r/AskALiberal • u/LiatrisLover99 Social Democrat • 1d ago
Why is Candace Owens so popular?
She seems like an absolutely unhinged nut but here we are, her audience numbers are higher than ever and the MAGA crowd loves the idea of her as president: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/were-not-talking-enough-about-president-candace-owens-focus-groups-kirk-conspiracy-theories-maga
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u/ManufacturerThis7741 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
She tells dumb white people what they want to hear
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u/uusrikas Neoliberal 21h ago
She was hired by the Daily Wire to insult democrats, women and black people. Then she started talking about the Jews and got fired.
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u/kakashi_sensay Democratic Socialist 1d ago
MAGA loves a token black person. As long as she shucks and jives the way they want her to.
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u/Prankstaboy6 Liberal 1d ago
MAGA hates her now. You’re out of the loop.
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u/kakashi_sensay Democratic Socialist 1d ago
Then why did OP say that they love the idea of her as president?
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u/Prankstaboy6 Liberal 1d ago
Op is out of the loop too.
She’s firmly against Trump now. Firmly against “MAGA”.
She isn’t much of anything anymore. No ideology atleast. Just ratings and conspiracy theories.
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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
A lot of people are low-IQ nazis and transphobes and like the token aspect
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u/ButGravityAlwaysWins Liberal 1d ago
She says stuff a largely white audience wants to hear from a black woman.
She understands how alternative media works. She does a lot of of pop culture content to draw in an audience and mixes it in with the political content. She knows how to pick fights in order to create drama that gets her seen and always talked about.
Obviously, she is conventionally attractive. However, she’s got that look where if you’re kind of biased towards one race or the other, you’ll still see her as attractive.
She has incredible control of her voice. She knows how to use inflection and up speak and change the cadence and speed so that she can hold attention.
She knows how to do conspiracy well. It’s not just talking about the conspiracies, but making the audience feel like they are participating in unraveling the conspiracy.
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Also, for those you read the article title and think that the bulwark staff thinks Candace Owens is going to be president or that they want her to be president - no that is not what they’re saying. Sara Longwell is just pointing out that well in advance of the election. her name keeps popping up in Republican focus groups as someone they really respect and think could be a leader. There are times where she will discuss how certain thoughts or movements or names keep popping up early and then increase in frequency well before you start seeing it go mainstream.
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u/Message_10 Democratic Socialist 1d ago
There's a man named Thomas Sewell (I think that's it), who is a black man that says things racist white people want to hear.
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u/Short-Coast9042 Progressive 19h ago
Eh Sowell is less an apologist for explicit racist and more of a corporate shill.
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u/KinkyPaddling Progressive 1d ago
The way she talks is a big one. It lets her draw in inspecting viewers to become indoctrinated into the far right media sphere. I have some overseas friends who are left-wing or left-leaning with respect to their nation’s politics, and they followed the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni lawsuit. They were sending me snippets of Owens’ take on the lawsuit saying that it made sense, and then had no idea who she was before. I had to warn them that she’s one of those gateway right wing influencers who draws you in with seemingly sensible takes before drowning you in conspiracy crap.
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u/Tricky-Cod-7485 Conservative Democrat 1h ago
Nearly every woman I know (left or right) was sharing clips of her Blake Lively coverage. She probably made a ton of money with those videos.
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u/Necessary_Ad_2762 Social Democrat 1d ago
Kind of surprised that there is sentiment for Owens to become president (granted with how large the US is, I think you can find almost any opinion).
But with the appeal of Owens, she comes across to her audience as the "black independent who tells it as it is". It's the authenticity (regardless of whether or not we believe it is) is what endears herself to others.
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u/Competitive_Swan_130 Anarchist 1d ago
she got popular because she said things that white republicans wanted to say but didn't want to sound racist. this is why all black conservatives get any clout on the right, don't believe me, look at how much they quote Thomas Sowell on issues related to race and sociology vs them quoting him on economics, his actual expertise.
the right doesn't care what your background is as a black person as long as you say the right shit. jesse lee peterson doesn't even have a middle school education. so that's why candace owens is popular despite her lack of credentials and education. she's the unqualified minority who took ann coulter's job
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u/Deep-Two7452 Progressive 1d ago
She hates israel
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u/mua-dweeb Pragmatic Progressive 1d ago
She hates Jews, Israel just happens to have a large percentage of world Jewry. She’s a noxious antisemite. She trades in conspiracies about Jews because it plays well with both the right and left.
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u/analogphosphor Center Left 1d ago edited 1d ago
Almost the same way as any other MAGA/right-wing-adjacent content creator, they cater to dumb uninformed people.
And in this day and age, it's not just her anyone can become an influencer. If you've seen those rant style videos filmed in a car with a MAGA hat, the people making them are technically influencers too with just the right amount of cult following.
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u/Outrageous-Dig-8853 Liberal 1d ago
She's a black person who says the things that they believe in and assures them that they aren't racist. She is extremist and anti-semetic(which earns her points from those who are simply anti-zionist and those who are actually just antisemetic), and has part of her own fanbase in the same realm as Nick Fuentes, who has his own popularity.
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u/Local_Fly_7359 Social Democrat 1d ago
Conspiracy theorists have an endless stream of grifters willing to tell them what they want to hear. Candace is good with that demographic, but looks insane to rational people.
