CANDACE OWENS: ...about black conservatives
when they have the audacity to think for themselves and become educated about our history
and the myth of things, um... like the Southern switch and the Southern strategy,
which never happened. *RECORD SCRATCH* CODY (V.O.): Yep, that's me, in Congress. I'm sure you're asking, "How did that happen?" Well, it's actually a pretty wild story. CODY: And we'll get to that story, and my
literally effortless Candace Owens impression. But first, hi! And, here is some news! Last week, Congress had a hearing about
the rise in white nationalist violence— a thing that is real— and it turned partly into a complete embarrassment of
easily provable lies and Republicans trying to not talk about
white nationalist violence— a thing that is real. But, w... we'll get into that. First, this again: OWENS: ...the Southern switch and the
Southern strategy, which never happened. ...and there is a PragerU video, um, that further explicates it that I would advise that everybody watches.
Thank you for your time. CODY: That's a clip of a complete liar, lying
about easily verified facts, citing Prager University at a congressional hearing. Now, what's Prager University, you ask? Which... Okay! We'll cover this in great detail in another episode, but, briefly, Prager University is,
according to its own website, not an accredited university. It's the brainchild of decades-long neoconservative
radio host Dennis Prager. It's funded by homophobic, ultra-religious
fracking billionaires the Wilks brothers, despite having giant donate buttons
all over their website. Yes, donate to make sure we can keep making videos, or we'll have to ask more billionaires for money. PragerU has countless videos that are
grossly misleading about science, history, economics, and the like, and all the scripts are edited by Mr. Prager. But the main ethos of PragerU is to bring back
conservative Christian values and traditions. America has done nothing wrong,
racism doesn't exist, and we must protect moneyed interests at all costs, while following the advice and boldly
inaccurate information of Dennis Prager specifically. Again, he edits all of the scripts. And don't worry. They're... they're totally
not culty and weird about it. ALLEN ESTRIN: Who is Dennis Prager? And why do so many people love him? He changes the way you live... for the better. He makes you a better person. CODY: Super normal... from a fake university littered with
countless verifiably false statements. Their videos are all under five minutes,
but they lie so much in them that debunking them and adding context to their lies
often takes upwards of 20 minutes. They're good at what they do: Lie. And again, we don't have the time to go over it. So, links down below. Go Google their lies. It's not hard to find. And we'll get into the Southern strategy
that this liar is lying about, but let's just do a simple example that I think is just
the chef-iest kiss a chef ever kissed: This video about stock buybacks and
how they're good, actually. You see, Donald Trump's big tax cut for corporations
that was supposed to help the working class mostly went to executives who used it for
stock buybacks. So, PragerU made this video where they talk about... What are stock buybacks? Spoiler alert: They're good, and don't worry about it. They specifically cite companies like Home Depot... VOICEOVER: ...The Home Depot.... CODY: ...who engaged in this behavior. But it's good! And then the video ends, and you go to the description, and you see that this video is in conjunction with
Job Creators Network, and so you go, "What's... what's that?" And you find out it gets a significant amount of funding
from the billionaire Mercer family, and it was founded by a different billionaire
who also founded... Home Depot. That's interesting! Anyway PragerU is trash, and they're starting to
infiltrate Congress with their lies, making even more lies in Congress than normal! But we'll get back to our beautiful friends at PragerU,
maybe. Let's return to the star of this terrible film,
Candace Owens. Record scratch! Freeze-frame! Yup, that's me! How did I get here? Well... Candace Owens grew up in Connecticut. During high school, her town's mayor's sh*tty son
and his sh*tty friends left her a bunch of racist, death threat-y voicemails. Incidentally, this article about it mentions that earlier, Candace was arrested for harassment in an unrelated incident. More on this later. But fast forward to 2015, when she ran an anti-Trump and
anti-conservative website called Degree180, a name which we'll discover is a little too on the nose
for foreshadowing. After the site fell apart, she moved onto a project
called Social Autopsy, which was her idea for a website
that would document hate speech— something she doesn't think exists— and "online harassment," ostensibly doxing anyone who
