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Good evening. It's Thursday, February 22.
Tonight: the self-identified conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, on his quite popular Daily Wire show delivered what he seemed to conceive of as his state of U.S. foreign policy address. It was quite notable because, despite the common claim that Shapiro is some sort of far-right extremist, the vast, vast majority of Democrats in Congress, and most of all the Biden White House, would agree with literally every word he uttered, at least in this address. Indeed, Shapiro did not even pretend to express any disagreements with Joe Biden's signature foreign policies, and that's because he has no disagreements with them.
His only criticism of Biden was about his rhetorical skills: he lamented that Biden no longer possessed the capability to convince Americans of why Biden – and Ben Shapiro – are right to support wars all over the globe. Shapiro not only defended the past wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also Biden's current foreign policy of financing and arming Ukraine's war with Russia. Biden's policy of arming and financing Israel's war in Gaza, Biden's policy of bombing Iran-related targets in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, and Biden's policy of confronting China by, among other things, militarily encircling that country and being the first ever president in history to explicitly threaten China with war over Taiwan.
All of this is so worth examining, not because Ben Shapiro himself matters—although he does: he carries a lot of influence in Republican politics—but because, as always, the central truths governing Washington are also the most suppressed ones. The establishment wings of the Democratic and Republican parties, despite their claims that they agree on nothing, are actually in full agreement not only on every important individual foreign policy question but on the overall foreign policy vision and mindset that governs the UniParty system of endless war. Ben Shapiro is a great advocate of that worldview. From Ukraine to Israel and everything in between, Hillary Clinton sounds exactly like Nikki Haley. Nancy Pelosi sounds exactly like Marco Rubio. Joe Biden, meaning those who control the brand Joe Biden, sounds exactly like Mitch McConnell. And while Ben Shapiro pays a little bit of lip service to the idea that the so-called left in the United States provides opposition to this establishment foreign policy outlook, he correctly recognizes that, at least, when it comes to power centers in Washington, the only real opposition to this pro-war, endless war mindset of constant intervention comes not from the left in Washington, but from the populist right. And that is why both the Democratic and Republican establishments are being increasingly open about their unity and their overarching desire to keep establishment dogma, especially on foreign policy, steadily in place, no matter what.
Then: many politically engaged young Americans, especially Democrats and liberals, do not get their news any longer from corporate newspapers or even cable news. Instead, there is a sad and depressing, but increasingly influential, subculture of online political streamers whom they follow like co-leaders, mostly people who, before the emergence of Donald Trump, built online streaming audiences by talking about and playing video games all day. Now, they spend seven, eight, or even 10 hours, every single day, streaming online while creating communities that, at their core, are organized around nothing more interesting or less banal—they're doing everything possible to elect candidates of the Democratic Party. In this space of left-liberal, largely Gen-Z and young millennial followers, three primary political commentators are streamer Hasan Piker, the nephew of the Young Turks’ founder and Democratic presidential candidate Cenk Uygur; the streamer Destiny, whom I debated several weeks ago on this channel about January 6 and the insurrection and then a person named Ian Kochinski, who is known better by his online streaming name, Vaush. Several weeks ago, Vaush, who just a couple of months ago was meeting and organizing with leading Democratic politicians such as Congressman Ro Khanna of California, became engulfed in a tawdry and humiliating scandal when, during one of his endless daily streams, he accidentally opened an archive filled with his pornography. Among his downloaded files were animated images of child pornography. This dark and depressing episode has been covered in many places, and I really don't intend to delve into the details of it or even the substance of the story. Those interested can find many online reports about it elsewhere, but what I do think is very worth examining is this online left liberal streaming subculture, out of which all of this emerges. While most journalists have very little idea who the people are who dominate these spaces, they are not insignificant. Indeed, they command often larger audiences than many of the far more well-known media brands that have no idea who they are. Yet these communities are shaped and defined by so many of the worst social pathologies that are causing many mental health struggles and other forms of dysfunction for younger people in the West, largely based on endless online addiction and the unhealthy use of parasocial relationships, leaders and communities in lieu of actual, genuine real ones. We'll examine this subculture and talk to the host of one of my favorite left-wing YouTube political programs for the young online. The show is called The Vanguard. It's co-hosted by two very smart, funny leftists, and one of them, Gavin Charles, will join us tonight to talk about the scandal and, more importantly, the broader streaming communities and the issues that it raises from which all of this emerged.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
