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Jan. 1, 2026 - Lionel Nation
21:22
The Anti-Candace Owens Online Hate Grift Exposed and Explained

The Anti-Candace Owens Online Hate Grift Exposed and Explained

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Do you know what people are asking me today?
But the question is in comments and friends and people kind of in the biz, they're asking, why does everybody hate Candace Owens all of a sudden?
I mean, there are, I think if you looked at those of us who, I don't really support her, I suppose what she's oppose, support, what am I saying, what she's doing and support her approach and support and encourage her getting to the bottom of who killed and assassinated Charlie Kirk.
But people are saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's not it.
Why are people so mean?
Why are they, is there money in this?
Is somebody or some groups paying these folks?
It's like they almost don't care about finding the truth about Charlie.
Even during the height of JFK, I mean, there were those who, kind of like the Warren Commission crowd, they didn't really attack.
I mean, they did to an extent, but not like this.
I've never seen anything as virulent as this.
And what is happening around Candace Owens right now looks kind of confusing on the surface, but when you slow it down and you actually follow what's going on, the story follows a very simple pattern that has played out many times on the internet.
And the reason there is so much energy, noise, and obsession focus on attacking her is not because she suddenly became uniquely dangerous to so many disparate and detached and unconnected people, because everyone independently reached the same conclusion at the same time.
It's interesting.
It's because attention is money and profit and clicks and metrics and controversy is fuel.
It's fodder.
And don't be surprised if some of the bigger names were being paid by, I don't know, some group, who knows who, to kind of teach her a lesson.
So that later on people can look back and say, remember what happened to Candace?
You don't want to be another Candace.
Ooh, no, no.
See, controversy is fuel.
It's money.
And Candace Owens is one of the biggest attention magnets online now.
So you're asking, well, why are you supporting her and not attacking her like the rest of the people?
Ah!
Because if you know anything about me, whenever people are going that way, there's something wrong with it.
I go this way.
Am I a contrarian, perhaps?
But I look at this very carefully and I'm saying I'm with Candace and her particular focus on this one.
Not necessarily every claim about Mitch Snow, but her approach.
You see, when someone with her reach becomes the center of a story, everything around that story becomes more valuable to people who live off of clicks and views and engagement.
That's the way it is.
And listen, it's not just that.
People in TV do it.
People in radio do it.
People on magazines and TMZ.
And we used to have the National Inquirer.
And, you know, that's news.
If it leads, it bleeds, you know.
But in the online world, attention works like oxygen.
Like it focuses everything.
Influencers and commentators and media personalities all need it to survive, to jump on to glum, to jump on board the bandwagon.
If they are not part of the conversation, then they disappear.
And when a topic is hot, it's like anything else.
It's like in radio, you know, top 40, we have, you know, the top 40, top 10.
But when a topic is hot, when it's red hot, staying silent feels kind of risky.
You're wondering, what am I doing wrong?
So when a person is trending, and you go to X, you look at this, talking about them becomes almost mandatory for anyone who's trying to stay relevant.
And Candace Owens is trending constantly, so attacking her becomes an easy decision and an easy way to insert yourself into the spotlight without really having to build something new from scratch.
See how that works?
You see, you don't need original reporting.
You don't need any deep knowledge.
You don't need to know what's going on.
You just need to take a strong position and press publish or go to print or whatever the phrase is.
Print.
See, this is where incentives matter.
You see, my friend, calm, careful, dutiful intellectual analysis does not spread well.
Saying, I'm not sure, doesn't go viral.
Walking through timelines step by step carefully doesn't generate outrage.
What does spread is certainty and anger, red-hot anger and accusations.
And the internet rewards such confidence even when it's fake and fuguesy and ersats and not synthetic.
It rewards raw emotion over what we would call precision.
It rewards and awards and applauds speed over accuracy.
Just get it out.
Be first.
Attacking Candace Owens checks every box that algorithms like.
Her name triggers reactions.
Her audience responds.
Her critics pile on.
That creates engagement and engagement gets boosted.
And you know what it gets?
You know what it does about?
Money?
No, this.
It's my favorite old joke.
In any event, there's also a herd effect.
You've heard me talk about Gustave Le Bon and oclocracy and murmur issues, how schools of people work.
When people see a large number of accounts attacking the same person, they figure, come on, let's go.
There's gold in them thar trolls.
And they use similar language and it creates social pressure and it's perfect.
And others join in not because they have careful evaluation techniques to review the facts.
No, no, no.
It's because it feels safer to stand with a crowd than against it.
Defending Candace or even questioning the attacks can bring backlash.
Bring it on, Bubba.
Bring it on.
See, attacking her is safer.
It signals that you are on the approved side of the argument.
It's like during COVID.
Take your shot, right?
See?
See?
It's called being a quizzling.
It's having no balls.
You want to be on the approved side of the argument?
Go ahead.
In online spaces, safety often matters more than truth, especially to the Tyro, okay?
