Sometimes we forget just how supernatural the truth is. It doesn’t submit to the ordinary laws governing the material world because it comes from an otherworldly place. It moves according to a different economy and obeys different rules. Truth cannot be bought, monopolized, or exhausted. Truth has no finite supply, and yet it is scarce. In the natural order, scarcity creates value. The commodity of truth ignores that law of capitalism. Truth is the only treasure on Earth that is absolutely free to obtain, but costly to give away. Truth is something everyone is searching for, and the thing most likely to be rejected when found.
The truth-teller has to be regularly reminded that we speak it for no immediate reward or benefit to ourselves. We just be so convinced of truth’s value that it’s worth suffering to speak it. To not speak truth, when you are able, to testify to God that you don’t believe in, or appreciate having it. A man who appreciates the God who gave Him truth will share it with others even when it does him no personal good at all. He shares it becuase should he keep it to himself, he fears that God might not give him any more. He dare not hoard it, lest it be like manna on the second day, and he comes to regret stockpiling it for no good reason.
CANDACE OWENS
I have no good reason to “defend” Candace Owens. I don’t run in her circles. I’ve never regularly listened to her material. I don’t share most of her convictions, so far as I understand them, from never having listened to know what they are. Frankly, I don’t make it a habit to listen to female influencers, and never have, for reasons I don’t care to psychoanalyze. Maybe it’s deep-seated sexism, no idea. Don’t care to figure it out, and it is what it is.
For the sake of transparency, I followed her departure from the Daily Wire - for no reason but my own curiosity - when it went down. I also followed her defense of Andrew Tate regarding his criminal charges in Romania because I was already following that case and was curious for another perspective. And I went down the rabbit hole on Bridgette Macron again, for no reason but for the sheer entertainment value. Those three subjects are the only ones I’ve paid attention to. And none of them, by listening to her podcasts, but by reading about them and getting the highlights.
She’s smart. She’s analytical. She’s articulate. She’s passionate. Clearly, Ben Shapiro thought so. Either that, or he hired her for the novelty of having a conservative black woman on staff. I’ll presume for charity it’s the former. But none of those things mean she’s a good person. But Charlie Kirk thought she was. That’s apparent.
Charlie didn't merely recruit Candace to Turning Point USA. For years, they were inseparable on the speaking circuit, traveling the country together, debating on campuses, building the organization, and spending so much time side by side that they joked about being like "an old married couple." She has consistently described him as one of her closest friends, even her "brother," and Charlie publicly referred to her as “a great friend” as well, right up until shortly before his assassination. The fact is, Charlie confided in Candace about private matters he was not airing publicly - including frustrations over donors and Israel - and this is substantiated factually.
Two facts stand out that demonstrate the level of trust Charlie had for her. She had text messages showing that Charlie told his closest Israel-First friends and colleagues he had decided to “leave the pro-Israel cause” and that she knew the contents of his letter to Benjamin Netanyahu. Charlie confided in her that very private information, which speaks volumes - whether you like it or not - about his belief in her goodness as a person. Maybe he was wrong. But he believed it.
The other option is that he didn’t trust her character at all. But that means he gave her that information for another reason: the most plausible is that if something happened to him, she’d be the one to get to the bottom of it. Take your pick: either Charlie vouched for her character, friendship, and judgment, or she was sending her evidence in case something happened.
Sure, maybe Charlie had it wrong. She fooled him. Maybe. But Charlie’s judgment was reliably spot-on. If he could be fooled by this woman in his life that he knew so well and for so long, I suppose that means he could be fooled by another. You know. Theoretically.
THE CONTROVERSY
Following his death, Charlie was painted by his friends and TPUSA leadership as “unwavering in his support for Israel.” Netanyahu, curiously, denied involvement in the assassination within one day, and denied it multiple times the first week. He pulled a letter from his pocket and spoke of Charlie’s love for Israel.
