Is Twitter really going to “go crazy” now that new owner Elon Musk has allowed previously banned users like former President Donald Trump back on the platform? Hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill discuss the prospects for the beleaguered social media site on this week’s episode of Fever Dreams. Also on the episode, Heidi Beedle, a reporter for the Colorado Times Recorder and host of the Western Fringe podcast, tells Sommer and Weill that anti-LGBT hate from Colorado Springs community leaders began peaking before this weekend’s shooting at queer venue Club Q. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode of Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill discuss how just two weeks on from the Pelosi controversy, the Twitter CEO jumped on board a vague and unverified theory that is being used to explain why the “red wave” failed to materialize on Election Day. As well, the hosts talk Kari Lake’s Arizona election loss and their surprise that she is among the first to make vague references of fraud during this election cycle, noting her Nov. 15 tweet: “Arizonans know BS when they see it.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you eat raw testicles to become an alpha male? This week, Julian Feeld and Annie Kelly of the QAnon Anonymous podcast join us to discuss their new series “Man Clan,” which delves into the dark, dietarily dubious world of masculinity influencers. Meanwhile, as voters go to the polls, election vigilantes are flocking to Telegram channels where they award each other “points” for conspiracy theories about people they baselessly believe to be election “mules.” If Republicans take the House of Representatives, the right might mount an effort to impeach President Joe Biden, albeit on unclear charges. Fever Dreams co-hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill break down how Republicans might try to oust Biden, plus why failed candidate Laura Loomer is now blaming her primary loss on fellow rightwing mudslinger Milo Yiannopoulos. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a very good chance that at least two secretary of state positions in the battleground states of Nevada and Arizona will be won by people who are part of a coalition put together by a QAnon promoter who some people believe is also JFK Jr. In this week’s episode of political podcast Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill take a deeper look at that “shadowy character,” Juan O. Savin, and how he, along with his supporters, could destroy American democracy. Also on the podcast, Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher at Media Matters for America who is an expert on all things Savin, says that while it’s hard to say exactly what would happen if these candidates take office, “the concern is that if these people got elected they could try to cast doubt on the election result or frankly just try to flat out overturn it and refuse to certify it. What this could do is essentially connect QAnon to a constitutional crisis, and that’s what could play out here if that/s what happens.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things have gotten a lot crazier over the past few years for award-winning former CBS News war correspondent Lara Logan. Now reinvented as a far-right commentator, she was most recently kicked off Newsmax after appearing on Eric Bolling’s primetime program and launching into a QAnon-themed rant on air, claiming world leaders drank children’s blood and made people eat insects, among other notable wild conspiracies. Elsewhere in the episode, Maurice Chammah, a reporter at The Marshall Project and author of Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty, talks American sheriffs and their far-right tendencies. In the podcast’s “Fresh Hell” segment, the hosts discuss reports of intimidation at early ballot drop boxes, particularly in Arizona from those who are hyped up by Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked conspiracy film, 2000 Mules. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, faces an uphill battle to revive the “ghost town” that is the conservative MAGA site Parler, say hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill in this week’s episode of The Daily Beast’s Fever Dreams podcast. Ye is buying the social media platform after being kicked off Instagram and Twitter for an antisemitic post, Parler’s parent company announced Monday. Also on the podcast, Kyle Spencer, journalist and author of the new book Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power, talks  MAGA media personality and radio talk show host Charlie Kirk and how he got his start. Then, in this week’s “Fresh Hell” segment, Sommer reviews the Fox Nation special The Trial of Hunter Biden, which he describes as “honestly one of the strangest pieces of content” Fox has ever produced. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kanye West has been inching towards reimagining himself as both a virulent antisemite and the public face of Fox News and over the past few weeks, he’s been off the handle. Also on the podcast, Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and host of the podcast, Posting Through It, discusses a new report that he co-authored on the ugly election trends we can expect in 2022 and 2024. In this week’s “Fresh Hell” segment, the hosts discuss the new Republican “unwoke” bank, GloriFi, and how unfortunately, the new venture doesn’t seem to be getting off the ground, considering it is on the verge of bankruptcy.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Herschel Walker already faced an uphill battle to become a U.S. senator after The Daily Beast reported he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion. But now it appears Walker is embroiled in another fight: one with his own son. Christian Walker, a conservative with a substantial social media following—particularly on TikTok—has taken aim at his father, whom he accused of violence and said abandoned his children from multiple women. “Herschel’s problem is that his son has such a way with words,” Will Sommer tells co-host Kelly Weill in this episode of The Daily Beast’s Fever Dreams podcast, referring to Christian’s impassioned online reaction to his father’s denials of the abortion allegations. Also on the podcast, Travis Waldron, senior national reporter at the Huffington Post, talks Brazil and its politics, which have been popping off thanks to the Brazilian general election. “The stakes of this one feel pretty high given the concerns about democracy and [President Jair] Bolsonaro’s efforts to follow Donald Trump down the path of election skepticism and potentially an all out challenge to the result of the elections,” Waldron says. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Corruption chic” is in. That’s according to The Conservateur, a new “D.C.-based fashion-and-lifestyle platform” from some of conservative fashion’s most elite, who, upset over Vogue snubbing Melania Trump, are now throwing in their political views with a cute new pair of shoes–or ankle monitors–in their own attempt at creating content. Michael Schaffer, a senior editor at Politico whose Capital City column runs weekly in Politico Magazine, tells hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill in this episode of The Daily Beast’s Fever Dreams podcast that while he doesn’t think Anna Wintour is losing a lot of sleep, the “MAGA answer to Vogue” has landed, and it’s already making headlines. In this week’s “Fresh Hell” segment, the hosts discuss the right’s reaction and misreporting to the emerging trend of colorful fentanyl pills dubbed rainbow fentanyl. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's the motivation and meaning behind the recent Trump rally in Ohio where supporters held up one finger in a “weird” salute. But what does it mean? Plus, Matt Binder, reporter for Mashable and host of the podcasts Doomed and Scam Economy, brings us inside the wacky world of crypto scammers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.