makes mean comments online. While perhaps well-intentioned, the website was panned
by people from both sides of the political spectrum. A few months later, Candace came out as conservative. Interesting. A real... real "Degree180" turn there! She claimed that her decision came after
the liberal media lied about her website— that nobody lied about, and everyone, not just liberals, told the truth about. There's a Breitbart article about it! And then she said that a bunch of liberals posed as
right-wing trolls tweeting racist stuff at her, becuase right-wing racist trolls are... rare... online. So now, she's a conservative. Now, one... one could see this as perhaps a... hollow, opportunistic move, but someone else might say, "Well, some anonymous people were mean online, "so I changed all of my opinions about the economy,
social issues, systemic racism, health care, and history." But, whatever. She soon began releasing videos about how
she doesn't care about white supremacy, Black Lives Matter is just a bunch of whiners, America isn't racist, things like that, and she was soon hired as the Director for
Urban Engagement for Turning Point USA, a conservative activist group with
questionable finances and practices as well as a history of racial bias. One could argue that this hire now allows
Turning Point USA's founder Charles "Tiberius" Kirk to sit back and laugh while a black woman
yells at Black Lives Matter so he doesn't have to. But who knows? Candace continued with Turning Point
while making videos for PragerU, telling celebrities... OWENS: Dear celebrities, I'm sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but we do not care, not in the slightest particle
of an imaginary thing, what you think. CODY: ...right before a celebrity agreed with her. So... this one... this... this... THIS one's a free thinker! She also doesn't believe in climate change
despite admitting not knowing about it, and saying she doesn't trust Scientific American
because it has "dot com" in its name. So... I don't know. Just seems like... like maybe... she's not a very... reliable source on... much of anything... and doesn't need to be at a hearing with a bunch of serious people and organizations
discussing hate crimes and white nationalist terrorism. So... why was she asked? Why is she there? What the f*ck can she add? Well, there are a lot of theories, but first,
let's hear from her. OWENS: I received word on my way in that many of the journalists were confused
as to why I was invited, and none of them knew, uh, that I myself, uh, was
the victim of a hate crime when I was in high school. CODY: She brings up her history with the hate crime,
as I mentioned, and says that it opened her eyes to conservatism, and how the NAACP took advantage of her
to boost the idea that there are hate crimes— a thing that she literally experienced... and is talking about. Also interesting, considering that she previously said
what opened her eyes to conservatism was being harassed online by liberals pretending to be
anonymous right-wing racist trolls. Also in 2016, she wrote an open letter to
her old high school, talking about the incident, and how the media circus surrounding it
ruined her life for a long time, along with people not believing her,
calling her a liar, in it for the money, and ugly. And thi... this... this sucks. Nobody believed her, and they made her
the center of attention, and the freaking mayor's son didn't even apologize
for the racist sh*t he did. It sucks that people called you a liar and
in it for the money. And it especially sucks, because it really seems like you're lying and
in it for the money about all this other stuff. Not the hate crime... but ALL of this other stuff! Also, I would never call you ugly on the outside, so.... Anyhoo... Candace spent a lot of her time during the hearing
dismissing the very idea of racism in America today— citation needed— and she brought up her grandfather,
who was alive during the Jim Crow era, to illustrate what real racism is like. Because pointing to the brutality of the past in order to
dismiss any criticism of the present is... is a... is a... is a... valid... argument... for Congress? We... we... country built on racism... it's... it's over. It's over now! She says all the hate crime statistics are fake. And like... Do you think the FBI is faking statistics
to help minorities? They sent a letter to Martin Luther King Jr.
to convince him to kill himself! And don't get me wrong, alright? One of Candace's messages is that she's not a victim. She hates the... the victim mentality. And that's a good, positive message, but... not wanting to feel like a victim doesn't mean
racism doesn't exist, or that it's not a problem, or that racists don't suddenly feel emboldened for... some reason. So again, kinda pointless. What's she doing here? OWENS: ...under the Democrat party's Jim Crow laws... ...Democrat...
...Democrat...
...Democrat... ...the Democrat... ...Democrat... ...the Democrat... ...Democrat terrorist organization of that time,
the Ku Klux Klan. CODY: Oh, hmm.... It seems like, maybe, the Republicans invited her, maybe, so they could have a black person say that
racism doesn't exist, and white nationalism isn't the problem,
and that the real racists are the Democrats. Maybe! Maybe that's why she's there. And I'm not here to say that no Democrats are racist, or that Democratic policies haven't hurt
black communities, but I am saying that this is partisan hackery
at its most grotesque. Which brings us back to this: OWENS: ...and the myth of things, um, like the
Southern switch and the Southern strategy, which never happened. CODY: Mrs. Grift Goes to Washington, to lie to everybody's face about the
Southern strategy being a myth. The Southern strategy refers to a realignment of
political parties that started in the early 1900s, but took place mostly after the Civil Rights Act passed. Republicans engaged in quiet racism to
push away black people and court racist white people. This is well-documented, and the idea that it's a myth has been thoroughly
debunked by, what most would call, actual historians. And, heck, since we're here, real quick... A fake historian might point out that there was a higher percentage of Republicans
that voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. But then, if you actually look at the votes,
you see that the divide is actually regional. It was a North/South thing— wonder why— not so much a Democrat/Republican thing. And in fact, more Southern Democrats, by percentage and
number of votes in both the House and the Senate, voted for the act than did Southern Republicans, and more Northern Democrats, by percentage and
number of votes in both the House and the Senate, voted for the act than did Northern Republicans. But whatever, alright? Let's... let's go
breeze through this, alright? Because the writing's on the wall here,
or, in many cases, the writing is on the.... transcripts... of interviews... about this... with the people... who did it! Aside from the fact that the woman who made the PragerU video in question
debunking the Southern strategy literally wrote about the Southern strategy existing
in her own book, the Southern strategy was also written about
by the people who engaged in it. A fake historian might write an article called
"The myth of Nixon's 'Southern Strategy,'" and that fake historian might mention
Nixon advisor Kevin Phillips in the article, but that fake historian—for some reason— won't include the quote from
Nixon advisor Kevin Phillips saying out loud that the Republicans were never going to get
more than 10 to 20 percent of the, quote, "Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... "The more Negroes who register as Democrats
in the South, "the sooner the Negrophobe whites will
quit the Democrats and become Republicans." We can also go to this quote
describing the Southern strategy from a memo written by former Nixon advisor—
and current Republican senator of Tennessee— Lamar Alexander. Or... Lee Atwater, someone a fake historian literally never mentions
for some reason. Atwater was advisor to both Ronald Reagan
and George Bush the first, and he said, quote, "You start out in 1954 by saying... "'N-word, n-word, n-word.' "By 1968 you can't say 'n-word'—that hurts you,
backfires. "So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states' rights,
and all that stuff, and you're getting so abstract. "Now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these
things you're talking about are totally economic things "and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.... "'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract
than even the busing thing, "uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than... "'n-word, n-word.'" But... I'm sure that this strategy only applies
to those Republican presidents, alright? Nothing after... KANYE WEST: George Bush doesn't care
about black people. CODY: Damn! Candace, any comment? OWENS: Here's the thing, famous ladies and gents:
nobody cares what you think. CODY: Damn! Okay, so, that was easy. Maybe these people are a little full of... complete bullsh*t, and shouldn't be testifying before Congress. So, why? Why... why... why is she there? To run cover, it seems. To lie, it seems. It's so weird that this employee of
Charles Koch's Turning Point USA would be invited by the Republican members of the
House Judiciary Committee, who have received more than $140,000
from Charles Koch! Every one of these twerps who asked Candace questions. Here's a guy who took his time addressing
the rise in white nationalist violence to ask Candace, how's she doin'? Does it bother liberals that she's a conservative? Does it trigger them? And no, I'm not exaggerating. REP. KEN BUCK: I think you've caused my friends
on the left to... to go to their safe spaces, and I'd love to ex... uh... explore with you
a little bit of the reason for that. Um... Do you consider yourself a conservative? OWENS: I am a conservative, yes.
BUCK: Okay. Are you pro-life? OWENS: I am pro-life.
