When Truth Becomes a Team Sport

I deliberated whether to write this. Being part of the swirling commentary over sensationalized and frankly embarrassing online media spectacles is a dilemma many serious commentators find themselves in. On the one hand, why give it oxygen by taking it seriously? On the other hand, there is a large online audience buying into ridiculous ideas, and because enough of them vote, it could impact the future of our political choices and chances.

I posted yesterday that I did not want to watch the debate between Candace Owens and Andrew Wilson. Why? Because the outcome was predetermined. Candace would go ad hominem, lose on the merits, and her supporters would proclaim victory anyway. And that is about what happened.

Candace told Andrew Wilson he was “representing the state,” acting like “[her] dad” for allegedly “deposing” her, even though he was allowed to ask her whatever he wanted regarding her theories on the Charlie Kirk assassination. She acted like Andrew was breaking their agreement when it was really she who violated their joint decision not to go ad hominem.

She said Andrew was like a “professor” for applying logical standards as he hammered her for failing to make a positive case. Andrew was part of the “manosphere” and said things about women and Ericka Kirk, in particular, that should signal hypocrisy. Andrew failed to allegedly care about the issue because he did not know the charge was “aggravated murder” and not just murder.

Predictably, some of her followers made their way onto my social media to point out my supposed hypocrisy for allegedly supporting Andrew, who says distasteful things.

For the record, I know enough about Andrew Wilson to know that he has engaged in rhetoric I want no association with. But the fact that Candace successfully crafted a frame where her supporters felt morally justified in battering people for supporting Andrew Wilson the man instead of simply supporting his position is illustrative of the pitiful times in which we live for public discourse.

How can we ever make progress or find common cause if everything is a team sport? At some point, the truth has to matter if our civilization is to survive. Otherwise, we are held captive by fashion, optics, and rhetoric lacking substance at a level never before seen.

And yes, this has grave political implications.

If Gavin Newsom is a white chad compared to J.D. Vance, as figures like Nick Fuentes have argued, if James Fishback, a con artist if there ever was one, is qualified for the simple reason that he promises things he has no ability to deliver on, if the mayor of New York City can run a campaign mainly driven by foreign policy concerns over which he has no jurisdiction, then we are entering a new stage in American politics that signals a prioritization of personality and celebrity affiliation over substance and issues.

I say celebrity affiliation because the podcast class has become its own elite class in an almost feudal dynamic. Instead of serving the informational needs of their dependents in return for support, they are morphing into a cast of Marvel Universe characters who fill a need for entertainment and offer a sense of superiority to their audiences, who receive access to allegedly privileged information the legacy ruling class does not want us to know about.

On the one hand, they are warring hierarchical barons and baronesses of the new tech, where smaller platforms rely on bigger ones for their own bread and butter and must toe the line if they expect to receive rewards in the form of likes, clicks, and ad revenue. The incentive structures prevent other podcasters who live in the kingdom from questioning their own de facto leadership without facing repercussions.

How many who know better have actually challenged Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson directly, even though they have been proven pathological liars again and again?

On the other hand, the current podcast ecosystem relies on the understanding that the conditions that existed in 2020 have continued in some form, whereby legacy elites are controlling everyone’s mind except the brave podcasters who are smart enough to see through the Matrix.

“Usury is enslaving you, anon. Also, I recommend American Financing for home loans.”

Are we really this dim as a people? Is this allowed for Machiavellian reasons by smarter people who say nothing because they believe that they can gain influence with the podcast class, or because the podcast class is at least pushing in the right direction?

If you are someone who subscribes to this line of thinking, please consider the spectacle we just witnessed.

Charlie Kirk, probably the greatest organizer for the conservative movement politically in the past decade, forged an organization that actually helped Republicans win elections, incentivized Republicans to be more conservative, and, by the time of Charlie’s death, was pushing Christian values into the mainstream of Republican discourse.

He was assassinated by a Leftist who disagreed with his message.

If there were anything, and I mean anything, that should have united the Right wing more on a political level, it was this event. An attack on Charlie was truly an attack on all of us and the future of our country. For a brief moment, it felt like a unification project was being created, the crescendo of which was Charlie Kirk’s funeral.

Then it all unraveled.

Frankly, it was coming unraveled before then. Guys like Ian Carroll, Stew Peters, and Jackson Hinkle were already suggesting Israel was somehow involved in the assassination, and Candace Owens was fanning the flames by focusing Charlie’s legacy on being anti-Israel, an alleged fact legacy elites were supposedly covering up.

Fast forward to yesterday’s debate.

Scratch that. It was not a debate. Certainly not a formal one.

I did not see an engaged moderator, time limits, rebuttals, or cross-examinations. It was a poorly facilitated discussion in a room merely twice the size of my kitchen closet. The livestream was filled with ad breaks and ad reads. Andrew Wilson had to pay Candace Owens $300,000 just to make it happen.

And yet, somehow, in the minds of many, Candace has managed to pull off the intellectually insulting notion that she is Charlie Kirk’s true friend and advocate while profiting handsomely off her theory of how he died, suggesting his own wife somehow bears responsibility, and trashing the organization he helped build.

If the influencer truly cared about their followers and not just their own necks, more of them would be signaling how much of a liability this is for even simple electoral victories.