Charlie had, in fact, notified his friends and colleagues - most of them with strong ties to Israel - that he had “officially left the pro-Israel cause.” Reasons included (1) Israel’s undue influence over American government, (2) Jewish donors demanding that TPUSA do what they want, and (3) Israel’s treatment of Gazan civilian non-combatants. Candace alleged this, and they said she was lying. Candace then released the text messages, which she had in her possession. Andrew Kolvet acknowledged the texts were real but alleged that Charlie was only having an “internal struggle” and wasn’t definitive about it. The text messages seem pretty darned definitive.
Despite this, weeks later, one of these friends, Rob McCoy, spoke in Israel at a memorial for Charlie, in which it was said Charlie was “unwavering in his support for Israel.” By any account, he knew that was a lie because he had received the aforementioned text from Charlie and had taken part in attempts to get him to stop wavering. Charlie was clearly under pressure by this friend group to not change positions on Israel, including what can best be described as an intervention at a weekend getaway in the Hamptons. Some, like Seth Dillon, denied that framing. Later, while under oath, Dillon had to reluctantly admit that yes, “it got heated.” The GrayZone published an article by Max Blumenthal stating Charlie got “hammered” over Israel. Candace had details from that meeting, too.
We know factually, from Charlie himself, that part of that frustration came from Jewish donors pulling millions of dollars because he wouldn’t pull Tucker Carlson from an upcoming TPUSA event, and wanted to control other aspects of TPUSA, effectively turning it into a pro-Israel organization, at the same time Charlie was already beginning to turn sour on Israel. This was the same event in which - after his assassination - Ben Shapiro took the stage to rebuke TPUSA for inviting Tucker, a woefully despicable move, considering who he was rebuking, effectively, was Charlie, post-mortem (that might be the most low-down, classless thing I’ve ever seen).
The more controversial allegations are those that go beyond documented communications. Owens has suggested that Charlie’s death should not be viewed simply as the act of a lone gunman and has questioned the official account of the investigation. She has alleged that powerful interests connected to Israel or prominent pro-Israel figures had motives to kill Charlie because of his changing views. She has also claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly misrepresented Charlie’s letter (true), and has alleged that billionaire Bill Ackman confronted or threatened Charlie over those views (subjective).
THE CONSPIRACY
Candace's theory is that Charlie Kirk's assassination was the culmination of escalating conflict over his changing views on Israel, that multiple people beyond the alleged gunman were involved in enabling or concealing what happened, and that the official investigation has obscured rather than uncovered the full truth.
There is not a single, “This is what Candace says happened.” It’s more a matter of Candace daily reviewing claims, official and unofficial, from the investigation and publicly questioning the narrative. It’s that Israel was somehow involved, that Tyler Robinson either didn’t do it, or played a role other than what has been reported, that he may or may not have even been present, and that, in one way or another, we’ve been lied to. Different micro-theories have developed, postulating different claims (like exploding microphones, etc), with Robinson either being framed or a patsy. Rather than a clear, singular conspiracy, it’s broader, with “more than meets the eye” as its motto.
Regarding Erika, Candace has alleged that her behavior has been weird, self-centered, narcissistic, and bizarre. That she coveted Charlie’s position at TPUSA, didn’t mourn enough to be taken seriously as someone who was genuinely mourning, and either knows more than she is letting on, or is assisting - or at least complicit in - a cover-up.
“SHE IS THE DEVIL”
What I responded to this morning was a grown man who posted a photo of himself as a teenager standing next to Candace, and confessed to the Internet that he didn’t realize at the time he was standing next to “Satan incarnate.” One assumes he’s grateful he escaped that fateful day with his youth group at TPUSA with his soul intact. Close one. I didn’t respond because it was special or uniquely hyperbolic. I responded because it wasn’t. Social media moves in waves, like a sea of lemmings ebbing back and forth like a tide, except instead of jumping off a cliff, they’re repeating the same talking point. They’ve added to the list of people who are “Satan,” only slightly shorter than the list of people who are “literally Nazis.” I wrote about this - the spiritualizing of political polemics - in an article at I2I called TPUSA, Erika Kirk, and Grief Apologetics, and also at NXR in Damnation Porn, Erika Kirk, and Holy Ghost Widow Shields.
