DAILY TRIFECTA: Trump's Pod People
Bro-casting
TITLE: Donald Trump has built a Republican youth movement
https://unherd.com/newsroom/donald-trump-has-built-a-republican-youth-movement/
EXCERPT: Donald Trump didn’t just outperform expectations for the 2024 election — he likely redrew the electoral map for a generation to come. His impressive performance wasn’t merely about swing states or suburban voters but something far more profound: the complete realignment of America’s two staid political coalitions.
The story of Trump’s improbable comeback from felony convictions and endless bad publicity isn’t found in the usual metrics of male versus female voters or red states versus blue states. Instead, it’s written in the faces of young voters, black Americans, and Latinos who abandoned the Democratic Party’s increasingly out-of-touch messaging for Trump’s brash, countercultural appeal.
The numbers tell a stark tale. According to AP VoteCast data, Trump captured more than 40% of voters under 30, a dramatic increase from the roughly one-third who backed him in 2020. This shift among young voters — traditionally a Democratic stronghold — signals more than just campaign success. It represents a fundamental transformation of the Republican Party’s image and appeal.
In Michigan, a “blue wall” state essential to a Kamala Harris victory, the reversal was even more dramatic. Exit polls show that voters aged 18-29, who gave Joe Biden a commanding 61% of their support in 2020, appear to have narrowly backed Trump in 2024. The shift was particularly pronounced among young men, who seemed to respond to Trump’s unconventional alliance-building with figures such as Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and even Hulk Hogan — moves that mainstream media figures regularly mocked as desperate or misguided.
The magnitude of Trump’s coalition shift becomes clear in the state-by-state numbers. Buoyed by youth turnout and defections from reliable voting blocs, traditionally Democratic strongholds such as New York and New Jersey showed a nine to ten-point Republican shift from 2020. Florida, once considered a perpetual swing state, moved decisively into the Republican column.
This realignment suggests something more significant than a single election victory. Trump has effectively positioned the Republican Party as today’s counterculture — a genuine youth movement that finally matured after years of online activism and memetic warfare. By selecting J.D. Vance as his running mate, Trump further cemented his appeal to younger, digitally-native voters who see through the carefully curated “authenticity” of establishment politicians.
The implications of this realignment will likely reverberate through American politics for the next decade or more. Trump made the Republican Party’s coalition younger, more diverse, and more working-class than at any point in recent history. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, finds itself increasingly dependent on affluent, educated voters — the very establishment figures it once defined itself against.
What emerges is a political landscape that would have been unrecognisable to those of us who came of age during George W. Bush’s presidency: a Republican Party beginning to embrace youth energy and working-class multiracial solidarity, facing off against a Democratic Party that increasingly represents well-off Boomers, the professional-managerial class, and corporate interests. The only question now is whether the Democrats can adapt to this new reality, or if they’ll continue running campaigns better suited to the political landscape of 2016 — where they bungled a near-certain victory — than the transformed America of 2024 and beyond.
TITLE: The Bold Marketing Tactics Behind Trump's Return
https://www.adweek.com/social-marketing/trumps-bold-marketing-tactics-in-2024/
EXCERPTS: A standout element of Trump’s campaign strategy this cycle was his heavy use of X (formerly Twitter), especially under Elon Musk’s leadership. This platform allowed him to bypass traditional media and communicate directly with his supporters.
While this approach kept his base energized and highly engaged, the unfiltered nature of his posts, which included controversial statements, also raised concerns about deepening societal polarization. On the other hand, this direct communication style gave his campaign a sense of authenticity that resonated with his core audience, even as it risked alienating moderate voters.
One of the more unexpected developments of Trump’s campaign was endorsements from some Muslim organizations in Michigan, a critical battleground state. Despite Trump’s history of controversial policies (such as the Muslim Ban, the executive order that banned foreign nationals from seven countries that skewed Muslim), his localized messaging and emphasis on issues like peace in the Middle East seemed to resonate with certain segments of the community.
For some voters, these messages outweighed past grievances, highlighting the complex and pragmatic factors that can influence political support. This example underscores how strategic marketing can sometimes bridge significant divides.
One of the more surprising strategies employed by Trump’s campaign was its collaboration with social media influencers and content creators, such as Logan Paul and Adin Ross. These partnerships engaged younger, often politically indifferent voters through platforms where they are most active. By appearing on popular streams or collaborating with well-known digital personalities, Trump’s team sought to generate excitement and potentially sway young voters who might otherwise ignore conventional political messaging.
Despite younger generations predominantly leaning Democratic, Trump’s campaign made a calculated effort to connect with this demographic. Experts suggest that these strategies aren’t necessarily about winning a majority—it’s about making small, strategic gains that can be critical in a tight presidential race. Even minor shifts in voter sentiment among young people could significantly impact overall election outcomes, and influencer culture is increasingly seen as a means to tap into peer influence and broad digital reach.
These collaborations not only amplified Trump’s messages but also infused a sense of modernity and relevance into his campaign. By aligning with popular figures in the digital space, Trump positioned himself as a candidate who understands the evolving media landscape and recognizes the importance of engaging with young voters on their terms.
Trump’s marketing strategy this election cycle was a master class in direct communication and unconventional tactics.
TODAY: How Joe Rogan helped Donald Trump to win America
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/donald-trump-joe-rogan-8grmztcjn
EXCERPT: Over the course of the past few months, Democrats have played impeccably by the old rules: expensively produced television adverts, a much-eulogised ground operation in the swing states, phalanxes of eager volunteers sallying forth to pound pavements and knock on doors. Trump, meanwhile, made a much-mocked tour of young male anti-woke podcasters: Theo Von, Lex Fridman, Logan Paul. Each of these men commands an audience in the tens or hundreds of millions. But Trump’s appearances were greeted in many quarters of the media with (often understandable) bemusement and hilarity. Why on earth was a former president of the United States reassuring the former martial artist Paul that aliens “would never be able to take you in a fight” or discussing the benefits of psychedelic drugs with Fridman, or quizzing Von on his cocaine habit (“that’s down and dirty, right?”).
But these men all speak to a crucial Trump constituency: less-educated young men disaffected with progressive politics. And amid their gleeful chuckling at the weirdness of the spectacle, many commentators failed to notice how natural Trump’s rapport with these characters was. The world of American “manosphere” podcasting is one of never-ending braggadocious anecdotes, awed worship of business success and free-wheeling conspiracist speculation. Trump could hardly have been more at home. It has often occurred to me that had he been born 40 years later Trump himself might have been a podcaster.
Undoubtedly his most important appearance was on The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan, 57, is the founder and the king of this world of male podcasters. The extent of his influence can scarcely be overstated. His show is downloaded 200 million times a month. It is the most popular podcast not only in America but also in Britain. Rogan’s three-hour interview with Trump has been watched 45 million times on YouTube alone. It probably attracted a similarly huge audience on Spotify, though the company doesn’t publish listening figures. TV executives dream of numbers like these.
Rogan specialises in very long (to sceptical listeners, interminable) free-form interviews. Some go on for four hours or more. His previous guests include Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson and Alex Jones, but a great deal of the show consists of Rogan shooting the breeze with comedians and mixed martial arts fighters. The spirit is part California woo-woo (psychedelic drugs, floatation tanks, mushroom powder coffees), part starry-eyed tech-worship and part old-school blue-collar politics.
Rogan’s distinguishing characteristic is that he is open-minded to a fault. His genius as an interviewer is his ability to summon up a sincere (and often credulous) fascination with almost anyone his producers put in front of him: social scientists, businessmen, kickboxers, philosophers, shamans. The guests he most respects are know-it-all alpha males or credulous goofballs willing to indulge wild speculation about (a perennial Rogan theme) the existence of aliens.
Unsurprisingly, Trump and Rogan got along well. The hyper-confident Rogan even seemed a little starstruck, treating Trump with unusual deference and solicitude. This was not Trump’s most eccentric podcast appearance. Rogan managed to stay off aliens, floatation tanks and psychedelics and keep (mostly) to conventional political subjects. The questions were all softballs. Trump had the benefit of a massive audience and free rein to boast about his accomplishments ad nauseam: “We had the greatest economy in history … we had the best economy … nobody could even believe it” etc. Harris declined to appear on the show. Wisely, I think. It is hard to imagine she would have felt comfortable on it.
It was still something of a surprise when, shortly before the election, Rogan formally endorsed Trump. The endorsement mattered partly because Rogan is not (or, at least, was not) a partisan. A couple of months ago he ruffled Trumpist feathers by seeming to endorse the conspiracy theorist third party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. And until quite recently his show was authentically, sprawlingly heterodox in its political sympathies. With his characteristic genial lack of discrimination, Rogan was willing to flirt with ideas from all over the spectrum, from red-blooded libertarianism to European-style social democracy (sometimes in the space of a single episode).
Not long ago Rogan could be heard fretting about climate change, eulogising Bernie Sanders (who appeared as a guest), expressing his horror of the January 6 riots (“Donald Trump is so f***ing dangerous”) and endorsing left-wing positions such as universal basic income and free college education for all. “I would like to spend more on taxes if they can fix inner-city communities,” he once remarked. He used to speculate fondly about Michelle Obama running for the presidency: “She’s great … she’s the wife of the greatest president we had in our lifetime.”
Rogan’s drift towards Trump mirrors the political journey of many of the disaffected young men who listen to him. It seems to have been driven principally by a frustration with the excesses of progressive politics, which has been a running theme of The Joe Rogan Experience since about 2020. That frustration eventually soured into hostility and contempt. And as Rogan’s peers in what is sometimes referred to as America’s “intellectual dark web” of heterodox thinkers and talkers moved towards the Republicans it seemed increasingly inevitable that he would do the same. Trump will be very pleased he made the journey. I suspect his recent visit to Rogan’s studio will not be his last.