Actor-director says something positive about Ben Shapiro and Twitter erupts with outrage (Update: Duplass apologizes)

This isn’t what I would call a terribly important story but it is a telling one. An actor and director named Mark Duplass who has a career in independent film and television said something nice about Ben Shapiro and was immediately dragged for it so hard by the left that he deleted his tweet. Here’s the tweet in question which, ironically, was Duplass suggesting his liberal followers reach across the aisle a bit to someone he’d found to be “a genuine person”:

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I should note here that Duplass has long expressed an interest and a willingness to cross the aisle a bit. He’s even appeared on Steven Crowder’s show a couple times. More on that in a moment. In any case, the outrage over his comment about Shapiro was immediate and intense. Here’s a sample:

Another person who weighed in was Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn. Gunn made it clear he’s not a fan of Shapiro but basically argued that in the scheme of Republican perfidy, Duplass transgression was a minor one:

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1019717607312699392

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I like James Gunn’s movies and I also really enjoy his often lengthy rants about movies, several of which I’ve read. He seems like an interesting guy that I could enjoy talking to about things other than politics. Of course, that assumes that you believe, as people on the right do, that there is more to life than politics. It’s not clear many on the left still believe that.

That said, I think Gunn falls short here. He has a good point about the left’s collective outrage meter being stuck on 11 at all times in a way that renders most of their outrage into a constant and not very interesting din. Unfortunately, Gunn doesn’t help his case much by adding to that din with his trashing of Shapiro.

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I don’t know Shapiro well but I did work with him for a time and he’s even done a small favor for one of my kids. So, his comments aside, I concur with Duplass’ assessment that he’s a genuinely decent person whether you agree with his politics or not. But you get the impression Gunn is worried the mob might turn on him as well if he doesn’t direct enough harsh language at Shapiro.

Rather than feeding the mob the Shapiro-bashing it obviously craved, it would have been better if Gunn had simply pointed out the mob was overreacting. And that last tweet really is obnoxious and unfair. Duplass didn’t tweet that liberals should follow Shapiro to be kind to him, he said it to try to foster some discussion across the aisle. What Gunn did is reinforce the existing wall between the two sides. Whatever happened to bridges not walls?

Again, I genuinely like James Gunn so I’m not looking to make the same mistake by trashing him the way he trashed Shapiro. The whole episode is not that important in and of itself but I think it’s one more dot to connect in the ongoing sense that the left had made intolerance into it’s chief virtue. This is the left trashing people on their own side to own the cons.

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Finally, as promised, here’s Duplass on Steven Crowder talking about the response he got to a previous appearance on the show from a few people on the left:

Update: This was predictable. Duplass has now issued an apology for ever saying a kind word about a Shapiro. He has been beaten into submission by the SJW mob and now he’s tapping out, like many others before him:

Update: Some reactions to Duplass’ apology:

As usual, Bret Weinstein nails it.

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David Strom 10:30 AM | November 06, 2024
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