‘The vibe is shifting again’

They called it ‘the vibe shift’. Years of Democratic mismanagement and woke cultural revolution were going to be erased, many hoped, by the return of Donald Trump to the White House. But it seems the vibe is shifting again, and not in a good way. Comedian and podcaster Bridget Phetasy – host of Dumpster Fire – joined Brendan O’Neill on his podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show, to discuss Trump’s cult of personality, the fraying of the political right and why wokeness isn’t dead yet. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. You can listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: Now that we’re a few months into Trump’s second term, what’s the vibe like?

Bridget Phetasy: I feel like the vibe is shifting again. The cost of living hasn’t gone down. If anything, it’s stayed the same or gone up. Americans really want to see some material changes to their life. But even here in Texas, insurance and taxes have already gone up.

Americans aren’t dumb. Even though Trump is telling people that tariffs are good for them, I don’t think Americans are buying it. They know it’s being passed down to them as a consumer. They’re not idiots. The stock market hasn’t been looking great, and there are already reports of people being laid off.

On immigration, I think the signs are generally positive. Of course, if there are quotas, or pressure to do things quickly, it opens up room for mistakes – and it looks like there have been a number of mistakes. Sending people to El Salvadorian prisons who haven’t been convicted of crimes isn’t great.

But I also understand the right’s perspective, which is that we didn’t hear much when thousands of criminals were entering the country under Biden. So please spare me if one egg gets broken trying to clean up the mess you guys created.

O’Neill: There seems to be two types of Trump Derangement Syndrome – those who defend everything he does and those infuriated by everything he does. Neither of which is helpful. How do you see it?

Phetasy: I’ve been calling it Trump Devotion Syndrome. They’re opposite sides of the same coin. Trump is a cult of personality, and this is what happens with a cult of personality, you either worship them or you loathe them.

We used to be a country that could talk about policy. Underneath all of the memes are policies we should be rigorously debating. Instead, we end up talking about the image, or the meme itself, and no one’s talking about the policies, or very few people.

O’Neill: What did you make of the leaked Signal chat last month?

Phetasy: Of course, the leak was incompetent and embarrassing. I wish they could take the loss. But because of the nature of our political system and the war-like mentality between the two parties, people aren’t admitting to their mistakes or holding themselves accountable, because it doesn’t benefit them to do so.

If the situation were reversed, then yes, the right would absolutely be talking about Democrats giving away American secrets because of incompetence. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to hear from people who said nothing for four years when we had a doddering old man at the helm.

O’Neill: How do you see things going in terms of Trump’s war on woke?

Phetasy: A lot of people have been calling Rachel Zegler, who plays the lead in the most recent Disney production of Snow White, unhinged for supporting Palestine and criticising Trump on Instagram. But she’s also only 23. We were all idiots when we were 23. After that, you start getting hit by the dick of life, and your opinions change.

My point is that we can’t call it a ‘woke mind virus’ then act surprised when they say woke things. Either they’re indoctrinated or not. Wokeness is an ideology, it’s not something that you’re just going to snuff out.

I like seeing that so much of this stuff, like DEI, is being pulled out by the roots. But I’m not sure that the ideology is going to die.

O’Neill: The term ‘woke right’ has been popping up more frequently of late – referring to the embrace, on some sections of the right, of victimhood, censorship and even outright racism. Is this being exaggerated or is there something to worry about there?

Phetasy: It’s interesting – there seems to be no extreme to the left that is too far in America. You can get away with firebombing Tesla, for example. But the minute the country moves one millimetre to the right, there’s a knee-jerk reaction.

But there is a problem on the right. There seems to be a significant anti-Semitism problem. And if the government does start trying to punish people for writing things that are anti-Israel, it’s going to make things significantly worse.

Bridget Phetasy was talking to Brendan O’Neill on The Brendan O’Neill Show. Listen to the full conversation here: