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The worst part of the so-called conservative podcast wars is that the Right never had to let it reach this point. You can blame the “big tent” nature of a two-party system or policy differences, but the fact is that conservatives are simply bad at seeing through common grifts and discerning honest brokers from bad actors.
Take Candace Owens. She has peddled every ridiculous conspiracy theory imaginable, up to and including accusing the U.S. military, Israel, France, Egypt, Turning Point USA, and Erika Kirk of complicity in the assassination of her former “friend” conservative icon Charlie Kirk. Owens should never have been a respected figure in conservative politics to begin with. Yet here we are.
Owens first arrived on the scene in 2016 with her website, “Social Autopsy,” which existed in order to dox internet trolls. Owens was an open progressive with the explicit goal of canceling people for what they say on the internet. In 2017, her public persona evolved rapidly into an anti-identity politics right-winger, and by 2018, she was a frequent speaker at Turning Point USA events. Conservatives embraced her immediately despite her seemingly overnight about-face. Many on the Right were so desperate for black conservative voices that they failed to notice that Owens’s grift essentially boiled down to “I’m black and here’s why black people are wrong.” This directly mirrored progressive white commentators who insist that they are the good ones, despite all of the evils of white people generally.
Fresh off her promotion to communications director for TPUSA, Owens appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the world, in May 2018. Rogan is a notoriously kind interviewer, as evidenced by his friendly conversations with guests ranging from President Donald Trump to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). While Rogan pushed back on some of Owens’s claims, he did not attempt to trap her. At one point, he asked, “You don’t believe in climate change?” Owens responded, “No. I think the climate always changes, I guess. Especially … global warming is an issue. … It’s like global warming — they have conveniently got rid of the word once scientists started disproving it.” Rogan attempted to soften Owens’s stance, but she refused to grab the escape rope.
There is nothing nefarious about believing humans have no effect on the Earth’s climate. But all it would have taken for the Right to realize that Owens was out of her depth was a moment’s reflection and a dash of discernment. Of course, that reflection never came. Owens went on to work for the Daily Wire as well as TPUSA until her conspiracism and antisemitism became undeniable.
Tucker Carlson’s descent into conspiracism, specifically his obsession with Israel and Jews, is well documented. But there were plenty of signs that the former Fox News host was no longer a good-faith right-wing actor, going back several years.
By 2019, Carlson had fully embraced Elizabeth Warren-style left-wing populist economics after supporting free enterprise for the entirety of his decadeslong career, attacking corporations and globalization as the main problems with the American economy rather than the heavy hand of government.
Fast forward to February 2024, and we saw Carlson in Moscow, standing in a Russian supermarket, pretending he didn’t understand how exchange rates work in order to propagandize on behalf of a communist foreign government. The subsequent interview with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was such a softball that Putin himself mocked Carlson for it. Even if you disregard all of Carlson’s conspiracy peddling, hilariously wrong predictions on foreign policy, and shilling for the state of Qatar, if the Right had a shred of discernment, the Moscow supermarket video would have been the end of Carlson as a respected thinker in conservative politics.
After conservative host and author Ben Shapiro correctly called out Owens, Carlson, and others at Turning Point’s AmFest in December, speaking at the same conference, former Trump adviser and commentator Steve Bannon called Shapiro a “cancer” while accusing him of dividing the conservative movement. Bannon lied in nearly all of his claims, but it has been well documented that he was a confidant of the deceased convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Bannon texted with Epstein in 2018, a decade after the latter was convicted of sex crimes, and newly released photos of the pair confirm their relationship. Epstein coached Bannon on political messaging after Bannon was fired by President Donald Trump, and Bannon counseled Epstein on how to present himself for media appearances. Bannon is presumably still in possession of a dozen or more hours of footage filmed at Epstein’s homes in New York and Paris, which was originally to become a documentary. It should go without saying that conservatives who claim to care deeply about getting justice for Epstein’s victims should cast aside a man who had such a friendly relationship with one of the most prominent sex traffickers in American history, long after his crimes became, let’s just say, extraordinarily public.
Speaking of Epstein, perhaps nothing has exposed the grifters on the Right as distinctly as the ongoing battles over the release of the so-called “Epstein files.” Right-wing influencers across social media have vacillated wildly between demands that the government release all available information and parroting Trump’s claims that the Epstein files are a Democratic hoax. In a bizarre and frankly hilarious display, Attorney General Pam Bondi invited a motley crew of social media influencers to the White House and awarded them binders full of information that was already public knowledge. The influencers did their duty to the administration and posed triumphantly for the cameras. Simply put: It is beyond me why any conservative would take any of these influencers seriously after that performance. Surely, the Right has better, more intelligent thought leaders.
IS THE GOP STILL THE PARTY OF LIFE? HARDLY
Many on the Right, including Vice President JD Vance, have made the decision to ignore the bigotry and vile conspiracism from anyone he views as an ally. Vance is an ambitious politician who undoubtedly wants to become president, so it is unsurprising that he refuses to distance himself. But the Right should not follow the vice president’s lead. A political Right that embraces neo-Nazis such as Nick Fuentes and psychopathic conspiracy theorists such as Owens will become so repulsive to swing voters that losing the votes of a few racists would be the least of Vance’s worries.
Electoral politics aside, what exactly could a conservative movement that has abandoned free markets and genuine debate in favor of the failed socialist policies of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Barack Obama, and a campaign of “just asking questions,” possibly stand to accomplish? Sane conservatives have been accused of “gatekeeping” when they point out the idiocies of certain segments of the postliberal New Right, but they should wear that insult as a badge of honor. Keeping your own house in order is different from the Left’s tactic of cancellation and shutting down debate. Conservatives should discern the difference and proceed accordingly, before it’s too late.