Candace Owens Smeared as "Far Right" by Twitter and the Media
Candace Owens Smeared as "Far Right" by Twitter and the Media after Kanye West tweeted out his support for "the way she thinks."But in a surprising turn CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey issued a public apology for labeling her "far right."What does far right even mean? When looking at Candace's positions she appears to be a run-of-the-mill conservative. So why did Twitter and other Journalists label her "far right?"Was it an attempt to smear her? Candace thinks so, but lets look at the issue and try to best determine what happened.Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I've always wondered what far-right really meant, and I always wondered why the media likes to label anybody who's remotely conservative far-right, and then certain other aspects of the media will label literally anybody who's not far-left as alt-right, which just doesn't make sense.
But this story today is about how the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, issued an apology to Candace Owens after Twitter mistakenly referred to her as far-right.
A lot of people were kind of shocked on the left and the right that Jack Dorsey would issue this apology.
Journalists on the left are upset because they think she is far-right,
and many other people are shocked because they perceived Twitter as having a hard bias,
and they couldn't believe that Jack Dorsey would actually apologize for using the phrase.
Before we get started, let me give a quick shout out to today's sponsor, Fray.
Premium clothing care products meticulously designed to smell better, treat your clothing better, and generally be better for you, for others, and for the planet.
97 out of 100 customers prefer the Fray fragrance to their old detergent.
better formulation, no harsh chemicals with a blend that's better for you and better for your clothing,
and it's better for the world, safer for the environment, and a portion of all proceeds are donated to those in need.
For those that are interested, you can go to livefrey.com for more information.
On April 21st, as I'm sure all of you are aware, Kanye West, musician and entertainer, tweeted,
I love the way Candace Owens thinks.
Now, who is Candace Owens?
Well, for those that don't know, she is an American writer, producer, and conservative commentator.
And this is Wikipedia.
Many people view Wikipedia as having a left-wing bias, but look, they say she is simply a writer, producer, and conservative commentator.
Very simple.
In response to Kanye West's tweet, A Twitter moment emerged that said, Kanye says he likes the way far right media personality Candace Owens thinks.
And not only is she not far right, but they even spelled Candace wrong, because her name is spelled C-A-N-D-A-C-E.
It says, while fans of Owens are expressing their support for Kanye's statement, Others are upset with what appears to be an endorsement for the far-right media personality.
In response to this, Candace said, Far-right, allow me to clarify.
I believe the black community can do it without handouts.
I believe the Democrats have strapped us to our past to prevent us from our futures.
And I won't stop fighting until all black Americans see that.
I'm not far-right, I'm free.
And yesterday afternoon, in a surprising twist to many of those who are in the political sphere,
Jack Dorsey tweeted, Hi Candace, I want to apologize
for labeling you far-right.
Team completed a full review of how this was published and why we corrected far too late.
Twelve hours after.
There was a clear break in our curation process and understanding and we're fixing.
Thanks for calling out.
To which Candace replied, Thank you, Jack.
I fully accept your apology.
It's important that despite political differences, we remember the human beings whose lives we impact.
Perhaps the other platforms that ran away with this vicious smear will follow your lead and right this wrong.
Thank you again.
I think any reasonable person who would look at the things that Candace Owens advocates, look at her YouTube videos, and where she works, would conclude that she is simply a run-of-the-mill conservative.
Some of her opinions are at odds with opinions of the mainstream left, but when I look at her body of work, which I've been doing, Just seems to be pretty basic conservative talking points, so I'm curious as to why the left will label her far-right.
When we hop over to Candace's YouTube channel, we can see that it just is mainstream right-wing talking points.
There's nothing particularly outrageous or far-right, as it would be described.
She has a video called Tax Cuts for Dummies, a video on Trump derangement system.
She has a video, her latest video, calling Black Panther a pro-Trump movie.
And according to her Twitter account, she is the communications director for TPUSA with a victor mentality.
And that's Turning Point USA, which is a student movement, free markets, limited government.
We're the community organizers of the right, they say.
Hashtag BigGovSucks.
