The Parallel Universe Known as 2026 + Phetasy Digest
Trump is Gangsta AF | Liberal White Women Have Lost Their MF Minds | Iran Deserves More Attention | Andrew Yang Knows What's Good | AI is Real-life Pacman | No-phone Parties Are the Future | 1989 Plz
We have landed in the new world, and it’s exciting and harsh and beautiful and horrific, like a monstrous whirlwind made of gumballs. We’re one week into 2026, and, good Lord, are we off to a neck-breaking start. Wars start and end while we’re sleeping, white liberal women play kamikaze with ICE. It’s an election year, and the World Cup is in town just in time for America’s 250th birthday.
First, there’s Venezuela, a surprise guest in the reality TV show we call America. Everything about the situation feels new, despite the nagging from the usual theater kids and their tantrums. This week was so crazy that the New York Times couldn’t even pretend that January 6th was a national tragedy that marked the death of the American Empire lol. Instead, they focused on the real issues, like fact-checking false claims about their gender identity coverage.
Evangelical Leftists love to complain about Trump’s grandiosity and bombast, his gift for manufacturing spectacle and mining scandal, the way he bulldozes through life like an ancient deity clawing through the underworld—but Maduro, who played guitar in an industrial techno band, is also an enigmatic and rhino-like man. A Caracas bus driver-turned-Chavista who raised his fist long enough to be installed as President, a socialist with a taste for Salt Bae, able to appreciate the finer things in life without bothering the starved populace. But, in 2026, this revolutionary-with-a-mustache reps Nike sweatsuits like Sean Connery in a commercial for capitalism—I can imagine Maduro whispering to the sky as he passed the Statue of Liberty in a helicopter, then growling triumphantly as DEA agents adorned his head with Mickey Mouse ears and sauntered off to the Brooklyn jail with the type of impressive alumni you can only find in America, our own Arkham Asylum, only all of the villians are weirder, crazier, and more evil than cartoons are even capable of portraying.
Then there’s the ICE situation. Kamikaze Karen. Bridget covered the whole sad and infuriating mess beautifully on Dumpster Fire. These jackasses are larping while Iran undergoes the most important political transformation since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Things are moving way, way too fast already. It’s like we’ve already lived a year in the past week. So let’s take stock of the strengths and hindrances we’re starting the year with, keeping humanity at the forefront.
Last year, everyone spent a lot of time talking about AI, often with the panic of soldiers whispering on tiptoes through enemy jungle. But in 2026, apocalyptic warnings about the doomsday power of AI have lost their gusto and snarl. Maybe the rattlesnake is just a ball python with a baby rattle on their tail. Because the AI portents only seem to be coming from the Tech Class, with all their pricey AI solutions for our ghastly AI problems in the AI of our AI in the era of AI, and so on. Who knows how much of their hysteria is driven by closeted Libertarianism, anti-aging blood transfusions, and top-notch ketamine.
Another interesting reality is Polymarket Journalism. As legacy media shrieks its way through the gnarliest and most embarrassing suicide of all time, a branch of New Media has emerged in the form of tech-savvy gambling sites that perform journalism better than the fading gentry accusing us of nonbinary-climate racism from the crumbling roof of the Fourth Estate.
Generation Alpha is approaching a critical age in the march to adulthood, and thankfully, the child mutilation fad seems to be losing its libido. Gen Zers are making the world better a little more each day, flocking to churches instead of bars, rejecting burnout culture and knee-jerk activism in their Nirvana t-shirts and JNCOS—but they’re also over-medicated, socially undernourished, and self-conscious and thoughtful in a way none of us truly understands. We Millennials and Gen X are too busy trying to keep our balance on the crest of the wave as it plummets downward, while many of our Generational comrades are out doing unfathomably dumb shit like hissing in frog suits at ICE agents. Boomers, keep boomin’, baby—unless you’re taking that Soros money for protests. There’s nobody like you. I only wish I’d had a chance to try that CIA-stamped LSD that flower-adorned groupies handed out at Steely Dan and Fleetwood shows. And, most important, we’re about to lose an unparalleled group of Americans: the remnants of the Silent Generation are wobbling into the fog of history. Although Dick Van Dyke, who at 100 years old still works out daily, will probably enjoy sit-ups on all of our graves.
Welcome to the new year, friends. Strap on your Mickey Mouse beanie, say a prayer for Marco Rubio (and Tim Walz while we’re at it), copy what the kids are doing, turn on the BadBunny Super Bowl, make false claims about The NYT’s gender identity coverage, then place some bets on the Singularity in time for the Trump/Elon sophomore year reunion: As Bridget put it in the Phetasy group chat: “2026. LFG!”
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #277
Men Love War And We’re Here For It
We’re back! And boy are we back with a bang. It’s America’s 250th birthday and she is celebrating all year by doing whatever she wants. So don’t make us mad. It’s our birthday year and we might blow you up, bitches! Trump began the festivities by sending special ops in to conduct the extraction of the Venezuelan Dictator and put him in Mickey Mouse ears.
WALK-INS WELCOME - EPISODE #372
Andrew Yang Tried To Warn Us
Andrew Yang returns to the podcast for a conversation about the chaos of modern life, his no-phone parties aimed at reviving real human hookups in a world that’s stopped partying, and his new phone service that literally pays you to doomscroll less.
DUMPSTER FIRE - EPISODE #272
Liberal Women Are Being Radicalized Online -
The Iran uprising and the ICE shooting. People who are truly fighting against a murderous and authoritarian regime and people who are LARPing that they are.
THE SPECTATOR
I want 1989 for Christmas
Here is my list of things I’ve been fantasizing about getting for Christmas, in no particular order: encyclopedia set, piano, record player, landline. In other words, I want 1989 for Christmas.
