What happened to Candace Owens? Now she claims Jews were responsible for establishing the Soviet Union and the cruelties of communism! She consistently defends the Putin regime, but her claims are ridiculous.

Populist pundit Candace Owens defended the unprovoked Russian invasion by saying “Ukraine wasn’t a thing until 1989. The Russians created Ukraine. . . They speak Russian.” She then went on to claim Russians living in Ukraine were horribly mistreated, so Putin’s invasion was necessary.
Her “Russian lives matter” article was retweeted by the Kremlin. Olga Lautman responded “Russian lives matter so much to Putin’s war crime regime that they sent portable crematories to hide the deaths. Candace is clearly on the payroll pushing Kremlin garbage while supporting genocide.”
I don’t enjoy criticizing social media influencers on the right, but lunacy and the outrageous claims made by many Putin Republicans must be answered.
That is especially true of someone such as Candace Owens who I repeatedly praised in the past on domestic issues. I wanted to be part of the effort to promote a young attractive and interesting black woman as a major spokesman for the conservative cause.
She is no longer part of Turning Point but her willingness to engage in debates on college campuses was fantastic. Owens became enormously popular as she advocated reduced government spending, economic growth and criticized the woke warriors.
Encouraging black participation in the GOP is a very admirable goal, and a Republican majority is inevitable if we can win at least 20% of the black vote. Several current polls demonstrate that goal is finally on track to happen this year for the first time since 1960.
I was also a major fan of Lara Logan in her CBS days, but now I am appalled by many of her conspiracy theories.
Owens appeared to change after developing a friendship with Kanye West which is about the time she started making antisemitic comments reflecting his outlook. It saddens me to see Owens, Logan and other “national populists” defending Russian aggression.
Several prominent conservatives have already answered Owens comments about Hitler and her claims Jews were responsible for communism in the Soviet Union. A recap of their points answering Owens after her Twitter (X) debate with Joel Pollak of Breitbart News includes:

1) She says 447 of the 525 Bolsheviks in the leadership of the Soviet Union were Jews. Of the actual Commissars of the USSR when it was founded, just three were Jewish: Trotsky, Kamenev, Sokolnikov.

2) Jews were most represented not among Commissars, but rather in the exceedingly early Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. What she doesn’t note is that Stalin quickly purged almost all of them.

3) Bolshevism was not popular among the Eastern Jewish population overall, per their voting records. Jews were 7th-most represented among Communist Party members compared to the other nationalities.

4) Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote “It is quite wrong to say Jews organized the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The attitude of the Jewish populations at large toward the Bolsheviks was guarded, if not hostile.”

5) Soviet anti-Zionism is extremely well-documented. Even the Jewish communists were strong anti-Zionists. They also targeted synagogues.

6) It is well known the Soviet Union was a cruel and despicable regime. She believes communist Jews were responsible for the construction of Christian death camps. They weren’t solely “Christian death camps.” In fact, the camps included Jews and all ethnicities. Every prisoner was subjected to extreme physical labor.

7) She claims Vladimir Lenin (real last name Ulyanov) was of Ukrainian Jewish descent. No he wasn’t. Lenin’s sister discovered after his death they had a single Jewish grandparent, but this was unknown to him during his life. 75% of Lenin’s heritage was “Christian,” and “Ulyanov” is not a Jewish surname.

8 ) She claims Josef Stalin’s ancestry is still hotly debated. It is not actually! Stalin was ethnically Georgian and raised as a devout Christian. This is detailed in many Stalin biographies.

9) She claims Stalin spoke Yiddish and his three wives were all Jews. That is completely false. He didn’t speak Yiddish, and none of his wives were Jewish. Once again, the sources are readily available.

10) The bulk of the Jewish ethnic presence in Bolshevism was the 4 Jews who happened to briefly find themselves in the Politburo until the mid-1920s. After Stalin’s purges, Jews were clearly underrepresented in the party leadership and government. Jews weren’t ever overwhelmingly in charge like Candace Owens claims. They were, easily replaced by a man Candace Owens absurdly alleges is Jewish.

11) One must wonder where Owens gets this stuff because even the most vehement Stalin critics do not claim he was Jewish.

12) The development of the Judeo-Bolshevism myth now repeated by Candace Owens was initially a tactic of the White Army and its emigres. Earlier they similarly blamed the assassination of Tsar Alex II on the Jews, despite a minimal Jewish presence in the conspiracy.

13) The main source for her claims about Jewish influence is White Army propagandist Robert Wilton, who was clearly not a neutral actor. It’s possible her mistaken numbers came from the Civilità cattolica publication, which was deeply involved in anti-Jewish propaganda.

14) Owens responded to these claims by writing “Utterly bonkers that you are denying Jew involvement and orchestration of the gulags.”

15) Professor Eric Rasmusen of Indiana University, a Yale and MIT graduate, reminded Owens that before the revolution Stalin was training to be a priest. He also said “Candace, you really do need to provide links when you make amazing claims.”