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AN 5 26

The depths of conservative men's subservience to President Donald Trump reached a new low this week, after the release of what The Bulwark called the "absurd" and "absolutely wild" results of a survey exposing their strange stance on his physical strength.

On Friday, Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell released a new video where she, alongside writer Catherine Rampell, reacted to an unorthodox new poll from YouGov. In it, the survey asked respondents if they believed that an 8-year-old boy, a typical American man and, finally, themselves, could physically defeat Trump in a fight.

As Rampell explained, the poll originated from an odd exchange Trump had with a young boy during an Oval Office event touting the return of the old Presidential Fitness Exam standards, in which he asked the boy if he believed he could take him in a fight.

"So it was Trump who threw down the gauntlet to begin with," Rampell said. "And YouGov was, let's see what America thinks."

And "what America thinks," it turns out, breaks down in a "funny" fashion along gender and partisan lines. According to the poll's findings, respondents who identified as Democratic women were more likely to believe they could take the president than those who identified as Republican men, painting a bizarre picture of the cult-like image of strength conservative men still appear to have of the president.

Breaking it down further, Longwell shared that 66 percent of respondents said that the average American male could beat Trump in a fight, while only 10 percent said that the president would win. Along party lines, 33 percent of Republicans said that they would win, compared to 75 percent of Democrats. Democratic respondents were also notably more down on Trump's odds against an 8-year-old boy, with 54 percent believing that the boy would win, compared to just 6 percent of Republicans.

"This is an interesting psychological experiment about partisan politics," Longwell said. "Because Republicans are like, 'Big daddy Trump could beat me, he could get me, I'm scared of him,' whereas Democrats are like, 'Man, an 8-year-old boy would kick that guy's a——."

Along partisan and gender lines, the survey found that 71 percent of Democratic women, and 84 percent of men, believed that they could beat Trump. By comparison, just 46 percent of Republican men, and 19 percent of women, said that they could beat him. Notably, about 29 percent of GOP men and 26 percent of GOP women said that they were unsure. The number of uncertain Democrats was much lower.

Longwell noted that these results paint a grim picture of the "need" Republican men have to believe that Trump could "dominate" them. Rampell said that it was unclear how much of the results were driven by self-esteem issues, versus the need to believe Trump is physically powerful.

In the spirit of the conversation, Rampell herself added that, while she is notably shorter and lighter than the president, and has no experience with physical fights, she also believed that she could best Trump, given the many obvious signs of his declining physical health.

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RELATED TO EMPATHY? MADDOW UBC 2 26 DEMOC IS PROCESS, FACTS EXPERTS HELP US DECIDE WHAT IS BEST, SLOW vS STRoNG MAN APPEal

AHA NOT MINE EMPATHY // CRITICAL THINKING

AN 3 26

Since assuming the self-titled role of “Secretary of War,” machismo has been at the core of Pete Hegseth’s military leadership. According to a new op-ed by the i Paper columnist Ian Dunt, Hegseth’s “fragile masculinity” is not only an “insecure” projection, but an “embarrassment” to the United States that makes the country “weaker.”

Machismo has always been at the core of the Trump administration’s ethos, Dunt explained, as it has sought to promote executive authority while denigrating women and LGBTQ people, and no one in the administration better represents that than “moron” Pete Hegseth. Not only is he unqualified and “perhaps the least complex individual ever given high office,” but he has “translated his personal flaws into the operating manual for the US armed forces.”

Dunt argued that this issue dates back to the earliest days of Hegseth’s tenure, which he launched with complaints about pronouns, “climate change obsession,” and “dudes in dresses.” Then in what Dunt called “one of the weirdest single moments in American military history,” Hegseth gathered the majority of the nation’s generals and other defense leaders to chastise them about facial hair and various culture war talking points as “they sat in baffled silence.”

As Dunt pointed out, while most recognize his “fragile” overcompensation, “Only in Trump-land would he be considered a sensible candidate for anything.” But the problem with having someone like Hegseth in power isn’t just a matter of morality, but a question of effectiveness.

“This personality type does not plan,” wrote Dunt. “In fact, planning is considered distinctly effeminate. Evidence-seeking, briefings, assessments of vulnerabilities, scrutinising your expectations, critically assessing your strategic objectives, using deep domain knowledge to establish geopolitical reality, understanding the motivation of your opponent: these are the qualities which win conflicts.”

But as the Trump administration is now discovering as the war in Iran expands, Hegseth's approach does not deliver the rapid results that they hoped for. Dunt cites reports that the Iranian regime has turned down two US requests seeking a ceasefire while closing the Strait of Hormuz, throwing the global energy market into chaos.

The impact of all this, Dunt argued, is being felt economically, politically, and beyond, not only weakening the United States but emboldening its greatest foes like Russia and China. What’s more, “It is an embarrassment for a great nation like the US.”

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COMM DR 12 25

Venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of data platform company Palantir, is calling for the return of public hangings as part of a broader push to restore what he describes as “masculine leadership” to the US.

In a statement posted on X Friday, Lonsdale said that he supported changing the so-called “three strikes” anti-crime law to ensure that anyone who is convicted of three violent crimes gets publicly executed, rather than simply sent to prison for life.

“If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law,” he wrote. “We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others.”

Lonsdale then added that “our society needs balance,” and said that “it’s time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable.”

Lonsdale’s views on public hangings being necessary to restore “masculine leadership” drew swift criticism.

Gil Durán, a journalist who documents the increasingly authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley in his newsletter “The Nerd Reich,” argued in a Saturday post that Lonsdale’s call for public hangings showed that US tech elites are “entering a more dangerous and desperate phase of radicalization.”

“For months, Peter Thiel guru Curtis Yarvin has been squawking about the need for more severe measures to cement Trump’s authoritarian rule,” Durán explained. “Peter Thiel is ranting about the Antichrist in a global tour. And now Lonsdale—a Thiel protégé—is fantasizing about a future in which he will have the power to unleash state violence at mass scale.”

Taulby Edmondson, an adjunct professor of history, religion, and culture at Virginia Tech, wrote in a post on Bluesky that the rhetoric Lonsdale uses to justify the return of public hangings has even darker intonations than calls for state-backed violence.

“A point of nuance here: ‘masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable’ is how lynch mobs are described, not state-sanctioned executions,” he observed.

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll argued that Lonsdale’s remarks were symbolic of a kind of performative masculinity that has infected US culture.

“Immaturity masquerading as strength is the defining personal characteristic of our age,” he wrote.

Tech entrepreneur Anil Dash warned Lonsdale that his call for public hangings could have unintended consequences for members of the Silicon Valley elite.

“Well, Joe, Mark Zuckerberg has sole control over Facebook, which directly enabled the Rohingya genocide,” he wrote. “So let’s have the conversation.”

And Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin noted that Lonsdale has been a major backer of the University of Austin, an unaccredited liberal arts college that has been pitched as an alternative to left-wing university education with the goal of preparing “thoughtful and ethical innovators, builders, leaders, public servants and citizens through open inquiry and civil discourse.”

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WHY NOW? GUBMINT?

“We’re headed to a surveillance state”: Right-wing figures and podcasters are protesting the Trump administration’s relationship with Palantir

Palantir is coming under greater scrutiny even from Trump’s allies

Written by Noah Dowe & Ben Van Bloem

Published 11/10/25 MMA

The Trump administration’s deepening ties to data analysis firm Palantir has caused a surge in discontent in the conservative media sphere. Figures ranging from right-leaning podcasters like Theo Von and Tim Dillon to MAGA allies such as Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have warned Palantir’s “spy network” is a step toward a “police state.” Other figures on the far right, including white nationalist commentators Nick Fuentes and Stew Peters, have also railed against the tech company’s CEO and its ties to billionaire Trump-backer Peter Thiel.

The Trump administration is contracting Palantir to work with ICE

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AN 9 25

Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally. For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.

Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram. Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.

IFrame Content An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.

White nationalism 3.0

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According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties. Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project

, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research. The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34

. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025. The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0

” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing. Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018. Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting

:{. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.IFrame Content

An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.}:

‘You need to learn how to fight’

Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men. “The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel. “They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.

Expanding globally and deepening ties

:{:{Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants.}:

While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events. Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.}:

Brotherhood as a cover

By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly. Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency.

Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda. Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.

From fringe to functioning network

Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023. However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities. Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.

Hiding in plain sight

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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How segments of Christianity overlap with the manosphere and what it means for women
The rise of the manosphere, with its call for a return to traditional gender roles, reflects a backlash to power-shifting cultural changes.

Marc Ramirez](https://www.usatoday.com/staff/3932190001/marc-ramirez/)}:

USA TODAY

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In Moscow, Idaho, conservative evangelical pastor Doug Wilson last year praised the nomination of now-U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his opposition to women in combat.

Then, in an interview broadcast last month, Wilsontold CNN that in his vision of a Christian America, women would hold few leadership positions beyond being "chief executive" of the home and raising children.

"Women are the kind of people that people come out of," he said. "It doesn't take any talent to simply reproduce biologically."

Meanwhile, at Covenant Bible Church, an evangelical church in suburban Austin, Texas, pastor Joel Webbon has echoed Wilson's view that in a Christian nation, women shouldn’t be able to vote.

The manosphere — a movement encompassing hypermasculinity, male supremacy, misogyny and traditional gender roles and driven by podcasters, bloggers and social media warriors — has become increasingly mainstream. And now, it is converging with a segment of conservative Christianity.

[

“There’s a version of ‘men in charge, women in submission’ that goes back as far as I can think of” in conservative Christian circles, said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida. In other words, she said, most Sunday congregations would agree that while married couples more or less decide things together, the man has the ultimate say.

But over the last decade, Ingersoll said, this soft patriarchalism — sometimes called “complementarianism,” the idea that men and women have distinct but complementary roles — has yielded to more transgressive hierarchical versions. The shift, she and others say, is part of a backlash against power-shifting cultural developments and a reflection of how the emergence of the so-called manosphere overlaps with certain segments of Christianity.

“Complementarianism now is not like it was in the 1980s,” Ingersoll said. “It’s harsh.”

Extremely Normal: ‘It's like dopamine.’ Looking for role models, troubled young men find Andrew Tate.

“They all believe society has a natural order, that some people should be in charge and others are meant to be followers,” Ingersoll said. “That weaves in misogyny, because the people perceived to be appropriately at top are always men, so by definition women have a secondary position.”

Both Wilson and Webbon rely on strict interpretations of the Bible to back up their views that husbands rule over their wives and thus their households. Both pastors said the Bible and their churches provide safeguards to curb the toxicity found in some parts of the manosphere.

"The woman's role is a feminine and domestic role," Webbon told USA TODAY. "Her voice matters, but it is subject to her husband’s authority. Women should hold no positions of authority over men in the church, neither should they hold positions of authority over men in politics."

Wilson told USA TODAY that such views "are grounded in scripture, which we believe to be the word of God, and are important for that reason."

Cultural changes in recent decades have seen advancements for women and the LGBTQ+ community, eroding conservative Christian views of U.S. identity, said Matthew Taylor, an expert on religious extremism at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. The backlash has prompted calls for a return to traditional gender roles.

“If you think about what American culture was until the 1950s, it was overwhelmingly dominated by White Christian males,” Taylor said. “In the 1960s and 1970s, you had the Civil Rights Movement, women’s liberation, heightened immigration and Supreme Court jurisprudence that changed the balance of church and state. ... What we’re experiencing now is the backlash to that very rapid cultural change we’ve undergone.

“It’s also religious and often racial, and it’s often White men making this articulation,” Taylor said. “The trend lines are toward a cultural retrenchment of forces in American society that feel like they’re losing power.”

Where Christianity and the manosphere find commonality is in male entitlement, especially where Christian nationalism — the idea that Christian people and biblical law should govern American life — overlaps with evangelicalism, said Sheila Wray Gregoire, a former evangelical whose “Bare Marriage” podcast explores the marital and sexual satisfaction of evangelical women in the U.S. and Canada.

“It’s the idea that men are meant to have authority over women and women are supposed to serve, especially sexually,” she said. “There’s very little light between the two.”

Taylor said two major ascendant far right Christian movements in the U.S. heavily overlap with the manosphere, both of them highly patriarchal.

First, he said, are traditionalist Catholics. Second are reformed reconstructionist Christians, which he describes as a basically Calvinist, largely evangelical world of pastors and preachers, many of them young with well-groomed beards — the so-called TheoBros.

One preacher's rise illustrates the phenomenon

While the Christian manosphere is largely an evangelical phenomenon, it's also taken root in conservative Catholic and Presbyterian circles, smaller denominations and independent churches, said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, a private Christian university in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The rise of Idaho pastor Wilson, now in his early 70s, illustrates how fringe evangelicalism has seeped into the mainstream over time, she said. By 1998, when Wilson co-founded the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, he was still an outlier who held benign views of American slavery and mocked evangelical megachurch leaders he would ultimately parody as spineless “Evangellyfish” in a novel of the same name.

“On the surface, he was not well connected,” said Du Mez, author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Christian Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” “He had set up his own outpost in Moscow (Idaho) and started a church, school and publishing house.”

Wilson’s rising profile, Du Mez said, was boosted by a podcast following of homeschooling families and impressionable young men, endorsements from old-school patriarchs like Protestant preacher John Piper and attention from commentatorTucker Carlson and the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Meanwhile, Canon Press, the publishing house he founded, published “The Case for Christian Nationalism” while Wilson himselfhas criticized women’s voting rights as harmful to male-headed families.

“He has emerged as one of the primary spokespeople for a rightwing, highly patriarchal, politically incorrect Christianity that aligns quite closely with the MAGA agenda,” Du Mez said.

Wilson’s bombastic and irreverent approach are also characteristic of the manosphere, she said.

“He gives his listeners permission to set aside proprieties and civility, to say it like it is,” Du Mez said. “He’s famously curmudgeon-ly and combative, and that tone and mood are having a moment. He’s kind of the grandfather of this in Christian spaces.”

Wilson and his Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches — a network which Hegseth’s Nashville-area church has since joined — have since launched a church and school in Washington, D.C.

“They want a position from which to shape the Trump administration and exert their influence,” Du Mez said.

Are TheoBros really separate from the manosphere?

As notions of Christianity-supported gender equality gained acceptance in the 1970s and 1980s, Ingersoll said, Piper and other conservative evangelicals formed the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in response. That led to the 1991 publication of “Reclaiming Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” an influential book of essays co-edited by Piper that advocated complementarianism.

The principle is popular among conservative denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention, which in recent years has disfellowshipped prominent churches that have installed women pastors.

“Men who want to feel important are gravitating toward evangelical churches because they’re being told, this is what God wants for you and you don’t have to do anything except be a man,” said Gregoire, the podcaster and former evangelical. “…. This is the only place in society where they can find that.”

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Ingersoll said that while selective Bible verses are often used to justify patriarchy, “I don’t think people read the Bible and then conclude how they should be. I think people are a certain way and then read the Bible in a way that fits with how they are…. Their perspective on how the world should be comes first.”

That’s why, she said, the TechBros and TheoBros have much in common — because they start from the same hierarchical worldview.

Ingersoll points to Vice President JD Vance as an illustration of the overlap. Vance’s political rise was funded in part by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal whose views on women have come under scrutiny. But the vice president’s religious views, she said, align with Catholic Integralism, a political ideology that blurs the lines between church and state and frowns on religious pluralism.

“You can see all those things coming together in him in an amalgam,” she said. “I don’t see the Christian patriarchal TheoBro world as something separate from the manosphere; I see it as part of it. They really are the same group of people.”

Du Mez also cited Jordan Peterson, a secular figure with a YouTube following of more than 8 million, as someone instrumental in the rise of the Christian manosphere. Peterson’smessages about masculinity have found an audience among young men seeking direction and prompted soul-searching among Christian podcasting pastors.

“He was held up as an example to say, we should be in those spaces,” Du Mez said. “Like, ‘he’s not one of us, but he’s saying real truths.’ So the overlap has been around a while.”

Many of these podcasting pastors draw the line at radically misogynist figures like Andrew Tate, the former social media influencer now under investigation in Romania on accusations including of human trafficking and organized crime. Tate has denied the claims. But while they see Tate as overtly abusive, crass and profane, Du Mez said, “it doesn’t mean their listeners are drawing the same line.”

Wilson and Webbon told USA TODAY that scripture provides safeguards against toxic behavior. The Bible, Wilson said, "requires husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church, and this is a standard that we hold the men to. If a husband veered into the kind of toxicity that is on display in some of those quarters, he would be disciplined by our church."

Webbon agreed, saying "abuses must be prevented by using scripture as our guide."

"The manosphrere is correct in much of their diagnoses of feminism, but they offer no biblical solutions," he said.

Reversal of Roe v. Wade 'just the start'

Gregoire said her research has found higher divorce rates and lower marital satisfaction among married couples with ideals of male hierarchy. Meanwhile, Sons of Patriarchy is a podcast focused entirely on stories of intimate partner abuse in Doug Wilson-influenced churches nationally and globally.

“What happens when biblical patriarchy, Christian nationalism, and a theology of authority and submission become the pillars of a movement?” the podcast’s tagline asks.

But some see broader social dangers at work as such ideology creeps into national politics.

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an Albuquerque-based group that supports religious freedom for U.S. military members, said the misogyny of Christian nationalism “wants to replace our democracy with this barbaric version of Christianity, and an essential part of that is male dominance… It’s right out of Handmaid’s Tale.”