Somebody who is not new at this.
And money adds another layer, another perspective.
Many people online depend directly or indirectly on monetized platforms.
Nothing wrong with that.
It's capitalism, baby.
And views translate into ad revenue.
And engagement helps sell sponsorships.
And growth helps attract future opportunities.
So when outrage is there, it drives traffic.
And outrage becomes a business strategy and something you look to.
And attacking a controversial figure, by the way, that is attacked by everybody else, is more profitable than ignoring them.
And it's also more profitable than offering balanced takes and nuance because balance doesn't keep people watching.
It doesn't work like that.
And this, my friend, this creates a feedback loop.
You know, one person attacks Candace and gets attention.
Others see that attention.
and copy the format.
Soon you have dozens of posts that sound almost identical.
Not because they're coordinated in some secret room or some conspiracy, but because they're responding to the same incentives.
And the same phrases get used and repeated and utilized because they worked before.
And the same accusations and the same gravemen get recycled because they perform well.
Originality becomes less important than efficacy or effectiveness.
And another reason, which is important, another reason that attacking Candace is so profitable is that she keeps engaging.
It's always new.
She doesn't disappear.
She responds.
And every time she responds and asks more questions, she pushes back.
And that keeps the story alive.
So from a content perspective, this is perfect.
As long as she keeps talking and as long as there's more hate and division that is inspired elsewhere, there's always something new to react to.
Reaction content is easier than original reporting.
You don't have to investigate anything.
You don't have to, you just merely have to comment on what someone else said and frame it in the most dramatic way possible.
Now, I hope this doesn't shock you because this is the way, listen, this is what happens with newspapers.
It's what happened with Watergate.
I mean, this is not new.
It's not novel.
And there's also a psychology, my friend, of scandal.
People are drawn to stories that feel forbidden and verboten and dangerous and are sexy.
Accusations about hidden motives and foreign countries and secret control or unseen forces are exciting.
And they turn complex events into simple villains and heroes.
Manichean, good versus evil.
Apodictic designations of various morality vectors.
The expatiation of the obvious.
Good, bad, up, down, left, right.
Democrat, liberal.
They let audiences feel like they are seeing behind the curtain.
Come with me.
I'll show you what's going on.
And this kind of storytelling is addictive.
And it keeps people scrolling and trolling and rolling.
And it keeps them coming for updates.
And that makes it valuable.
Remember that.
Remember that.
Once a person is framed as unstable, once a person is dishonest or malicious or a foreign actor or some conspiracist, everything they say can be dismissed without engagement.
And this is very useful for critics.
You see, if Candace Owens is portrayed as irrational, then her questions don't need answers.
If she's portrayed as compromised or, you know, fixed, then her evidence doesn't need examination.
Why bother?
She's already, she's tainted.
She's no good.
Attacking her character becomes easier than addressing her claims, which is what they're doing.
And from a content standpoint, character attacks are also, oh, they're so easy to produce.
Easier.
Again, more easy than fact-based rebuttals and investigations and the like.
And by the way, this is why the attacks often shift.
You know, first she's wrong.
Then she's biased.
And then she's dangerous.
and that she's unstable.
When one angle gets old, you replace it.
And the goal is not resolution.
Resolution would end the story.
The goal, in this particular case, the goal is continuation.
As long as there's something new to accuse her of, the content machine keeps running.
And that's all it's about.
And again, let me repeat, that's the way the news business is.
We're not the only ones doing this.
YouTube and other platforms aren't the only ones.
See, another reason also that money flows towards attacks is audience alignment.
Many creators tailor their content to what their followers already believe.
It's like formatics at a radio station.
Country music stations play country music.
That's what the audience wants.
You're not going to play jazz.
You're going to play Whalen Jennings or whatever.
If their audience dislikes Candace Owens, attacking her is guaranteed applause.
It reinforces group dynamics, group identity, group approval, group approbation.
It signals loyalty.
It signals the bond between the creator and the audience.
And challenging that audience by offering nuance risks losing followers.
Nobody wants nuance.
Nobody wants, well, no, they want apodictic yes and no mannequean good versus evil.
Attacking Candace risks nothing and gains everything and gains approval.
And it's also important to understand how low the cost of participation is.
When you make a post or you say anything that attacks Candace, it takes minutes, right?
It's no big deal.
You don't need sources.
You don't need investigation.
You don't have to read anything.
Just say it.
You can repeat what somebody else said.
You can add your own spin.
You can rephrase it.
You can do whatever you want.
And if it performs well, you're rewarded.
If it doesn't, you delete it or move on or tailor it or whatever it is.
There's no downside.
This asymmetry, in essence, encourages volume over care.
It's that simple.
And meanwhile, by the way, meanwhile, doing actual investigation, oh, it takes time.
Who wants to do this?
It takes patience.
You've got to know what you're talking about.
And it takes admitting uncertainty.
It means sometimes, well, I can't give an opinion yet because I'm still waiting for the answer.
