Donald Trump may be falling behind in the polls, but the former president is planning a comeback utilizing a secret weapon: edgelord influencers. In a bid to win over young male voters, the Trump campaign has been cozying up to controversial online streamers and podcasters who trade in stunts and testosterone.
In June, for example, Trump sat down with Logan Paul for a podcast interview in which the pair talked about alien life forms. Last week, JD Vance made his TikTok debut alongside the Nelk Boys, a Canadian YouTube collective who have collaborated with the self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate. Then on Monday, apparently on the advice of his 18-year-old son Barron, who told his father Ross was "really big", Trump livestreamed a 90-minute interview with Adin Ross. Trump told Ross that America was a "drug-addicted, crime-infested nation" and called Kamala Harris "strange". The pair also talked about how the rapper Young Thug was being treated unfairly by the legal system and Ross suggested that Trump might want to call in some favors to make sure he gets treated OK. Then they did a little dance together.
Who is Ross, other than someone Barron Trump thinks is cool? Well, it's hard to explain his career trajectory in a way that doesn't sound completely unhinged, but essentially the 23-year-old rose to fame by playing video games such as NBA 2K on Twitch (he's since been banned from that platform after consistently allowing hateful unmoderated content in the chat, and now streams on Kick, a less moderated and more rightwing-friendly alternative).
He then launched into a broader content creation strategy that involved him making a bunch of homophobic jokes and trolling celebrities. "A big part of Adin Ross' whole persona is that he jokes about being gay in front of his celebrity guests and uploads videos of himself being 'sus' around them," a 2021 Complex profile on Ross explains.
Aligning yourself with someone who is famous for sniffing chairs in a sexually suggestive way is an interesting political strategy, especially when your nominee for vice-president is the butt of a number of jokes because of an online rumour about him once having sexual relations with a couch. Still, at least Trump and Vance, both of whom have a habit of putting their futon their mouth, are on the same page sofa.
To be fair, Ross, who has 1.36 million followers on Kick, is known for more than his weird jokes. He's famous for hosting white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes on his show, for example. And he made headlines for inadvertently getting Tate arrested this year by revealing, during a livestream on Kick in March, that Tate intended to leave Romania soon and never come back. This tipped off McCue Law, the firm representing four British women accusing Tate of rape and sexual assault, that the influencer was planning to flee and helped to get an arrest warrant issued.
It's possible Monday's livestream might result in another spot of legal bother. During the interview, Ross gave Trump a Rolex and custom Cybertruck, which could possibly be a campaign finance violation. (He did not, however, sniff Trump's seat.)
While it's easy to laugh at Trump's interview with Ross, I don't want to appear dismissive of the livestream, which, at its peak, was watched by around 580,000 people; clips from it will be viewed by millions more on TikTok and YouTube. The interview was part of a broader strategy to stir up support among young men, who are a key component in Trump's path to the White House. Trump seems to have settled on a strategy of focusing his energy on appealing to men in extremely online, heavily masculine spaces rather than broadening his appeal via mainstream media. Interviews with people like Ross and Logan Paul cover off the youngest, more UFC- and video-games-focused end of this spectrum, while his June interview with the All-In podcast (run by a bunch of tech bros), help him stir up support in Silicon Valley and amongst the crypto crowd. His next big interview will be on Monday with Elon Musk: the crown prince of angry young men.
Of course, appealing to young men doesn't mean anything if those men don't get up off the couch and actually vote. Which is why, last week, a group of Trump allies launched a $20m initiative called Send the Vote aiming to increase voter registration and turnout among young men. Per the Wall Street Journal, "plans include voter-registration drives at major sporting events, and parties in which admission is proof of voter registration".
Trump's strategy to woo men under 30 has been fairly successful so far. For decades, young men have leaned left, but their support for Trump has grown since 2020. It helped Trump, of course, that Joe Biden did a brilliant job at alienating a lot of younger voters. While Harris has re-energized young voters (100,000 new voters registered during the first week of Harris's campaign), the vice-president's still trailing Trump when it comes to men (54%-45%). That may change, though: a recent "White Dudes for Harris" Zoom had almost 200,000 participants and raised more than $4m. Trump may have the support of guys who like to make racist jokes on the internet, but Harris has extraordinary momentum and a broad coalition. I reckon Trump may want to take a close look at the Rolex he's been given because his time in the political spotlight may just be running out.
