By Aunt America
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinions on ScoonTV
Many conservatives can point to the line where Candace Owens lost them. For a growing number of them, it was her comments following, weirdly, the assassination of her friend and former co-worker, Charlie Kirk.
While many Trump-Vance supporters were already at odds with Owens, it’s not difficult for MAGA members in the public eye to know the proper way to handle the horrific violence of the Kirk assassination, even if they struggled with the language to express their shock, grief, and anger. It’s a rhetorical lay-up. You say you’re shocked. You say you’re grieving. You may even say you’re angry.
And then you wait.
If you have questions, you unobtrusively approach Those Who Know About These Things and begin your sotto voice investigation. You do not stand up in the middle of a funeral and yell into a bullhorn about Jewish conspiracies. That is the agreed-upon procedure in moments of national emergency.
But even if you wanted to say something more piercing and accurate to mark the occasion, you wait. The conventional wisdom dictates that what you do in such moments is retreat on the matter, gather your thoughts as the numbness fades, and wait for the New Year or the first anniversary of his death or even next Election Day to share them.
Candace Owens did not wait. Instead, she began alleging that Kirk was bullied by pro-Israel donors, then questioned the circumstances of the assassination. Many Trump voters, including Kirk’s widow, Erika, asked her to stop. She did not stop. Candace Owens insisted Candace Owens, wanted answers.
As for me and my house, our Candace Line was her claim that the Moon landing was a hoax. There are certain places to which I cannot go, and one of them is ignoring independent data from within a sullen Soviet Union and a bunch of rocks you can’t possibly find on Earth.
But even before she reached that place, long gone was the pretty, expressive Catholic mother I once admired. I wanted to ship her a full self-driving Tesla so she could at least remain on the road of reality and stop sailing off the Alex Jones Expressway Bridge.
Still, I was late to the Great Backing-Away where Owens is concerned. Those coming even later have now joined the majority of MAGA in their “I Hope She Gets the Help She Needs” phase of her career.
That’s how these sorts of things typically unravel. First, there’s “Wait–what did she say?” Maybe she needs more clicks. It’s all about the views.
Then, “She’s been… odd… lately. I don’t know what’s going on there.”
Then, “Yeah, I’m done.”
Now we’ve hit the rarest point of the cycle, the beyond-self-destructed Charlie Sheen stage: “I hope she gets the help she needs.” Maybe she will, in the form of realizing that MAGA has a long leash but not infinite patience. Maybe she won’t and risks spending the rest of her career hawking Patriot Waterproof Matches and posting headlines such as BREAKING: NEW EVIDENCE OF FBI MASSING POINT LOCATED IN WATER PIPELINE. Where mainstream MAGA is concerned, Owens’ only move at this point is to come all the way back around as an engagement organizer, uninterviewed and unburdened by her own franchise.
People mourn differently. Human design demands a wide range of reactions to a shock. Ten minutes after my father died, my mother looked at me and asked if there were any ice cream bars in the freezer. She was grieving. She was just grieving with an emotional support Eskimo Pie in her hand.
Owens and Charlie Kirk seemed to be close at one time. Perhaps this is how Owens is processing this awful, sudden grief– it cannot be possible that one man with one bullet had ended the life of this brilliant, engaging young man. Therefore, it had to be a coordinated strike from the FBI, aided by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and conducted by more than one shooter.
She was not, it must be noted, asked to speak at Kirk’s public memorial. Turns out that one of the people put off by Owens’ particular form of grieving was Erika Kirk.
MAGA has traditionally prided itself on its all-hands-on-deck approach when it comes to unorthodox views. Pro-life advocates will sit with fiscally conservative Democrats, who will sit with Log Cabin Republicans, who will sit with libertarians. This is healthy in a movement– it broadens the tent, prevents thought from stagnating, and provides an entry point for disaffected liberals like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan.
Rejecting political purity tests also means embracing the willingness to question the status quo, and that’s healthy for everybody. Silence for the sake of party unity means that when the truth finally comes out, it’s always uglier and far more damaging than anyone thought. Uncomfortable, tone-deaf speech is still free speech. The whole planet got a fast and heavy lesson on that during COVID.
Why does the left win elections in city centers and fully own the blue states? Because these cats know how to organize and stay mission-focused. Individualistic, libertarian-spectrum ones will scatter if they even smell a multi-cat carrier. MAGA unites when a third-world despot is scooped from his very bed in the middle of the night, but when it comes to the real grind of politics, the everyday bickering that can erode a movement as fast as it was built, it’s a burning garbage truck.
MAGA prides itself on calling out its own, and did so over President Trump’s bizarre and vicious post about the murder of liberal filmmaker Rob Reiner. The left, they might point out, will happily vote in a President accused several times of sexual assault and then burn the Capitol down over a Supreme Court appointee who looks like he couldn’t credibly attack a one-celled organism.
But the aftershock of Charlie Kirk’s death, this triangulated conversation between Owens, Kirk, and conservative media has spilled over to a reality show-style brawl. MAGA doesn’t need this right now. Not in a midterm year. Erika Kirk really doesn’t. Not for the rest of her life.
The Owens situation is unique in that it included typical domestic political enemies that red states love to hate. Here, the FBI has contributed to its own transparency crisis as recently as the assassination attempt on President Trump, when, just hours after the incident, an agent took a garden hose to the concrete roof where the sniper perched. If you’re wondering why Owens has a fanbase… that’s why. Hoses before sunset.
Here’s what’s especially significant about the Owens-Kirk situation: She’s still on the air. MAGA doesn’t want her deplatformed or dead; they just want her to maybe give the grieving widow more than a couple of days after the act before implying she’s part of a cover-up.
Owens could serve as a fracture point for MAGA if the movement lets it. That is the problem with winning; everybody wants the mic and nobody wants to be the still, small voice of reason. In personality-based movements such as Trump’s, they had better find a way to stop swiping at one another. Once Trump’s term is over, a less charismatic figurehead might not be able to hold the balance.
The quiet part is, many of them are thinking, “We can still walk side by side at the Respect For Life March this month, Candace, but we won’t be asking for selfies, all right?”
Not every burned bridge lights up the night sky. Most times, people simply find an alternate route.
Curtis Scoon is the founder of ScoonTv.com Download the ScoonTv App to join our weekly livestream every Tuesday @ 8pm EST! Support true independent media. Become a VIP member www.scoontv.com/vip-signup/ and download the ScoonTv App from your App Store.
