If it was up to the self-proclaimed mandarins of the new right, Ben Shapiro would have been canceled by now. In the last year, the dot-connectors and demagogues have tried to kick the 42-year-old media entrepreneur and author out of the MAGA coalition. His crimes? He’s pro-Israel. And he agrees with President Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran. Among other things.
On other hand, spend a few hours with him, as I did Thursday night on the veranda of Mamush, a kosher grill in balmy Boca Raton, Florida, and you quickly discover that not everybody on the right hates the guy. Au contraire. “My father listens to you every day,” one young woman tells him before asking him to pose for a photo. Another couple approaches Shapiro to encourage him to keep up the fight.
Shapiro orders a “Jerusalem martini,” a syrupy sweet concoction that he barely touches. “I am definitely not an alcohol connoisseur,” he says. “My usual strategy when ordering is to ask them to just bring me the girliest drink they can find, because I have the palate of a child.”
