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Candace Owens is a conservative in every sense of the word. One that, among other things, bets on something very simple: that black people -as much as other minorities- move away from the party that has given them absolutely nothing in decades: the Democratic Party.
Such is her objective: to raise awareness and break with the political establishment. In other words, if you are black or Latino, you do not necessarily have to vote for the Democrats, which has been the tradition in the United States. And she will try to achieve this through the movement that she herself founded: the Blexit.
The media usually compares Candace Owens to Donald Trump, who during his stay in the White House came to validate the opinions and political vision of the conservative. Some don’t agree on how to define her; they say she is a famous activist among “the extreme right,” others argue that she is the new face of conservatism.
Whatever the case, Owens leaves no one indifferent, and her ideas, coupled with her political and activist approach, is a breath of fresh air in a society infested with politicking, political correctness and radical progressivism.
Owens is a black woman, but she goes against the grain of feminism and movements that call themselves anti-racist. Owens detests victimhood, especially when it is used for politics, hence her crusade against the Democratic Party.
She is against gender ideology and has spoken out against the manipulation of mainstream media and daily presents his opinions on her Twitter account, which already has 2.5 million followers.
“All people who suffer from gender dysphoria (and all other psychiatric disorders listed in the DSM-V) have a right to live however they choose, so long as they don’t trample over the rights of others in the process. Currently, transgender policies are trampling on women’s rights,” Owens tweeted on February 25th regarding the controversial Equality Act that has already passed the lower house and is supported by President Joe Biden.
Although Owens can hardly be considered a traditional Republican, it is undoubtedly the political party she must bet on if she wants to formalize, at some point, a presidential candidacy. As she said in February, “I love America. I’m thinking of running for President.”
What is her background?
In June last year, Business Insider did a review of Candace Owens’ career. It read that the conservative was born in 1990 in Stamford, Connecticut. “She studied journalism at the University of Rhode Island, but dropped out after her freshman year because of a student loan problem.”
According to the media outlet, “in 2010 she worked at Vogue magazine and in 2012, she joined a private equity firm in New York.”
Then, in 2016, she created a website called SocialAutopsy.com. On it, she “identified and exposed online stalkers.” Candace commented that she “made the site after experiencing bullying and harassment in high school.”
According to the review of her career, Business Insider outlined that Candace’s “rise to fame in the far-right world began in 2017, when she founded her YouTube channel. In her videos she criticizes the Democratic Party, the Black Lives Matter movement, feminism and expresses support for President Donald Trump.”
In 2017-2019, she served as the communications director of Turning Point USA, which is a conservative pro-Trump non-profit organization. In addition, in 2019, she married George Farmer, the son of a British Conservative Party peer. According to the Insider, their wedding was held at Trump Winery in Virginia and was attended by Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.
The article also reads that “much of her media commentary revolves around promoting black conservatism and his belief that the Democratic Party is creating and profiting from a ‘victim mentality’ among African-Americans.”
In reality, Candace Owens is not just famous among “the far right”, she is famous throughout the country. She has become popular among conservatives and Republicans and, as a result, has also gained the attention – for better or worse – of American liberals.
In another report on the activist, prepared by The Washington Post magazine, entitled “Candace Owens is the new face of black conservatism”, several details are written about the conservative’s views.
The Post magazine’s report was done in the context of the inaugural Blexit rally, the article reads that this was the official debut of “her three-month-long campaign to encourage African-Americans (and Latinos, and other minorities) to leave the Democratic Party, i.e., mount a massive ‘black exit’ from the left.”
“For too long, African-Americans have been ‘mentally enslaved’ on the Democratic plantation, and it is time for them to be ‘free.’ For sixty years blacks have voted the same. What have we gotten in return?”, Owens told the Post. “That’s the plantation. We do the work, we make sure you get elected every four years. You get the power, and we get absolutely nothing in return.”
“Since she began her political career just a year and a half ago, Owens has become a provocative force on YouTube and Twitter and, of course, as a regular contributor to Fox News. Police brutality, she says, is not a concern ‘at all’ for the black community, and accounts of rising white supremacy are media fabrications. He has amassed nearly 9 million views on YouTube and a million followers on Twitter. She has met with President Trump in the Oval Office and, most impressively, dazzled Kanye West,” reviewed the report dating back to 2019. In a matter of a year and a few months, Owens has already doubled and is on track to triple her number of Twitter followers.