Consigning women to the home has socioeconomic effects, Ingersoll added, limiting their ability to act should a marriage turn sour or harmful and cutting them off from retirement benefits that reward a paid career.

“It’s talked about as a complementary, equal contribution to the life of the family, but in monetary terms it’s not recognized as that,” she said. “So women are at a real disadvantage when they’re older and have less Social Security because they didn’t work outside the home.”

Ingersoll cited Hegseth’s testimony when he was grilled as a nominee about his views about women in the military.

“Did he say women shouldn’t be in the military?” she said. “Technically not; he said women shouldn’t be in combat. But if you think about it, the way you get promoted to the highest ranks, the way you get the training to go on to other jobs like being a pilot — if women can’t be in combat they won’t be able to get to those positions because that’s the mechanism by which they get there.”

The America envisioned by the Christian manosphere, Ingersoll said, is “incredibly dangerous to the gains that women have made in terms of equality over the last half-century. Roe v. Wade overturning was just the start. These people want women having as many children as possible. They want to ban birth control.... It’s putting a certain segment of society back in charge of everything and sidelining everyone else.”

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COMIC? MMA

July 26, 2025, edition of *The Tim Dillon Show

TIM DILLON (HOST): Obviously, I am a human and want to live, but our civilization does really deserve to be destroyed. That is the hard -- that is the really tough thing about it all, is that, if there was ever a civilization that deserved a cataclysmic, and again, not rooting for it, don't want it to happen, don't want it to happen, but just statistically, could there be a better example?

I mean, we just do -- this guy is committing a genocide, truly. I don't think anyone's even, I don't think anyone's even denying that at this point. People, like, quibbling about certain components of it. I know that people are like, well, yes, they're starving Gaza, but did you see that video of that guy from Hamas stealing a banana? Did you see that? There's a guy from Hamas eating a banana, and people are like, well, he stole the banana from the people. And they're like, Hamas is stealing the food.

In this whole thing, Israel has no culpability by the way at all. They've actually done nothing wrong. It's all been Hamas. Hamas has done everything. There's not been -- what they stole the food, they're shooting the people who are in line for the food. Israel's doing nothing. And you have to trust Israel because otherwise, the only people that are reporting out of Gaza, they're not letting journalists in, or they just say are Hamas. So if you report anything contrary to what Israel says, you are Hamas or you become Hamas.

So, I mean, I just, you know? I mean, the starvation, the photos of the starving -- number one, we're the fattest country in the world, for the fattest country in the world to fund the starvation of a group of people is insane. Look at this. Here we go. This is the thing they keep showing is that Hamas has bananas. Alright.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They got bananas. This is the -- when I ask why we're funding it -- why we're starving people, we're funding a famine. People say to me, well, maybe take a look at that video of how the guy in Hamas with the grapes. The guy in Hamas with the grapes. And you go, we're the fattest country in the world. K? Nobody is fatter than us. We are now funding the starvation of a group of people halfway across the world or all the way across the world. I'm bad with geography, but far away.

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On Thursday, July 24, professional wrestling star Terry Gene Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, died of heart failure at the age of 71. Hogan's death came a year after Hogan's appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he gave GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump a passionate endorsement.

Salon's Chauncey DeVega examines Hogan's support of the MAGA movement in an article published on July 28, arguing that his alliance with Trump was a major disappointment to non-MAGA Americans who admired the wrestler during the 1980s.

"Trump and Hulk's alliance irrevocably stained the cherished memories many Americans of a certain age have of Hulkamania," DeVega writes. "If our hero Hulk Hogan, whose theme song proclaimed himself a 'Real American' willing to 'fight for the rights of every man,' could embrace a person like Donald Trump — a villain who believes himself to be the real victim — how lost, then, are we Americans as a country and a people?"

READ MORE: 'Kicked a hornet’s nest': Backlash follows red state Republicans' repeal of voter-approved laws

DeVega adds, "This betrayal is at the heart of the boos and contempt many professional wrestling fans, and the larger public, came to feel toward Hulk. But the pairing makes perfect sense once you realize how much the two have in common."

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The Salon journalist describes Trump and Hogan as "fabulists with a documented history of telling obvious lies and abusing the truth."

"Being 'real Americans' and 'patriots' is central to both of their brands and popularity," DeVega explains. "Hulk Hogan, Trump and MAGA all embody the same anti-intellectual, demagogic, juvenile, adolescent male power fantasy: that big muscles, sheer will and violence can fix everything."

DeVega continues, "To that point, Trump, at 79, routinely shares images of himself online as Superman, a heavyweight professional wrestling champion, a Sith Lord from the 'Star Wars' film universe, Sylvester Stallone's human war machine character 'Rambo,' a mafia boss and, of course, a professional wrestler…. Rest in peace and power, Hulkster. For better or worse, this is the world you helped to create, and we are living in it. "

READ MORE:'Total mental collapse': Trump brutally mocked after 'babbling rant'

*Chauncey DeVega's full Salon article is available at this lin

no lnx

Why Republicans worship Trump as their sick and twisted role model

(REUTERS)

Thom HartmannJuly 20, 2025

James Carville recently suggested that Democrats need to do more to reach out to young men, as though pandering to testosterone-fueled grievance and entitlement is the key to winning elections. Let’s be blunt: that’s a bull----, dead-end strategy that risks ratifying the very worst elements of a crisis in masculinity that’s corroding our politics, poisoning our culture, and endangering our democracy.

And it’s coming from the top, down.

Donald Trump is an adjudicated rapist, according to the judge in his case. A New York jury found him liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll in a civil case, and he’s remained unapologetic. Then he moved straight to pardoning other men in his orbit, even convicted ones like Roger Stone and a rapper with a history of alleged sexual assault. And now he’s telling us to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein wasn’t an outlier: he was a prototype. A predator who operated in plain sight, protected by the powerful, and normalized by the elite. His crimes weren’t hidden; they were ignored, downplayed, and rationalized until they became impossible to deny.

The recent revelations about the scope of his network, and the prominent men it touched, show how deeply entrenched rape culture is not just at the fringes of politics, but at its very core.

Trump pardoned multiple anti-abortion criminals as well as Ross Ulbricht, who ran the world’s most notorious market for illicit drugs (that some allege could also have been used for human trafficking); Trump's administration apparently helped free Andrew and Tristan Tate, rightwing influencers accused of rape in Romania, from prison in that country, so they could return to America to help promote the GOP to their young male followers.

Rape culture isn’t just at the top; it’s everywhere, especially in the digital spaces young men inhabit. Pornography has become the de facto sex education for millions of boys. A ten‑year‑old with a smartphone has unfettered access to violent, misogynistic content that normalizes coercion and degradation.

This isn’t just a parental issue, it’s a cultural emergency. This content is shaping how an entire generation understands sex, power, and consent.

And Trump’s “best friend” Epstein was an avatar of that twisted worldview.

Trump and Epstein were reportedly best buds for years, partying together, traveling together on Epstein’s private jet, enjoying the same grotesque perks of unchecked wealth.

Both political parties have brushed shoulders with predators, but only one is building a platform that protects them by law. Virtually every Republican in the House of Representatives just voted to conceal the information about Epstein our government currently has.

And now, Elon Musk echoes that same ideology with a techno-eugenic twist, building a brood while normalizing control over women’s bodies in the name of “saving civilization.”

Musk is openly using white women as baby incubators. Musk has fathered at least 14 children with four different women. He’s talked openly about a global “underpopulation crisis” and described his mission to produce a “legion-level” brood of children before the apocalypse. He’s recruited mothers via X, and allegedly dangled millions in hush-money deals. This isn’t family values: it’s eugenic breeding with a Big Daddy tint.

That’s also largely what the so‑called “Tradwife” movement is selling. On social media and in right-wing circles, we’re seeing a resurgence of the Traditional Wife persona; it’s not really about choice or liberty as they try to sell it, but hierarchy. White women are expected to go “back to the kitchen and bedroom,” producing more white babies in a panic about the “browning” of America.

This fixation on race and reproduction mirrors the same “Great Replacement Theory” rhetoric promoted on Fox “News” and other rightwing outlets that fed the Charlottesville rally and inspired mass murderers in Las Vegas, Buffalo, and El Paso.

From Trump saying, “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” to telling Esquire Magazine that “arm candy” is essential for a successful businessman (“You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass”) to sarcastically calling Kamala Harris “a beautiful woman,” our president has long made clear his thoughts on the role of women.

JD Vance has similarly pushed the tradwife meme, arguing that:

“I think that we should fight for the right of every American to live a good life in the country they call their own, to raise a family and dignity on a single middle-class job.”

That “single” job is the key; he’s not talking about economic advancement in the middle class but, rather, pitching the idea that dad should work and mom should stay home to cook, clean, and attend to the kids.

And, like in the 1950s and before, it’s all undergirded by state violence. Jessica Valenti writes with clarity and horror at her Abortion Every Day Substack, documenting how Red states are now arresting women for miscarriages and far, far worse is on the horizon.

Law enforcement officers in Red states are now interrogating women who seek care for pregnancy complications, Republican Attorneys General are demanding records of miscarriages and abortions even from Blue states, and doctors are afraid to treat women in crisis, leading to a doubling in the use of blood transfusions (women almost bleeding to death) in Texas since they passed their draconian abortion ban. It’s deliberate, and it’s escalating.

And now Republicans in Congress and the states are openly talking about bringing back enforcement of the Comstock Act of 1873, the Victorian-era law banning not just abortion but contraception and obscene materials, as I wrote about in The Cold Dead Hand of Anthony Comstock.

Meanwhile, the fetal personhood movement backed by Trump and Vance is becoming mainstream. As vice president, J.D. Vance spoke at the 2025 March for Life rally, declaring “I want more babies in the United States of America” and aligned himself with the GOP’s agenda of fetal personhood, a policy that could make IVF, contraception, and even most miscarriage treatment illegal.

This is a deliberate, systemic reinforcement of toxic masculinity, an ideology of power, control, and domination.

It shows up in incel forums, Proud Boys gatherings, Andrew Tate videos, and in the halls of Congress. It’s being sold to young men as an antidote to their anxieties, be they economic, social, or existential.

From Mar-a-Lago to Manhattan’s Upper East Side, rape culture isn’t fringe: it’s the foundation. And it’s a lie.

Some Republicans will pretend to claim that they just want to return America to the Leave It To Beaver world of June Cleaver, the happy homemaker of 1960s TV. What they don’t like to point out, though, is that in the 1960s most women didn’t have much of a choice.

When Republicans say that your grandmother stayed with your grandfather and should be your role model, they fail to point out that women three generations ago really had few choices unless they were independently wealthy.

Employers could refuse to hire women because of their gender as recently as 1964; home sellers and real estate agents could refuse to sell a house to women up until 1974; it wasn’t until 1988 that the law said landlords could no longer refuse to rent to women. Spousal rape wasn’t criminalized until 1993.

When Louise and I got married in 1972, she couldn’t get a credit card or sign a mortgage without the signature of me, her brother, or her father. She couldn’t serve on a jury, get a no-fault divorce, or enroll in an Ivy League college. And if she’d had an unwanted pregnancy, she’d be out of luck until 1973’s Roe v Wade decision.

In 20 states, Republicans have succeeded in removing from women one of the most important options that allow them to stay in the workplace: abortion of an accidental or unwanted pregnancy. Now they’re going after birth control. And their war on DEI is just another aspect of their war on their own women, as white women are the main beneficiaries of the DEI programs Republicans are demanding corporations and government agencies end.

Republicans are even working hard on ending no-fault divorce: as Vance said, women should stay home and serve their husbands even when those men are physically or emotionally abusive.

They ignore the reality of an 8 to 16 percent decrease in female suicides after states enacted no-fault divorce laws, a roughly 30 percent decrease in intimate partner violence, and a 10 percent drop in women murdered by their partners. Or maybe they just don’t care.

Republican legislators are also pushing back hard against equal-pay-for-equal-work laws, calling such efforts DEI, again arguing that women shouldn’t be on the job in the first place.

These are all aspects of a crisis of masculinity and rape culture that Republicans are exploiting to the detriment of both women and the men who’re buying their perverted siren song.

Thus, Democratic consultants’ calls to “reach out” to young men without challenging these ideas are dangerous. They can be interpreted as code for validation, not transformation.

What we need instead is a redefinition of masculinity: strength defined by compassion, power defined by service, leadership defined by respect.

And there are real exemplars out there.

Look at former Sen. Jon Tester, Montana farmer and Marine vet, who fights for working families without preening bravado. Look at former President Joe Biden — yes, him — who has comforted grieving mothers and lent moral clarity and empathy where so many others have failed. Look at single fathers, teachers, firefighters, nurses, community organizers: men who show up because they care, not to conquer.

True masculinity uplifts. It nurtures. It protects without demeaning. It leads with humility. It affirms the full humanity of women.

That’s the kind of man worth celebrating and inviting young men to be. Not the guy who calls himself a “legion” builder, or hustles violent porn on the internet and brags of his conquests on YouTube, or thinks women exclusively belong at home to “raise the babies.”

Democrats shouldn’t pander to wounded pride. They shouldn’t validate grievance or reinforce entitlement. They should, instead, challenge men to grow up; to become allies in a fight for justice, equality, and democracy.

Redefining masculinity isn’t a side project: it’s central to reclaiming our national soul.

Let Republicans hold up Trump, Musk, and Tate as their sick, twisted role models. Democrats should amplify the real men: the compassionate, the just, the fierce protectors of freedom and equality.

Let’s reject the calls coming from multiple corners to “reach out” to codes of rape culture. Instead, let’s lead the way to a future where strength means service, power means accountability, and freedom means equality for everyone.

NOW READ: Donald Trump Jr. gets the revolting last word

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AN 7 25

During the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump not only rallied his hardcore MAGA base — he also reached out to independents and Trump-curious members of the Manosphere. And that included interviews with Manosphere-friendly podcasters like Joe Rogan.

But according to Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis, the controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation may hurt Trump's popularity with the Manosphere.

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is accusing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi of an Epstein cover-up and is threatening to resign from his position if Bondi doesn't resign from hers. Trump, however, is sticking by Bondi and urging his supporters to move on from Epstein.

READ MORE: 'I'm done with this': Retiring GOP senator uses profanity in veiled threat to Trump

During a mid-July appearance on "The Jim Acosta Show," Lewis (a columnist for The Hill) told former CNN host Acosta, "Look, I think what's really dangerous for Donald Trump here are the last part of the coalition that kind of came together in 2024 — call them the Manosphere, right? You've got this guy, Andrew Schulz, you've got Joe Rogan, you got Theo Vonn; they were really important for bringing kind of apathetic, non-political people into the Trump fold. I don't think they're partisan hacks."

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Acosta agreed with Acosta's analysis, saying, "They liked — they were attracted to Donald Trump by his frat boy antics and his locker room talk…. You're absolutely right. The Manosphere is like… Dude, dude, where's my conspiracy theory?"

Lewis laughed, joking, "I think you just got the title for this YouTube show." And he reiterated his point that Rogan and other Manosphere podcasters are not staunch partisans.

"Absolutely, I think there's a danger that they peel off because they were not, you know, dyed- in-the-wool Republicans," Lewis told Acosta. "And I think, you were talking about how they liked they liked Trump's demeanor. They were also just turned off by the left, you know — by kind of the woke left that told them you can't use this language. You can't call people the R-word. But they're not hacks, you know, and I think they're gonna push back on this one."

READ MORE:'Backfiring badly': A Trump 'ploy' is making things worse for far-right ally

*Watch the full video at this Mediaite link.

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AN 7 25

During the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) not only rallied his hardcore MAGA base — he also reached out to independents and Trump-curious members of the Manosphere. And that included interviews with Manosphere-friendly podcasters like Joe Rogan.

But according to Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis, the controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation may hurt Trump's popularity with the Manosphere.

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is accusing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi of an Epstein cover-up and is threatening to resign from his position if Bondi doesn't resign from hers. Trump, however, is sticking by Bondi and urging his supporters to move on from Epstein.

READ MORE: 'I'm done with this': Retiring GOP senator uses profanity in veiled threat to Trump (https://www.alternet.org/thom-tillis-trump/)

During a mid-July appearance on "The Jim Acosta Show," (https://www.mediaite.com/media/podcasts/really-dangerous-for-trump-matt-lewis-jim-acosta-say-trumps-hold-on-joe-rogan-crowd-imperiled-over-epstein/) Lewis (a columnist for The Hill) told former CNN host Acosta, "Look, I think what's really dangerous for Donald Trump here are the last part of the coalition that kind of came together in 2024 — call them the Manosphere, right? You've got this guy, Andrew Schulz, you've got Joe Rogan, you got Theo Vonn; they were really important for bringing kind of apathetic, non-political people into the Trump fold. I don't think they're partisan hacks."

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Acosta agreed with Acosta's analysis, saying, "They liked — they were attracted to Donald Trump by his frat boy antics and his locker room talk…. You're absolutely right. The Manosphere is like… Dude, dude, where's my conspiracy theory?"

Lewis laughed, joking, "I think you just got the title for this YouTube show." And he reiterated his point that Rogan and other Manosphere podcasters are not staunch partisans.

"Absolutely, I think there's a danger that they peel off because they were not, you know, dyed- in-the-wool Republicans," Lewis told Acosta. "And I think, you were talking about how they liked they liked Trump's demeanor. They were also just turned off by the left, you know — by kind of the woke left that told them you can't use this language. You can't call people the R-word. But they're not hacks, you know, and I think they're gonna push back on this one."

