The Candace Curveball: What Happens When You Go Off-Script

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Candace Owens broke every rule on her way up — but it’s the questions she asked on the way down that got her canceled. This episode explores what happens when loyalty, truth, and media power collide.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Why is it that the louder someone insists they're
just telling the truth, theharder it is to trust them?
Candace Owens built a career onbold claims and unflinching
confidence, and now she's beingcast out by the very crowd that
once elevated her.
Hard to say if she changed hertune or just stopped playing
along with the band.
Or maybe the better question is, who's doing the gaslighting

(00:23):
here?
Because something doesn't addup.
How does a woman go from beingpraised by Trump and platformed
by the Daily Wire to beinglabeled a liability by Ben
Shapiro?
Why does questioning Israel'smilitary strategy get you
branded as an anti-Semite, evenif you're quoting casualty

(00:43):
reports, not Mein Kampf?
Why are the same people whotold you to speak truth to power
suddenly uncomfortable when thepower being questioned isn't on
the left?
And maybe most uncomfortable ofall, why do so many people feel
quietly vindicated watchingCandace Owens get canceled?
I'm Jim Detchen, host of ThinkFirst, and today we're digging

(01:07):
into the poetic truth andpolitical gaslighting behind the
Candace Owens saga.
Because, while you may notagree with everything she says,
you've got to admit CandaceOwens didn't just read from the
script, she lit it on fire.
She came out of nowhere nodonor network, no political
family, no Ivy League gloss, andbuilt a brand by being exactly

(01:28):
what most pundits pretend to beunfiltered.
She skipped the think tankinternship and went straight for
the microphone.
At first that was hersuperpower.
She said the things no one elsewould, took the hits, took the
heat and threw twice as manypunches back until she aimed too
close to home COVID, genderideology, vaccine mandates,

(01:50):
trump, briefly, and finallyIsrael, basically the
conservative Mount Rushmore ofconversation landmines.
After the October 7th attacks,candace started asking questions
, not Hamas praising, notHolocaust denying, just
inconvenient questions Aboutproportionality, about funding,

(02:11):
About what US support shouldlook like when war drags on.
Cue the meltdown.
Ben Shapiro, her colleague, herbooster, her boss, publicly
called her comments disgraceful.
Others joined in and just likethat, the mic was cut.
No debate, no clarification,just a tweet from Candace I am

(02:32):
finally free Now.
Look.
This isn't about whether she'sright or wrong on Israel.
You can believe she'scompletely off base.
You can believe she's finallyspeaking up.
That's not the point.
The point is how fast thenarrative flipped from warrior
to villain, from boldtruth-teller to dangerous
liability.
That's not a policy shift,that's a vibe shift.

(02:55):
That's poetic truth.
It feels good, it sounds right,it lets people sleep easier at
night, thinking the problem hasbeen handled, but the real truth
might be messier.
Maybe Candace didn't change,maybe the rules did, because in
media, left or right, there's ascript, there are roles, and
when you improvise, people startlooking for the exit.

(03:16):
Let's zoom out, yes, on someonewhose entire career was built
on zooming in with aflamethrower.
Candace Owens is not a perfectmessenger, but she's also not an
accident.
She represents something thatterrifies legacy institutions
someone who didn't wait forpermission.
She didn't climb a ladder, sheknocked it over, then tweeted

(03:37):
about it in all caps, and that'sa story the establishment any
establishment isn't too fond of.
So if you're watching this andfeeling confused, that's good.
If you're feeling suspicious,even better, because you're not
crazy for noticing the whiplash.
You're not wrong for wonderingwhy.
Some questions are fine untilthe wrong person asks them.

(03:59):
You don't need to love CandaceOwens to learn from her arc.
Just don't forget who wrote thefirst part of her story and
who's now editing it with a redpen and selective memory, and
who's working overtime to erasethe last.
If we only cheer for truth whenit fits our side, is it still
the truth?
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the

(04:20):
ones you're handed.
Question the ones you're handed.
Want to go deeper?
Visit Gaslight360.com.
Slash clarity to learn how tospot gaslighting and poetic
truth in media, politics andhistory.
Empower yourself to dissectnarratives, uncover hidden
truths and challenge the tacticsthat keep us in the dark.

(04:41):
Light your flame and startseeing the world with sharper
eyes.
Turns out.
Speaking truth to power comeswith a footnote.
Some restrictions may apply.