According to Owens herself, her movement, Blexit, is heavily inspired by the British Brexit.
“Blexit was born out of a chance meeting with Nigel Farage in February 2018. For her entire political career -at the time, seven months- Owens had dreamed of leading a black revolt against the left,” the Post reported. “At last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, where she had participated in a panel discussing ‘how the far left and the mainstream media got in bed,’ she was sitting in the wings when Farage, the British politician who spearheaded the Brexit, walked in. It hit her like a bolt of lightning: there has to be a Blexit.”
In that piece, Owens points out that the American left thinks “black people are stupid” and, most regrettably for her, “we black people keep agreeing with them. That’s the problem.”
She has strongly criticized how the American left, especially radical movements, have taken advantage of specific circumstances to promote their agenda. For example, he strongly criticized the case of George Floyd, whom he called a person who was “no good” and whom the Black Lives Matter movement turned into a martyr.
“I don’tt support George Floyd and the media portrayal of him as a martyr for black America,” Owens said in a Facebook video. “For whatever reason, it has become fashionable in the last five or six years to turn criminals into overnight heroes and I find that despicable.”
Candace also argued in the Post story that “the left’s advocacy of permanent victimhood is one of their most insidious lies.”
“It’s because of racism, because of an imaginary white boogeyman, that you’re never going to succeed.” Argued Candace to the magazine, explaining that she prefers action over that kind of mentality. “We call it the Oppression Olympics.”
When Candace was asked if, a person belonging to a minority, be it skin color, gender or sexual preference, has a more difficult life or fewer opportunities than a white man, Owens commented not only that there is no such thing, but also that, “if there’s anything in this society, it’s almost a level of black privilege now.”
The conservative’s argument is that, in today’s society, it is all too easy to single out white people as racist for any opinion. And that, far from being a privilege, is a punishment.
A fierce critic of the promoters of systemic racism
The 31-year-old has become a political celebrity and a well-known conservative activist. Her style and ideas go against the political establishment; and it works for her, because her growth is remarkable and her influence is growing.
Owens argues that there is no systemic racism in America. Part of her premise is that, among other things, beyond the fact that there may be racism from individuals, the country does not have racist laws; or the system does not prevent you from advancing because of your skin color.
“There will always be someone ignorant who hates someone because of the color of their skin (…) the question is whether it’s affecting me to get from point A to point B (…) Is it a social thing? Are there laws that prevent me, as a black woman, from doing something that a white man can do? And the answer is no,” Owens told the Post.
In fact, Owens is also critical of how education and institutions in the U.S. are being affected by the new racial justice narrative: “I won’t be sending my children to any government-run school. It’s time for parents to seriously consider homeschooling. They are mass-producing ‘woke’ activist childrem who can’t do basic math or write a proper sentence. Racism, hate and anger are now the academic standard,” she tweeted on February 25th.
Owens represents an anomaly in the American communications establishment. Few African-American women champion social conservatism in public opinion as much as Candace, especially at this level of influence.
Her Twitter account has become her own tribune of thought. There she spreads her opinions, denunciations or simple criticisms; perhaps her success lies precisely in the countercultural nature of her positions.
At the end of the day, Owens is betting on minorities. Those like the blacks who, instead of joining the masses that follow the Democrats, are waiting for a leadership that represents their values and beliefs that differ from Woke America.
In that sense, Candace resembles Trump, once the most voted incumbent president and the Republican who polled the most votes among the black and Latino communities for several decades. Yet she also has innate qualities to accomplish things where Trump still and with his success fell short, such as drawing even more black and Hispanic conservatives to the Republican Party.
If there is anyone who can pull it off, with her flaws and virtues, it is hert. The idea may crazy and too utopian, at least today, but if there is something to be learned in politics, and especially in the new right, it is that communicational talent and countercultural charisma are gaining ground as never before in history. And that is where Owens best puts up a fight.
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
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In my seventy + years I have never heard or seen a woman more courageous and honest than Candice Owens. The problem is that the Left are going to do everything possible, including print lies, fix elections and silence conservative &/or libertarian voices. The World needs people like Candace to stand up to the bullies, thugs and tyrants. I hope and pray that she never backs down. I am 100 percent behind her.