READ MORE:'Backfiring badly': A Trump 'ploy' is making things worse for far-right ally (https://www.alternet.org/msn-uk/trump-bolsonaro-tariff/)

*Watch the full video at this Mediaite link (https://www.mediaite.com/media/podcasts/really-dangerous-for-trump-matt-lewis-jim-acosta-say-trumps-hold-on-joe-rogan-crowd-imperiled-over-epstein/).

Mike Cernovich.

Advice to Young Men - Tucker Carlson and Mike Cernovich

an 6 25

A controversial $20 million study examining why young American men are leaving the Democratic Party paints a sobering picture—and confirms growing concerns about liberals’ hold on a critical voting bloc, according to its initial findings.

“Democrats are seen as weak, whereas Republicans are seen as strong,” Ilyse Hogue, co-founder of the Speaking with American Men (SAM) project, told Politico (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/democrats-young-men-study-00384370). “Young men also spoke of being invisible to the Democratic coalition, and so you’ve got this weak problem and then you’ve got this, ‘I don’t think they care about me’ problem, and I think the combination is kind of a killer.”

America's young men are stressed, ashamed and confused over what it means to be a man in 2025, Politico reported.

READ MORE: ‘Vindictive Erasure’: Hegseth Ripped for Pride Month Order to Rename USNS Harvey Milk (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/06/vindictive-erasure-hegseth-ripped-for-pride-month-order-to-rename-usns-harvey-milk/)

"They vented about conflicting cultural messages of masculinity that put them in a 'no-win situation around the meaning of ‘a man,’ ' according to the SAM project memo."

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Economic concerns are a big driver behind young men feeling stressed. Being unable to buy a home in today's market with high prices and high interest rates, or worried about paying for their children's college, has led to their concerns about "being a man, and living up to their own expectations or the expectations of their family or society," SAM project co-founder and pollster John Della Volpe told Politico.

Focus group participants' responses helped paint the picture.

"An Asian American professional described Democrats as embracing 'the fluid masculinity of being, like, empathetic and sensitive,' while 'Republicans are more like, the traditional masculinity of a provider, strong, and the machismo type.'"

READ MORE: ‘You Have One Job’: MTG Scorched for Not Reading Key Provision in Budget Bill (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/06/you-have-one-job-marjorie-taylor-greene-scorched-for-not-reading-budget-bill/)

A Latino man told the project that Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) was focused on, “Oh, I got Beyonce on stage with me. Oh, I got Lady Gaga on stage,” and “it just kind of felt like, what does that have to do with me? I’m trying to move up in life.”

“Trump’s over here like, ‘if we’re able to get a surplus in our budget, then we’re going to have no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. It’s going to take a while to get to that point, but at least he’s saying the things that — oh, this is what I’m going to do."

Although the report did not mention it, Harris unveiled a comprehensive economic package that included financial assistance for first time homebuyers and parents who wanted children. It's unclear if those messages got through.

Another "Latino man from Las Vegas spoke admiringly of Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and Andrew Tate, a controversial influencer who has been accused of rape and sex trafficking, as 'always loved and hated, but they’re truthful, honest, to what they believe in.'”

But Hogue also said Democrats are just not speaking the same language as America's young men, and until that changes they "can’t win these folks over."

an 5 25

During President Donald Trump's four months back in the White House, tech CEOs who were critical of him in the past — including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos — have been trying to make peace with him. And Tesla/SpaceX/X.com CEO Elon Musk is among Trump's close allies.

Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) clearly views the tech world as an opportunity to make money. And in an article published by The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/30/is-memecoin-scam-crypto-trump) on May 30, Brisbane, Australia-based journalist Matt Shea describes one of Trump's ways to fleece "gullible young men" via "fake money."

Trump, according to the article, is pushing a "get-rich-quick scheme."

READ MORE:QAnon follower gets 3 years for threatening to ‘execute’ AZ governor Katie Hobbs (https://www.alternet.org/katie-hobbs-qanon/)

Trump, in 2025, is much more bullish on cryptocurrencies, include memecoins, than he was in the past. Shea, in his article, makes it clear that he has a low opinion of the technology — and argues that Trump-related memecoins will be profitable for Trump himself more than those who buy them.

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Describing cryptocurrencies as nonsense and memecoins as "consciously" nonsense, Shea writes, "In their essence, memecoins distill the attention economy into a tradable asset, monetizing the ebb and flow of viral internet hype. This has created a system in which the biggest attention-seekers on the planet — Logan Paul, Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, Donald Trump — can bleed their followers for profit. The more controversial they are, the more viral they are; and the more viral they are, the more their memecoins increase in value."

"Most memecoins," according to Shea, "end up making money for the person who makes them as a 'rug pull' or a 'pump and dump'" — although in the long run, they aren't a good investment for those who buy them.

David Gerard, author of the book "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain," described memecoins as "fake money," telling The Guardian, "They own the fake money, but they can't sell it until it's unlocked in tranches. Note that the limits are artificial. I mean, they could just 'print' more."

READ MORE:Inside Ron Johnson's barrage of baffling lies (https://www.alternet.org/inside-ron-johnson-s-barrage-of-baffling-b-s/)

Journalist Sander Lutz describes memecoins as a "scam," arguing that some people are willing be scammed.

Lutz told The Guardian, "Another way of defining a memecoin is a cryptocurrency token that has an acknowledged inherent lack of value. The crypto world, outside of memecoins, is full of so many people who are trying to pitch you on tokens that are 'actually really profound' or 'represent a stake' in some kind of 'useful network,' but are equally worthless. What makes memecoins different is that there's none of that noise…. Crypto has been an ever-escalating series of get-rich-quick schemes, where a whole bunch of people think that they're smarter operators than the previous operator — and generally, they're not….. They think they'll hear about these scams before the rug is pulled — but actually, they're the suckers."

Lutz added, "Crypto is full of people who think they're the scammer, not the sucker."

READ MORE:Behind the half-baked arguments flailing bully Trump uses to attack public media (https://www.alternet.org/trump-public-media/)

*Read Matt Shea's full article for The Guardian at this link (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/30/is-memecoin-scam-crypto-trump).

AN 5 25

Columnist David French knows the Democratic Party has a "man problem" with young males pushing Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and MAGA over the finish line in the last election. But the party’s $20 million proposal to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in the growing manosphere is a waste, he says, because the roots of the manosphere are about “deep personal need,” not politics.

“You can’t write a history of the manosphere without acknowledging that it was a response to a genuine crisis,” reports (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/opinion/manosphere-democrats-peterson-men.html) French in the New York Times.

Of course men are still unquestionably at the top of the American pyramid, French concedes. American boardrooms are still mostly male, however the “vast majority” of U.S. men are “falling behind women at a startling rate.”

READ MORE: 'Everyone is afraid to tell him': Trump brutally mocked following 'meltdown' with reporter (https://www.alternet.org/everyone-is-afraid-to-tell-him-trump-mocked-as/)

More girls are enrolled in college than boys (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/upshot/boys-falling-behind-data.html), and their G.P.A.s are higher, while more boys are getting suspended. Boys also commit suicide at a much higher rate than girls. A higher percentage of them suffer from mental illness, and they’re roughly twice as likely to be diagnosed with adulthood-derailing A.D.H.D. or autism.

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“At the same time, there’s considerable evidence that fatherlessness has a terrible impact (https://ifstudies.org/blog/life-without-father-less-college-less-work-and-more-prison-for-young-men-growing-up-without-their-biological-father) on young men. In other words, boys have a desperate need for male role models and mentors,” writes French. “Enter the manosphere.”

They may be seizing power in the White House, but the manosphere’s legion of writers, podcasters and influencers didn’t evolve from a political strategy, French says. They arose in response to a “genuine void in many young men’s hearts.” Andrew Tate, despite facing 21 new charges of rape and human trafficking in the U.K., sells love and affection to his male audience.

“‘I like you,” is the message. ‘I want you to live a good life. Let me show you how.’”

READ MORE:The one character trait glaringly common among Trump supporters spotted by researchers (https://www.alternet.org/trump-sychophants/)

But the manosphere preaches this while celebrating aggression and defiance as a form of strength and moral courage. They defy the “woke establishment” without realizing anti-left (or anti-feminist) “is not the same thing” as “pro-male.” And they don’t realize misogyny “should be anathema to any truly virtuous definition of masculinity.”

That’s why you have personalities like Kid Rock, Hulk Hogan, Dana White and Trump at the Republican National Convention, celebrating MAGA masculinity, he said.

“But how many fathers want their sons to grow up to be like those men?” French asks. “They’re successful, certainly, but Kid Rock has a sex tape and faced an assault charge for a fight in a Nashville strip club,” while White was caught on camera slapping his wife.

“And Donald Trump is, well, Donald Trump.”

READ MORE: Donald Trump finally faces his reckoning (https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/donald-trump-finally-faces-his-reckoning/)

French admits MAGA excess provides an opportunity, “but it’s an opportunity for civil society far more than it is for a political party.”

“America doesn’t need a left-wing version of Joe Rogan,” French argues. “What it needs is our parents, pastors, teachers and coaches to fill the void in young men’s hearts. Our sons should not have to turn to books or podcasts or social media to hear this simple and powerful message: I like you. I want you to live a good life. Let me show you how.”

Read the full New York Times report here (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/opinion/manosphere-democrats-peterson-men.html).

MMA

STUDY: Interacting with these popular right-leaning comedy podcasters can turn your TikTok feed into a swamp of Andrew Tate-style misogyny and conspiracy theories (https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/study-interacting-these-popular-right-leaning-comedy-podcasters-can-turn-your-tiktok-feed)}:

:{05/19/25

MMA

How top right-leaning online shows that claim to be nonpolitical covered Trump’s first 100 days

These podcasts and streaming shows mostly praised and defended the administration and its policies, with some offering limited criticisms

Written by Kayla Gogarty (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/kayla-gogarty), Payton Armstrong (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/payton-armstrong), Jack Winstanley (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/jack-winstanley), Pete Tsipis (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/pete-tsipis), Jack Wheatley (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/jack-wheatley) & Shelby Jamerson (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/shelby-jamerson)

Research contributions from Ben Van Bloem (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/ben-van-bloem) & Gideon Taaffe (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/gideon-taaffe)

Published 05/06/25

During the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, popular online shows that self-identify as nonpolitical but have a right-leaning ideological bent have repeatedly discussed key figures, policies, and events of his administration. For example, they talked about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and related policy, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his various scandals, Trump’s policies on immigration and tariffs, and pro-Russia talking points about its war with Ukraine. During these discussions, hosts mostly endorsed Trump administration policies or narratives, with some offering limited criticism.

In a recent study, Media Matters found (https://www.mediamatters.org/google/right-dominates-online-media-ecosystem-seeping-sports-comedy-and-other-supposedly) the most popular online shows — an increasingly (https://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Infinite-Dial-2024-Presentation.pdf#page=19) influential and trusted (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2023/04/18/podcasts-as-a-source-of-news-and-information/#::text=This%20is%20a,largely%20inaccurate.) medium — are overwhelmingly right-leaning. Analyzing popular online shows that were active in 2024, Media Matters found 320 with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent. Over a third self-identified as nonpolitical, even though we found that 72% of these shows were right-leaning. These shows described themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or sorted themselves into other supposedly nonpolitical categories.

In subsequent studies, we have found that this ecosystem of right-leaning shows, including the supposedly nonpolitical shows, has repeatedly pushed (https://www.mediamatters.org/google/right-leaning-online-shows-claiming-be-nonpolitical-pushed-pro-trump-messaging-during) pro-Trump messaging or right-wing misinformation/narratives. And while some have criticized Trump’s unpopular tariff policy, the ecosystem still overwhelmingly supports (https://www.mediamatters.org/tariffs-trade/study-most-pro-trump-podcasters-support-trumps-tariffs-some-fractures-emerge) him.

Top right-leaning shows that claim to be nonpolitical

Based on Media Matters’ March study (https://www.mediamatters.org/google/right-dominates-online-media-ecosystem-seeping-sports-comedy-and-other-supposedly), the 10 right-leaning online shows or streamers that claim to be nonpolitical and have the largest following across streaming and social media platforms are:

Joe Rogan’s The Joe Rogan Experience, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joe-rogan-experience/id360084272) as comedy.

Jordan Peterson’s The Jordan P. Peterson Podcast, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695) as education.

Theo Von’s This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-past-weekend-w-theo-von/id1190981360) as comedy.

The Nelk Boys’ Full Send Podcast, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/full-send-podcast/id1582758729) as comedy interviews.

Dr. Phil McGraw’s The Dr. Phil Podcast, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-phil-podcast/id1446088262) as society and culture.

Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pbd-podcast/id1526697745) as business.

Logan Paul’s Impaulsive, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/impaulsive-with-logan-paul/id1442164847) as comedy.

Asmongold, a video game streamer (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2025/04/how-video-games-took-over-politics-asmongold/682592/) named Zack Hoyt who also goes by ZackRawrr (https://www.twitch.tv/zackrawrr).

Lex Fridman’s Lex Fridman Podcast, which self-categorizes (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lex-fridman-podcast/id1434243584) as technology.

JP Sears, who streams (https://rumble.com/c/AwakenWithJP) a variety of shows while identifying as a comedian.

These online shows have repeatedly discussed key figures, policies, and events of Trump’s administration during the first 100 days of his second term. Much of this commentary praises, promotes, and defends the administration and its policies. Below we list a number of these discussions organized by subject and show/streamer.

Supposedly nonpolitical right-leaning shows discussed and sometimes promoted RFK Jr., the administration’s changes to health policy and research, and vaccine hesitancy

Show hosts discussed Kennedy’s nomination and confirmation as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Some of them promoted his policy initiatives around pharmaceutical companies, promoted his book that is critical of Anthony Fauci (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/books/skyhorse-robert-kennedy-jr-president.html#::text=Its%20best%2Dselling,across%20all%20formats.), and praised the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. One host, Joe Rogan, also dismissed the necessity of vaccines and downplayed the danger of contracting measles.

Joe Rogan

Host Joe Rogan said “it’s going to be interesting to see what he \Kennedy] uncovers” about vaccines. Rogan claimed that “they used monkey kidney cells as the basis for certain vaccines, not knowing that they were going to infect these vaccines with this SV40 and it causes cancer.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029755)]

Rogan said that “there's so many hurdles with whatever Bobby Kennedy is going to have to jump through to make real change” and called the “Make America Healthy Again” movement “fascinating.” Rogan then complained that there’s “resistance to fluoride being removed from the drinking water,” adding, “Everybody's saying, ‘Oh, no, we need fluoride for teeth.’ Like, brush your fucking teeth, bitch. Let's not put neurotoxic chemicals in everybody's water.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [1/23/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029759)]

Rogan downplayed the danger of contracting measles, saying that it’s “an infection that everyone got when I was a kid” and complaining that “they're making it look like everyone's dying from measles.” Rogan said that when he was a kid everyone got measles, and “you'd get sick for a few days, and then you'd be immune for life. … And they're making it look like everyone's dying from measles. Like, no. If you're dying from measles, you're sick. You're already compromised, which is exactly what happened with COVID.” He also explained that he no longer broadly supports vaccines, saying, “If you got ahold of me six years ago and asked me about vaccines, like, they're one of the most important inventions in history. And then you read — have you ever read Dissolving Illusions? … Read that book. All of those diseases had dropped off because of sanitation and nutrition. … They all had dropped off, and then the vaccines come along.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [3/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029760)]

Rogan promoted Kennedy’s bookThe Real Anthony Fauci, claiming that it details “what pressures were put on these organizations to stifle and completely stop the prescription use of a bunch of different things, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin.” Rogan claimed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, “they stopped any early treatments that weren't the vaccine and that they probably shouldn't have done that, and that a lot of people could have been saved because of that. And that’s true. And that's something that people need to — that's one of the the best aspects of Bobby's book, Bobby Kennedy's book, The Real Anthony Fauci, is like understand like what pressures were put on these organizations to stifle and completely stop the the prescription use of a bunch of different things, hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029763)]

Rogan again urged his audience to read Kennedy’s book, calling it “incredible.” Rogan said the AIDS crisis was “a whole other ball of wax. And if you want to get into that at another time, folks, just please go read Bobby Kennedy's book, The Real Anthony Fauci. It's incredible. But so, this is another thing. This is more gatekeeping. It's the same kind of thing. This may be in a different way, maybe not to protect the ego, but to protect money.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029766)]

Jordan Peterson

Host Jordan Peterson agreed with Rebel News founder Ezra Levant that “we know from some lawsuits in the U.S., especially during the pandemic, from the White House, to the FBI, to the CIA, there was so many different government organizations, including to do with health, that were plugged right in to the back end of social media, trying to throttle people even like RFK Jr.” The Daily Wire, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, [2/27/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029767)]

Peterson said Democrats are “clueless when it comes to the alternative media” and noted that he has been unable to get Democrats to do interviews with him other than former Democrats Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard, saying they are considered “heretical Democrats.” Peterson added that “the thing about the Democrats that is very much worth understanding is all the people who have a voice left or got killed.” The Daily Wire, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029771)]

Theo Von

Host Theo Von said that Kennedy “was a friend of mine before I knew that he was going to run for politics” and said Kennedy has gone from people thinking he’s “crazy” to “getting half of the people to believe him.” Von noted that he “saw him as a reliable, honest friend” and when Kennedy “started running for politics and he was talking about the vaccine and shit and people said, ‘He's fucking crazy,’ right, I mean, people — people that knew him – people that, mutual friends – like, he's crazy. And then he made it all — he made it past ‘I'm crazy’ to getting half of the people to believe him.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [2/7/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029773)]

