A few weeks ago, I woke up to my phone absolutely losing its mind.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Then came the texts: “Cassie! You’re on the first page of Fox News!”
Excuse me, what?
Sure, I did the interview — but I figured I’d be tucked somewhere deep on the site, maybe wedged between “Small-Town Events” and “Stories Nobody Reads.”
Front and center, all day long?
Yeah… that definitely wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card.
I thought things got wild when Elon retweeted me. Turns out, I was wrong. Most folks I know aren’t even on X — and the ones who are either don’t follow Elon or have no idea I’m over there too.
But when you show up on the front page of Fox News, people notice.
And if they somehow missed it there, they caught it when the story made its way through the New York Post and the Daily Mail.
There’s no hiding what I do anymore. No brushing it off or pretending it’s just a hobby. My family, my friends, the neighbors — they all know now.
It’s a little weird, sure. But manageable.
What came next, though — that’s a whole other story.
Brandon sat for hours reading the comments. (Never a good idea, by the way.) The assumptions and character attacks were bad enough, but the thinly veiled threats?
Those were an eye-opener.
If I thought things got ugly after my run-in with Mr. I’m Right and I’m Going to Speak Over You Because I’m Morally Superior, this was a whole new level. Darker. Meaner.
Thousands of strangers attacking me — not for anything I said that was hateful or controversial — but for simply speaking up about my own experience.
How did we get here?
My theory? For years, half the nation has been told to sit down and shut up. They’ve been mocked, mislabeled, fired, doxxed, and publicly shamed until the moderate voices just… disappeared.
And when the moderates go quiet, the extremists take the microphone.
Even here — in sleepy North Carolina.
For a while, my PTSD went into hyperdrive. Grocery stores? Forget it. Sleep? Ha. Stress? Through the roof. Trust in strangers? Gone.
Thankfully, I’m coming out of that. A new kind of normal is settling in.
Of course, things in my life have shifted. Sharing my girls with the world? That’s over. Cute photos of nephews? Nope. Solo trips? Not happening. Invitations from strangers? Now carefully vetted.
But quitting? Never crossed my mind.
I’m a North Carolinian — a Tar Heel. We don’t give up. We don’t admit defeat.
Once I felt steady enough, I accepted an invite to appear on Front Porch Politics with Tim Boyum. Yeah, we talked about the infamous t-shirt and going viral — but the main focus? Where the Dogwood Blooms and why I fight so fiercely to protect North Carolina’s culture.
That episode airs on Spectrum News on November 5th.
After that interview, I took a brief step back from content creation to figure out what comes next. The answer? Growth.
I invested in new recording equipment. The podcast is making the jump from audio to video. The coolest part? I’ll be traveling to do the interviews.
Y’all want to see the North Carolina I’m always talking about? Well, I’m getting ready to show her to you.
And trust me — even after all the attacks, the insanity, and threats — she’s worth it.
