All posts tagged: rightwing

Why right-wing media can’t stop Candace Owens

Why right-wing media can’t stop Candace Owens

Published by Sam Flores

The conservative media machine is currently discovering, to its evident horror, that it has no idea how to shut one of its biggest creations. Candace Owens was handed a megaphone by the late Charlie Kirk, feted by Donald Trump and praised by Focus on the Family as one of “the many Black giants of the conservative movement.” Now she is being called a vampire and a schizophrenic by the very people who built her platform. And she keeps growing. With Kirk’s assassination at a Turning Point USA event in Utah last September, the MAGA movement faced a genuine tragedy. His widow, Erika Kirk, stepped in to lead the organization. But within weeks, before the grief had even begun to settle, Owens began publicly questioning the circumstances of Kirk’s killing and spinning conspiracy theories on her podcast. As a former TPUSA communications director — she resigned in 2019 after praising Adolf Hitler — Owens knew her voice had special resonance. What started as insinuation soon metastasized into a serialized spectacle: “Bride of Charlie,” a multi-episode YouTube …

Jonathan Majors teams with right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro for comeback movie after assault conviction

Jonathan Majors teams with right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro for comeback movie after assault conviction

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Jonathan Majors is preparing for his Hollywood return in an untitled new movie, produced by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro through his right-wing media company, The Daily Wire. Written and directed by Kyle Rankin, the upcoming film — which has started production in South Carolina — marks the 36-year-old Marvel actor’s first on-screen role since being convicted in 2023 of assaulting his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Shapiro, 42, will co-produce alongside Dallas Sonnier for his Bonfire Legend production company. Travis Mills (Frontier Crucible), Lillian Campbell (The Pendragon Cycle), and Sydney Aucreman (Terror On The Prairie) are also producing, according to Deadline. “You’re not going to BELIEVE what we’re doing,” Shapiro wrote in a post on X accompanying the Deadline story. Details of the film’s plot and additional cast are being kept tightly under wraps, but it’s reportedly being likened to action movies Red Dawn …

Right-wing authoritarianism is linked to belief in the paranormal, independent of cognitive style

Right-wing authoritarianism is linked to belief in the paranormal, independent of cognitive style

Published by José Betancourt

Recent research published in The Journal of Social Psychology suggests that individuals who endorse certain right-wing political ideologies are more likely to believe in paranormal phenomena. The findings indicate that while a person’s thinking style plays a role in their beliefs, it does not fully explain why right-wing ideologies are linked to accepting the paranormal. This provides evidence that the relationship between political views and supernatural beliefs is driven by multiple, distinct psychological factors. The study was conducted by Alexander Jedinger, a senior researcher at the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, and Pascal Siegers, head of the Research Data Center at the same institute. The researchers wanted to explore the psychological mechanisms that connect political beliefs to ideas that contradict scientific principles. Past studies have hinted at a link between right-wing political views and a susceptibility to supernatural thinking. Jedinger and Siegers aimed to break down this relationship by examining specific aspects of right-wing ideology rather than just general political labels. “There have long been speculations that esotericism and beliefs in the paranormal …

Trump dazzles right-wing media with bigoted State of the Union

Trump dazzles right-wing media with bigoted State of the Union

Published by Sam Flores

Tuesday night’s State of the Union address was a MAGA rally in a fancy room. For one hour and forty-seven minutes — the longest State of the Union ever, a record the president apparently considers an achievement — Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress to lie and brag his way through a nation he has spent a year methodically destabilizing. There was no recalibration nor hint of strategic retreat, only chest-thumping and grievance. Right-wing media lapped it up.  Trump turned the address into a two-hour variety show, complete with medals awarded, standing ovations and carefully staged anecdotes about “regular Americans.” He bragged about ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and about kicking two million people off food stamps. He applauded a World War II veteran who liberated an internment camp — a genuinely moving moment — while simultaneously cheering new detention facilities for migrants and asylum seekers. He claimed gas is down to $1.85 a gallon in some places, a figure ridiculously divorced from reality. He said he “ended eight wars” …

Right-wing media splits over Trump tariff loss

Right-wing media splits over Trump tariff loss

Published by Sam Flores

Late Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial with a headline that read like a prescient sigh of relief: “The Embarrassing Truth About Tariffs.” By Friday morning, the Supreme Court had done something far more consequential than scolding Donald Trump’s trade fantasies — it kneecapped them. In a 6–3 ruling, including two of Trump’s own appointees, the Court declared that most of his sweeping tariff regime was illegal. And by Friday evening, in a display of wounded bravado that has become his signature move, Trump took to Truth Social to announce a new global 10% tariff on all nations, as if the Constitution were a suggestion and not the supreme law of the land. Overnight, he upped the ante on his “retribution” for countries “ripping the U.S. off,” raising the tariff to 15%. The Journal’s op-ed following the ruling ripped Trump’s rant, calling it “arguably the worst moment of his Presidency.” When tariffs hurt corporations, the establishment recoils. The response to the decision from conservative media revealed a movement unsure whether to defend …

France’s Macron urges restraint after right-wing youth fatally beaten

France’s Macron urges restraint after right-wing youth fatally beaten

Published by Sam Flores

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged calm and restraint after the fatal beating of a 23-year-old French youth aligned with the far-right on the sidelines of a conference by a hard-left lawmaker in the southeastern city of Lyon. The death of the young man – identified only as Quentin – has intensified tensions between France’s far-right and hard-left who are both eyeing 2027 presidential elections. He had been in hospitalised in Lyon on Thursday after being attacked while providing what his supporters said was security for a protest against an appearance by hard-left MEP Rima Hassan at the Lyon branch of the Sciences Po university. The office of the Lyon prosecutor on Saturday told AFP he had died of his wounds. An investigation has been opened into suspected aggravated manslaughter, it added. Macron said on X that Quentin had been the victim of “an unprecedented outburst of violence. “Hatred that kills has no place in our country. I call for calm, restraint and respect,” he added. ‘Organised’ attack According to the Nemesis collective, which is close to …

Right-wing media turns on Kash Patel over Nancy Guthrie case

Right-wing media turns on Kash Patel over Nancy Guthrie case

Published by Sam Flores

Not long ago, Kash Patel was a hero to MAGA world. A Trump loyalist, former Fox News regular and podcaster fluent in grievance politics, Patel was supposed to be the man who would finally bend the FBI to the will of a movement that spent years insisting the bureau was hostile to conservatives. Less than a year after his appointment as director, the same right-wing media ecosystem that once elevated Patel is increasingly turning on him — mocking his missteps and, in some cases, openly calling him a liar. Patel’s tenure has been marked by a pattern of premature announcements and theatrical incompetence. Under his leadership, the FBI has lost significant institutional expertise. Patel’s tenure has been marked by a pattern of premature announcements and theatrical incompetence. Under his leadership, the FBI has lost significant institutional expertise. About 3,063 FBI employees reportedly left the bureau in 2025, according to data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Of those who remain, roughly 1,000 special agents and others are said to be focused on redacting materials …

Super Bowl bursts popular right-wing media myth

Super Bowl bursts popular right-wing media myth

Published by Sam Flores

I always thought the idea of San Francisco as a dystopian nightmare was some kind of bit. An exaggeration made meme, something people said with a wink to signal their politics more than their understanding of reality. I didn’t realize just how many Americans actually believe it so deeply that they could travel across the country, step off a plane and walk through one of the most visually stunning cities on the continent — only to be shocked that they were lied to. Super Bowl visitors who discovered the truth over the weekend got a glimpse behind the curtain of right-wing media manipulation. While the game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots was played about 40 miles south of San Francisco, much of the NFL’s activities and media opportunities were staged in the city that’s served as conservative media’s favorite punching bag for decades. What right-wing media does exceptionally well is curate reality by looping the same context-free footage. With former Speaker of the House — and San Francisco resident — Nancy Pelosi …

The Right-Wing Militia Leader Who Opposes ICE

The Right-Wing Militia Leader Who Opposes ICE

Published by Sam Flores

Not so long ago, Ammon Bundy was the most famous right-wing militia leader in America. His two armed standoffs with federal agents had made him the face of the Patriot Movement: a loose assemblage of anti-government extremists, Second Amendment maximalists, and more than a few white nationalists. Even some mainstream elements of the Republican Party embraced him as a modern folk hero. But Bundy’s criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown now threatens to make him a pariah within his own community. In November, Bundy self-published a long essay titled “The Stranger,” in which he labeled the Trump administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants a “moral failure.” “To call such people criminals for lacking official permission” to be in the country, he wrote, “is to forget the moral law of God, the historical truth of our own founding, and the Constitutional ideals that continue to define justice.” On a recent livestream following the killing of Renee Good in Minnesota, Bundy told his audience that ICE’s conduct “clearly looks like tyranny.” If the government threatened his family, …