It would be stating the obvious to say that Andrew Wilson destroyed Candace Owens today during the Great Debate, moderated by Patrick Bet-David. One was able to predict the outcome with one hundred percent metaphysical certitude. Owens may be able to talk rapidly and in complete sentences (her constant mispronunciation of basic words notwithstanding); however, she is not smart in the sense of having an analytical mind. She is high in emotional intelligence, for sure, like other manipulative people. But not a rational thinker. Like everybody else, narcissists and psychopaths are on a sliding scale of different qualities of intelligence (see Mistaking Our Species Innate Linguistic Capacity for Native Intelligence). Owens had no answer to Wilson’s steel-trap approach.
Wilson embarrassed Owens throughout the conversation, but a standout moment was when she demanded that Wilson name just one of the charges against Tyler Robinson. So he did: murder. Owens responded by saying that aggravated murder is “literally not murder.” She literally said this. Aggravated murder is literally murder. Aggravated murder is murder with aggravating factors, for example, planning the crime out over time or lying in wait. It is known in other jurisdictions as first-degree murder, marked by malice aforethought. Imagine somebody telling you that first-degree murder is not murder. That Robinson planned the crime out over time doesn’t make his murderous action “literally not murder.” You would laugh in the man’s face, wondering how on Earth he came to believe that aggravated murder is not murder. After all, the word “murder” is in the frickin’ name!
Owens doesn’t have the first clue about criminal law. Nor does Owens army of zombies. But she and her army wouldn’t have to know much at all about the subject to get this one right. One could know next to nothing about criminal law and still know that aggravated murder is murder. Can they not see the word in the name? To her credit, she did pronounce the word correctly rather than saying something like “agoravatized.”
What did Wilson hope to accomplish with this conversation? It isn’t like he believed that he could change her or her followers’ minds. He knows who they are: they’re Arthur Schopenhauer’s fools. The Candace Owen follower is the paradigm. “Whoever writes for fools always finds a large public,” Schopenhauer once observed. Sensationalism, shallow thinking, and low-substance work attract mass popularity because they require no mental effort to consume. Such content draws those incapable of consuming high-substance work and operating on higher-order thinking. They’re flies on a shit show, to update a hackneyed phrase. Facts and logic hurt their ganglia. Wilson, on the other hand, has a keen analytical mind. And the patience of a saint.
Candace Owens was made for shallow people in search of the sensational. The Church of Owens is a charismatic one. Confronted with her claim that Israel killed Charlie Kirk, she explicitly said that she had no positive evidence for the claim (or any of her claims, for that matter) but that it “feels” that way to her. She actually said this—and defended her entitlement to it! In other words, vibes. No evidence. No reasonable inferences. Just vibes. Wilson can’t reach people who think like that, however patient he is. Owens may seem smart (to gullible people) because she can Gish gallop, but experience tells us that stupid people are capable of blizzard mouth. Polls asking the public who won the debate serve as proxies measuring the extent of gullibility in the population.
Schopenhauer suggested that the best way to deal with fools is to have nothing to do with them (see The Scourge of the Scold). He argued that trying to reason with a fool is useless because logic has no power over stupidity (see Judgment, Conformity, and Epistemic Distortion). However, the target of debate is not really one’s opponent but the audience. Yet, the stupidity of Owens’ audience makes them unreachable. They find her attractive not because she’s intelligent. (How would they know anyway?) They follow her because she has a charisma they find appealing. Why would anybody follow Jim Jones, Benny Hinn, or L. Rob Hubbard? Charisma. Charisma works on everybody to a degree, so smart people are on guard.
Her followers also find validation in Owens’ refusal to use facts and logic when making the case. They don’t use facts and logic, either! Owens gives them permission to affirm their lazy cognitive style. “Candace is like that, so I can be, too!” They’re too stupid to know how stupid that makes them. They won’t listen to me (or Wilson)—that’s for sure. Not having to use facts and logic makes life easy in a society that tolerates stupid people. So my hat is off to Wilson for not tolerating stupid people. I struggle with it. I feel embarrassed for them. I worry I might sound cruel. I don’t easily suffer fools.
The opportunity Owens’ followers saw was to dogpile Wilson. They’re really good at that—ad hominem, logical fallacies, and non sequiturs. These come naturally to shallow minds. “Why is Wilson’s foot shaking?” (Because he’s a nicotine fiend experiencing withdrawal live and on screen, perhaps. What is that relevant?) “He said he was in the army and didn’t serve!” (What does that have to do with the ass-kicking we just watched?) “Wilson should cancel his podcast immediately!” (Their girl canceled her podcast Wednesday when Robinson’s defense pleading was dropped because it essentially admits he murdered Kirk.)
You remember these people from high school. Think back. They sat at the mean girls’ table in the cafeteria. Their heads were full of designer brands, changing hairstyles, and the names of cute boys they plan to use for clout. They moved like schools of fish down hallways and at malls. They sighed and rolled their eyes a lot.
A clarification is in order. Wilson kept demanding positive evidence, which Owens found threatening. What does Wilson mean? Circumstantial evidence requires plain facts that suggest other facts—and that requires rational inference. DNA, Fingerprints, the murder weapon, a screwdriver, or shoe prints left at a location are circumstantial. The prosecution has all that and more in copious amounts. Running away from a scene or hiding items. Check. Buying tools needed for a job right before it happens. Borrowing a Dremel from a roommate to inscribing the bullets used in the murder with ideological messages. Check. Check.
“So the case is circumstantial!” Most cases are. So what about direct evidence? By contrast, direct evidence proves itself. Wilson has a lot of that, too. So does the prosecution. The text messages to Twiggs in which he confesses to the crime. The video of Robinson at the scene with a rifle down his pant leg. Those are damning facts. All Owens has is conjecture and speculation. And that is no evidence at all.
This is a slam dunk case. Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, should negotiate a plea deal. I hope his attorneys are advising their client to take that route. Surely, they are. Luigi Mangione (who also killed for ideological reasons) stepped into a Manhattan federal courtroom today and pled guilty to federal charges. “On the morning of December 4, 2024, I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” he said. “I knew what I was doing was illegal.” Robinson should follow suit.
freedom and reason 