BUCK: Okay. Does that trigger people when you see them,
that they know that you're pro-life? OWENS: It makes them very upset and
Democrats hate me. CODY: Great job, Congress. Some of these Koch buddies spent their time addressing
the rise in white nationalist violence by complaining about how Candace was described
in the program for the hearing. BUCK: Nobody else is described as
progressive or liberal, but you are described as a conservative...
advocacy group Turning Point USA, and a conservative commentator and political activist, known for her criticism of Black Lives Matter
and the Democrat Party. CODY: Two congressmen took the time to do this! And... first of all, maybe calling her a conservative activist or whatever,
is accurate, and there aren't similar descriptions
for the other people at the hearing, because they're all serious people with serious jobs
who take these things seriously. Also... first of all... REP. JERROLD NADLER: I don't think she could
quarrel with the accuracy of that. It's a simple statement of who she is. CODY: And further-ed-ly-more... OWENS: ...and I do just want to add that my biography,
which I submitted, uh, you reduced it to one sentence, uh... uh,
calling me a... uh, just a conservative activist. CODY: So... you're complaining about
the description of her, and according to her—moments later—
she submitted her own bio, and they just... made it shorter. And if we... if we... if we really want to get into this— I know this doesn't matter— but you can find a signed form from Candace that
everyone who testifies in front of Congress must fill out. Here it is. There's her name, the date, the topic,
and her writing down her description of herself: Conservative activist. Right on. What a waste of time. Conservatives love to talk about the liberal media bias. Candace mentioned it in her opening statement. Probably would have been worth mentioning that
the first use of the idea of a liberal media bias was used by racist George Wallace to discredit the
media's accurate coverage of the civil rights movement, but... whatever! They love to talk about how there's...
there's a bias against conservatives. They're... they're... they're being censored! PragerU complains constantly about this, about how... how more than 10 percent of their videos are in restricted mode on YouTube— a mode for schools and libraries and parents
to avoid certain topics and language. PragerU has whole lawsuit about it. But, hey, P... hey, P... hey, P... hey... hey, P...
hey, PragerU, more than 95 percent of our Some More Vews videos
are in restricted mode. Literally the only two that aren't, are a video that's title seemingly
compliments the president, and a video that's title seemingly defends the president
against the traitorous deep state! In fact, before this video you are currently watching, you probably saw an ad for PragerU! But anyway.... This is a sham. At one point, this Koch-gressman asked Candace, after saying, obviously there are ra...
there are racists out there, a... and white nationalists, but in YOUR experience, have you met racists
while talking to conservatives? It's an odd thing for a congressman to say when one of
his conservative colleagues is a white nationalist, BUT... Candace says no. No racists or any racism. Maybe she said that because she hadn't been hired at
TP USA until after a bunch of racists were fired, or maybe she's unaware of new TP USA hire
Benny Johnson— formerly fired from BuzzFeed for a lot of plagiarism, eventual and former writer for the
white-nationalist-friendly website The Daily Caller, owned by Tucker Carlson,
who we won't be talking about today! Benny Johnson opened up a recent TP USA event
by saying this: JOHNSON: Yes! Look at this!
This is amazing! Oh my God! I've never seen so many white people in one room!
This is incredible! CODY: Rock and roll... everyone involved in this situation! Also, as we were filming this, the official Turning Point USA Twitter account shared a photo where one of its members
promoted the Kalergi plan, an anti-Semitic white nationalist conspiracy theory! Weird! Because the thing is, white nationalism and white nationalist violence
IS on the rise, according to all of the serious people at this hearing; according to the racist FBI; according to the freaking military; according to our own f*cking eyes! And having Candace Owens come lie about it, and put on this weird conservative
YouTube grievance nonsense, is grotesque. White nationalism is... TUCKER: What does that mean, exactly?
And what's the agenda behind saying it? And most important, what's the effect
on the country, when they repeat that again and again and again? Does it make this a better place,
or does it make us hate each other? CODY: I said I didn't want to talk about you today, ya... fancy boy! That, of course, is Tucker Carlson,
a white nationalist propagandist, complaining about people calling others
white nationalists, despite self-described white nationalists
loving his show because of all the white nationalist talking points
he regularly espouses. In this exact same episode from... this week... he later talks about American birth rates, and rising foreigner birth rates, and how "we must protect our birth rates!" This is an issue that was central to the
Christchurch shooter's manifesto. "Great Replacement" of white people due to birth rates. And speaking of the Christchurch manifesto, Candace Owens! And before you freak out... I'm not saying that Candace Owens is a
white nationalist or a Nazi or whatever. The Christchurch dipsh*t's manifesto
is full of little jokes—you know, some trolls to confuse and get a rise out of people—
amidst his actual beliefs, which seem to align with British fascist
Oswald Mosley. Candace Owens isn't more extreme than
this blurred out piece of sh*t. He wanted people to go after Candace
to cause more trouble. But also... Candace Owens does talk about a lot of
the same things, and associate with people who talk about
race science a lot, and birth rates a lot, and all of the conspiracies that made this
person do the awful thing he did. It's a troll mixed with some truth,
and that's the problem here. For example... Here's the shooter giving the okay symbol, and the okay symbol was used to troll the normies into thinking something innocuous was really
some dumb Nazi sh*t. Except it quickly became both. Some did it to trigger people, some did it because they're racists,
and they had a new way to signal to each other, and some did it because everything was okay! And this, unfortunately, is all three. He's racist, he's trolling you, and it's okay. And that's the problem. That's the joke. It sucks. Candace Owens isn't some secret Nazi, but the mainstreaming of some of her views,
and the misrepresentation of some of her views, really helps fascists, who are attracted to... like, anti-immigration stuff, anti feminism,
anti-anti-racism, anti-cultural-Marxism, the existential threat facing the West due to immigration and Muslims and
declining birth rates. In leaked Discord chats, fascists openly talk about how they got there, and it ranges from memes and ironic racism to... hmm... InfoWars. Like the dipsh*t manifesto says, Donald Trump doesn't implement a lot of policies
that help their cause, but what he says, what he stands for,
and what he represents, does. They're probably attracted to a right-wing demagogue who calls himself a nationalist, and hates immigrants, and talks about how much he could
totally shoot people at the border, but he totally won't shoot people at the border! Someone who shuts down programs that
prevent white nationalist terrorism. And they appreciate a person who fears and hates globalism so much, that when asked about nationalism,
she invokes Adolf Hitler. OWENS: Yeah, I agree. I... I actually don't have any problems at all, uh,
with the word "nationalism." I think that it gets, uh... the definition gets poisoned, um, by elitists that actually want globalism. Globalism is what I... what I don't want. So, when you think about, whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about in...
at least in America, is Hitler You know, he was a National Socialist. But, uh, if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great,
and have things run well, okay, fine! The problem is, is that he wanted... he had dreams
outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. CODY: Now... I'm not gonna say that she's
defending the Holocaust or Hitler here, because she's not. What she's doing is downplaying everything wrong with
Nazi Germany except the Holocaust. Nationalism intrinsically creates in-groups
and out-groups, xenophobia and violence, but her problem with it is when the nation expands. Yeah, nationalists have no interest in
expanding the nation. Nationalists never kill their own people. That's something she said. Unbelievable. But folks like, um... PragerU will say that nationalism is good. Caus... Ga... Ga... Gandhi was a nationalist! Not mentioning that he was fighting for independence, and all of his quotes about his nationalism
describe how he views it as a part of the globe, and he would gladly sacrifice his nation for humanity, and would never support something for his nation
at the detriment of other nations, which is kinda... it's kinda like the opposite... of th... uh... of... uh... of nationalism. Like... like... like, it's the opposite of saying that we have to close down the border
because most Mexicans are rapists, and then saying we have to close down the border
because of incoming asylum-seeking migrant families, and then saying we have to close down the border
because of a trade deficit with Mexico! The problem isn't that he took it out of Germany. Also, globalism isn't "starting wars with other countries." Even if the question is included for context, this is a
bizarre, ignorant answer. It's weird. Incidentally, here's one of those actual historians
describing fascists and their view of globalism: TIMOTHY SNYDER: ...what links historical fascism
to the fascism of today? One is the tendency to treat globalization as a conspiracy rather than a challenge. For the fascists of the 1920s and 1930s,
globalization was a conspiracy... usually a Jewish conspiracy. Um... for the far right today, for the populists of today, one again hears talk of the international financiers,
or of George Soros in particular. Right? Or, in other versions, the Chinese, the Muslims. What fascists do, is they take globalization,
and they put a face on globalization. CODY: Globalism is the natural result of
people on a planet becoming more connected. It's not a CONSPIRACY... by PUPPETEERS! Anyway, again, this was a sham,
and historically immoral. Prager University has a bunch of videos
from fake historians claiming that, actually, Hitler was a... was a socialist— who killed all the socialists— and fascism is... is... is left-wing! And these... are lies. These are historically immoral lies intended to distance those with fascistic tendencies
from the similarities they share with the past. A fake historian doesn't want you to know that fascism is
a reaction hell-bent on destroying the left, and it traditionally comes to power via
uneasy collaboration with elite conservatives and classical liberals, and it's marked by all this other stuff. It's real gross what they do. And we'll get into that even more in another episode,
probably. So I'll just end on this moment from another
Koch-gressman about the importance of free speech. REP. TOM MCCLINTOCK: You know,
if there's an ideology that we don't like, the weakest thing that we can do is
try to forbid it or suppress it. The strongest thing we can do is to use our own freedom of speech to confront it and defeat it on its merits. CODY: The problem is, bud, you're not doing that. You're here, right here, listening to lies, and you're... complaining about the word "conservative"
in a witness's description? You want to combat bad speech with
good, correct speech, do it now, bud. Do it now! Mention the current senator from Tennessee
and former Nixon advisor who literally wrote a memo about the Southern strategy! Ted Lieu, it's... it's neat you wanted to play the little Hitler clip, but you're woefully unprepared to explain
what was wrong with it. So many of these people are woefully unable and unprepared to deal with these liars and grifters seeping into
Congress and congressional hearings. YouTubers are better at responding to
these f*cking liars! Ted... you can't just play it and say,
"Oh, she... she's, uh... he's d... sh... defending Hitler!" What you did, was you played a clip of her speaking, and then let her speak. The end. And how did she respond? OWENS: Uh, Mr. Lieu believes that black people are
stupid and will not, uh, pursue the full clip in its entirety. CODY: Whoa! Hey... Nobody said "black people," Candace! Why are you so mad? First of all, the... the context doesn't make your quote
any less absolutely wrong, and second of all... again... nobody said "black people," Candace! Why the f*ck did you bring that up?! In fact... OWENS: You've heard about the black card, right? CODY: Oh... So you... you did an entire video about
playing the black card, and then... Okay! Good stuff! Get that woman in Congress! *SIGH* Okay, bye. There. There was some... Hey, what's up? Thanks for watching. Subscribe to our channel, and like the video,
and leave a comment about how much you liked it. Don't be mean! And visit our patreon.com/somemorenews to support us, and listen to our podcast "Even More News," and... Don't be mean!
Love the shaun shout out.
Just finished watching this. Really great video about the whole affair. I like how Cody gave more attention to the actual members of congress in the hearing than most other reports I've seen on this moment and it left me hungry for more reporting on such. Really happy as well that he didn't leave Ted Lieu off the hook for his pithy, but rather ineffectual attempt to demonstrate just who Owens is and the company she keeps. Part of the problem of "hanging someone with their own words" is that if you don't tie the knot, you're just giving them more rope.
I kinda wish I had more to add, but generally I felt Cody knocked this out of the park and I can only say that I would have liked if he dug a little deeper on the side of the congressional makeup (I'm sure Lamar wasn't the only congressman present with distinct, on the book histories of racism) but I can also understand why Owens was the focal piece of this video.
It's so audacious to state that the Southern Strategy was a lie when it's documented. Unbelievable.
I love every episode of Cody's Showdy
I JUST made the connection that THIS Cody Johnson is the same Cody Johnson who's a frequent guest on Behind the Bastards. Also, good video.
Shaun reference? Okay, you have my attention.
EDIT: hit that sub box, honestly needed this channel earlier. This feels like everything Philip Defranco should be.
Fuck I hate everyone in Congress so fucking much holy shit.
Why doesn't youtube ban pragerU?
Congress is full of complete morons.