Conservative commentator and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro on Wednesday received backlash on social media for comparing lines at election polling places to lines at Disneyland while criticizing claims that Georgia’s new sweeping voting law is racist.
In a segment on “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the host commented on claims from President Biden and others that Georgia’s voting law is “Jim Crow in the 21st century” because of its strict limits on voting in the state, including requiring a photo ID for absentee ballots and making it a crime for people who aren’t poll workers to provide food and water to voters standing in line.
In response, Shapiro said that “Jim Crow explicitly created a separate system of law for Black Americans and treated them as inferior,” adding, “There’s nothing in the law like that.”
“That’s not only an overstatement, it’s just an outright lie,” he argued.
Shapiro then referenced claims that voters of color in Georgia “faced hours-long queues at the polls,” pushing back by arguing that “voter suppression doesn’t involve long lines any more than long lines at Disneyland are ride suppression.”
“You know what voter suppression is?” he added. “Voter suppression is where you don’t get to vote.”
The segment quickly went viral on Twitter, with users pushing back on Shapiro’s analysis and one person in particular arguing that waiting in line for a ride on vacation does not compare to leaving work to cast a vote in an election.
Others mocked Shapiro himself, and “Space Mountain” started trending on the platform as several users jokingly argued that Shapiro wouldn’t be allowed on the Disney ride, claiming his short stature would not meet the minimum height requirement.
Democrats have continued to rail against the Georgia law, arguing that it was a political move by Republicans to target African Americans and other minority voters, who turned out in record numbers to secure wins for Democrats in recent elections.
However, Republicans have supported the legislation, along with similar ones being proposed in other states across the country, as a way to restore faith in the voting process after former President Trump and his allies advanced unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud with the surge in absentee ballots in the 2020 presidential election.