Klavan: Here’s Why The Left Keeps Resorting To Character Assassination

On Monday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” host Andrew Klavan explained why the Left finds it necessary to resort to character assassination instead of engaging in debate — and why you’re starting to see more of it in recent years.

“The same machinery that is selling you socialism, selling you abortion, selling you all the things that the Democrats want to sell you, that same machinery is the machinery [people] need to become famous,” said Klavan. “When you’re seeing these character assassination wars that are going on right now, what you’re seeing is this weapon that has been unleashed on us in a celebrity society, a society where any publicity is good publicity, you’re seeing that machinery kind of going out of control.”

As an example, Klavan pointed to actor and director Mark Duplass initially praising Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro online, only to be forced by his “fellow liberals” to apologize and then go a step further by suggesting that Shapiro was a sexist, racist homophobe.

“Here’s the thing, it’s a way of arguing that we have all gotten used to, and this is really important — when somebody says something to me that I disagree with I say, ‘Here’s why I disagree with that.’ I don’t say ‘Oh yeah? Well I researched you and back in college you slept with a girl who had five drinks.’ That’s not an argument,” he said.

“All their arguments are bad so character assassination is what they’ve got,” he said. “So they’ve built this big machine that not only sells socialism, not only sells anti-democratic means, not only sells abortion, not only sells open borders, it also sells publicity — it also sells favor.”

Video and transcript below:

Most people, especially young people, if they’re up-and-coming and they’re working in the business and they’re working – even if they’re writing nonfiction, if they’re writing fiction, if they want to be in the movies, if they want to do all those kinds of things. The same machinery that is selling you socialism, selling you abortion, selling you all the things that the Democrats want to sell you, that same machinery is the machinery they need to become famous. So, you have to understand that. When you’re seeing these character assassination wars that are going on right now, what you’re seeing is this weapon that has been unleashed on us in a celebrity society, a society where any publicity is good publicity, you’re seeing that machinery kind of going out of control.

This happened with Ben last week, it was just appalling. This actor, Mark Duplass, he tweeted about Ben, he was talking to his fellow liberals, he said “if you want to follow somebody on the other side you might want to think about following Ben Shapiro,” he said “I don’t agree with him on much, but he’s a genuine person who once helped me for no other reason than to be nice, he doesn’t bend the truth, his intentions are good” — all of which by the way is true about Shapiro. I don’t like to blow his cover because I know he’s got this big thing about what a bad guy he is, but it is true, he will go out of his way for you. He’s incredibly generous, he’s even been generous to Knowles – okay you know he only backed over him twice I think the last time.

So of course [the Leftists] unleash on Duplass, and Duplass not only pulls down the tweet because he’s protecting his profession, but because the same machinery that he needs to make him famous, is the machinery that is selling all this socialist stuff, but not only does he pull the tweet recommending Ben, he then goes out and he says that Ben is hateful, he says he’s a racist, you know all the stuff — that sexist, racist homophobic, all this stuff, that he actually isn’t.

So he now throws Ben under the bus. Shapiro didn’t call up Duplass and say “hey could you recommend following me?” This assassination stuff is what goes on. You know, it happened to a judge — one of President Trump’s nominees — a guy named Ryan Bounds. Tim Scott, who is a Senator that I really respect, he’s the only black Republican Senator, and he seems like a good guy, a straight arrow guy. But he basically nixed an appeals court nominee, Ryan Bounds, because of stuff that Bounds’ wrote in college where he was complaining about multicultural organizations that divided up by race for their feel-good ethnic hoedowns, and he said “well white students don’t seem to need an aryan student union, why should there be a black student union?” And Scott Nixed him for that, which i think is wrong. Scott is a good guy, maybe he knew more than I know…but you should be able to say things in college that maybe later on you change your mind about. I don’t personally think that’s so bad what he said, but even so, even if he didn’t agree with it anymore you’ve got to be able to explore ideas, you’ve got to be able to be wrong sometimes.

Ben answered Duplass by putting out a thing on all the things that he had said that he regretted and all the things that he was attacked for that he didn’t regret saying, because Ben knows that this machinery is very very destructive. But here’s the thing, it’s a way of arguing that we have all gotten used to, and this is really important — when somebody says something to me that I disagree with I say “here’s why I disagree with that.” I don’t say “oh yeah? Well I researched you and back in college you slept with a girl who had five drinks.” That’s not an argument, that is not an argument. When somebody says “we should have socialism” it’s not an argument to say “well, you slept with a drunk girl in college.” When somebody says we should ban abortions, it’s not an argument to say “oh well you know, you once stole some money from a store.” That’s not an argument, and so the problem that the left has is they have this huge machinery and everything they think is untrue — socialism destroys the economy, abortion really is killing — I mean you can make arguments for abortion but you have got to accept the fact that you are killing what will be a full human being in time.

This “woke” stuff is pure racism, even so-called “corrective racism” is racism and because all this stuff is true, and open borders do increase crime, and they’re just insane because you need borders to have a country, all their arguments are bad so character assassination is what they’ve got. So they’ve built this big machine that not only sells socialism, not only sells anti-democratic means, not only sells abortion, not only sells open borders, it also sells publicity — it also sells favor.