, “The Anti-Jew Anti-Gun Crusade”, 80)

About Journalism and the Leftism of Mainstream Media:

Journalism does not require sympathy for human beings. It requires sympathy for readers, who deserve truth. But for the left, truth represents a secondary value. It is far more important to forward a particular political narrative than it is to simply state the facts. And that narrative can only be forwarded if there is controversy over the facts. (Apr. 8, “Why the Left Lies”, 29)

About Vaccinations (before COVID, mRNA and “The Shot”):

Americans have short memories and enormous confidence in junk science. Parents will ignore vaccinations but ensure that their kids are stocked up with the latest homeopathic remedies, Kabbalah bracelets and crystals. St. John’s wort, red string and crystals all existed before 1962. They didn’t stop the measles. Vaccination did. (Feb. 4, “Anti-Vaccine Fanatics Kill”, 13)

About Homosexuality:

Both the normalization of incest and the normalization of homosexuality spring from the destruction of objective standards of morality in favor of validation of subjective feelings. (Jan. 21, “The Last Taboo”, p.9)

By conflating behavior with feeling, and calling it all “orientation,” homosexual advocates have conflated biology with choice, and called it all biology. (Mar. 10, “Is Being Gay a Choice?”, 22)

The gay rights movement and the broader American left celebrated the same-sex marriage decision in wild fashion because the decision established two fundamental notions: First, that government has replaced God in the moral pantheon of the United States; second, that the new god-government has the power to root out and destroy any God-based institutions, destroying the social capital and fabric that holds together the nation. (July 1, “The Real Goal of the Same-Sex Marriage Movement”, 51)

About Hypocrisy:

One of the great problems with modern American political and moral discussion lies in our hatred for hypocrisy above all other sins. Adultery, according to Savage and his anti-moral moralists, isn’t a sin; rather, preaching against adultery and then failing your own standard is the great sin. But that makes all standards irrelevant. This logic sets up a perverse moral system whereby those without standards freely pursue whatever activities they choose, while those with standards are destroyed for their sins. The result: rational people choose to embrace amorality, secure in the knowledge that without standards, they will never be held to account. (Aug. 26, “Ashley Madison, Josh Duggar, and the Nasty Left”, 67)

Conclusion

After reviewing it all this way, the year 2015 seems to have been a relative calm before the storm, yet with inklings of issues that have grown exponentially to the major crises we face today. This for me was a fascinating way to understand that reality.

I’ve honestly never enjoyed reading collections of old newspaper columns or essays before (even humorous ones by Dave Barry), but with this book, I suddenly get it! After all, if I’m such a fan of old travelogues for the historical-cultural snapshots they provide, I should be able to view these collections similarly. They provide a more political-pop-cultural snapshot of the past, but are just as ethnographic.

Now suddenly I wonder how many other annual collections from Shapiro I night have waiting for me in this e-book lot! They will be a fun way to review years past—and to be reminded that there really is nothing new under the sun.

©2025 E.T.

Read More from Ben Shapiro:

• What’s Fair? (2015)
• A Moral Universe Torn Apart (2016)
• Evil in America (2017)