After Von’s guest comedian Ari Shaffir mentioned a “rumor” that “vaccines made kids gay,” Von said, “We’re going to find out soon if Bobby Kennedy gets in there.” Von also asked his guest, “Do you think they will cure — do you think that being gay will be something that will be eternal or one day that that would be hacked or something, … that they'll be able to hack the genetics?” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [2/12/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029777)]

Von mentioned he got pushback for going to Trump’s inauguration, said that “Bobby Kennedy is a friend of mine” and “I’m going to support my fucking friend," and said , “I've never, ever in my life thought of myself as MAGA.” Von said: “I did get pushback about it, which I didn't really understand. Like, I would go — if anybody invited me to go to the inauguration, dude? Like people on the street where I grew up, they’re not — nobody's ever going to the inauguration. Nobody from my fucking street, my neighborhood is ever going to the inauguration probably ever. They're not — some of these people cannot legally vote anymore. So the simple fact that I got to go, right? Bobby Kennedy is a friend of mine. People are like, you're not — I'm going to support my fucking friend.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [2/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029778)]

Discussing concerns about vaccinating kids with podcaster Andrew Schulz, who said people need to see the research, Von suggested that Kennedy give weekly speeches to “update people … and say this is where things are at.”Shultz said he was concerned about vaccinating his daughter because “you have to put something in them and you've watched a video on YouTube that says that it could do something horrible to her, but if you don't do it she could get some disease that could do something horrible to her. So you're like, ‘What — how do I protect my kid?’ … Just like, we want the research.” Von replied, “If you gave Bobby an out where, you know, even if it was 20 minutes a week where he gave a speech or something, and maybe that he should start doing that to update people. Robert Kennedy Jr., to say this is where things are at and we're going to try our best, and this is what we're going to try to do.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [3/19/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029780)]

Dr. Phil

Host Dr. Phil McGraw did an interview for over an hour with Kennedy titled “Inside RFK Jr.’s Health Agenda 100 Days,” and he opened the interview by describing Kennedy as “a voice of dissent and a fearless challenger of norms and a relentless advocate for what he believes is right, from addressing the rise in chronic disease to re-evaluating nutritional standards.” During the interview, which aired on Merit TV and was uploaded to his podcast feeds on Apple Podcast and Spotify, Dr. Phil called Kennedy “a man who refuses to be silenced,” noting that “he's faced criticism and controversy, yet remains steadfast in his mission to make America healthy again.” Merit TV, Dr. Phil Primetime, \4/29/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029781); Apple Podcast, The Dr. Phil Podcast, 4/30/25 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rfk-jr-the-first-100-days-a-special-edition-of/id1446088262?i=1000705501136); Spotify, The Dr. Phil Podcast, [4/30/25 (https://open.spotify.com/episode/3h7fXGqLRR4f4ErOL130OL)]

After mentioning that obesity has risen among young people, Dr. Phil celebrated that Kennedy “is spearheading a bold new initiative that's aiming to change all of that” by “overhaul\ing] the food system in this country.” He said Kennedy’s plan is to “give Americans cleaner, healthier options, new regulations and a real commitment to giving our children the future they deserve.” [YouTube, The Dr. Phil Podcast, [2/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029784)]

In a segment titled “Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy adviser Calley Means said the recommendation and subsidization of “ultra-processed food” are a “big problem and that's what Bobby Kennedy and I think bipartisan leaders can change very quickly,” to which Dr. Phil agreed. Dr. Phil added, “Yeah. Listen. This has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with politics. Every child has the right to a healthy future. Every child has a right to not have a chronic disease and not be programmed for a chronic disease.” YouTube, The Dr. Phil Podcast, \2/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029785); Politico, [4/5/25 (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/05/calley-means-kennedy-trump-hhs-vaccines-00272034)]

Discussing the “Make America Healthy Again movement,” Dr. Phil said, “This isn't about politics,” noting, “Bobby Kennedy has been a Democrat all of his life, and he made a switch here — he's looking for a track to run on to change America. That's what he's looking for. This isn't about politics for him.” YouTube, The Dr. Phil Podcast, [4/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029787)]

Dr. Phil: “MAHA has become synonymous with my good friend RFK Jr.”He added that the movement “is much bigger than RFK Jr. And ignore the headlines you may have seen, because this is not about politics. … Make America Healthy Again is a national movement with Americans from every walk of life. And let me tell you, this country is built on families, and we need to make our families healthy again.” YouTube, The Dr. Phil Podcast, [4/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029788)]

PBD Podcast

After co-host Adam Sosnick asked whether Trump has “made any public comments recently about Fauci,” host Patrick Bet-David replied, “The biggest comment he's made is, ‘My recommendation for who should run the Department of HHS is Bobby Kennedy.’” Bet-David said: “That's the biggest comment. Do you know who in America has investigated Fauci more than RFK? Nobody. Can you imagine out of all the people that are going to go after you is the guy that wrote a book that sold millions of copies, he puts him in charge to go after you? He's like, yeah, to write a book that technical, the way he broke down, whatever, LZT, AIDS, all this stuff, the history of it, he needs to do this job.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [2/11/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029792)]

Discussing Kennedy, co-host Tom Ellsworth said that “when you are too qualified or too informed, there is massive risk to the establishment,” adding that “the screams at RFK should ratify for everyone that he's the guy for this job.” Ellsworth criticized the use of food dyes in Froot Loops cereal in the U.S., which he said are associated with “hyperactivity in kids,” and he said Kennedy has addressed that issue. YouTube, PBD Podcast, [1/30/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029793)]

Sosnick criticized “Big Pharma” and said Kennedy wants to ban pharmaceutical ads on TV. Sosnick said that “there’s three things that are keeping the mainstream lamestream media alive still,” including Big Pharma, adding, “What percentage of their ad revenue comes from Big Pharma? I want to say like 75%, something like that. … It's a big number, and here's Bobby Kennedy coming in, shutting it down.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029795)]

Discussing Anthony Fauci , Bet-David said that “we're going in the right direction,” adding that if Trump “is able to get, you know, RFK or somebody to finally expose a lot of people's questions of what the hell happened.” Bet-David said: “Let’s find out the NIH files. Let's do the CDC files. He just cut the funding of 350 million a year to the World Health Organization. Guess what? We're going in the right direction. I think if the president is able to get, you know, RFK or somebody to finally expose a lot of people's questions about what the hell happened with this and those questions are answered, then people will be receptive to the idea of an optional thing coming up with, what do you call it, with the vaccine.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [1/23/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029796)]

Discussing the potential release of information related to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Ellsworth labeled Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “a true crusader” who can’t “be bought.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/11/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029797)]

JP Sears

Host JP Sears said Kennedy is “one of the most smeared truth tellers of the past four years, five years” and told his audience to call their senators to urge them to confirm Kennedy. Sears promoted Kennedy’s book and said that Kennedy is “one of the most dangerous people to corrupt agendas,” adding, “You can contact your senator, yeah, your senator's office, and the time to do that is actually right now, and let them know you urge them to support the confirmation of RFK Jr.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [1/28/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029802)]

After the Senate Finance Committee voted to advance Kennedy’s nomination, Sears said it was “great” and added, “I'm happy about that.” Sears said it was “RFK versus the pharmaceutical industry” and complained that the hearing was held by the finance committee, saying it was “because most of our finances come from the pharmaceutical industry.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [2/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029804)]

Sears discussed Kennedy’s pledge to prevent food stamps from being used to purchase soda, saying that “big soda” was “feeling a little threatened, bottom line, because RFK Jr.,” and adding that he is “truly on a mission to help make America healthy again.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029813)]

Sears said, “I love the work” Kennedy is doing as HHS secretary, citing a news conference Kennedy gave about “the dramatic rise in autism.” Sears also said that autism is “correlated” with vaccines. Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [4/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029816)]

Impaulsive

In an interview with venture capitalist Bryan Johnson about toxins in foods, host Logan Paul said that the FDA “should” be responsible for regulation, and co-host Mike Majlak added, “or RFK.” YouTube, Impaulsive, [1/21/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029854)]

Supposedly nonpolitical right-leaning shows are discussing the Russia-Ukraine War, some claiming that funding Ukraine is akin to money laundering and that US/European allies pushed Putin to invade

While some shows have expressed support for Ukraine and are critical of Putin, other shows have criticized U.S. aid to Ukraine (https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-melt-down-over-united-states-sending-aid-ukraine) and pushed pro-Russia talking points (https://www.mediamatters.org/trumprussia/rights-decade-long-lurch-toward-vladimir-putins-russia), including claiming NATO pushed Russia into war (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-was-never-about-nato/) and that the Maidan Revolution was a coup instead of a democratic uprising (https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-wing-podcasters-shape-pro-210026161.html).

Joe Rogan

In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, host Joe Rogan said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are afraid of Trump, who, he says, “wants peace.” After Fridman told Rogan that Putin and Zelensky think that Trump could “do some crazy shit,” Rogan responded, “And he probably would, but he doesn't want to. … This is the difference. That's a very unique position that he's in, where they're \Putin and Zelensky are] afraid of him, but yet he wants peace.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [1/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029774)]

In that same interview with Fridman, Rogan said Russia invaded in part because NATO repeatedly violated its agreement to not “move closer to Russia.” Rogan stated, “It's a war that's so confusing over here for, especially to the uninitiated, for the people that are just, like, kind of reading the newspaper and getting a — it's a sort of a cursory understanding of what happened. Russia invaded. Why? You know, what'd they do? And then you gotta get into the whole U.S.-backed coup in 2014, and then you have to think about NATO and the agreement that was made. The fall of, you know, when the wall came down in Berlin. The agreement that NATO would not push forth and move closer to Russia, which they violated over and over and over again.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [1/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029772)]

Rogan said money sent to support Ukraine could have been spent to rebuild homes in Hawaii, asking, “What about the fucking people in Maui?” He continued: “What about — that could have been fixed with $5 billion. The government could have said, we are going to rebuild those people's homes to the exact state and even better than where they were before. It's gonna cost us $5 billion. All the money that we're sending over to Ukraine, all the money that we send to Israel, all the money we send to all these different organizations that work with USAID in the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars. They could have done that.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/10/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029775)]

During an interview with comedian Dave Smith, Rogan agreed with Smith when he said “D.C. \is] overthrowing Putin’s neighbor” and that people “don’t like that detail because then it fucks up the whole unprovoked narrative.” Rogan replied, “Yeah. People don't like that detail. They don't like the detail that there's many layers of subterfuge interexchanging with each other. There's just so much money and so much influence, and they're so good at it. They've been doing it for so long that they can get Time magazine to write an article saying how it's good.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029776)]

Theo Von

During an interview with commentator Candace Owens, host Theo Von said, “That whole Ukraine thing is unbelievable. Like, what are we even doing?” Owens said the U.S. funding for Ukraine is “money laundering,” Von replied, “Oh, it feels like that for sure. Like, you just don’t really know what’s going on.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [3/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029732)]

Full Send Podcast

Full Send Podcasthost Kyle Forgeard said he thinks Trump can end the war in Ukraine, adding that Trump “maybe knows that you got to insult Zelensky to kind of get to him.” Forgeard stated, “I think he's a really good negotiator, and he seems like he's just a people pleaser, right, too. So, I think, you never see him insulting someone. Like, he doesn't insult — I guess he insulted Zelensky. But maybe he knows that you got to insult Zelensky to kind of get to him too. But I think if you insult Putin, you kind of you piss him off, and then he's never gonna make a deal with you.” YouTube, Full Send Podcast, [3/27/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029779)]

PBD Podcast

PBD Podcastco-host Vincent Oshana said of Zelensky, “I can't believe we've given this guy so much freaking money. I cannot stand it.” Oshana added, “Do you trust that guy? I don’t trust any of these people, bro. Are you freaking kidding me? None of that money should be going to them. It should be going to us.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [2/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029806)]

Oshana praised Trump for calling for new elections in Ukraine, saying, “It's been a money laundering scheme this entire time.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [2/20/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029808)]

Oshana said former President Joe Biden said Russia “could do a minor incursion” and that Biden “welcomed them to go.” Oshana added, “They pushed Putin to do this. I'm not an apologist for him, but the guy's been saying — the guy's been saying for a while, like, bro, he doesn't want — they're pushing him to do this shit.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [2/20/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029809)]

Co-host Tom Ellsworth said Zelensky “doesn't want a ceasefire.” Ellsworth claimed, “Zelensky is saying something inflammatory about one of the three parties that is trying to negotiate a ceasefire. So you've got the U.S. trying to get Ukraine and Russia in, wherever it was, Saudi Arabia, wherever they were, and on the phone and since they were trying to get this delicate thing. We have a little bit of a ceasefire going on. This — Zelensky says this? To me this is like, this guy doesn't want a ceasefire. He's now poking the bear on the eve of getting a cease fire. What's going on here? Who — who's in his ear telling him to do things like this to try and piss off Russia?” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029810)]

Asmongold

Streamer Zack Hoyt, who goes by both Asmongold and ZackRawrr, said that he is “totally against his \Trump’s] perspective on Ukraine.” He stated, “Ukraine didn't — like, Ukraine got attacked by Russia. They got invaded by Russia. Like, there are Russian troops in Ukraine. It’s not like Ukraine is trying to attack Moscow. … I think that really it’s kind of fucked up that Trump is saying this. Like, I’m totally against his perspective on Ukraine.” [Twitch, ZackRawrr, [2/19/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4027657)]

Asmongold said Zelensky should have thanked Trump and JD Vance during their Oval Office meeting but said criticizing him for not doing so was “patronizing.” He stated, “I feel like it might be confusing for some people to watch this because, like, I'm kind of arguing on both sides. I think Zelensky should have opened with a thank you. I think he should have, but I think calling it out was patronizing and counterproductive. Like, I think both things were true.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [3/1/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029800)]

Asmongold argued that Zelensky should have worn a suit during his Oval Office meeting with Trump, saying he should “suck it the fuck up and deal with it.” He stated, “Trump is very prideful. He is. But he's the one in control, so you have to play to his — you have to play on his side. That's the way it works. You ever had an asshole boss but you still got to say ‘Thank you, sir,’ ‘Your suit looks nice, sir,’ ‘Good job, sir,’ ‘Funny joke, sir’? Absolutely. Suck it the fuck up and deal with it. You're making decisions for millions of people. It's not about you. Make the right decision for the most people. That's the way I see it. And if they told him to do that he should have done it.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [3/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029803)]

Asmongold argued that the war in Ukraine can end only if Putin gets “something out of it,” calling it an “unfortunate reality.” He said, “I think that there's no way that the war can end without Putin getting something out of it. That doesn't mean that I want that to happen. I just think that that's an unfortunate reality. I hope I'm wrong. But I think that, like, from a negotiation perspective, that's the truth. Right? And then — yeah, that's how I see it. Right? Very true. Exactly. And so, like, but don't ever get it twisted and think that I'm not on your side. I'm totally on your fucking side, and I've been on your side, as I said, for fucking years.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [2/20/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029811)]

Lex Fridman

Host Lex Fridman argued that Putin is the one at fault for invading Ukraine, describing him as the guy who “pulls the trigger first, non-accidentally and keeps pulling the trigger.” Fridman stated, “I think the thing that we left unsaid that's important to say is that Putin invaded Ukraine in February 24, 2022. And I think he is, at least from my perspective, the person who started the war. You could talk about NATO expansion, you could talk about any other thing that led to it. You could start at the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can go all the way back as he did a thousand years. The reality is, and this goes to our, like, deep discussion about the morality of war. No matter the reasons, the guy that like pulls the trigger first, non-accidentally, and keeps pulling the trigger, that's the guy who's at fault.” YouTube, Lex Fridman Podcast, [4/8/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029820)]

Fridman said Trump’s phone call with Putin could be part of “a principled chaos.” Fridman stated, “I can criticize Trump all day, but I'm just saying that there's some degree to the picking up the phone, and talking to leaders, and playing the — in the morning, say one thing, in the evening, another. That could be part of a principled chaos.” YouTube, Lex Fridman Podcast, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029822)]

Fridman argued that Zelensky needs to feed Trump’s “ego” more to convince him that the war in Ukraine is worth winning. Fridman stated, “These people are complicated narcissists, all of them, Biden, Trump. You have to navigate the complexity of that. And you basically have to say a kind word to Trump, which is like showing, there's many ways of doing that. But one of them is feeding the ego by acknowledging that he is one of the world's greatest negotiators, right? … There's this whole energy of entitlement that he \Zelensky] brought. He forgot that there's a new guy. You gotta like, convince the new guy that this global mission that this nation is on, this war that is, in many ways, the West versus the East. That there's ideals, there's whole histories here, that this is a war worth winning.” [YouTube, Lex Fridman Podcast, [3/30/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029823)]

Fridman criticized foreign diplomats in Russia/Ukraine negotiations, saying they “don’t get shit done.” Fridman said, “I don't understand why Putin, Zelensky, and Trump can't just meet in a room together without signing anything. Leaders meeting and discussing, and like the human connection. There's so many layers of diplomats. It's the problem I have with the managerial class. They don’t — they schedule meetings really well; they don't get shit done. And I would love it if people got shit done. So the soldiers get shit done. They're fighting the reality of the war.” YouTube, Lex Fridman Podcast, [3/30/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029826)]

JP Sears

Host JP Sears called Zelensky a “puppetarian president” and said it’s “a good conclusion” to say that Ukraine is corrupt, though he also blamed countries supporting Ukraine. Sears stated, “Zelensky, he's a comedian, current puppetarian president of Ukraine. So he was interviewed, and get these numbers. The U.S. has sent Ukraine ... $177 billion. Zelensky then said, in this interview, we've received $75 billion. I don't know where the rest of the money went. Well, fair enough. As long as you don't know, that's all we're after here. He's received 75 billion. We've sent 102 billion more than that. That's a problem. You know? I can — I was gonna say I would jump to the conclusion that Ukraine is corrupt, and I think that's a good conclusion. I just don’t think it’s the whole picture.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [2/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029829)]

Sears said Trump “ate Zelensky for lunch, barfed him up” and then JD Vance “eats Trump's lunch, Zelensky, for his lunch.” Sears stated, “Trump ate him for lunch in front of the cameras, and then JD Vance ate what Trump ate for lunch. Trump … ate Zelensky for lunch, barfed him up, and JD Vance says, that's not fully digested. Let me have a chance. JD Vance eats Trump's lunch, Zelensky, for his lunch. Zelensky, he's not very palatable. JD Vance threw him up again, full on cow-style. Trump said, still not fully digested. Let me eat that son of a bitch for lunch one more time. And Trump did in fact eat him for lunch and pooped him out the other side, fully digested, ladies and gentlemen, and flushed him over to Europe, where he could beg for just free money from people who might be dumb enough to think a hunk of crap on a plate looks delicious.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [3/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029832)]

Supposedly nonpolitical right-leaning shows discussed Hegseth, his policies, and scandals — often defending him

Right-leaning shows which describe themselves as nonpolitical have repeatedly come to the defense of the White House and Pentagon. Notably, during the scandal over the leaked Signal chat, hosts including Joe Rogan and Vincent Oshana of the PBD Podcast floated unfounded conspiracy theories (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/26/signal-conspiracy-theory-trump-waltz/) about the debacle.