And it takes following leads that may go nowhere.
And that kind of work, which is what Candace is doing, is slow and tedious and methodical and often unrewarded online.
People say they want truth, but they really reward drama and speed.
So creators respond to what is rewarded and what's available and what's fast and what's low-hanging fruit.
And another factor, don't ever forget, is fear.
When a powerful figure keeps asking questions, it makes people uncomfortable.
Kind of skittish.
Not because the questions are necessarily correct or hard to answer.
It's because unanswered questions create instability and that's not good.
Attacking the questioner feels like restoring order.
It sends a message that certain topics are off-limits.
For some, for some, that feels like protecting the group or the cause.
But for others, it simply feels like protecting their own position.
You know, the home base.
Candace Owens represents independence.
She doesn't rely on approval from traditional media and the usual suspects and structures and political organizations.
She doesn't need them to reach her audience.
That makes her harder to control, which is good in the long run.
People react more aggressively to voices they can't silence or ignore.
And attacking becomes, again, the scrum.
Attacking becomes your way to try to contain influence that cannot be managed through normal channels.
So as the noise and the cacophony and all this grows, something else happens.
People who were previously uninvolved become curious.
And they notice the intention.
They say, hey, what's going on?
I want to be a part of this.
I like this.
They ask why the reaction is so strong.
Why it's so long?
Why it's so prolonged.
And that draws more attention to Candace, which ironically increases her reach.
And that's the interesting symbiotic part of this.
This is one reason the cycle doesn't stop.
Attacks meant to diminish her often amplify her, which draw more detractors.
So the end result is a kind of a strange situation where truth becomes secondary.
It always has, by the way.
Whether Candace is right or wrong matters less than the fact that she's useful as a symbol.
She becomes a lightning rod.
And people project their fears, their anxieties, and their frustrations and their agendas onto her.
And attacking her, attacking Candace Owens becomes kind of a weird way of shorthand for signaling where you stand.
So this is why it can feel insane from the outside, but it really isn't.
You see someone asking questions and being punished for it.
And you wonder why?
What's going on here?
What's the point?
You see critics demand perfection from a live, public, ongoing investigation while offering none themselves.
And then you see mistakes treated as proof of, again, of malice or some type of dislike or disdain instead of part of the process, part of a slow and deliberate process.
You see attacks escalate instead of clarity improving, and that's the way you are.
So keep in mind, when you view it through the lens of incentives, it makes a lot of sense.
There's money in outrage, and there's safety and conformity.
And there's a status in attacking a visible target, and she's the visible target.
And there's a tension in drama.
And there's metrics and there's audiences.
And there is very little reward for patience, honesty, or restraint, or acting like a human being or an adult.
So when people ask why there is so much energy behind attacking Candace Owens, I think you understand now.
The answer is not mysterious.
And it's not because everybody suddenly, all of a sudden, discovered the same truth, like, hey, guess what?
It's because attacking Candace Owens, attacking her brutally is profitable, it's popular, it's low risk, it's easy, it's in the current outline ecosystem, as they say, and it feeds algorithms and audiences and egos all at once.
And it's beautiful.
And the tragedy, the tragedy, my dear friend, is that this environment discourages real understanding, real cognition, real appreciation.
It turns serious questions into entertainment, which I guess is okay to an extent.
But it also replaces investigation with performance.
You see, it rewards noise over substance.
And it trains people.
It trains people to confuse volume with, and that's validity.
Whether Candace is ultimately right or wrong about specific claims is a separate question.
Nobody really cares.
The question, the question that deserves careful examination is something different.
You see, the frenzy surrounding her, it's not about that.
It's about attention.
It's about incentives.
It's about a system that pays people to attack louder instead of thinking deeper.
So when you understand that, everything works, the chaos starts to look less mysterious and more mechanical.
And it's not really madness.
It's a business model.
It's that simple.
So remember, keep in mind what I've said, because there's going to be another issue, whatever the next one is.
We saw it during COVID.
We saw it during wars in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.
We saw it during 9-11 before the internet was really what it is right now.
So let me thank you for that.
This may be the last time I speak with you in the year 2025.
And I cannot tell you how much I thank you, how much I appreciate it.
We have our glasses and our preparations for celebration ready.
My wife and I thank you.
Again, you have been, you are the best audience, the best group of people.
I love you, Dadas.
Thank you so much for being so kind to her and following her at Lynn's Warriors and her and our fight to stop the predation of children, stop human trafficking of children.
Thank you so much for liking these videos.
Thank you for being so assiduous and so smart in your comments regarding what we've said.
Thank you for this.
Thank you for participating.
And thank you for giving our way of looking at the world, our particular viewpoint, a home.
So I thank you for that.
Please, I've got some questions for you to fill in.
And I say to you and your family, from the bottom of my heart, from my and our family to yours, thank you so much.
And happy, happy, happy, happy new year, my dear fellow patriot and conspiratorium member.
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