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Ben Shapiro Is an ‘Arrested Development’ Meme Come to Life

I mean come on, how much would it cost to end child hunger? 10 dollars?

Ben Shapiro wears a suit and Lucille Bluth wears a light colored suit jacket

Look, I’m sure you were having a lovely Friday celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m so sorry to ruin your fun, but we have to talk about Ben Shapiro and how he’s been operating at his highest level of evil ghoul lately.

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During a livestream wherein Shapiro was answering questions from his totally chill fanbase, someone brought up the idea of protecting children from hunger by strengthening food stamps and making school lunches free, due to a lot of kids being in school lunch debt. And Shapiro, as a small-government-loving, all-people-should-be-free kind of guy, answered the question by rolling his eyes like a sassy teenage girl and saying that “school lunches won’t solve the problem of child hunger at any serious level.”

Shapiro went on to explain that if there is a problem with a child starving, then that’s a “child endangerment scenario where CPS needs to be called,” because right-leaning grifters like himself love to get the government involved in people’s lives when it comes to taking away their children. I mean, just look at a bill proposed in Florida’s legislature, where they would have the courts “vacate, stay or modify a child custody determination of a court of another state” if they deem it necessary to prevent a child from receiving gender-affirming care, which means trans minors could be removed from their parents’ custody over such care, existing custody decisions notwithstanding. Instead of making people’s lives easier by making school lunches free (which they should be) or staying out of parenting decisions, Shapiro and others like him would rather watch the world burn.

And, unsurprisingly, this isn’t the only empathy-devoid and out-of-touch take Shapiro has had in the last few weeks. During a segment on his show cleverly named The Ben Shapiro Show, Shapiro made the case that there is “no such thing as a non-living wage. Nobody dies on their wage.” I guess it must’ve slipped Shapiro’s mind that a living wage is supposed to “provide enough income to cover all basic expenses including food, child care, health, housing, transportation, taxes, and other necessities,” according to an essayist from The American Prospect. And since Shapiro is a millionaire backed by money from oil-rich billionaires, he wouldn’t know what it’s like to not make enough money to not be able to feed your family or pay your rent or even buy enough clothes to cycle through, for months on end.

This type of oligarch mindset when it comes to issues people have to deal with on a daily basis made me think of another incredibly rich and cynical individual, though this person is way more charming than Shapiro. I’m, of course, talking about Lucille Bluth, the matriarch of the Bluth family on the hit show Arrested Development. Lucille, like Shapiro, is incredibly out of touch with the common problems the public faces due to her vast wealth and increasing political power. One of her most famous lines of dialogue is one where she can’t even close to correctly name the price for a single banana—something I think Shapiro would struggle to do, as well.

I would say that this is the last time we’ll have to talk about Shapiro and his ice cold takes on political policies, but unfortunately, we don’t live in a utopia. So, until next time, remember that Ben Shapiro doesn’t know what he’s talking about, as he’s a right-wing shill with zero charisma.

Bye!

(featured image: Joshua Blanchard/Getty Images for Politicon / Fox)

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Author
Kayla Harrington
Kayla Harrington (she/her) is a staff writer who has been working in digital media since 2017, starting at Mashable before moving to BuzzFeed and now here at The Mary Sue. She specializes in Marvel (Wanda Maximoff did nothing wrong!), pop culture, and politics. When she's not writing or lurking on TikTok, you can find Kayla reading the many unread books on her shelves or cuddling with one of her four pets. She's also a world class chef (according to her wife) and loves to try any recipe she can find.

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