And their pinned tweet is a fire for the confirmed speaker, Tucker Carlson.
All of that just says to me, regular conservative.
So, why do they call people far-right?
Now certainly, people have their opinions as to why they do it.
Candace Owens called it a smear.
And it's entirely possible that's the case.
I don't want to assume intention.
Because it's entirely possible these journalists who are calling her far-right are heavily biased or totally inept.
And there is the potential that they are doing it on purpose to try and prevent people from being willing to listen to Candace Owens.
When someone is labeled alt-right or far-right, that scares a moderate.
Someone who's in the middle says, I don't want to be associated with extremists.
And often, because of this, people believe that these smears are entirely intentional.
We don't really know that.
And as Hanlon's razor would suggest, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
So I tend to err on the side of, these people are probably just really bad at their jobs.
However, there are some people that make me question this.
First, I don't know whether or not this is intentional or just ignorance, but Ben Collins of NBC News tweeted, in response to Jack's apology, The reason I bring this tweet up is because, even though it's simple, It seems like today, even if you state you do or do not agree with something, someone will just say you do.
An editor-in-chief at a very large left-wing company recently told me, we're not going to not report something just because we think people lie to us.
Which I find very strange.
While I agree, if someone lies to you and you can find proof that they're lying, by all means, call them out for it.
But when it comes to political opinions, if someone flat out says they are not far right, And there's nothing they've posted to insinuate they are.
Why would you claim they are?
It seems disingenuous, and I'm not surprised people think it's intentional.
But let's move on to the next very strange tweet.
Will Sommer tweeted, You can appear on InfoWars in disagreement with InfoWars.
I have been on InfoWars.
and has said Democrats run illegal voting rings can successfully contest being called far right.
None of the things that he tweeted about her in any way imply she is part of some organization
or holds certain political views.
It was all highly specific and actually doesn't mean anything,
but let's go through it.
You can appear on InfoWars in disagreement with InfoWars.
I have been on InfoWars.
I've also been heavily critical of InfoWars.
I don't agree or support InfoWars.
I am not far right.
He says she made her name with support from GamerGate.
I don't know what that is trying to say.
A lot of people are supported by a lot of other people.
There was a KKK member who supported Hillary Clinton.
Does that mean that Hillary Clinton made her name with support from this group?
It doesn't mean that the group made her what she was, but she did have her success with support of that group.
What does it even mean?
Literally nothing.
And finally adds that she has said Democrats run illegal voting rings.
That just seems like conservative hyperbole.
Conservatives go on TV and they talk about how they think immigrants are voting and how the Democrats are supporting this, and that's just like a common talking point among conservatives.
It's not indicative of far-right policy.
But I think in order to clarify what is actually going on, we need to understand what far-right and far-left actually means, and this might be the most important bit of context.
According to Wikipedia, far-right politics are politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of more extreme nationalist and nativist ideologies, as well as authoritarian tendencies.
So let's just stop right here and say, if Candace Owen's talking points are pretty run-of-the-mill, if she's working for an organization that has your fairly standard talking points about small government and free markets, She is not further right than that.
It would seem, even based off her YouTube videos and her tweets, just seems like she's a run-of-the-mill conservative.
But it goes on to say, the term is often associated with Nazism, Neo-Nazism, Fascism, Neo-Fascism, and other ideologies or organizations that feature extreme nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, racist, or reactionary views.
These can lead to oppression and violence against groups of people based on their supposed inferiority.
So I think it's safe to understand what far-right is.
It is the extremists of the right.
That's why it's called far-right.
conservative traditional social institutions.
So I think it's safe to understand what far-right is.
It is the extremists of the right.
That's why it's called far-right.
When we call people far-left, it's because we're referring specifically to
communists, socialists, anarchists, people who genuinely want to disrupt or
destroy the system and replace it with something else.
It refers to a group of people who would go out with bike locks and bash people over the head.
Having traditional values, believing in small government, and voting for Trump just makes you conservative.
In fact, voting for Trump might not even make you conservative because a lot of What they called Reagan Democrats voted for Trump as well.
