It's hard to say which is less surprising: that far-right troll Ben Shapiro tried to indoctrinate a bunch of little kids into the idea that "taxes are theft," or that one of those little kids clapped back at him better than most adults could.
Either way, these are both things that happened recently in Florida, during an appearance of Shapiro's at a public library. The ostensible point of the appearance was to teach kids about government in a "fashion that kids can understand," but in practice it was just an attempt to brainwash them with far-right ideology.
And one kid wasn't having it. When Shapiro went in on taxes, he flatly told Shapiro that what he was saying wasn't true. See the moment below.
Shapiro's discussion of taxation went off the rails immediately. He claimed:
"The government takes all your money and gives you very little in return."
To which one of the eight-year-olds in attendance immediately shot back.
"That’s not true."
Shapiro then tried to soldier on, and it only got worse. When he claimed that it's "kind of true" depending on "the kind of government," another child called out, "That's what taxes are for!" Shapiro then soldiered on again, telling the children:
"Yeah that is what taxes are for, but taxes are theft, children... They're supposed to spend it on things like the police. They’re not supposed to spend it on just random projects or silly things that they have in their head.”
To this, another youngster had just one thing to say.
"Yeah he's way off base about that."
Shapiro, as always, was undeterred, moving on to mock his home state of California as a place "where monsters roam the streets" (also not true, for the record), and then told the kids that Democratic President Joe Biden "doesn't care" about America. Charming.
While there were children in the crowd who seemed to be on his side, a lot of the more outspoken kids seemed to think Shapiro was bonkers. And on Twitter, people found it absolutely delicious.
Any way we can get these kids on the ballot for this fall's elections?
