Bulwark editor and MAGA-world monitor Will Sommer says the slightly less crazy wing of far-right influencers are losing their fight against the craziest one of all.
“It’s clear that Ben Shapiro and his ilk have lost … control of the MAGA audience,” said Sommer. “They are powerless to stop [MAGA influencer Candace] Owens from terrorizing their friend’s widow, from pushing antisemitism, and generally from acting as a thorn in the movement ahead of the midterms. After more than a decade of conspiracy theories, and voting for the country’s arch conspiracy-theorist to be president, the audience will really believe in anything.”
For weeks, Ownens — who is famous (and sued) for spreading some of the most raucous conspiracy theories peppering the MAGA community — has been claiming that Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, had something to do with her husband’s assassination last year. Owens has been promising a new series tackling Erika Kirk’s alleged connection. And her audience, said Sommer, has been eating it up, despite Owens’ conspiracy-slinging influencer rivals warning viewers away from her.
Most recently, Sommer says Owens laid out an underwhelming array of “her most damning evidence,” which includes one of Erika Kirk’s relatives being arrested for working in an illegal numbers racket nearly 100 years ago, and Kirk being born in a civilian hospital that was originally a military hospital during the Civil War.
Additionally, Erika Kirk once dressed as a “bee” in a photo taken of her back when she worked in daycare.
“It was nonsense,” said Sommer, but the conspiracy-loving MAGA audience adores it all, no matter how hard the rest of MAGA frenzies.
“I think it’s safe to say [Charlie] would rather take a dozen bullets to the neck than watch his wife go through this, face a living assassination,” podcaster Liz Wheeler said Wednesday, reports Sommer.
“F—— you, motherf—— !” said former FBI director Dan Bongino to Owens and her followers Tuesday. “You deserve to feel the little licks and the flames of hell on every inch of your body. F—— you!”
But the MAGA universe, which is famous for fearlessly saying anything without evidence, appears to be powerless against a MAGA queen who is willing to invite a million-dollar lawsuit from an international leader.
In fact, Owen’s MAGA competition has “already started to waffle,” according to Sommer. Owens critic Ian Miles Cheong has already admitted that his rival has won the audience.
“That could be because any attempts to attack Owens only makes her stronger,” Sommer said. “Fellow Daily Wire host Michael Knowles made that very point this week when he complained that the real problem is conservative hosts bringing more attention to Owens in their attempts to defend Erika Kirk.”
And Sommer said Owens’s supporters are just as nutty and retaliatory as Ownes, having “seized on an apparently fraudulent memo that purported to show figures like Laura Loomer and Bongino coordinating on a message that Owens was ‘Satanic’ and ‘evil.’”
“Loomer, for one, has threatened to sue another X user for promoting the bogus document,” said Sommer.
