Owens represents a counternarrative, a surprising poster child for an old set of ideas around African Americans and conservatism. Just 8 percent of black voters identify as Republican or lean toward the party, according to Pew Research Center. Owens responded on Twitter by ridiculing the idea that she had inspired the killings.) The author said Owens was his main inspiration. (Update: After this article was published, Owens was named in a manifesto by a white nationalist accused of killing 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand. She has met with President Trump in the Oval Office and, perhaps more impressive, has dazzled Kanye West.
She’s racked up nearly 9 million YouTube views and 1 million followers on Twitter. Police brutality, she says, is not a concern “whatsoever” for the black community, and accounts of rising white supremacy are media fabrications. Since her career in politics began just a year and a half ago, Owens has become a provocative force on YouTube and Twitter and, of course, as a frequent contributor to Fox News. Her fiance, George Farmer, the chairman of Turning Point UK and son of Conservative British politician Michael Farmer, lets loose a jubilant fist pump.īlexit attendees wait to enter the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. From backstage, we hear a chant erupt from the crowd: “Build! The! Wall! Build! The! Wall!” Owens grins. Owens sports what can only be described as rally-chic: neon yellow Blexit sweatshirt, black skinny jeans and strappy three-inch stilettos that she wears, impossibly, throughout the afternoon (her secret, she tells me, is to buy a half-size bigger, which leaves room for the swelling). There are 500 or so people in the audience it’s standing room only. She’s still on edge but feels better now that the theater has filled with patriots in red “Make America Great Again” caps and phones, so many phones, lifted in the air to document everything, even before anything starts. (Even the attendant in the women’s washroom, handing out paper towels and selling Kit Kats, is wearing one.) The revolution will be live-streamed, tweeted and Instagrammed, and Owens knows what it takes to put on a show.Ī few minutes before she kicks things off, she finally stops running around, and we perch on black leather couches in the green room. Two giant fans flank the stage, filled with confetti, because what coup d’etat is complete without confetti? Outside, in the placid sunshine of Southern California in January, volunteers pass out Blexit sweatshirts and instruct those entering to put them on. The Globe is outfitted to accommodate what Owens has christened a “declaration of independence”: Neon-colored signs - “Build the Wall,” “Off the Plantation” - have been placed carefully among the hundreds of black folding chairs, ready for attendees to hoist in the air. The Washington Post Magazine, in all my insanity.” She gives me a wide smile and points to my open notebook. One asks Owens which media outlets are covering the festivities. You get the power, and we get absolutely nothing back.”Īround her, volunteers in neon Blexit-branded sweatshirts mill about, waiting to be called into service. We do the work, we make sure you get elected every four years.
For too long, Owens tells me, African Americans have been “mentally enslaved” on the Democratic plantation, and it’s high time they became “free.” “Sixty years black people have been voting the same. This is the inaugural rally of Blexit, her three-month-old campaign to encourage African Americans (and Latinos, and other minorities) to leave the Democratic Party - that is, mount a massive “black exit” from the left. Hell, the people who’ve shown up no doubt did as well, unthinkingly, before they opened their eyes and their ears and their minds.Īll the more reason for things to pop, which is why Owens, a 29-year-old rising right-wing star and communications director for conservative student group Turning Point USA, is agitatedly giving directions to the crew at the Globe Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. No, really: Candace Owens knows that the grandmothers of the people coming most likely vote Democratic. The lights must be low, the music deafening, the bass thumping - this is not your grandmother’s Republican mixer.
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