The Characters We Love + Phetasy Digest
The European Mind Cannot Comprehend Real Ameria | Dems Love Ballot Harvesting | Xi Van Fleet Drops Wisdom About China | Wokism Is Just Communism With Extra Steps | RIP Internet | Lads And Laddies Stan
Here’s my idealistic take. I think information fatigue is shoving us into an era that values simplicity, where there’s value in everyday characters, storytelling with fictional people who embrace their wrinkles and birthmarks, the flaws that prove humanity. Hello Kitty, Horatio, Superman, Atticus Finch, Leopold Bloom, Dante, The Dude, R2-D2.
Morality is involved. We tend to love characters who are unerringly good-natured and resilient. They’re usually fun, and—here’s the part that I find interesting—somehow they seem to be good for the world, as if they’re aliens (sometimes literally, like E.T. and Chewbacca) visiting us with an innocence and curiosity we’d forgotten about or abandoned but desperately need.
Carl Jung wrote that “all the highest achievements of virtue, as well as the blackest villainies, are individual.” But, he adds, “Nature is aristocratic, and one person of value outweighs ten lesser ones.” This involves authenticity. A character who is genuine in a saintly way. It ought to give all of us hope. That the characters we love contain humanity, the humanity we all want. Villains are powerful, but lovable heroes are the lifeblood of culture.
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #322
California Made Election Fraud Legal
In California you don’t need an ID to vote, ballot harvesting is completely legal, and ballots signed with a smiley face might be counted as valid. Bridget Phetasy breaks down how the LA mayor’s race went sideways, why Spencer Pratt went from second place to out, and why none of this is a conspiracy theory — it’s just what happens when you make the sketchiest possible voting practices legal and then dare anyone to question it.
WALK-INS WELCOME - EPISODE #394
Woke Is Just Communism Repackaged | Xi Van Fleet
Bridget sits down with Xi Van Fleet, author of Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat. Xi is a survivor of China’s Cultural Revolution and traces the eerie parallels between Mao’s revolution and today’s woke ideology. She draws on her own experience — growing up under the CCP, enduring re-education in the countryside, and eventually escaping to America — to argue that cultural Marxism is not a foreign threat but a homegrown one, and that American elites have been enabling the CCP’s rise since the 1920s.
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #323
World Cup Tourists Discover Real America
The World Cup is in America and Europeans are losing their minds — in the best possible way. A German named Freddy went tubing down the Chattahoochee, discovered Buc-ee’s, watched an eagle fly around a stadium, and declared it the most “European mind can’t comprehend” moment of his life. A Swedish woman tried ranch dressing and said it was like crack. Bridget breaks down why watching foreigners fall in love with Real America is the 250th birthday celebration we actually needed — and why we take all of it completely for granted. Also: Tom Brady launched a coconut water brand called Good Nut and the slogan is “It’s a Delicious Mouthful.”
THE SPECTATOR
The internet is dying and so are we
There is a lot of proof that the internet is dying. People aren’t burned out of politics, although that’s part of it. They are burned out from going “is this real?” No one has the bandwidth to become an investigative reporter for each post.
A Love Letter to the Sane Women Holding It Down
Mar 22
I’ve been wanting to write this for a while because, more often than not, I find myself doomscrolling, screaming “NOT ALL WOMEN!” It seems like most of the women represented in media are, for lack of a better word, insane. I blame the algorithms for elevating the craziest of us. So this is for you—the woman reading this who has been quietly holding it t…
THE DAILY WIRE
America Tried To ‘Fix’ Men For Two Decades. Here’s What It Got Instead.
America spent two decades trying to “fix” masculinity. It nearly broke the country — and the guys who complained the loudest about it turned out to be the ones with the least ability to fix it. America needs manly men — not men who are afraid of their masculinity, and not men who only talk about it.
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Yeah, I think we went down a darker path when we decided to become obsessed with the anti-hero. People like Batman and Dexter. There's things you can learn from these characters but ultimately we want someone we can look up to. Which is why I've always been a big fan of Superman as a character. He keeps trying despite humanity always letting him down.