Joe Rogan

Defending Trump’s secretary of defense, host Joe Rogan said of Pete Hegseth, “They don't want to think about his distinguished military career — they want to say, ‘Oh, that Fox News guy.’” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/28/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029731)]

Rogan criticized the Trump administration’s handling of Signalgate, asking: “How's that not classified? If that's not classified, somebody else should get fired.” He went on, “If Jamie and I were talking shit about someone and we decided to do it on Signal, like, I would make sure that I didn't accidentally include my mom or a fucking reporter I know.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029738)]

Rogan said there are “people that suspected” that the Signal chat was “a setup.” He said: “I don't know enough about it, but it does seem like there's people that suspected it was a setup, that that guy was added to the chat on purpose.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [3/29/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029745)]

During Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, Rogan defended the former Fox star’s controversial tattoos, claiming, “These ignorant people are going after his tattoo, not even knowing what the tattoo is, and trying to pretend that it's some sort of radical hateful tattoo when it's just an ancient Christian tattoo.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, \1/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029750); Axios, [1/14/25 (https://www.axios.com/2025/01/14/hegseth-tattoo-blocked-biden-inauguration)]

Rogan complained about the criticism Trump officials have been receiving online, claiming that it’s a “core aspect of progressives right now online is that when they're tweeting about stuff, when they're posting about stuff, it's very aggressive and very angry and insulting.” He continued: “This is their way to demean, whether it's Pete Hegseth or Kash Patel, or any of these people that are involved, or RFK Jr., any of these people that are involved in — even Tulsi.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [2/19/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029758)]

PBD Podcast

Co-host Vincent Oshana pushed the idea that the Signal group chat was leaked “on purpose,” as “a way to show like, hey, listen. Look what we're doing behind closed doors.” He added that “it looks to me like if you wanted to fire somebody, guess what's a good way to get his ass fired? Have something like this happen and then leak it.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029821)]

Host Tom Ellsworth justified the use of Signal at the Pentagon, calling it, “not unusual.” He then went on to add, “There's also another angle to it. If I'm a Cabinet member, I only want to communicate with the media on a secure channel. I don't want to risk that it gets sniffed on a Gmail or anything like that.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029824)]

In a later episode, Oshana asked about Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s inclusion in the Signal chat, “How does an Atlantic — a guy that they all despise — how did he jump into this text? How? Why?” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/27/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029828)]

Oshana also said it’s “weird that everybody’s kind of connected,” referring to Katherine Maher, who chairs the board of the Signal Foundation, which is behind the Signal messenger app, calling her a “leftist NPR CEO” and adding, “What are the odds of that?” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [3/27/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029833)]

Asmongold

On his Twitch stream, Zack Hoyt, who goes by both Asmongold and ZackRawrr, praised Pete Hegseth’s new policy, “Restoring Good Order and Discipline Through Balanced Accountability,” which calls for dismissal of sexual misconduct claims against service members if they lack actionable evidence. Asmongold celebrated a video of Hegseth announcing the policy, calling it “a complete Karen annihilation” and adding, “Thank fucking God.” Twitch, ZackRawrr, \4/29/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029863); Yahoo! News, [5/5/25 (https://www.yahoo.com/news/reports-sex-crimes-military-down-084714539.html)]

JP Sears

On Rumble, host JP Sears said of the Signal chat story, “Did Tulsi really send top secret messages on Signal? It's like, you don't think she knows that's been hacked? Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr., they've had their Signal accounts hacked, allegedly.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [3/25/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029870)]

Supposedly nonpolitical right-leaning shows discussed immigration, with some defending and some criticizing deportations

While some right-leaning figures have criticized (https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-rogan-on-horrific-trump-deportations-lets-not-get-innocent-gay-hairdressers-lumped-up-with-the-gangs/) the Trump administration’s use of deportations — notably including Joe Rogan — several right-leaning shows have expressed support for Trump’s immigration agenda and argued (https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/right-wing-media-have-decided-undocumented-migrants-dont-have-right-due-process-under) against the due process rights of immigrants and refugees. Show hosts and guests also discussed the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, with one, JP Sears, likening attempts to return him to the U.S. as an attempt “to retrieve your poop from the toilet.”

Joe Rogan

Host Joe Rogan stated that “the fear is that there’s going to be certain people that are rounded up in this that are not guilty,” regarding the mass deportations of alleged gang members to El Salvador. Rogan also asked, “What if you're in that group and you're not guilty of anything? What if you're just a guy who came over here from Mexico and you're a tattoo artist?” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [3/21/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029754)]

In a later episode, Rogan stated, “I think due process exists for a reason, and the reason is it is horrific for someone to be accused of something they didn’t do, be imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit, and then live in a cell, live in a cage.” He added, “We have to make sure these people are actually guilty, otherwise we become monsters.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [4/17/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029752)]

Rogan said the wrongful deportation of Andry Hernandez Romero, “if it is real, this is fucking horrible.” Rogan would go on to argue, “If you want, you know, compassionate people to be on board with you, you can't deport gay hairdressers seeking asylum. That's fucking crazy.” YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [3/29/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029749)]

Full Send Podcast

During an interview with Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), host Kyle Forgeard asked if “the left” are “trying to stop President Trump from having success” with his use of deportations. Forgeard also asked Donalds about “the whole situation with the immigrant that was wrongfully sent out,” using air quotes around “wrongfully.” YouTube, Full Send Podcast, [4/24/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029734)]

Forgeard told Donalds, “One of my favorite moments, though, recently in the last few months is when you just fucking tore apart all those sanctuary city mayors.” Forgeard also said opposition to sanctuary cities is “common sense,” likening it to “men playing in women's sports.” YouTube, Full Send Podcast, [4/24/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029740)]

Dr. Phil

Host Dr. Phil McGraw praised Trump border czar Tom Homan, calling him “all about transparency and the letter of the law.” In a clip from Dr. Phil’s embed with an ICE raid, he described Homan as “very pro-immigration.” YouTube, The Dr. Phil Podcast, [2/1/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029817)]

PBD Podcast

Co-host Tom Ellsworth claimed, in reference to people calling for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, “They want another Trayvon \Martin], they want another George Floyd.” Co-host Vincent Oshana added, “Trump classified them [members of MS-13] as domestic terrorists because they are.” [YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/17/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029825)]

In response to guest Chris Cuomo’s assertion that the Trump administration should “give him \Kilmar Abrego Garcia] a hearing so you can prove that you respect due process,” co-host Vincent Oshana labeled attempts to defend Garcia “horseshit.” Oshana also stated, “how many thousands of people have Homeland Security, Tom Homan, Kristi Noem gotten the hell out of this country? I haven’t heard of one illegal raping or murdering an American, OK, since Trump has been in.” [YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/15/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029827)]

Ellsworth said he is “unsure” about the constitutionality of sending alleged gang members to El Salvador and offered the colonization of Australia as precedent. Ellsworth added, “Do you know what populated Australia for the most part, you know, that came from Britain? Prisoners. They sent their prisoners to a peaceful Australia.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/17/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029831)]

Before playing a clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has agreed to accept and jail migrants from the U.S., host Patrick Bet-David stated, “I love what Bukele just said. Even though it's not constitutional, I love what he just said the other day.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/17/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029831)]

Asmongold

Streamer Zack Hoyt, who goes by both Asmongold and ZackRawrr, said of due process for immigration investigations, “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the process is bad?” Earlier, he argued, “Has it ever occurred to you that if the amount of due process required is multiple court dates, multiple immigration judges, an entire investigation into this person's tattoos, the object reality that nobody even debates that he is an illegal immigrant, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the due process should be changed?” Twitch, ZackRawrr,[4/19/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029839)]

Asmongold said Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deportations without due process “is the due process.” He said: “They never saw a courthouse? Yeah, that's because the due process of the illegal alien act or whatever the fuck it's called says that they don't have to. If you invoke that and it's an invasion, they don't have to do that. That's the reason. So you shouldn't be making that argument. You should be making the argument that he couldn't invoke the act. That's — and that's a different argument. But to say that these people didn't get due process isn’t true. This is the due process.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [3/18/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029840)]

Asmongold claimed that people opposed to the mass deportation of migrants “don't give a fuck about due process. They care about losing some sort of political ground — that's it.”Asmongold said: “Where's the due process for people getting fired from their jobs from COVID? Where's the due process for people that are getting arrested and put in jail after January 6? No, bro, like, absolutely fucking not. You're not going to use this due process argument on me when, no, these people don't give a fuck about due process.” YouTube, Asmongold TV,[3/24/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029842)]

JP Sears

Host JP Sears described Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) advocacy for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as an attempt “to retrieve your poop from the toilet.” Sears joked that, “That's like if you flush your poop down the toilet, then you have a Democrat senator come to your house, and he tries to retrieve your poop from the toilet.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [4/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029861)]

During the first week of Trump’s term, Sears called it “amazing” that the administration said it had arrested and started deportations of over a thousand people. He added that the Trump administration’s plans to deploy troops to the southern border is “a show of force there that will inflict consequences” and said that individuals deported “get a free flight out of it — not so bad for them.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [1/24/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029869)]

Supposedly nonpolitical right-leaning shows discussed and mostly supported Trump’s tariff plans — with some dissent

In a previous study of top pro-Trump online shows in the days after Trump launched his formal tariff plan, we found (https://www.mediamatters.org/tariffs-trade/study-most-pro-trump-podcasters-support-trumps-tariffs-some-fractures-emerge) some dissension as his economic policy disrupts the global economy — even as this ecosystem still overwhelmingly supports him. One-quarter of discussions on those right-leaning shows that self-categorize as nonpolitical embraced the president’s tariff policy, but there was some notable criticism from Rogan and others.

Joe Rogan

Host Joe Rogan said: “I’m scared of this tariff stuff because it's radical change, and I'm scared of radical change.” Guest Kyle Dunnigan claimed that “this is all his \Trump’s] negotiating. It's going to come down, it's not going to stay like this. The bad thing is if all the other countries go ‘Fuck you, America. We're not going to do any.’” Rogan replied, “I think it's always a possibility.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [4/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029857)]

Rogan suggested that Trump is “not nearly as charming if people can't speak \his] language,” saying, “Trump is used to being able to charm people, he's very charming, but if you can't speak his language, you might be like ‘Fuck this orange asshole.’” He explained that other world leaders might think, “I don't even know this guy. What is he saying? And someone has to tell you what he said.” He said it’s “not cute” when someone has to translate: “Mr. Putin, he says these tariffs, this is bullshit, it's part of the game — it's part of the card game we are playing all together globally.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, [4/5/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029867)]

Theo Von

Host Theo Von agreed with his guest that “the tariffs are getting out of control,” adding that “the goal of tariffs is that if it costs people more to bring their products in, then they'll build them here. So it’s kind of a long-term play. It’s going to take a while.” Von then said, “If we don't try this, though, then I think it's a wrap,” and said that in “a lot of”cities on his comedy tour, “there's nothing there, it’s empty downtowns.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [4/8/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029859)]

Von defended Trump’s tariffs, saying, “From my perspective after traveling around the country, I don't know how else you're going to get jobs back here, because it just — there's a lot of towns that are boarded up.” Von added, “I'm just thinking what's going to come and save these cities, if something needs to, and so then you start to see Trump put these tariffs on and then you start to get the idea, well it's to bring jobs back so we have jobs here so it keeps cities busy.” Guest Mike Rowe said, “I don't know an economist who thinks tariffs are a good idea, I really don’t.” Von replied, “I don’t know an economist.” YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, [4/22/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029864)]

Full Send Podcast

On theFull Send Podcast, Fox host Sean Hannity claimed that “Canada’s been screwing the U.S. with tariffs” and accused the country of “starting the tariff war.” He also claimed that Canada is “doing nothing to control the border.” YouTube, Full Send Podcast, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029872)]

PBD Podcast

Co-host Vincent Oshana declared that “the tariffs are exactly what America needs right now.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029874)]

Co-host Tom Ellsworth dismissed claims that Trump’s tariffs were causing economic uncertainty, saying that “the greater goal is American jobs. … There's concern there, but you have got to look down the street and see where we're going, and it is not easy to get through the food poisoning, but there is life on the other side and you can see, that’s what the president is talking about.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/3/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029875)]

Co-host Adam Sosnick said that “people say that Trump doesn't really have an ideology,” but “it's kind of clear he has one thing that he definitely cares about and that's dealing with these unfair trade practices.” Sosnick added that the tariffs “could go terribly good or terribly bad, but Trump's willing to die on this hill.” YouTube, PBD Podcast, [4/8/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029878)]

Sosnick complained that “I don’t understand the methodology for what he was doing with Liberation Day,” when Trump “liberated America of like $5 trillion worth of wealth, and nobody saw it coming.” Discussing Trump’s first 100 days in office, Ellsworth said, “Overall, first hundred days, I give it a C+, and I get there this way: an A- on the plan, but a C- on the execution,” adding, “The execution got messy.” Mediaite, [4/30/25 (https://www.mediaite.com/news/pro-trump-podcasters-give-president-tough-reviews-for-first-100-days-he-liberated-america-of-5-trillion-worth-of-wealth/)]

Asmongold

On YouTube, streamer Zack Hoyt, who goes by Asmongold, expressed disappointment about Trump’s tariff reversal, saying he “roached out on tariffs,” adding, “He changed his fucking mind.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/12/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029873)]

In early April, Asmongold justified Trump’s tariff policy, asking, “Why are other countries doing it to us? If they're a regressive tax and they're bad, then why are they doing it to us?” He went on: “You think that the countries are just going to stop trading with America? Their entire economy is built off of America. And if Trump cuts them off and doesn't do that, they're going to fall apart, and it's going to be a lot worse than any tariff that we can do to them." YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/2/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029877)]

After the stock market crash following Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, Asmongold called tariffs “massively destabilizing.” He claimed: “I've had friends of mine contact me and they've said like, ‘Yeah, bro. Like, our company is like, way worse, like, we have this massive issue. We're thinking about doing layoffs.’ Right? So like, I've had people tell me that they're really bad.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/4/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029880)]

Praising Trump’s tariff policy, Asmongold claimed, “This is the truth: There are necessary sacrifices and Trump is willing to make them. That's the reason — and so is China too, by the way. China has no problem sacrificing its people and I don't think Trump has that much of a problem sacrificing us.” YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/9/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029888)]

JP Sears

Discussing the fallout from Trump’s tariffs, host JP Sears admitted they would cause “short-term pain, certainly,” saying “Like anything good in life, what — you know, where is there not pain involved?” Sears equated the tariffs to sobriety, saying, “If you're heavily addicted to drugs or alcohol, when you get off, you're going to feel worse before you feel better.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, ​​[4/8/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029892)]

Sears declared, “I think they will be successful,” while discussing “uncertainty” about the tariffs. He added, “Here’s what I can tell you for certain. I don’t know how it will play out. I hope it plays out well. I’m not going to pretend to have certainty about it. But here’s what I do know. Will Donald Trump back down on his tariffs due to public pressure, due to people panicking about the stock market? My answer to that is there’s not a hope in hell of this man backing down due to pressure. Do you know what he’s overcome? Do you know why he has blood on his face? And that bullet, not even the hardest thing he overcame.” Rumble, Lies You Can Trust, [4/8/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029893)]

Lex Fridman

Host Lex Fridman said that Trump’s tariff plan will create “a huge amount of pain for regular Americans” and said he worries it will increase the chance of global conflict. Fridman stated, “There is a global nature, there is a multilateral nature, of all economic partnerships that are formed throughout the 21st century. And this kind of protectionist, nationalistic ideology goes in the face of all that, and it's gonna create a huge amount of pain like for regular Americans. But also I worry that this increases, not decreases the chance of a global war, or conflict of different kinds.” YouTube, Lex Fridman Podcast, [4/24/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029889)]

Jordan Peterson

Host Jordan Peterson said that “Trump has been careening around like a bull in the china shop with regards to his comments about Canada, placing tariffs on Canada, describing us as not worthy of having our own country.” The Daily Wire, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, [4/10/25 (https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4029886)]

The New Republic (https://newrepublic.com/article/193563/trump-podcasters-hollywood-right-wing-culture)

...In this stripped-down content ecosystem, the creators who now give the right wing more popular appeal have found their opportunity.