The political spectrum is much more complicated than that.
But I think this is another symptom of people on the left will just label anyone on the right alt-right or far-right, and I think often is done as an attempt to smear individuals.
I've had two organizations, Willamette Weekly and the SPLC, come out calling me alt-right, and recently The Guardian insinuated I was alt-right because I interviewed members of the alt-right.
That is also entirely disingenuous.
Willamette Weekly had to delete the sentence claiming I was alt-right, and the SPLC was actually forced to acknowledge I am an individual on the left, and that they apologize for insinuating anything otherwise, because they are so grossly inaccurate that when you label someone on the left as alt-right, which, you know, alt-right is a reference to white nationalism, whether you agree with it or not, that's typically how it's used, that is so insanely wrong, you can't do it.
But when they imply that Candace Owens is far-right, and far-right does have some kind of ethnic superiority connotation, then you're probably wrong because Candace Owens is a black woman.
And before I end this video, I do want to bring up something that I find Extremely detestable, and I want to highlight this because I really hope that we can work towards a better future.
But Will Summers tweeted, Incredible headline on this story on the demise of Milo's
company.
And he posted an image, it says, Yiannopoulos' business implodes after death of crypto
billionaire.
To which he responded, Just about every paragraph in this story on the collapse of
Milo Yiannopoulos' company is remarkable. And that is horrible. It is an extremely
horrible thing to say.
And I'll tell you why. But first, I'm not a huge fan of Milo.
I have nothing against his opinions.
I certainly disagree with him on a lot of things.
The reason I'm very critical of Milo is I think he's a bad messenger.
I think he taints the pool of his own ideology by being snarky and condescending and being a provocateur.
And if you like that, by all means, you're free to like it, and a lot of people don't, and I think in order to actually help people understand the world, you have to be willing to be respectful.
But now I'm going to tell you why I find this extremely detestable.
The story is about Milo's friend dying.
His company implodes after death of crypto billionaire.
On Monday, Yiannopoulos posted a photo on Instagram of himself with Mellon.
I spent a few days and nights in Miami and LA with the incredible human being Matthew Mellon, the last of them just a day before he passed, Yiannopoulos wrote in the caption.
He was brilliant, infectious, and warm-hearted, and I will never forget getting to know this remarkable person.
Rest in peace now, M.M.
You left a giant stamp on the world.
The reason I bring this up, and I guess the point of this video, is that people are so eager to attack the opposing tribe that they will mislabel people, they will smear people, and they will relish in the death of an individual.
Milo might not be the greatest person in the world.
You might think he is an absolute terrible person.
But that doesn't mean that you should be disparaging the death of his friend or disparaging the death of an individual from a drug overdose.
This is a sad story.
If Milo's company imploded because he was bad at it and it failed, that's one thing.
And you can by all means relish in the fact that Dinky's a bad business person.
But this is a story about someone who was working to support Milo, who died, who was Milo's friend, and because of this, Milo lost the support he needed to run his business.
That is not a reason to celebrate.
I don't understand why we have to be so mean to each other.
I hold no ill will towards the people calling Candace Owens far right, I would simply like to point out that they're incorrect.
I don't try to disparage anybody, I don't try to be disrespectful, and I hope that's something everyone can learn from in the future.
I also want to point out, just because I have focused on these particular individuals for this story, doesn't mean there aren't people on the right who do the same thing, and I'm not going to get into calling people out on both sides just for the sake of trying to appear neutral.
There are certainly people on the right who are bad messengers.
You're not going to change someone's mind by laughing and mocking their dead friend.
That's just the craziest thing to me.
You're not going to change someone's mind by trying to convince them that your average conservative is a Nazi.
It's just crazy.
But let me know what you think in the comments below and we'll keep the conversation going.
Thank you all so much for tuning in.
New videos every day at 4 p.m.
and now I'm going to absolutely be ramping up live streams.
Maybe even daily live streams.
So stay tuned.
Again, new video tomorrow.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast and I will see you all then.
