I am used to debunking absurd right-wing arguments. But conservative podcaster and author Candace Owens is on another level entirely. Many of her proclamations are so bizarre, they seem better described as “symptoms” than “ideas.” She has said that the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz are performing a“satanic ritual” when they celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch. She says Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Emmanuel Macron are all gay. (And that this is “not a coincidence.”) She has cast doubt on the crimes of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, saying his ghoulish experiments sound “absurd” and would have been a “waste of time and supplies.” Naturally, she believes we faked the moon landing (in fact, all of our space programs were both “fake and gay”). She now claims that the French Foreign Legion were involved in the killing of Charlie Kirk, possibly at the direction of Brigitte Macron (whom Owens thinks is transgender), and believes she herself is being pursued by assassins dispatched by the French government.
Oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Monday over the president’s power to remove the commissioners of independent agencies left little doubt that its Republican-appointed justices are about to fundamentally reorder our system of government. They appear ready to eliminate most pockets of expertise and nonpartisanship that we rely on as stewards of important economic, […]
[This article is part of a Labor Notes roundtable series: How Can Unions Defend Worker Power Against Trump 2.0? We will be publishing more contributions here and in our magazine in the months ahead. Click here to read the rest of the series.—Editors]