Conservatives, the Other White Meat

Liberals alarmed by the rise of conservative mouthpieces often point to billionaire-supported, aggressively anti-woke propaganda like The Daily Wire and PragerU. But calls for building left-wing outlets to parallel such media target the wrong enemy. The fight isn’t between PragerU and some imagined progressive alternative; or if it is, liberals are aiming too low. The real battle for eyeballs is between content identifiably produced by real people and the pink slime churned out by mainstream entertainment. A lefty version of The Daily Wire, properly funded by lefty billionaires (if enough of them exist?), might compete politically, but the real challenge is pulling audiences away from the numbness induced by MrBeast and the hype families.

The real battle for eyeballs is between content identifiably produced by real people and the pink slime churned out by mainstream entertainment.

On that front, the right is ahead. The conservative content on YouTube encompasses the woke-hostile bro comedians who made up the majority of Trump and JD Vance’s podcast tour. Vanceappeared (https://youtu.be/fRyyTAs1XY8) on Rogan’s show, and Trump did lengthy interviews on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend (https://youtu.be/vC5cHjcgt5g&t=954s)* and Andrew Schulz’s Flagrant (https://youtu.be/Ry1IjOft95c&t=22s)*. The ordinary content on these shows isn’t nearly as popular as the eye-popping antics at the top of the heap: They are all counterprogramming the hyperboles of the hype-house style with recognizably human faces—if they also adopt a bit of the pervasive alarm and addictive adrenaline of repeated confrontations with fake peril (for example, “DEI pilots (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/conservatives-blame-diversity-dei-airlines-boycott-1234953756/)!”).

You might notice that I’m using “podcast” and “YouTube channel” somewhat interchangeably here (as did the media covering the presidential podcast tours (https://time.com/7099104/presidential-podcast-media-tour-donald-trump-kamala-harris/)). That’s because the two are becoming one and the same. YouTube is now the most popular (https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/youtube-2025-monthly-podcast-listeners-viewers-1236319232/) platform for accessing podcasts; Rogan has 19.6 million subscribers (https://www.youtube.com/@joerogan) to the video version of his podcast, millions more than his numbers on Spotify (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-21/spotify-reveals-podcast-numbers-for-joe-rogan-alex-cooper-travis-kelce). Tellingly, the Trump appearance boosted (https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-social-media-surge-trump-interview-1975885) Rogan’s YouTube presence by 400,000 subscribers, by at least one estimate. Spotify didn’t say. Von has around 60,000 monthly listeners (https://open.spotify.com/artist/0J3Bb9MCjEvBKZumHqBs6S) and three million YouTube subscribers (https://www.youtube.com/@TheoVon), where his videos have hundreds of thousands of views.

A lot of what now counts as right-wing pop culture didn’t start out as political. Rogan built his career on Fear Factor, a game show of disgusting dares that were shocking at the time, the primogenitor of the dominant channels’ deliberately arousing antics. Von and Schulz are comedians. When liberals think about conservatives’ entry into mass media, we might think of Ben Shapiro or The Free Press, brands that are also popular, yes, but don’t carry the enormous parasocial sway of the bros.

Politically, the real pop culture contest today isn’t between who has the best entertainment franchise—the Reaganesque frontier stoicism of Paramount’s Yellowstone or the perverse feminism of Showtime’sYellowjackets, say—it’s between who can effectively move their audience: Rogan or MrBeast? Liberals aren’t even competing on this front. I’m not sure they even know it’s there. Trump’s appearances on these podcasts helped him because they brought him into an environment. He was joiningthem. Harris, of course, didn’t go on Rogan, and when she did venture into the podcast sphere, it often felt as if she was trying to convince that audience to join her.

Since Trump’s reelection, liberal pundits have focused on the signifiers of support Hollywood has traditionally supplied: the label ribbons, the performative representation, and whether or not Disney includes content warnings on racial stereotypes present in its classic films. But the rise of the right-winger as trusted hangout interlocutor, and the way the connection he offers shapes how audiences move through the world, are different from the “different hat, same ball game” signaling of past presidential cycles.

To be sure, the presence of people like Pete Hegseth, Dan Bongino, and even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz in the Trump administration can be traced to the president’s affection for “straight-out-of-Hollywood” casting, but, crucially, none of these figures emerged from the entertainment business we’re referring to when we say “Hollywood.” Trump’s Cabinet casting borrows more from the follower-count logic that is only now sweeping Hollywood. Bongino and Kennedy in particular are products of the YouTube/TikTok conservative-influencer ecosystem. Hegseth and Oz were cable staples but gained currency in the base by making the podcast rounds. When I first heard of their selections, I was struck by the fact that they’re not even top-tier propagandists. Imagine you’re determined to place someone in a Cabinet position solely for how they present on-screen, and you go with the guys who were too erratic to put on in prime time.

But that was the point, I think. Democrats and progressives mock the junior varsity nature of Trump’s team, taking pleasure in the fact its members weren’t good enough to succeed in prestige media, just podcasts and 30-second sharable spots. We don’t want to believe the prestige media don’t matter anymore.

...

an 4 25

Activist Cameron Kasky said during an appearance on CNN that young white men think Democrats are "leaving" them out and MAGA is able to manipulate them into thinking the party's steps towards equity for women and minorities are "being taken at our expense."

Kasky, 24, is the cofounder of the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group Never Again MSD. He co-hosts a podcast on Gen Z politics and culture.

He said President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) was able to garner support from Gen Z, but not due to his policies. "It was culture," he said.

ALSO READ:A Republican women's group is targeting Gen Z voters (https://www.alternet.org/a-republican-women-s-group-is-targeting-gen-z-voters/)

"People in my generation are not focused on the nitty gritty," he said. "They're not thinking about the economy, health care and how those things exactly work," Kasky told CNN.

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The activist said Trump is speaking in a language that resonates with them "and is pompous and aggressive enough that people respond to it."

"I always say the right has been able to cultivate fear more effectively than the Democrats have been able to inspire hope. So, what happens is: young men, especially young white men, say the democrats are leaving us out and MAGA is able to manipulate us into thinking that steps forward towards equity for women and minorities are being taken at our expense," he explained.

Kasky said the Democratic Party needs to "bargain" with people to convince them to vote for the party. "You can't just feel entitled to those votes," he added.

ALSO READ:Gen-Z congressman: Republicans 'want government to be in children's pants' (https://www.alternet.org/gen-z-congressman-childrens-pants/)

In the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic Party experienced a significant decline in support from younger voters, even among those who are historically marginalized.

Young white men from Gen Z, particularly those without a college degree, favored Trump (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-gen-z-men-voted-for-trump/)with a substantial 67 percent vote.

"There's something so nihilistic in Gen Z right now, because we haven't been given a very clear direction to strive towards," Kasky said when asked by the host what the 'American experience' means for Gen Z.

"We're not quite sure what exactly we're fighting for at this point," he added.

ALSO READ:'Bring Kamala back': This influencer bought Trump a Rolex — now he’s lost '8 figures' (https://www.alternet.org/trump-adin-ross-tariffs/)

He said he was 15 when he heard Trump make a sexually suggestive comment about women, and later saw him become president.

"This next generation is growing up with an even more aggressive, unhinged and fascist version of that," Kasky added.

Watch the video below or at this link.link. (https://www.alternet.org/trump-gen-z)

mma

UFC figures are circulating anti-trans narratives across podcasts, right-wing shows, and social media (https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/ufc-figures-are-circulating-anti-trans-narratives-across-podcasts-right-wing)

04/09/25

an 4 25

Adin Ross, a 23-year-old gamer, internet personality and prominent figure in the anti-feminist Manosphere movement, is so fond of President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) that he gave him, as a gift, a gold Rolex and a customized, MAGA-themed Tesla Cybertruck.

But now, Ross is publicly admitting that Trump's steep new tariffs are hurting him financially.

During a recent livestream with his ally DJ Akademiks (https://www.latintimes.com/influencer-who-bought-trump-rolex-has-lost-over-10m-since-tariffs-hit-market-its-so-bad-580132), Ross revealed that he has lost "eight figures" in the stock market.

Akademiks said of the stock market, "People are getting killed. Me too. We all are."

READ MORE: The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: how Trump won the hearts of alienated young men (https://www.alternet.org/the-lost-boys-of-gen-z-how-trump-won-the-hearts-of-alienated-young-men/)

When Ross told him he lost "eight figures" in the stock market (https://www.latintimes.com/influencer-who-bought-trump-rolex-has-lost-over-10m-since-tariffs-hit-market-its-so-bad-580132), Akademiks responded, "Damn! You over here like, damn, Kamala, come back to me!"

The "Kamala" Akademiks was referring to was former Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house), who Trump narrowly defeated in the United States' 2024 presidential election. During her campaign, Harris warned that the steep tariffs Trump was proposing would have brutal consequences for U.S. consumers and businesses — and the recent pain in the stock market bears that out.

Ross enthusiastically supported Trump in 2024, interviewing him online.

During the April 2025 livestream, Ross told Akademiks (https://www.latintimes.com/influencer-who-bought-trump-rolex-has-lost-over-10m-since-tariffs-hit-market-its-so-bad-580132), "It's bad, I'm not gonna lie to you. It'll get better, but it's bad, though."

Watch the video below or at this link. (https://www.alternet.org/trump-adin-ross-tariffs)

IFrame Content (https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1909063947111588311&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Ftrump-adin-ross-tariffs%2F&partner=rebelmouse&sessionId=f6565c1c3726cb146c50a72d8d4b1d075d89570c&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px)

READ MORE: 'Disaffected young men': Trump ramps up aggressive outreach (https://www.alternet.org/adin-ross-trump-manosphere/)

rww

03/21/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)

Nathalie Baptiste @ HuffPost (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-executive-order-abolish-department-education_n_67c9d920e4b07a45b4c34f7c): Trump Signs Executive Order To Dismantle The Department Of Education

Congress would need to act to fully eliminate the critical agency, but Trump could still stop many of its key functions.

Josh Fiallo @ The Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/notorious-anti-vaxxer-joseph-lapado-tops-trump-and-rfk-jrs-list-for-new-cdc-boss/): Notorious Anti-Vaxxer Tops Trump and RFK Jr.‘s List For New CDC Boss

Rumor of Joseph Ladapo landing the gig comes after the president’s first pick for the role had his appointment suddenly pulled.

Michael Luciano @ Mediaite (https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-strong-arms-big-law-firm-into-doing-millions-in-pro-bono-work-for-his-initiatives/): Trump Strong-Arms Big Law Firm Into Doing Millions in Pro Bono Work for His Administration

President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Thursday and announced that a major law firm he targeted via executive order had capitulated to his demands.

Joe Jervis (https://www.joemygod.com/2025/03/byron-donalds-to-headline-hate-groups-annual-gala/): Byron Donalds To Headline Hate Group’s Annual Gala

The Honorable Byron Donalds will be the keynote speaker at Liberty Counsel’s Annual Gala, A New Birth of Freedom, on Saturday, April 5 at 6 p.m. at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando.

Kayla Gogarty @ MSNBC (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/justin-baldoni-blake-lively-candace-owens-megyn-kelly-media-rcna196941): How right-wing influencers are exploiting the Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively feud

Members of the right's massive media ecosystem are attracting even bigger audiences by stretching outside their comfort zones.

mma

The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces

A new Media Matters analysis found 9 out of the 10 top online shows assessed are right-leaning

Written by Kayla Gogarty (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/kayla-gogarty)

Published 03/14/25

As Americans increasingly get their news from online shows and streamers, the influence of this media ecosystem becomes more prominent — and Media Matters has found that the most popular of this content is overwhelmingly right-leaning.

In a new study, Media Matters assessed the audience size of popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online. To do so, we gathered data on the number of followers, subscribers, and views across streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, Twitch, and Kick) and social media platforms that are used to amplify and promote these shows (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok). Apple Podcasts does not publicly provide follower counts on its platform, so it was not included in the audience data.

This analysis was based on 320 online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent. We found that right-leaning online shows dominate the ecosystem, with substantially larger audiences on both politics/news shows and supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined often platformed ideological content or guests.

Key findings:

We found 320 online shows — 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning— that were active in 2024 and covered news and politics and/or had related guests. These shows had at least 584.6 million total followers and subscribers.

We found substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms: Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.

Across platforms — YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows we assessed.

Comparatively, left-leaning online shows had nearly 104 million followers and subscribers across the eight platforms — nearly five times less.

Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million. The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, which had 21.1 million total followers and subscribers across platforms.

Our analysis — which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent — found over a third self-identify as nonpolitical, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning.Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly nonpolitical categories.

Out of 320 online shows, right-leaning programs categorized as comedy — 15 shows in all — had 117.5 million followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all programs we assessed. This category included The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and Full Send Podcast.

Right-leaning shows accounted for two-thirds of the total YouTube views on videos from channels affiliated with the shows we assessed — 65 billion views in total. Comparatively, left-leaning online shows totaled 31.5 billion total views.

Right-leaning shows use Rumble to expand their audience — gaining millions of subscribers and billions of views for their content.

Podcasts, online shows, and streamers are increasingly popular and influential

The 2024 presidential election has been dubbed the “podcast election (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-17/why-the-2024-us-presidential-election-is-playing-out-via-top-podcasts?srnd=undefined)” — in part because President Donald Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and their vice presidential picks made various appearances (https://www.adweek.com/media/how-podcasts-emerged-as-vehicles-of-mass-reach-niche-audiences-and-cultural-influence/) on podcasts and online shows as candidates.

At Trump’s election victory party on November 5, UFC President Dana White praised (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-victory-speech-full-transcript-1981234) several podcasters for their role in helping to get Trump elected, saying: “I want to thank the boys Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin' with the Boys. And last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”

Podcasts and online shows have become more popular and trusted news sources. The number of people listening to podcasts monthly has reportedly (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-17/why-the-2024-us-presidential-election-is-playing-out-via-top-podcasts?srnd=undefined) more than doubled since 2016. According to a 2023 Pew Research study (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2023/04/18/podcasts-as-a-source-of-news-and-information/), 87% of people who hear news discussed on podcasts said they expect it to be mostly accurate and 31% said they trust podcasts more than other news sources.

In August 2024 — just a few months before Election Day — Pew found (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/11/18/americas-news-influencers/) that about 1 in 5 Americans said they regularly get news from influencers on social media. The weekly reach of large online shows is also reportedly better than that of many cable networks.

With Americans increasingly (https://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Infinite-Dial-2024-Presentation.pdf#page=19) getting their news from these sources, they played a significant role in the 2024 election. By appearing on these shows ahead of the 2024 election, Trump reached (https://www.edisonresearch.com/in-the-podcast-election-trump-talked-to-vastly-more-people/) an audience of 23.5 million American adults in an average week — compared to Harris’ 6.4 million — according to Edison Podcast Metrics.

Journalists have started to highlight (https://www.wired.com/story/visual-guide-to-influencers-shaping-2024-election/) the asymmetry of the online media ecosystem. Bloomberg watched and analyzed (https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-youtube-podcast-men-for-trump/) over 2,000 videos — nearly 1,300 hours of footage — from nine prominent YouTubers, including Adin Ross, Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Theo Von, and Patrick Bet-David, and found that “above all, the broadcasters described American men as victims of a Democratic campaign to strip them of their power,” though “none of the broadcasters style themselves as political pundits.”

Hardly any left-leaning online shows have comparable followings to right-leaning online shows

Click here for a larger version of this chart. (https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/D8Image/2025/03/06/onlineshows-mark5.png)

Media Matters compiled a list of 418 popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online — that were active during 2024, assessed ideological alignment, and found 320 online shows with an ideological bent (191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning) that covered news and politics and/or hosted related guests.

Nine of the 10 online shows from our study with the largest total following across platforms were right-leaning, accounting for at least 197 million total followers and subscribers. These are the online shows of:

Joe Rogan: 39.9 million

Ben Shapiro: 25 million

Jordan Peterson: 23 million

Russell Brand: 22.5 million

Theo Von: 22.3 million

Charlie Kirk: 18.6 million

Nelk Boys’ Full Send Podcast: 16.7 million

Candace Owens: 15 million

Dr. Phil: 14.2 million

The only left-leaning show among the top 10 wasWhat Now? with Trevor Noah, with over 21.1 million total followers and subscribers.

Of these most-followed right-leaning online shows, only 4 (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260) are (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stay-free-with-russell-brand/id1648125917) categorized (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-charlie-kirk-show/id1460600818) on (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/candace/id1750591415) Apple Podcasts as news and politics, while Rogan (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-joe-rogan-experience/id360084272), Von (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-past-weekend-w-theo-von/id1190981360), and Full Send (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/full-send-podcast/id1582758729) are characterized as comedy, Peterson (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695) as education, and Dr. Phil (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-phil-podcast/id1446088262) as society and culture.