This is not coming from a political leader making real political decisions whom we are forced to back on some level because of the alternative. These are the ravings of a drama-prone con artist whom even men who speak out against figures like Allie Beth Stuckey or Ericka Kirk for being women in leadership positions are reluctant to criticize.

When a debate like the one between Andrew Wilson and Candace Owens takes place, it is an opportunity, once again, to say something if we who have platforms care about our audiences and care about truth.

Here are a few observations I would expect us to detect and emphasize:

First, it was a tedious discussion because Owens kept complaining that Andrew Wilson was interrupting her and steering the conversation toward minor points and what Andrew was and was not allowed to ask. It would have been nice if the moderator stepped in, but he did not. As a result, Candace spoke for 1 hour and 44 minutes, or 59 percent, while Wilson spoke for 59 minutes, or 33 percent, according to Grok.

I noticed this almost immediately. Andrew was at a disadvantage. He was on Candace’s turf and, let us face it, he was arguing with a pregnant woman. Even basic chivalry seems to demand, under normal circumstances, that she should be allowed to speak when she wants.

These were not normal circumstances, though. All this did was give Owens more time to promote her wacky views while Andrew, who tried to stay on point, was perceived as letting her slip by.

Second, Andrew won on the merits for those who cared about merits. But this was not about merits.

Let me give you one example. One of the first things they discussed was whether or not the DNA taken from parts of the gun bolstered the prosecution’s case or Candace’s suggestion that Robinson could have been a patsy.

Wilson focused on the fact that Candace lacked any supporting evidence to jump from Robinson’s DNA deterioration to the idea that he was a patsy. One does not follow from the other. As Andrew got Candace to admit, there could have been 100 possibilities for why Robinson’s DNA had deteriorated.

However, Candace successfully planted the idea in people’s minds that because Robinson’s DNA was more deteriorated than other DNA present on the weapon, he was probably not the last person to handle the gun.

Wilson did not take the opportunity to point out that Robinson also had more DNA than any of the other samples and that if Tyler was the last person to handle the weapon, his DNA could have been subject to more weathering, as opposed to smaller samples taken from areas more sheltered.

Wilson won on the logic. Candace had no positive case. Yet her audience, which seems to be persuaded more by anti-government narratives than by evidence and logic, went along with her.

Third, it is difficult to win a debate against someone who argues from a neutral perspective. Candace dialed down her podcast rhetoric to appear as though she was approaching the issue without making claims so much as she was just asking questions.

Andrew was correct in his closing statement that Candace made no positive case that Robinson was a patsy, or that Ericka or Israel were involved.

She relied on intuition and failed to produce evidence for her timeline, which includes Tyler Robinson going to a steakhouse after the shooting and some connection with the French Foreign Legion. She framed her secret evidence as tips that came to her as a private citizen and friend of Charlie.

She was flustered as Andrew tried to pry her for details, as if he was violating her relationships and doubting her integrity. Again, the optics of man versus pregnant woman did not serve Andrew here.

Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV)@TheMilkBarTV

🚨Candace Owens COMPLETELY COLLAPSES when Andrew Wilson asks her to provide evidence for her claim that Israel and France were involved in Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

5:43 PM · Aug 14, 2026 · 806K Views

635 Replies · 837 Reposts · 7.86K Likes

Fourth, this spectacle could only happen before the eyes of public opinion where logic and evidence are not the primary drivers. It could not hold up in a courtroom, which is where this issue will ultimately be settled.

Perhaps Michael Knowles was right that this was too degrading of a process to go through over a man whose murder trial has not started. Meanwhile, it seems his legacy is being hijacked, and those who care want to do something.

This brings me to my observation that we who believe in truth have our own limitations in countering messages like Candace Owens’s.

First, if there is spiritual blindness among people who wish to believe lies, we are not going to argue them into believing truth. I have learned that many times over many years.

Men love darkness because their deeds are evil. From a Christian perspective, someone laden with sin often does feel justified in pointing out the faults of others.

I think we are past the reasoning stage with figures like Candace. That is what this discussion proved is not the approach. They need to be condemned for the damage they are doing.

Second, we need to uphold the truth along with a positive message.

What Candace is doing is short-term, at least for her. She cannot milk this situation forever. Holding to timeless principles beyond sensational passing fancies must be the core of our message and platforms.

The actionable message in this case is that the Left contains a violent element bent on destroying us, and we must expose and defeat them politically for our children. We must uphold standards of justice and due process. I will be speaking about this soon at the Restoring Virtue Conference.

Third, we must give our allegiance to practical, tangible efforts not built upon pipe dreams and poor character.

How will your life be better if the Trump coalition and TPUSA can no longer mobilize voters to beat the kind of people who believe what Tyler Robinson believes politically?

Instead of watching the soap opera, or giving too much time to those who do, we need to be focused on those who are winnable and able to get as close as possible to pulling off real-world wins for our way of life.

An article like this may help a few people, but I myself want to be careful with how much attention I give these people. They must be refuted, but they cannot be allowed to steal our resources at the same time.

There are many things going on in the world right now that deserve our attention.

It may be the case that a series like “Bride of Charlie” by Candace Owens demonstrates the level of unseriousness affluence has afforded us, that enough people even have the time to pay attention to these superficial shows.

Bread and circuses cannot win when the barbarians are at the gate.

As desperation increases, which will inevitably happen if Democrats win, there will be a realignment, and it must be driven by men of competence and virtue, not simply rhetoric.

I pray these qualities go back in style without the need for hard times.