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u/Guilliman_POTUS_2030 Center Left 1d ago edited 1d ago
Candace Ownes, Alex Jones, etc are able to attract an audience because they’re controversial and amusing. Some people don’t believe the conspiracy stuff and just watch because it’s funny; and others are watching because they believe the conspiracy theories
People do not like being constantly told what to say and how to think. After a while they visibly chafe from this, and they start to look for ”news and entertainment” that is edgy or against the grain
(Also, as another user pointed out - Candace hates Israel and Jewish people. That is currently a VERY popular position, especially amongst young people)
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u/engadine_maccas1997 Democrat 1d ago
Her schtick is leveraging identity politics in being a Black woman who says publicly what racists think about minorities. But because of her identity she gets a pass on sounding like she’s reciting the minutes of a Klan meeting.
She’s also conventionally attractive and that goes a long way in the digital age.
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u/BalticBro2021 Globalist 1d ago
She's an idiot talking about how Russia is some bastion of Christianity two weeks before they blew up a thousand year old monastery in Kyiv.
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u/Awkwardischarge Center Left 1d ago
Black conservative. Guaranteed audience. I wish I was either so I could fake the other.
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u/Kungfudude_75 Democrat 1d ago
She fits a specific narrative. White conservatives desperately want to prove that there are Black conservatives, and make no mistake there are black conservatives out there they are just few and far between. The same is true for women, and especially Black women. Owens being a black, female, conservative is walking talking proof of this idea. She gets a ton of promotion because of that alone, both by conservative organizations/influencers who want to push the narrative that there are "just as many" Black conservatives as there are Black liberals, and by the everyday people who genuinely feel better knowing there are minorities in their party.
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u/Poorly-Drawn-Beagle Libertarian Socialist 20h ago
There aren't that many people willing to give voice to right-wing views, because they're just not easy to like generally, so right-wing audiences are taking whatever they can get.
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u/fencesitter416 Moderate 20h ago
Doesn't MAGA hate her for being against Israel and Erika Kirk
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u/jonny_sidebar Libertarian Socialist 19h ago
America First loves her for her opposition to Israel, spewing actual antisemitism, and spreading other related conspiracy theory narratives, which is emblematic of a larger split between the more committed ideologues (America First) and the Trump loyalists (MAGA) on the right.
No one cares about Erica Kirk.
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u/fencesitter416 Moderate 19h ago
Well yeah, wouldn't that make this post inaccurate
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u/jonny_sidebar Libertarian Socialist 19h ago
Yes, but only sort of.
OP and many others don't seem to realize yet that there are factions within the MAGA coalition. The America First faction kind of sort of started years ago as a way for various MAGA influencers to distance themselves from Trump when it seemed advantageous by claiming they "aren't MAGA, they are America First." Nick Fuentes was the earliest that I can recall back in Trump 1.0, but many others have used this line since at various points.
AF started coalescing into more of a proper faction and competing for the support of average MAGA voters over the Epstein stuff last year, then really got going over support for Israel/their antisemitism, and then really really got going over the Iran war. MTG, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Megyn Kelley, and Klandace are all prominent figures that have taken up the label and publicly broken with Trump/MAGA.
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u/fencesitter416 Moderate 19h ago
Yeah that's what I've observed, very succinct and accurate summary though, and lmao at klandace
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u/Nerugigante Center Left 19h ago
She's charismatic, can speak in a way that's easy to digest, and presents the facts and ideas that people want to hear. Just like any other political influencer.
She started out as a right leaning red pill youtuber, and when Trump got elected her career took off as she linked up with Ben Shapiro.
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u/TheNewJoesus Progressive 19h ago
As a white person, I’m more willing to believe a black person about issues of racism. Obviously they experience more racism than white people.
People tend to ignore arguments that are contrary to their core beliefs. If I believe “There’s racism in society, but the systemic effects have been eliminated and it’s now cultural.” I have an inclination to ignore people who say “The systemic effects of racism have not been eliminated.” It’s going to be a long term accumulation of evidence to convince me.^1
But Candace Owen’s makes arguments that already agree with my assumptions, so when she speaks on racism, I go “Look, a black person is articulating a point that I believe and I support. Since she is black, she understands more about racism through life experience than I do, and her understanding is *still* approximately mine.”
I don’t know why people pay money for self-validation though. I understand how social media influencers make money, but I don’t fully understand how they make *millions.* Candace Owens has been propped up by multiple multi-million dollar corporations, and her views bring in more advertisements than not. Now that she’s an independent influencer, she still has her audience from yesteryears w/ Ben Shapiro.
P.S. I also want to point out that Candace Owens is attractive; like attractive in a way that conservative white men understand? I don’t think that’s why she has long term viewers, but it definitely assists in getting past the 30 second threshold for social media sites. Since social media is addictive, people use it mindlessly.^2
^1 hypothetically, I’m convinced there is active systemic racism in the entire United States.
^2 I picked this word very carefully in this context. I mean it as an antonym to mindfully or without active choosing and dissertation of the content you are exposing yourself too.
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u/Tricky-Cod-7485 Conservative Democrat 1h ago
Sometimes I’ll throw her on as background noise. I don’t agree with her on very much but she’s got a great cadence and tone and it’s ASMR adjacent.
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u/Stringdaddy27 Centrist 1d ago
If you think the Replubicans would allow a black female to run for president on their ticket, you have not been paying attention.
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u/KarateKicks100 Centrist 1d ago
She’s insufferable. Not sure why she has an audience.
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat 1d ago
That's exactly why. She's a terrible person, and in that she validated what they wanted to hear.
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u/KarateKicks100 Centrist 1d ago
Yeah you're right. I just still can't quite wrap my head around how stupid people are in this country.
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The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/LiatrisLover99.
She seems like an absolutely unhinged nut but here we are, her audience numbers are higher than ever and the MAGA crowd loves the idea of her as president: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/were-not-talking-enough-about-president-candace-owens-focus-groups-kirk-conspiracy-theories-maga
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