While these podcasts often host celebrity guests like Timothée Chalamet (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timoth%C3%A9e-chalamet/id1190981360?i=1000680527385), MrBeast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mrbeast/id1190981360?i=1000678987010), and Luke Bryan (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/2216-luke-bryan/id360084272?i=1000674181052), these 5 right-leaning comedy, education, and society and culture shows have also had dozens of episodes featuring right-wing media figures and politicians since October 1, 2024.

Guests on these shows have included Trump (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/2219-donald-trump/id360084272?i=1000674513462), Vance (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sen-jd-vance/id1190981360?i=1000673925452), the New York Post’s Miranda Devine (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/495-the-cia-corruption-and-the-biden-heirs-miranda-devine/id1184022695?i=1000675679575), The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ben-shapiro-ep-141/id1582758729?i=1000675651531) and Matt Walsh (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matt-walsh-ep-140/id1582758729?i=1000675224211), right-wing figures Tucker Carlson (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tucker-carlson/id1190981360?i=1000633192359) and Dave Smith (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dave-smith/id1190981360?i=1000684261902), Trump picks Tom Homan (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incoming-border-czar-visits-the-unfinished-arizona-wall/id1446088262?i=1000679979639), Tulsi Gabbard (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/encore-in-depth-with-tulsi-gabbard/id1446088262?i=1000677578656), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/robert-f-kennedy-jr/id1190981360?i=1000629116443), and Monica Crowley (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wheres-the-pork-outrageous-government-spending/id1446088262?i=1000675428129), UFC CEO and Trump ally Dana White (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dana-white-the-man-behind-the-ufc/id1446088262?i=1000675857035), and far-right (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-1-smugglers-highway-southern-borders-escape-route/id1446088262?i=1000674926952) constitutional (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-2-smugglers-highway-got-aways-at-the-southern-border/id1446088262?i=1000674988647) sheriffs (https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/how-constitutional-sheriffs-use-right-wing-media-promote-movements).

Additionally, 65 right-leaning online shows had followings larger than 1 million, but only 21 left-leaning online shows boast comparable followings.

Right-leaning online shows have nearly five times the following of left-leaning online shows

Across streaming platforms including YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, and Spotify, the left-leaning online shows had at least 55.9 million total followers and subscribers — a figure which is dwarfed by the right-leaning online shows with at least 255.5 million.

This content is further amplified on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — social media platforms where the programs or hosts post full streams, clips, and show links. Left-leaning online shows had at least 48 million followers across these platforms, while the right-leaning online shows had more than 225 million followers.

Of a cumulative 584.6 million followers and subscribers across all eight platforms, Media Matters found that right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82%, or 480.6 million — almost five times more than left-leaning shows’ nearly 104 million.

The largest followings for the right- and left-leaning online shows were on YouTube, with 185.5 million and 45.8 million subscribers, respectively.

Right-wing content has seeped into supposedly nonpolitical spaces, including sports, entertainment, comedy, and more

Of the 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning online shows that covered news and politics or hosted related guests, 80 of the right-leaning online shows (42%) are categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, or other supposedly nonpolitical topics. In fact, 72% of the 111 supposedly nonpolitical shows that we determined had an ideological bent were right-leaning.

Moreover, these right-leaning shows span a wider variety of categories, self-identifying by subjects such as business, comedy, gaming, education, entertainment, religion and spirituality, society and culture, sports, wellness/health, and technology. Meanwhile, left-leaning shows that are not explicitly identified as news and politics-related mostly self-identify as comedy, entertainment, or society and culture programs.

The disparity in total followers and subscribers across platforms of right-leaning and left-leaning online shows in these categories was substantial. Right-leaning online shows categorized as comedy, entertainment, sports, and other supposedly nonpolitical topics had at least 243.1 million total followers and subscribers — more than the 237.5 million for right-leaning online shows categorized as news and politics-related. It’s also more than five times the 44 million followers and subscribers for left-leaning shows not identified as political, and more than four times the 60 million of left-leaning shows categorized as news and politics-related.

The 15 right-leaning online comedy shows featured in Media Matters’ analysis — including The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, Full Send Podcast, Impaulsive, AwakenWithJP, Kill Tony, Flagrant, The Roseanne Barr Podcast, and The Tim Dillon Show — had more than 117.5 million total followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all 320 right- and left-leaning shows.

Citation

Apple Podcasts

Ahead of the election, Trump and Vance appeared on 6 of these right-leaning comedy shows a total of 9 times. On YouTube, these appearances have at least 119.7 million views.

YouTube channels for right-leaning shows have 65 billion views — and Rumble adds billions more

Media Matters gathered data on views for the YouTube channels of the shows we analyzed and found that right-leaning online shows accounted for more than two-thirds of the total — 67% — with 65 billion views. Comparatively, total views on videos of channels of left-leaning online shows were 31.5 billion, or 33%.

Right-leaning online shows also use Rumble to expand their audience by billions of views, while left-leaning shows have essentially no presence on the platform. On Rumble, channels affiliated with the right-leaning online shows we analyzed had earned more than 3 billion views.

Methodology...

msn 3 25}:

Avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes praised Candace Owens making the rounds on popular independent media platforms this week.

Fuentes (https://www.mediaite.com/tag/nick-fuentes/), who has become notorious for his anti-semitic and misogynist screeds online, praised podcast hosts in the so-called “manosphere” for having on Owens as well as accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate in recent days. President Donald Trump’s 2024 win was linked to the “manosphere” by many pundits who argue that the popular podcasters helped him reach younger, male voters across the country.

“Candace on Theo Von and Theo Von’s clearly red pilled. Stephen A. Smith had Candace Owens on. He’s clearly red pill. Jason Whitlock is praising Andrew Tate. He’s clearly red billed. Andrew Tate is on NELK, red pilled. Tate is on PBD [Patrick Bet-David] spreading the message,” Fuentes began, before turning to Joe Rogan’s controversial guest on Wednesday.

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“Ian Carroll on Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan seems to be– I don’t know if we could say he’s red pilled, but certainly he hints every now and again that he knows maybe more than he lets on,” Fuentes said. Rogan raised eyebrows by inviting Carroll on his popular show as Carroll has long spread wild conspiracy theories, like claiming (https://forward.com/fast-forward/701866/joe-rogan-ian-carroll-epstein-conspiracy-theory/) that Israel was behind 9/11 and Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.

“So it is a very exciting time and I love to see it,” Fuentes continued, before explaining how his white nationalist views are being furthered by the likes of Owens:

It does make me very happy. And it’s very white pilling because like I said ten years ago when I went to Charlottesville and we said Jews will not replace us. That sort of encapsulates both of the problems, right? Which is replacement migration. And if Jews run society, are they not responsible?

Back when I did that, I was radioactive, I was ostracized, I was canceled, they said my career was over. And largely it was The Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro who were responsible for that. Then they were untouchable at that point. And what a long decade it has been. What, a long eight years it has been since that time.

And now it’s almost reversed. Daily Wire is crashing and burning, desperate for relevance. Candace Owens has gone independent, going full red pill, talking about the things I’ve talked about on this show for years, it seems like the message is finally getting out there, so it’s pretty remarkable to see.

Owens exited the Daily Wire after feuding with Ben Shapiro over Israel and antisemitism and has made headlines throughout 2024 for her attacks on Jews, including claiming that a “small ring” of Jewish people in Hollywood and DC are involved in a “sinister” plot. She ended the year being labeled the “Antisemite of the Year” by a right-leaning watchdog group, which warned “There is no psychotic rabbit hole too extreme for this poisonous hater.”

Tate, who has recently relocated to Florida after Romania lifted his house arrest, joined the Full Send Podcast this week and said (https://www.mediamatters.org/manosphere/youtube-andrew-tate-claims-america-doesnt-have-free-speech-because-you-cant-speak-out) there is no free speech in American because there is no “speaking out against the Jews” – an anti-semitic trope related to Jewish control of the media.

Fuentes leads the so-called Groyper Army, a loose network of alt-right figures who are vocal supporters of white supremacy, often trolling mainstream conservative events to try and move the GOP more toward white nationalism.

Fuentes has long been active on the far right in American politics and in the past has hosted a conference meant to be counter-programming to CPAC, which included speeches by Reps.Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). Reports have recently tied a former aide in Gosar’s office to Fuentes and the Groypers.

He famously joined anti-semitic rapper Kanye West for dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump just ahead of Trump announcing he would run in 2024. Fuentes has long stirred controversy by denying the Holocaust and calling (https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1734318948454375596) for the execution of non-Christians.

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Watch the clip above via Right Wing Watch.

The post

‘Very Exciting Time!’ White Nationalist Nick Fuentes Praises Candace Owens Media Tour, Joe Rogan’s Conspiracy Theorist Guest (https://www.mediaite.com/politics/very-exciting-time-white-nationalist-nick-fuentes-praises-candace-owens-media-tour-joe-rogans-conspiracy-theorist-guest/)

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Aja Romano @ Vox (https://www.vox.com/culture/401197/andrew-tate-trump-support-richard-grenell-tweet): Why the Trump administration is publicly supporting an alleged human trafficker

This latest high-profile turn in Tate’s ongoing legal saga has again brought the horrifying allegations against him to the forefront — this time with apparent approval from the US government.

vox

no lnx

Why the Trump administration is publicly supporting an alleged human trafficker

In short? His massive influence.

by Aja Romano

:{Feb 25, 2025,

TOPSHOT-ROMANIA-BRITAIN-US-COURT-CRIME

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate (back right) speak to journalists after having been released from detention in Bucharest, Romania on March 12, 2024. Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images

:

Aja Romano writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they’re considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.

Andrew Tate made his name as a misogynist podcast star, but has more recently been known as an alleged rapist and human trafficker as he awaits criminal trial in Romania with his brother Tristan. Last week, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration, through special envoy Richard Grenell, had tried to pressure the Romanian government to lift travel restrictions on the brothers.

Andrew Tate, whose online course “Hustler’s University” morphed into a platform with nearly a million users, became a powder keg among far-right media influencers in the early 2020s due to his explicitly sexist worldview and its profound influence over millions of teen boys and young men.

This latest high-profile turn in Tate’s ongoing legal saga has again brought the horrifying allegations against him to the forefront — this time with apparent approval from the US government. It’s also a reminder of the cultural reach of the so-called manosphere that Tate helped popularize.

RelatedHow Andrew Tate sells men on toxic masculinity

Andrew Tate’s enormous influence rests on intense misogyny — and a lot of alleged criminal activity

Tate’s rise started with a successful kickboxing career, was followed by his removal from the British version of Big Brother, and culminated in a hugely popular podcast that anointed him the “King of Toxic Masculinity.” As Rebecca Jennings explained for Vox in 2022, his “inflammatory diatribes against women, whom he compares to property” became viral fodder on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. He was born in the US, raised in the UK, but now lives in Romania — first moving there in part because, he said, “the rape laws are more lenient,” but has stayed since; following his arrest, he has largely not been allowed to leave the country.

Tate helped bring to mainstream concerns about the “manosphere,” the term for the internet’s loose network of right-wing male influencers and their associated communities. Early on, Tate seemed to be such an obviously extremist node of the manosphere that he should be, as Jennings wrote, easy to ignore.

But Tate’s confident, blatant misogyny proved wildly popular: His dictums, which ranged from bragging about never having read a book to flaunting an aggressive emotional and physical dominance over women, seemed to enthrall boys and men who admired him for his flashy lifestyle, vaunted wealth, and commitment to the bit. Tate’s maxims swept across teen culture, generating horror stories from parents and teachers about his seemingly pervasive and pernicious influence. Originally, Tate presented his schtick as pure fiction, a deliberately exaggerated regressive persona. It soon appeared that was far from the case, as allegations against Tate and his brother began mounting.

Romanian officials have pursued Andrew and Tristan Tate since April 2022, when they first raided one of the pair’s mansions after receiving a tip that the Tates had allegedly abducted a woman and were holding her there against her will. The following year, the brothers and two Romanian accomplices were indicted on charges of rape, forming a criminal gang, and human trafficking. Authorities alleged that Andrew and Tristan Tate had trafficked seven women from the US and the UK to Romania by grooming them and subjecting them to physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. (The brothers promptly responded with a civil suit against two of their alleged victims.) In early 2024, the two faced new UK allegations of human trafficking, stemming from an investigation launched more than a decade prior.

Then, in August, the Tates faced additional charges of human trafficking after police raided their estate again and detained six people. The brothers have also faced multiple civil lawsuits filed by alleged victims. One such woman recently filed a suit against them in Florida, claiming they defamed her after she agreed to be a witness in the Romanian criminal trial.

Despite the severity and breadth of the charges against them, things have been going fairly well for the Tates. Last month, Andrew Tate was released from house arrest, though he and his brother are still not allowed to leave Romania and are under court supervision. This followed the return of their luxury assets in October, and a November appeals court ruling that major evidence in the first Romanian criminal case, including testimony from alleged victims, was inadmissible. A judge, citing flaws in the indictment, sent the case back to prosecutors for revision. This left the case on shaky ground — and that was before the American government came calling.

Romania’s foreign minister, Emil Hurezeanu, dismissed his conversation last week with Grenell, which took place briefly during the Munich Security Conference, as “just a repeat of a known stance.” Grenell’s position as “special missions envoy” seems to be an informal one based mainly on his status as a longtime Trump loyalist and his previous role as ambassador to Germany, but he’s made his interest in the Tate brothers public — and explicitly political.

On February 3, before the trip to Munich, Grenell quote-tweeted a reply to Tristan Tate on X and alleged that Romania had used funds from the beleaguered USAID agency to target conservatives, saying the program was “weaponized against people and politicians who weren’t woke.” There appears to be no factual basis for this claim, but it bolsters the Tates’ longtime argument that they are the victims of a political witch hunt.

“I support the Tate brothers as evident by my publicly available tweets,” Grenell told the Financial Times.

Tate’s cultural impact has been felt for years, but is this just the start?

Andrew and Tristan Tate now face three different criminal cases and multiple civil lawsuits in different countries, most for extremely serious allegations of violence and sexual abuse against women. Their most expansive alleged crime, human trafficking, became part of Andrew Tate’s online brand. He actually sold an online course to his followers on how to do it, what he called the “Pimping Hoes Degree.”

Experts say that the techniques Tate taught in this course and elsewhere could be seen as a textbook for how to engage in literal, criminal human trafficking — and the messages Tate espouses across the manosphere are replete with boasting about violence towards women, sexual assault, grooming underage girls, and emotional abuse.

RelatedHow Andrew Tate sells men on toxic masculinity

The “Andrew Tate effect” on young men has been so profound that counteracting it has become a mission across multiple public service sectors, from education to public health. Researchers in Sweden found that boys exposed to manosphere influencers were more likely to dehumanize women, while researchers in Australia found “widespread experience of sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny perpetrated by boys towards women teachers, and the ominous presence of Andrew Tate shaping their behaviour.”

Concerns about Tate encompass real concerns about public safety, and whether boys who have prolonged exposure to him could become more aggressive toward the women around them. At the same time, Tate and others in the manosphere have been credited with helping swing the 2024 US election resoundingly for Trump among young men.

Tate is already a manifestation of extreme misogyny, the worst of what the manosphere has wrought — and his cultural, and now political, elevation is part of a larger, grimmer regression we are perhaps only just at the beginning of.

musk bolso chainsaw

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'You have been gaslit': CPAC oozes MAGA's 'male inequality' agenda

People react as U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 22, 2025.

Matt Laslo February 23, 2025

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — This just might be the year American men finally overcome centuries of political, cultural and marital oppression that have ravaged the gender and kept guys locked out of key policies, like the Violence Against Women Act.

That’s what one conservative vendor peddled at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. And they’re not alone. The oft-repeated message being subtly driven into CPAC attendees – is that the era of male victimhood is over.

Culture wars are now king.

In years past, the conservative confab focused on fiscal responsibility and cutting federal spending. This year — even as Republicans in Congress and the White House debate trillions of dollars in budget cuts — leaders stoked gendered culture wars.

“Don't allow this broken culture to send you a message that you're a bad person because you're a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you're competitive," Vice President J.D. Vance told CPAC attendees Thursday.

Eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives may have merely been a stepping stone. Conservatives have rallied behind a new, if antiquated, gospel of manhood as they work to turn back time and eviscerate what they call "wokeness" in real time.

At CPAC, this is truly a man’s world, or will be soon if the resurgent right succeeds.

“Male Inequality”

Masculinity is everywhere here at CPAC. It’s tangible, making this year’s conference feel more like an all-male retreat than the policy-focused escape the annual event was before President Donald Trump remade American conservatism in his image.

In these conservative confines, there’s no gender pay gap (even as statistics show women earn roughly 75 cents for each dollar a man makes). Women’s suffrage, practically speaking, is a fairy tale of a bygone era. While Bibles abound, the Book of Ruth and its strong, central female cast, is an afterthought (if a thought at all).

The real problem is “Male Inequality,” according to the newly launched Men’s Equality Network, or MEN.

‘Areas of Male Inequality’ — a pamphlet MEN are handing out at this year’s CPAC.

At CPAC, MEN seeks to drum up support for the hashtag #genderequalityformen, while also giving away free caps emblazoned with “Watchdog: Stop the gender agenda.”