Those articles were written about a claim made by Allie Beth Stuckey, who alleged that people who criticize Erkia Kirk are probably going to hell, aren’t saved, and lack the Holy Spirit. I wrote…
Damnation porn is what happens when someone who feels strongly about a person or a cause translates that feeling into soteriological currency and spends it on social media. It is distinguished from legitimate rebuke by one feature: it substitutes emotional intensity for exegetical warrant. A legitimate rebuke names a sin, identifies the Scripture verse that forbids it, and calls for repentance. Damnation porn names a feeling, identifies the people who caused it, and threatens them with God.
The genre is flourishing in the comment sections and quote-tweets surrounding Erika Kirk, and they grow by the day. One X account told critics that if Erika Kirk turns out to be genuine, they will have “answering to do on your day of Judgment,” closing with the self-satisfied flourish, “I’m good with my soul on this topic. Are you?” Another invoked the widow’s cry heard by God in Scripture, warning that he “weighs motives” and “judges the tongue that spreads strife,” and that critics had “become the instrument of oppression.” A third called criticism of Erika “demonic activity,” helpfully clarifying that “all who participate in this pile-on will be called to account by God.” One account described critics as having lives “so devoid of God, love, compassion, and joy” that they represent “complete rejection of everything that is good, beautiful, and true.” One dispensed with subtlety altogether and wished that Erika’s voice would “echo through and torture” her critics in hell.
In this case, it’s no longer, “If you criticize Erika you’re going to hell,” but “Candace Owens is Satan. Or evil incarnate. Or demonically possessed.” Why? It doesn’t matter why, specifically. Just because. And if you don’t agree, you’re evil, too.
My response was in 7 points explaining why that’s stupid. The first was as follows:
(1) No, she isn’t. Satan is a literal celestial being who was cast down from Heaven, and spends his time stealing, killing, and devouring humanity, and has a special hatred for God’s chosen people, the Children of Abraham, His Holy Nation, the Christian Church.
Candace is just a mortal woman who you don’t like because she advocates a “conspiracy theory” that is mean to a person you like.
The first major “Candace is possessed” accusations came from the NAR super-apostles, the hyper-charismatic false prophets who are, down the line, Christian Zionists. The most prominent, and maybe the first NAR prophet to do so was Lance Wallnau, who - when alleging Candace is demonically possessed on Facebook - put out such brilliant theology as, “Satan was the first with lots of 'questions…Where there is strife there is EVERY evil work.”
He equated Eve questioning God’s Word with Candace questioning the FBI’s word. He also alleged she had “the Jezebel Spirit.” Are you kidding me? That’s who Protestia decided to throw in with? Those idiots. This is anti-discernment. It’s pop-polemics. It’s engagement-farming. It’s not theology. Part of my hatred for this is exactly how cheap and how easy it is to jump on the bandwagon. I’ve never understood the desire to say in social media what everyone else is already saying. Teach a monkey to talk, and a monkey can do that.
Satan is a literal being who was cast out of heaven and is spending his days molesting babies, using dogs to sodomize POWS who will never see a trial, and carpet-bombing Christian residential neighborhoods in Gaza. He is drinking in the infant blood down at Planned Parenthood and organizing Drag Queen story hour down at the local library. He’s not omnipresent, of course, but his minions are everywhere evil is on display. Reducing Satan to a rhetorical bludgeon for someone the mob is lynching for their conspiracy theories and political beliefs is hardly taking the demonic seriously.
Secondly, when you say “Candace is Satan,” you’re just announcing your susceptibility to online hate marketing, and haven't fully thought out how stupid it is. You might as well l tweet, “I’m vulnerable to emotional propaganda.”
Three, it also lets you skip the actual argument. If Candace is a supernatural agent of evil, you never have to explain what she got wrong. You just get to feel something and post about it. That’s not owning her; that’s making a retarded, hyperbolic, exaggerated supernatural claim to avoid explaining her malfunction.
Israeli propaganda has mastered this, and is the best at it. The moment opponents are reduced to “evil” is the moment nobody’s asking the necessary “why” questions with answers they don’t want you to think about. If Candace can be explained as pure evil, you don’t have to think about why her theory about Israel is believed by so many people, about Israel conducting more political assassinations on foreign soil over the last 50 years than any nation on earth, or that our own intel agencies have helped them cover some up, or any other fact that makes it plausible.
For example, if Palestinians are reduced to pure evil, you don’t have to ask why Israel was warned by numerous foreign intel agencies that Oct 7 was coming, why the IDF stood down for hours until after they finished their slaughter, and why Netanyahu was arranging 30 million dollars per month to go to Hamas despite being told it was being used to plan an attack. All facts. And they’re all facts that don’t matter the moment “they did it because they’re evil” enters the chat.
Fourth, it cheapens the real thing. Satan is a real being with a real war plan against real people, and he’s happy you spend your outrage budget on an Internet pundit while the actual influence operations in your church, your government, and your newsfeed sail through unchallenged.
Fifth, the odds are decent that the real reason you went to “Satan” is that she said something you can’t refute, so you grabbed the worst accusation in the arsenal. Exaggeration is a lazy man’s way of admitting it’s easier to accuse than to argue.
Sixth, when you say “Candace is Satan” five minutes after tweeting support for the IDF, for whom stealing, killing, and destroying civilian non-combatants at a ratio of 9 to 1 is their track record, your judgment is broken. We don’t care who you condemn, because we see who you applaud. When you commend legitimate evil, who you condemn has no moral authority.
Seven, the worst case scenario is that she’s crazy. Obviously, she believes her theory. Deeply. That doesn’t make her right, of course. But it does make her less than Satan. Given what she believes happened, her actions track. In other words, even if her theory proves nonsense, her actions make sense, based on that nonsense.
If you’re alleging she knows she’s wrong and doing it anyway, then sure, that’s evil. But that’s a heck of a conspiracy theory. Even if that were the case, equating her to Satan means you’re either being overly dramatic or have no regard for the evil celestial being busy stacking the bodies of children in Gaza right now.
MOB COURAGE
If you’re calling Candace “Satan,” let me explain this to you: You are not brave. You’re not morally courageous. You’re susceptible to outrage politics and emotional pleading. You’re saying it because you’ve seen someone else say it. You’ve seen dozens or hundreds of people say it. You’re saying it to signal your virtue, of which the capacity to think for yourself is not one. You’re repeating a talking point created by people you do not know, for purposes you cannot comprehend, for underlying reasons you probably would not agree with if you had mental bandwidth to understand them. You are saying exactly what everyone else is saying, when they are saying it, with the creativity of a Xerox machine and the originality of a broken record.
See examples below.
That doesn’t mean Caandace is right. That doesn’t mean she isn’t a sinner. That doesn’t mean she is well-intentioned. It doesn’t even mean her motivations are right. I’ve no idea about any of that - and neither do you. But I’ve been here at Insight to Incite making the case that Christians should be talking more about Satan for literal years by this point. That’s point #3 in the Polemicist Manifesto, to “speak less of personalities, and more of principalities.” To convince you, and anyone who would listen, that Satan is very real, the unseen realm is powerful and relevant, and affects our world more than anyone can fathom. But to invoke Satan as nothing but a rhetorical tool in application of a political point or personal attack cheapens the very real work of a very real devil, who isn’t trying to get to the bottom of an assassination plot.
The irony is that when Tucker spoke of a demonic attack, they mocked him. When JD Vance spoke of UAPs being demons, they mocked him. When I speak of demonic possession being something real and exorcism being biblical, they mock me. But now, they appeal to the demonic with the unified harmony of a choir, reduce the villainhood of Candace Owens to demonism, Satanism, the epitome of evil incarnate.
And this is why.
That’s why.
If you convince people Candace Owens is wrong about her conspiracy theory, then they might just listen to it. The fear is not that people will believe her conspiracy theory. After all, the court case will so irrevocably prove her wrong that it will be evident to all exactly how wrong she is, right? The “Candace is demonic” memo went out to Israel-First influencers on the eve of the trial, in which she will be proven wrong, they tell us. Embarrassingly, egregiously, provenly wrong. So…who cares?
The goal isn’t to just paint Candace as El Diablo. It’s to convince their followers that Candace is evil, and that her evil might just jump out and grab them, to “drink her demonic elixir,” as David Limbaugh put it. A hex. A spell. Candace must be portrayed as so evil, so wicked, that she is corrupting through the Internet. Demonizing. A Satanic influence. All for the purpose of conveying this one, primary prohibition put so well by Ben Shapiro: “It’s an actual sin to listen to this evil trash.”
This is the man who made a passionate argument against Matt Walsh for the legalization of pornography (it’s the “Judeo-Christian values” again). But you know what’s truly a corrupting influence? Anti-Israel conspiracy theories. Listening is a sin.
“Evil” and “Satan” and “sin” are invoked because they know - and we know - that if Candace’s conspiracy theory is wrong, or partially wrong (and the odds are she’s wrong on several points), the central claims undergirding her theories are not. Her suspicion that Israel would murder someone they consider to be an existential threat is warranted. What the listener is going to get, and going to walk away with, is a lesson in historical facts and objective reality about exactly how evil the nation of Israel truly is.
They’re going to learn that Israel has assassinated more citizens of other nations on foreign soil than any nation in the last 50 years. Hands down. More than Russia. More than the United States. And more than all of their regional enemies combined. They’re going to learn about things like the Lilyhammer Affair, and that other nations have had to officially demand that Israel stop murdering and kidnapping people in their country. They’re going to learn that includes citizens belonging to their supposed allies. They’re going to learn that Israel doesn’t share our Christian values when it comes to right and wrong, doesn’t share our doctrine of Imago Dei, and learn that Mossad doesn’t differentiate between political and military threats. They’re going to learn that Rabbinic teaching interprets Sanhedrin 72a to sanction the murder of someone whose non-violent actions might lead to existential harm to Israel. They’re going to learn that because of their constant war-mongering mindset, every threat to Israel is perceived as existential.
The entire Israel Lobby dog and pony show requires you - Americans - to believe that Israel is like a miniature United States in the Middle East, that we share values, share a religious heritage, have the same worldview, and have the same national goals. They’re going to learn that Israel shares more with Iran than Christian America. And they’re going to learn facts of Israel’s behavior in the Middle East that give you a much closer image of Satan than a misguided conspiracy theory.
They’re going to learn about ‘Where’s Daddy,’ that intentionally waits for ‘targets’ to get home with their wife and kids before sending a missile through their chest, to rack up the civilian body count. They’re going to learn they nicknamed their other AI targeting system - operating by rules of engagement that virtually no Christian in America would tolerate - “the gospel.” They’re going to learn the POW rape torture is systemic, and on video, and Israel prosecutes the whistleblowers, and not the masochist sodomites in uniform. They’re going to learn the sodomy-via-dog is systemic and well-documented from verifiable sources and not a ”one-off” by hostile media. They’re going to learn about the Lavon Affair, in which Israel attempted to murder Americans for a false flag to get us to attack their enemy - and were convicted in a court of law, and in 2005, finally admitted it. They’re going to learn the U.S.S. Liberty is the tip of the iceberg. They’re going to learn about the Samson Protocol using Israel’s nuclear arsenal - made with stolen American uranium - like a Jewish suicide belt, holding America hostage to cash the checks they write in the Middle East since 1973. They’re going to learn about all the things that Ben Shapiro will call you an antisemite for asking about, and that are true.
They’re going to learn about the ugly, sinister, stomach-turning things about Israel-First influencers surrounding Charlie and TPUSA. They’ll learn about how Charlie’s friends were more handlers for Israel than actual friends. They’ll learn how Israel surrounds American influencers with false friends who are more loyal to “God’s chosen people” than their own countrymen and supposed “brothers.” They’ll learn that the wisest thing to do, if anyone knows someone with regular ties to Tel Aviv, is to keep them at a distance. They’ll learn the actual extent of influence Israel has in the American political system.
They’ll learn that Charlie had figured this all out shortly before he died, and that his “friends” made his last few weeks sorrowful, learning that their interest in him personally was no deeper than how their friendship could be leveraged on behalf of a foreign nation-state. They’ll look at them in a different light when, in the weeks after his death, they all ran to the microphone to reassure the public how much Charlie loved - not his Savior, not his family, not his nation - but how much Charlie loved Israel.
I suspect that despite Candace’s treatment of Erika, most would come away unconvinced she had something to do with Charlie’s death. But they might walk away with the same impression I have: that nobody really gives a damn about her personally, and that NONE of this “Candace is Satan” talk from the Israel Lobby influencers like Shapiro and Boreing has anything to do with protecting Erika, and everything to do with protecting Israel. Ben Shapiro - the man who put Charlie on blast at the first TPUSA event post-Charlie - for courageously not giving in to the wealthy Jews who thought, by virtue of their million-dollar donations, they could control TPUSA’s invite list, is not suddenly suffering a broken heart on behalf of a widow. The man whose religion forbids helping a gentile woman give birth because it puts another goy in the world (Mishnah Avodah Zarah 2:1) is doing what’s best for Israel, because his perspective on the U.S. and Israel is no different from Jonathan Pollard’s.
Candace WILL have to give an account to God Almighty for “every idle word and deed,” just like every other human being. She’ll answer for every single unwarranted accusation and ounce of hardship added to what must already be an incalculable sorrow. I hope and pray the trial will make it clear exactly what those unwarranted accusations are.
That will require a level of transparency into the life of Tyler Robinson that will demonstrate he’s not the subject of the GW's Program on Extremism, staffed by former National Counterterrorism Center and Senate Homeland Security Committee personnel, and funded by the DHS through the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center of Excellence. I really wish that the U.S. government wasn’t studying how to radicalize and labotomize young men on the Internet, and really, really wish programs like this weren’t shared with Israeli intelligence. Sadly, because of the endless ambition to merge the U.S. Armed Services and our Intelligence agencies with the IDF and Mossad, and because of the unlimited power of AIPAC in the U.S. Congress, Section 219 (previously 224) of the 2027 NDAA, (with a companion Section 1217 in the Senate version) will further merge our two nations in exactly this type of MK-ULTRA-type program and six different areas of R&D in the United States-Israel FUTURES Act (introduced by four legislators who have received substantial AIPAC and pro-Israel PAC support).
It does no good to prove Tyler Robinson did it when there are programs that exist to make kids like that do things like that. Just another Satanic conspiracy theory, right?
The worst part of all of this is Erika herself. I know I’ve got subscribers who believe every word of the worst complaints about her. I do not. I pity her. She’s being used by one side as a human shield to deflect arrows from people who are convinced that an evil nation did an evil thing to someone they loved, while the other side is the one who is flinging arrows at the widow of the person they loved. That’s tragic, all the way around.
Meanwhile, I wish she were home. With her children. Healing, and letting other people take the barbs. I wish the people around her had convinced her to do differently. Everything Charlie has publicly said, reportedly private and unprovable comments aside, suggests he’d have wanted that, too. When you’re the CEO of a major organization that battles in the Public Marketplace of Ideas as its primary purpose, it’s going to invite the very worst of humanity to hit you as hard as possible on a daily basis. That doesn’t excuse any treatment that crosses the line of sinfulness. It also doesn’t excuse the monumental foolishness that anybody thought it was a good idea to place her there, at least right now. It’s such a colossally bad idea; it makes a person wonder why, why the rush, and what they get out of it.
There’s no doubt about one thing: The pro-Israel trajectory of TPUSA today is almost certainly not the trajectory it would have had if Charlie were alive. His private decision to abandon the pro-Israel cause - and his decision to announce that to his friends who were Israel-First influencers - almost certainly means that it was about to go public. It’s hard to imagine that would not have changed the trajectory of the organization he ran. Had it, it’s hard to imagine that would not have changed the trajectory of the United States’ relationship with Israel, both in the Trump Administration and in public support. That’s how much influence Charlie had. Everyone knows it. Israel knew it. And now, TPUSA is squarely in the chest pocket of the Israel lobby. For one reason: Charlie is gone.
Do what you want with that information. But I won’t call you Satanic if you don’t want to trust the official narrative until you see the facts. And until you know the facts, refrain from saying that which, if you’re wrong, would be sinful to say. Should you err, repent. It’s free. Jesus already paid for it.
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