Candace Owens’ sheep-humping freak show

Plus: Peewee German, the Antifa Anonymous gathering, and Piers Morgan’s open door

Oct 09, 2025

My takeaway from this week is that a lot of conservatives are just looking for a place to be vulnerable and validated. And a meaningful amount of liberals are stepping out of their comfort zones to try new things. The products or goals might not align with our own, but I’ll give kudos to the pursuit of those principles any day. (Or maybe I am the one chasing these things and this is just me projecting).

Gave you a little bit more of my take in the blurbs today, so I’d love to hear your feedback. Paid subscribers get access to the comments — leave me a note there! And because of my musings, we dropped the PEOPLE IN CHARGE section and I’ll be walking you through it in the subscriber chat tomorrow, let’s say … 4pm? NEED to discuss the mob that came for the FBI bros this week.

FROM THE RIGHT WING:

CITIZENS UNITED: The White House welcomed a cohort of young, provocative, street-trawling, flag-grabbing, Antifa-fighting creators. Nick Sortor, 27, was the centerpiece, fresh off his arrest in Portland, where he is trying to expose the Portland PD for collaborating with Antifa. Stories of violence they’ve experienced at the hands of Antifa dominated the conversation — Katie Daviscourt, 31, pointed out her still-shadowy black eye. All expressed immense gratitude for validating their cause after years of being overlooked in the mainstream. Cam Higby, 25, made sure the press pool heard his bitterness. TPUSA’s Frontlines ground crew even pledged the full extent of their resources to the president. Nick Shirley, 23, confidently executed his mic drop: “We are not far right, nor are we far wrong, we’re just right.”
Whole team here, h/t @choeshow

SEARCHING FOR JUDAS: “It’s like driving on a highway and seeing a farmer having sex with a sheep. You don’t want to look but you can’t look away either.” That’s Dinesh D’Souza’s take on the Candace Owens “freak show.” My take doesn’t involve bestiality: I’d say she’s lost the plot, except she hasn’t finished building it yet. Her clearest objective in this video series is to discover who “betrayed” Charlie — a truth that revealed itself in a dream she had the other day. She has a visceral distaste for TPUSA figures (read: Alex Clark) leaning into “Christian slop” and is afraid enough to send “a life insurance policy of sorts” around to eight people in case anything happens to her. Behind all this, I think there are actually some really interesting themes being explored here about how people show up in different ways to grieve loved ones, and how for Candace, Turning Point’s blind acceptance of law enforcement’s timeline is an ultimate betrayal of the values she felt her friend stood for.

DON’T CALL HER DADDY: The Conservateur — I’d call it GQ for women on the right — launched their first pod, Sincerely American. It’s hosted by MAGA it girls Jayme Franklin and Camryn Kinsey, who met working in the White House in 2020. Dear Media’s conservative-coded content proved unsatisfactory. This cultivates a space that’s free from the “hyper-woke feminist perspective” but not straight up about politics. Some things they don’t like from episode one: Call Her Daddy, casual sex, therapy, doodle tattoos, sweatpants at the airport, California sober, and extravagant bachelorettes (amen on that).

FROM THE LEFT WING:

HUMILIATION KINK: AOC called on the left to double down on the “we can joke our way out of this” strategy, taking specific aim at Stephen Miller. Since then I’ve seen him be called dork, freak, Napoleon, Nosferatu, Temu gargoyle, pencil head, and Peewee German. The Bulwark’s thumbnail labeled him a midget. But name-calling only cuts so deep — you have to land a sucker-punch to leave a mark. And YouTubers are churning out videos using Miller’s live TV “glitch” moment: Hasan Piker, Luke Beasley, Keith Edwards, Dave Pakman, I’ve Had It, Adam Mockler (twice), Leeja Miller, Farron Balanced, Damage Report, Tennessee Brando, even en español. He got the Dave Jorgenson treatment. That’s how you know you’ve made it.

PIERS THE VEIL: Imagine five years ago hearing that Piers Morgan would be the most attractive facilitator for youngish Democrats trying to reach Republican audiences? I’d ask my reflection if she took her meds today. In the past month or so, he’s hosted 111 left and left-leaning creators and independent journalists, including Jack Cocchiarella for his first go this week. Don Lemon and Tim Miller have taken it for a spin, as well as Substackers Wajahat Ali and Mike Nellis. Is the debate substantive? Never. Will you learn anything? Of course not. But I think this shows an appetite for an open-door approach to new audiences despite a real-life understanding that not everyone’s gonna like you.

OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS: I’ve been having an internal conflict when it comes to including former mainstream media big shots in this newsletter. They merely adopted the dark — young, native creators were born in it, molded by it. But a two-hour, lo-fi live show of James Comey’s arraignment felt like something worth discussing. Jim Acosta helmed the stream, simulcasted here and YouTube, with multiple people popping in from their phones, reporting from the scene, and talking to protestors. This feels like it’s mindful of the model MAGA channels like Real America’s Voice have perfected but Dems have yet to hammer out.

LOOSE ENDS:

📝 Word I learned today: cad

2: definition — “we have a glamorous … gorgeous … diva … superstar … on a pedestal. And on the other, a ‘roguish cad.’” (via Hunter Harris, Hung Up)

📰 Something you should read today: So You Wanna Shitpost: A Creator’s Guide to Weaponized Nonsense — Chronically Online Mag

The average viewer doesn’t want your flawless B-roll. They want to feel like they stumbled into your frontal lobe mid-meltdown. They want memes that read like diary entries written during a caffeine overdose. They want the glitch in the matrix. They want to see you snap, but in a relatable way.

🕵️ Someone you should know today: Nikki Haley’s son definitely takes notes from Cardi B and Nicki Minaj’s Twitter feuds. He is not shy about coming for people, but omg, what I would do to be a fly on the wall when his mother saw him publicly wonder if Nancy Mace has “a personality disorder.”

🥹 Something to make you smile today: MY NEW BUSINESS CARDS! Maybe I have a future in business card design if this doesn’t work out …

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