Missed Opportunities: An Examination of Candace Owens’ Rise to Power

Long before Candace Owens had the #1 podcast in the world, she was a quaint YouTuber known as RedPillBlack. Until July 9, 2017, Candace was the epitome of a social justice warrior, but it was on that day that she posted a somewhat satirical video entitled “Mom, Dad….I’m a Conservative.” The video was her coming out as a conservative to her parents, in the same way a gay or lesbian might do so.

Candace became an instant star on the right, as she was a highly sought-after demographic, being both black and female. In the aftermath of the Donald Trump election, there was a great hunger among the BoomerCons to prove that democrats were the real racists, and Owens was extremely helpful in that regard. Classical liberal, homosexual, and purchaser of children Dave Rubin took a particular interest in RedPillBlack, due to the similarities with his own transition from The Young Turks to Con Inc. So, on 9/28/2017, Rubin invited Owens to come on his podcast to elaborate on her conversion story. This is also where her entire persona could have fallen apart.

In her interview with Rubin, Owens described her “red pill” moment as being tied to an anti-bullying site that she was trying to create through a crowdfunding campaign. During the process, her liberal friends (namely Zoë Quinn of GamerGate infamy) attacked her for her project. Candace did not elaborate on the nature of the website, and Dave did not ask any follow-up questions. But Owens’ story got the attention of many anti-SJW commentators of the time, such as Tree of Logic and Andy Warski. They started making videos detailing the true nature of the site, called “Social Autopsy.”

The site, which was partially functional, was designed to be a repository of problematic social media posts, which could then be linked to a person’s real name, address, and place of employment. The idea behind it was to create a kinder social media in which spicy posts could be punished by shaming the individual. This would also include children eventually. Candace’s critics noted that this Orwellian site was ripe for abuse and could be used to actually incite bullying or even create false accusations against an enemy (e.g., by creating a fake screenshot).

Candace Owens mostly ignored or mocked her critics, while denying any wrongdoing. The uproar eventually reached Dave Rubin’s ears, as he was seen as complicit in Owens’ contrived story as well as her nefarious ideas. He invited her back on his show for a sort of debate with one of her detractors on 11/7/2017, which resulted in a sliding doors moment. Given the right opponent, Candace could have been exposed as a fraud and exiled from the right. Given the wrong one, she could easily exonerate herself and become entrenched in Con Inc.

Since Dave Rubin was wholly unfamiliar with the YouTubers that were making content about Candace Owens, he allowed Candace herself to choose her debate opponent. And Candace knew exactly how to play this. She chose to take on transvestite political commentator Blaire White. Even Blaire seemed confused why he was chosen (Blaire hadn’t even make a video about Candace), and it actually came up during the discussion. Candace explained that it was for two reasons: (a) the dramatic irony was irresistible for a “transitioned person” who rejects Candace’s political transition and (b) because the other YouTubers were “bottom-feeders” just looking to grift off of Candace’s name.

Right from the jump, Owens created a hostile atmosphere by capitalizing on the trans issue. When first asked to explain Social Autopsy, Owens instead issued a lengthy disclaimer about how she would not be respecting Blaire’s pronouns and referred to him as a man, which he is. This was extremely shrewd in that it raised the temperature in the room immediately so that the discussion could be derailed and not focused on the facts. Candace was well aware that minimizing the focus on Social Autopsy was the key to victory.

Dave Rubin, who struggled throughout to moderate this debacle, then attempted to get the podcast back on track. But once Candace started speaking again, she instead described a hate crime incident from when she was in high school! A group of boys apparently left insulting and threatening texts on her voicemail, which she reported to the school. The police and FBI eventually got involved, and even the NAACP. Her family was paid a settlement of $37,500. There was actually a great deal of anachronism in this story, in that Candace described her current views of the situation as a conservative as the same feelings she had at the time (e.g., hating the NAACP). It’s highly unlikely she would have hated the NAACP as a liberal black teenager.

Candace described this event as the inspiration for Social Autopsy. She said that her vision was to archive what children said so that schools could use the database as a sort of social credit system. So, for example, she said that a school could punish a student for saying mean things by keeping them off the football team. Candace called this a “petty” punishment, but in fact this could actually derail a child’s future, especially one that was looking at becoming a collegiate athlete.

And that should have been game/set/match. Any person who thought and still thinks that a Chinese-style social credit system is a good idea for children should be ostracized from the right wing. Of course, that didn’t happen, because that was just a few seconds of a conversation that meandered into all manner of irrelevant minutiae.

The majority of the episode is nearly worthless, since Blaire and Candace continually spoke over each other. Candace was very adept at reducing the debate to a semantic argument regarding concepts like “doxing” and “splash page.” Blaire focused on the intent of what Candace was doing instead of actually attacking what Candace verbalized as her Orwellian vision, one that was too extreme even for the most far left SJWs of the day.

Because of her opponent and the contentiousness of the debate, Owens was able to manipulate Dave Rubin and his audience into believing she was the victim in all this. In fact, Charlie Kirk was so unbothered by this that he announced she would be TPUSA’s director of urban engagement just two weeks after this episode aired (11/21/2017). This was, bar none, the worst decision of Kirk’s very successful career. From that point on, Candace Owens remained employed by TPUSA for a full year and a half, and she is now hellbent on destroying the organization, as she alleges that it had something to do with Kirk’s untimely demise. But because of the perfect storm of circumstances, the artist formerly known as RedPillBlack manipulated her way to conservative stardom, the right’s very own DEI monster is now come to devour its creators.