Ben Shapiro Hired a Debater to Fight Groypers. It Backfired Badly.
The internet is a vicious place, even when…er, *especially* when…you’re fighting vicious people.
TWO WEEKS AGO, Ben Shapiro announced the hiring of the Daily Wire’s explosive new star: “Mat Nuclear,” a 19-year-old internet-debating wunderkind.
“We wanted to bring him on board to be a person who just debates,” Shapiro said, promising that Nuclear (unclear if that’s his real name) would host a nightly debate livestream where he would “take on all comers.” Perhaps Shapiro wanted to get in on the Jubilee fad. Perhaps he saw something of himself in young Nuclear—a whipsmart young conservative willing to just annoy the shit out of everyone.1
Perhaps he was just out for blood. After all, Shapiro made clear that Nuclear’s main mission was to take down white nationalist Nick Fuentes. And Nuclear seemed all in. In another video last week with Daily Wire hosts, he had said Fuentes was part of an anti-Western civilization coalition with a “hyperfixation on Israel.”
The longstanding feud between Fuentes and Shapiro is clearly ideological. But some of the motivation here may also be economics. The Daily Wire has been battered by overspending and the loss of personalities like Brett Cooper and Candace Owens, both of whom have since turned on Shapiro. Most importantly, Shapiro has struggled to connect with a Gen Z conservative audience that is increasingly critical of Israel and uninterested in the now-middle-aged white conservatives who make up most of the Daily Wire cast.
By comparison, Nuclear is black, versed in internet debating bloodsports, and the rare young person willing to defend AIPAC—exactly the kind of unique character who could help Shapiro in his ceaseless online battles.
Unfortunately for the media mogul, it didn’t work out that way. On just his first stream for the Daily Wire, Nuclear accidentally