Despite the best efforts of publications like the NY Times to claim otherwise, Ben Shapiro has never been alt-right. Last night, Shapiro spoke at Stanford and rather than talk about the far-left as he’d planned, he spent his remarks trashing the alt-right. I’ve put the entire speech down below but let’s look at some highlights, starting with the protests outside the event:

There were some protesters inside the venue as well, but we’ll get to them in a moment. First, here’s Shapiro explaining why he decided to change to topic of the speech to focus on the alt-right:

Why @BenShapiro decided to talk about the alt-right tonight. @Yaf

FULL SPEECH: https://t.co/CSWQSZUFSH pic.twitter.com/yGnx2csS8E

— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 8, 2019

One of the main targets of Shapiro’s speech was Nick Fuentes. Fuentes has distanced himself from racist Richard Spencer, but he still seems to have some doubts about the Holocaust. Here he is talking about Nazi crematoriums in terms of baking cookies. He seems to be amused by this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9aco6o5WBE

Last night, Shapiro quoted a portion of that clip in his speech:

For people who think The Alt Right 2.0 is "America First", listen to @BenShapiro:

– Praising Charlottesville on FB as "incredible" hours after someone was murdered is NOT America First
– Holocaust denial is NOT America First
– Calling people "Race Traitor" is NOT America First pic.twitter.com/UirKiFpOLI

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 8, 2019

Fuentes was not happy about Shapiro’s speech and has been ranting about it nonstop, demanding that Shapiro debate him. Meanwhile, despite the fact that Shapiro’s speech was a sustained attack on the alt-right, the left still attempted to shout him down. “Are you protesting the part where I’m condemning the Nazis?” Shapiro asked.

Leftist protestors shout at @BenShapiro while he denounces Nazis.

"Are you protesting the part where i'm condemning the Nazis?" pic.twitter.com/dH7aPng0O1

— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 8, 2019

Eventually, the crowd started chanting “USA!” and drowned out the hecklers until they were escorted out.

Shapiro spent a significant portion of the speech arguing that the alt-right and the far-left actually have a lot in common because both subscribe to identity politics. “The left’s view of American politics is that Americans can be identified by group. Americans are black or Hispanic or white or green or Jewish or lesbian,” Shapiro said. He added, “If you’re on the left you don’t describe people by their belief systems or by what they do, you describe them by their attributes. You describe them by group attributes. And they have a whole intersectional hierarchy deciding how victimized you are based on how many of these boxes you check. The only difference between the left and the alt-right is that they reverse the hierarchy.”

Here’s the full speech: