Watching Candace Owens Torch Democrats in Congress Was Pure Delight

Candace Owens from Turning Point USA at the CPAC convention in National Harbor, Md., on March 1, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Commentary

It was a pleasure to watch Candace Owens, communications director for conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, destroy progressives in Congress on April 9 in a hearing on white nationalists and hate crimes.

In what was arguably one of the most fiery statements ever given on Capitol Hill, Owens dropped rhetorical napalm in her searing indictment of the impact the policies of the Democratic Party have had on black communities throughout America.

While everyone is still talking about her heated exchange with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), I’m still laughing over the fact that she went into a Democrat-led hearing on a progressive issue in a House controlled by the left and spoke truth to power.

“There isn’t a single adult today that in good conscience would make the argument that America is a more racist or a more white nationalist society than it was when my grandfather was growing up,” she said in her opening statement. “And yet, we’re hearing these terms sent around today, because what they want to say is that brown people need to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years right ahead of a presidential election.”

This joke of a hearing seemed geared toward further demonizing white people, looking for gotcha moments and politicians trying to get good video clips for campaigning, rather than taking a serious look at the issue of hate crimes and white nationalists.

After all, congressional officials surely know the data doesn’t necessarily reflect an increase in hate crimes. As Owens stated, “What they won’t tell you about the statistics in the rise of white nationalism is that they’ve simply changed the dataset points by widening the definition of hate crimes and upping the number of reporting agencies that are able to report on them.”

To clarify for any officials who might have listening comprehension issues, she said, “What I mean to say, is that they’re manipulating statistics.”

Over and over, we see politicians misrepresent issues and blatantly lie about facts and data in order to push an agenda. Tuesday’s bogus hearing was no exception. Watching the long faces of stunned representatives being called out in their own House was a delight. Owens’ five-minute opening statement must have seemed like an eternity for leftists who try to bury the facts that she put on full display in front of a global audience.

Owens continued: “Here are some things we never hear. Seventy-five percent of the black boys in California don’t meet state reading standards. In inner cities like Baltimore, within five high schools and one middle school, not a single student was found to be proficient in math or reading in 2016. The single motherhood rate in the black community, which is at 23 percent in the 1960s when my grandfather was coming up, is at a staggering 74 percent today. I’m guessing there will be no committee hearings about that. There are more black babies aborted than born alive in cities like New York and you have Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo lighting up buildings to celebrate late-term abortions. I could go on and on. My point is that white nationalists did not do any of those things that I just brought up—Democrat policies did.”

This much-needed message being delivered during a hearing shows a continuation of a recent pattern we’ve seen: conservatives having a backbone and not caving to pressure to silence them. We saw it last year with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And now we’re seeing it with Owens.

Conservative politicians, candidates for office, and activists should take note: Cowering, mushy “messaging” and backing down from a just fight are no longer winning strategies. As is clear in the Trump era, when you’re up against an opponent who fights dirty, sometimes the gloves need to come off. And, as Owens demonstrated this week, sometimes you have to pull back the curtain and give people the raw truth.

“The hearing today is not about white nationalism or hate crimes,” she said. “It’s about fear mongering, power, and control. It’s a preview of the Democrat 2020 election strategy.”

Adrian Norman is a writer and political commentator.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.