Tipsheet

Ben Shapiro's Case For High IQ Conservatism

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  April 16, 2026 2:00 PM

Ben Shapiro, Daily Wire co-founder and conservative commentator, delivered his first speech of the year at the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, where he criticized several fallen conservative figures and made the case for what he described as “high-IQ conservatism.”

While President Trump won in 2024 with a broad, big-tent coalition, Shapiro and others have noted that the downside of an expanding coalition is that it can also open the door to fringe and sometimes extremist voices. 

Within conservatism, this has produced a range of grifters who, on closer inspection, often advance views closely aligned with progressive talking points. Critics point to figures such as Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, and others, accusing them of spreading unsupported claims about who killed Charlie Kirk, portraying Israel in extreme and hostile terms, and promoting Islam in ways they argue are inconsistent with traditional conservative positions.

Ben Shapiro has begun to make this a central theme of his political commentary and has consistently pushed back against extremist voices, both on the left and now on the right.

"You are indeed rolling in low IQ horesh*t if you believe, as Tucker Carlson does, that the president is a ‘slave’ to Israel, or that Alex Jones is a ‘prophet,’ or that the chief opposition to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was ‘globohomo,’ or that Russia is wonderfully run, or that Sharia Law produces wonderfully clean and robust civilizations, or that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, or that Nick Fuentes is less evil than Ted Cruz," Shapiro declared.

He went on to describe those these speakers appeal to as "low-IQ."

“And worst of all, you are preying on low-IQ people when you cynically humor all of the foregoing for clicks and cash, as Megyn Kelly does,” Shapiro said. “Nobody is upset with Megyn Kelly’s facile, trite, hackneyed takes on Middle Eastern politics. People are upset with her absolute cowardice and annoyed by the fact that, as a 55-year-old person, she cosplays courage like a clout-chasing 16-year-old girl.” 

The conservative commentator went on to make the case for "high-IQ" conservatism.

“High-IQ conservatism rests on four foundations: free minds, free markets, public virtue, and a properly constructed government designed to protect these first three values,” he said. 

“Low IQ grievance ideology also argues that public virtue is a sham. The church your parents sent you to as a child? It’s probably fundamentally broken. Either it’s cucked, or it’s intolerant,” Shapiro said.

The ideology says “the people we really need to emulate are true heroes like alleged rapist Andrew Tate and role models like Clavicular,” he added. “Or people spouting new forms of Christianity that are actually old forms of non-Christianity that revive the Marcion heresy and revel in attributing literally everything to demons, from aliens to underwater sea creatures to strange nighttime dog scratches.”

This comes as lines to see the conservative speaker stretched for blocks, despite criticism from many that he has lost his appeal to sensationalists like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens.