Well folks, Candace Owens is back in the news, and—brace yourselves—she’s still not saying anything intelligent. This time, she’s claiming The Beatles were “totally a psychological operation,” cooked up by the Tavistock Institute to melt minds with LSD and free love. Because obviously, when Love Me Do dropped, the CIA and MI6 high-fived and said, “Operation Mop-Top is a go.”

This isn’t even a new conspiracy theory. The “Beatles were a psy-op” gem has been floating around in the fetid corner of the internet where Alex Jones, Boomer YouTubers, and people with 14-letter usernames still argue about Q drops. But now it’s been laundered through the high-functioning idiocy of Owens, who parroted it on her show like she was breaking Watergate.

But Candace isn’t just recycling old conspiracies like a Fox News episode of Hoarders. No, she’s part of a larger, weirder, and far more disturbing pattern: prominent Black conservatives who seem absolutely hell-bent on cosplaying as white nationalists for clout and attention. And if that sounds like a strong accusation, buckle up.

Let’s rewind a bit. Owens didn’t tumble into madness overnight. She’s been toeing the edge for years, weaponizing her identity to deflect criticism while pushing narratives that range from Fox News comfort food to fringe-right lunacy. But in 2024, even The Daily Wire—home to Ben Shapiro’s nasal whine and Jordan Peterson’s Muppet existentialism—decided she had become too toxic. She was canned after months of passive-aggressive beef with Shapiro, during which she tweeted enough antisemitic dog whistles to form a damn kennel club.

Owens didn’t just criticize Israel’s politics (a defensible position); she pushed Khazar myths, blamed “political Jews” for censorship, and started ranting about some mysterious “Frankist cult” running the world—classic antisemitic tropes, polished up for her podcast audience and peppered with Christian nationalist vibes.

That might’ve been the end of the story if not for her BFF status with the next character in this cracked-out morality play…

Remember when Kanye West used to be known for music? Yeah, me neither. These days, Ye is better known for running a one-man tribute band called Hitler’s Greatest Hits. The man has literally said “I like Hitler,” called himself a Nazi on Alex Jones’ show (which is like bringing a tinfoil hat to a tinfoil factory), and claimed the Holocaust didn’t happen. So naturally, Candace defended him.

She called his tweet threatening Jews “not antisemitic” and blamed the backlash on “the Zionist lobby” (cue eyeroll so hard it requires physical therapy). But of course, it gets worse: the two of them appeared in Paris in matching “White Lives Matter” shirts like it was fashion week for incels, while Owens tried to spin it as some kind of brave stand against “identity politics.” Because nothing says “fighting racism” like cozying up to fascism.

Now let’s talk about Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s GOP nominee for governor and a man so cartoonishly bigoted, he might have been created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Robinson once referred to himself—on porn message boards, no less—as a “Black Nazi,” because what else do you call someone who says Hitler was “better than Obama” and has a trail of antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic Facebook posts that would make a Proud Boy say, “Dude, chill.”

And yet, he’s the Republican frontrunner in a swing state. The guy openly said Jews are responsible for controlling the media and has praised Confederate monuments like they’re holy relics. This is not a sideshow. This is the damn main act.

Larry Elder, meanwhile, has been LARPing as the “Black face of white supremacy” (their words, not mine—LA Times said it first) for years. He’s another one of those “systemic racism is a myth” types who insists police are more careful around Black people. He also famously shared a stage with white nationalist Kyle Chapman and tried to pass it off as a scheduling mix-up. Sure, and I accidentally hosted brunch with David Duke last Sunday.

Elder’s whole shtick is playing the contrarian so hard that it circles back into Stockholm Syndrome. He’s built a career out of telling white conservatives exactly what they want to hear from a Black man—namely, that racism isn’t real, everything is the left’s fault, and plantation metaphors are still clever in 2025.

This isn’t coincidence. Owens, West, Robinson, Elder—each of them is part of a growing faction of Black conservatives who are not just cozying up to white nationalism but outright adopting its language, aesthetics, and antisemitic worldview.

Why? Because there’s clout in contradiction. Because right-wing media eats it up when someone “breaks the narrative” (translation: gives them racial cover for hate). And because, in this grift economy, nothing pays like being a Black voice telling white conservatives that they’re the real victims.

But let’s bring this trainwreck full circle.

Candace Owens saying The Beatles were a psychological operation is stupid. Hilariously stupid. But it’s not isolated. It’s the latest stop on a rapidly derailing conspiracy bus that’s already gone through antisemitic tropes, white supremacist alliances, and fascist apologia—all wrapped in a package that Fox News once called “refreshingly fearless.”

She’s not fearless. She’s reckless. And what we’re seeing from her and others like her isn’t iconoclasm. It’s cultural arson—burning down truth, history, and reality itself just to get clicks and applause from the worst people on the internet.

So no, Candace, The Beatles weren’t a government psy-op.

But you? You’re damn sure auditioning for one.