MEN's tagline succinctly sums up the mission that drives the group: “assuring due process, fairness and equal opportunities for men.” And while they may only be a few weeks old, MEN has already attracted 18 partners, ranging from United Families International to the Child Custody Coalition.

The group is so new, it hasn't held its first meeting. But MEN soon plans to start hosting monthly training sessions with partner organizations, then storm the marble halls of Washington, demanding equality for men.

And MEN has allies in powerful places in Trump’s Washington.

"Our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge, you should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place," Vance opined from the CPAC main stage. He, like MEN, provided no evidence to support his contention.

While the group is surely easy to single out, it's far from alone in its drive to restore manhood to its properly patriarchal perch at CPAC but also throughout society.

"Go fu#% yourself Planned Parenthood”

Entering this year’s hall of vendors at CPAC, it’s seemingly impossible to miss the loud magenta “Go fu#% yourself Planned Parenthood” banner next to a cardboard cutout of President Trump.

Defund Planned Parenthood photo (Photo credit: Matt Laslo)

A few rows away, at first blush, the booth for "Date on the Right" seems dedicated to online romance for Republicans. But the material seems more focused on connecting hardline conservatives with their policy dreams.

Instead of promising long-term love, the group’s selling point feels more politically inclined than lifemate: “Dating for conservatives: only two genders – male and female allowed. No pronouns but male or female allowed.”

Other booths are dotted with free swag seeking to uproot political correctness — “I support free speech, not political correctness,” reads one sticker — through slogans like, “God, Guns and Girly Things” or “Woman: an adult human female.”

“We have an entire generation of young men who are smoking weed, watching porn, not getting married — not even pursuing women,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told CPAC attendees. “We have this thing called incels — involuntary celibates. It's terrible. And we can't become a great nation again — we can't make America great again — until our men are great again.”

“You’ve been gaslit to high heaven”

For attendees, conservatives are undeniably victims. The thousands gathered at CPAC are set on righting those past perceived wrongs.

“You’ve been gaslit to high heaven every time you picked up a newspaper in the United States,” conservative anchor Megyn Kelly told the crowd. “Every time you’ve turned on CNN. You’ve been lied to. You’ve been bullied — or seen others with lesser power — bullied by the media and the leftist Democrats. You have been a victim of overbearing and controlling leftists who think they are the final arbiters of what’s best for you and your life.”

While this may be MEN's year, conservative women aren’t going quietly.

CPAC may be a man’s world these days, despite all the powerful women in today’s GOP, like White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who, at 27, is the youngest person to ever hold the prestigious role.

On the CPAC stage this week, former White House communications director Mercedes Schlapp — wife of CPAC chair Matt Schlapp who a sheriff wrote up earlier this month for allegedly groping a man — asked Leavitt about being a woman in Trump world.

"Look at the White House and look at the exceptional Cabinet President Trump has put together," Leavitt said. "While we don’t care about identity politics…the president has appointed Susie Wiles, our first female chief of staff in United States history; Brooke Rollins heading up as our secretary of agriculture — look across the entire Cabinet. There are incredible women — Linda McMahon, leading the Department of Education — the list goes on and on."

As for her advice to young women, Leavitt departed from her party’s new man-centric mantra.

"Stay strong, speak the truth and don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t achieve your dream, or you can’t get to that next step. Just believe in yourself, because there will be a lot of people who don’t believe in you, who cast doubt on you, who talk bad about you," Leavitt said. "Screw ‘em. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter."

NOW READ: Whoever tries to tell you that Trump is Christian needs to look up this passage in the Bible

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AN 2 25

IF YOU CAN SURVIVE GRETA SCOLDING, THEN NEO-NAZI OK

Vice President JD Vance, in a rare public appearance, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that America’s “cultural message” tells young men they should “suppress every masculine urge” and become “androgynous idiots.” His comments on Thursday were well-received at the far-right conference, but more widely, were quickly denounced, as critics urged him to revisit his own remarks and his own societal and religious beliefs.

“I think that our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge,” the Ohio Republican said, to cheers (video below). “You should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place.”

“And I think that my, my message to young men is, don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you’re competitive.”

READ MORE: ‘Cowardice’: GOP Faces Backlash After Report Suggests Death Threat May Have Swayed Vote (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/cowardice-senator-faces-backlash-after-report-suggests-death-threat-may-have-swayed-vote/)

Vance went on to claim that “our cultural message is, I think, that it wants to turn everybody into whether male or female into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same.”

“We actually think God made male and female for a purpose, and we want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women, and we’re gonna help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.”

Fred Wellman is a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School, an Army veteran of 22 years who served four combat tours, and is now a political consultant and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

“Nobody thinks that,” Wellman wrote (https://x.com/FPWellman/status/1892605038834352200), responding to Vance’s remarks. “We just don’t want our young men to rape women. This isn’t hard. This guy is such a f— incel.”

“This guy is too much of a chicken to stand up publicly to a guy who he privately described as a ‘moral disaster’ or to defend his own wife’s honor from a punk kid who said we should ‘normalize Indian hate.’ Obsequious, snivelling, Vancely cowardice ain’t masculinity,” decried (https://x.com/SeanCasten/status/1892606654732026128) U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL).

Appearing to mock the vice president, The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill asked (https://x.com/jemelehill/status/1892615745881690211), “Who told men they can’t have beer with their friends? What I miss?”

Self-described former “Republican flack” and conservative Christian, Kristy Campbell, appearing to denigrate President Trump’s attack (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/living-in-this-disinformation-space-zelenskyy-pummels-trump-over-ukraine-lie/) on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week, noted (https://x.com/kristymcampbell/status/1892613057588679052), “I don’t think it’s a good idea to lecture on masculinity at CPAC – which was launched in 1974 with an incredible speech by future president Ronald Reagan about freedom and America’s role in the world – when you just capitulated to Russia.”

READ MORE: Musk’s Cuts Now ‘Hobbling’ Major Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Research Facility: Report (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/musks-cuts-now-hobbling-major-alzheimers-and-parkinsons-research-facility-report/)

Award-winning author Jennifer Erin Valent blasted Vance, saying (https://x.com/JenniferEValent/status/1892636343269724644), “What he’s really aiming at isn’t the ability to exercise true masculine strength but rather the ability to be a jerk without accountability. And since he brought God into it, I advise him to take a walk through the gospels and see how his brand of manhood measures up to Christ’s.”

“These guys aren’t reviving masculinity, they’re reviving being a dick. There’s a difference,” wrote (https://x.com/Kanew/status/1892609248145629518) Justin Kanew, a writer, producer, and political activist who appeared on the 15th and 18th seasons of “The Amazing Race.” Kanew runs the progressive platform The Tennessee Holler.

“For somebody who supposedly is so smart, JD Vance really says some stupid things,” blasted (https://x.com/MariaTCardona/status/1892620426775310529) CNN political commentator Maria Cardona. “No, our culture does not tell young men that they cannot be masculine. But hopefully they are getting the message that that masculinity has to come with decency, compassion, generosity, and confidence that you can be all these things and that actually define real confident manhood. Real men don’t have to go around proving that they are real men.”

Emmy-nominated writer and comedian Mike Drucker asked (https://x.com/MikeDrucker/status/1892621464374804606), “is masculinity when you never stop fucking whining about everything? that seems to be the vance demo.”

David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, remarked (https://x.com/David_J_Bier/status/1892612846803890684), “Is the message young American men need to hear: ‘keep drinking beer with your friends and telling jokes that might offend people’? That doesn’t make you a ‘bad person,’ but there’s something broken in a culture that thinks that’s the most important message to give kids.”

Watch Vance’s remarks below or at the link (http://alternet.org/russia-vance).

RWW

02/18/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)

Kyle Cheney @ Politico (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/17/doge-administrator-elon-musk-00204639): Who’s in charge of DOGE? Not Elon Musk, White House says

A Trump administration personnel official says Musk has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions.”

Andrew Prokop @ Vox (https://www.vox.com/politics/399984/online-right-musk-vance-elez-antiwoke): Why Trump’s second term agenda is so wildly different from his first

While Trump’s first administration was heavily influenced by traditional Republican figures, his second one is far more influenced by a burgeoning new establishment — a very online one.

Colby Hall @ Mediaite (https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/fox-news-hosts-admission-reveals-exactly-how-the-maga-media-ecosystem-works-and-undermines-networks-standing/): Fox News Host’s Admission Reveals Exactly How the MAGA Media Ecosystem Works — And Undermines Network’s Standing

Jesse Watters appeared to let the cat out of the bag Monday afternoon during an episode of The Five, revealing precisely how the pro-Trump MAGA media ecosystem effectively operates. But while he may not have intended to, his description ended up being a pretty stunning indictment of Fox News’ standing as a news outlet along the way.

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist (https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/oklahoma-lawmaker-i-dont-want-pink): Oklahoma lawmaker: I don't want "pink-haired" atheists teaching the Bible in schools

State Sen. David Bullard wants to force the Bible into classrooms. He just doesn't want atheist teachers having a say in how it's taught.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic (https://newrepublic.com/post/191597/trump-romania-andrew-tate): Trump Pressures Romania on Andrew Tate in Stunning New Low

The Trump administration is harassing Romania about easing up on the far-right misogynist accused of sex trafficking.

Angry White Men (https://angrywhitemen.org/2025/02/16/joel-webbon-under-christian-nationalism-there-will-be-no-female-leadership-ever/): Joel Webbon: ‘Under Christian Nationalism’ There Will Be ‘No Female Leadership Ever’

In a Friday livestream, white Christian nationalist Joel Webbon and his co-hosts complained about women having abortions, using birth control, and holding positions of power. Webbon also declared that when Christian nationalists take control, “at least for the next 50 years in all Western countries, there will be no female leadership ever in any sphere of human society whatsoever.”

Asawin Suebsaeng @ Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-break-law-presidents-day-1235269528/): Trump Publicly Admits He Thinks He Can Break Any Law He Wants

On Saturday afternoon, during Presidents Day weekend, the twice-impeached president and convicted felon was, to his credit, honest about it: He believes he’s allowed to break any law he wants.

MMA

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...And so that's the real word of caution and concern here. And the other piece, and you sort of got this in the first segment too, is the information asymmetry.

I mean, if you just look at sort of the monthly listens of podcasts, left-aligned and left-leaning versus right-aligned and right-leaning, you have about 60 million downloads, listens of left-leaning, left-aligned. We have 300 million for right and right-aligned.

And that's a very small universe, but that gives them a head start. And so that gives them the ability to take these unpopular moments and keep driving through, help, you know, block, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. That this is by design. This is intentional. This is a feature, so we can't feed into the infancy. And here's where the note of comfort and courage comes in.

And you sort of got to this too, which is think about that imbalance. Think about how wild that imbalance is. Now that's only one data point, and yet, it was still so close. Yeah. Power of the pop -- and then that's the thing. I'm not a wild eyed optimist here, but my point is is that we should stand firm in the recognition that -- and acknowledge -- that they are going to be driving undemocratic things....

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According to a post-2024 election survey, 45 percent of swing voters (ie, people who were open to voting for Trump or Harris) said they got their news from social media. The number was even higher, 52 percent, among people who had voted for Trump for the first time ever. By contrast, only 39 percent of swing voters watched local news and just 15 percent said they read national newspapers like the Times.

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This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call,” reads a line in written notes (https://nevadacurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/PO-003a-01-03-25-Livelsbergers-Letters.pdf) authorities made public last week from Matthew Livelsberger, the driver of the Cybertruck who killed himself in the vehicle shortly before it exploded in front of a Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day.

The combat veteran’s writings include poignant passages, as when he expressed the need to “cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

But Livelsberger also expresses warmed-over manosphere tropes and anti-Democratic clichés from the Republican 2024 campaign.

“Masculinity is good and men must be leaders.”

“Thankfully we rejected the DEI candidate and will have a real President instead of Weekend at Bernie’s.”

“Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!”

Those sound pretty much like rote red meat talking points slung around by JD Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, or whichever Trumpworld podcaster might be trending at any given time.

But other lines in Livelsberger’s notes invoke something less banal, and more violent, envisioning what reads like a January 6 style attack on the nation’s institutions, but on steroids.

“Military and vets move on DC starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.”*

“Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands.”*

“Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.”*

“Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.”*

Briefing reporters last week after Livelsberger’s life ended in a rented Tesla in front of a Trump hotel, law enforcement officials said (https://nevadacurrent.com/briefs/cybertruck-explosion-a-wake-up-call-not-terrorism-driver-wrote-on-iphone/) Livelsberger appeared to have “no animosity” toward Donald Trump.,.,.,.

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A new trend taking over TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/tag/looksmaxxing?lang=en) is targeting vulnerable young men. The “looksmaxxing” phenomenon – to maximise one’s looks – is aimed at young men and boys who want to change their appearance to become more attractive and gain social acceptance.

Unhappy with their appearance, teenage boys and young men scrolling the app are directed to chat rooms where they’re instructed to upload photos in exchange for advice.

It begins with “softmaxxing (https://drpaulcoceancig.com.au/navigating-the-pitfalls-of-looksmaxxing-a-surgeons-take-on-cosmetic-trends-in-the-age-of-social-media/)”. This includes basic hygiene such as teeth brushing and whitening, removal of face and body hair, and “mewing (https://www.businessinsider.com/looksmaxxing-softmaxxing-mewing-self-improvement-experiment-toxic-dangerous-2023-11)” (tongue exercises that supposedly help tone facial muscles).

This progresses to “hardmaxxing (https://www.dailydot.com/news/looksmaxxing-trend-men/)”, which is to improve one’s appearance by any means necessary. More extreme measures include:

steroid use

hair transplants and plastic surgery

using pumps for penis stretching

removing ribs for a sculpted waist

“bone-smashing (https://www.vice.com/en/article/93kz73/looksmaxing-mewing-bone-smashing-trend)”, which involves using hammers to break bones in the face to look more masculine

“starvemaxxing”, which encourages extreme dieting and eating disorders

“whitemaxxing”, which involves using creams to present as more White

and “edgemaxxing”, which is described as (https://www.purewow.com/family/looksmaxxing-parent-opinion) “withholding climaxing in order to boost testosterone to improve appearance”.

Looksmaxxing may appear harmless, encouraging self-care, exercise and healthy eating. But at its core it has ties to violence (https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/rob-has-stood-up-350-women-on-dates-he-says-incels-are-getting-revenge/zwocc61rr), suicide (https://www.qualitativecriminology.com/pub/z1961qto/release/1) and incels (https://www.qualitativecriminology.com/pub/z1961qto/release/1) (involuntary celibates) – men who blame women for their struggles with establishing romantic or sexual relationships.

A click away from the incel rabbit hole

Looksmaxxing videos on TikTok (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-023-09559-5?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news) have amassed many millions of views.

They pull young boys and men into a dark subculture of incels. Incel and extremist content is suggested to users on multiple platforms including TikTok (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-023-09559-5?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news) Instagram and Youtube.

Within minutes, TikTok users may be bombarded with videos that promote (https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjv4jw/tiktok-incels-targeting-young-users) suicide and gendered hate speech. One 2021 research report found young YouTube users (https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3479556) will sometimes be suggested incel-related videos by YouTube’s algorithm within just five hops when starting from a non incel-related video.

‘Hunter’ versus ‘prey’ eyes

Male model Jordan Barrett (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-16/incels-plastic-surgery-for-face-improvement-misogyny-remains/11205336) has become an envied idol for men and boys following the looksmaxxing trend.

Many looksmaxxers believe having his “hunter eyes” with a positive canthal tilt (the canthal is the angle between the inner and outer corner of the eye), along with pursed lips and hollow cheeks, translates to a dominating stare women can’t possibly resist.

On anonymous incel forums, young men are trained to calculate their “sexual market value”. If they’re deemed below average, they’re bullied, accused of being “bitches who are feminine, weak and submissive, too ugly to live” and told to take their own lives.

The Bateman effect

At the apex of the incel beauty tower is the character Patrick Bateman (https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/sigma-grindset-tiktok-trend-2022) from the 2000 satire-thriller American Psycho. Bateman (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/looksmaxxing-tik-tok-dillon-latham.html) is known by incels as a superior “sigma” male (https://www.massivemagazine.org.nz/articles/sigmamale): a lone wolf and capitalist hustler who attracts money-hungry women.

In fact, he is shallow, manipulative, misogynistic and extremely violent. This sociopathic ideal resonates with many incels. Other characters idolised by incels include Tyler Durden (https://variety.com/2023/film/news/fight-club-far-right-incels-david-fincher-responds-1235773001/) from Fight Club and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker (https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/9/18/20860890/joker-movie-controversy-incel-sjw).

Incels who feel they are misunderstood and demoralised by women also look to self-proclaimed powerful male influencers with perceived “social status”, such as Andrew Tate (https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/1/4/23539528/andrew-tate-arrest-jail-rape-human-trafficking), for solace. Alongside messages about fitness, financial gain and self-improvement, Tate is openly misogynistic (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star) and suggests it’s socially acceptable to indulge in violent desires against women.

This false representation of masculinity (https://lens.monash.edu/@education/2023/11/16/1386296/tackling-toxic-masculinity-in-australia-we-cant-afford-to-get-this-wrong) creates a sense of entitlement in men who believe they are repressed. This can then be used as fuel for gender-based violence (https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2023-08/Incels%20in%20Australia_1.pdf?VersionId=QW06l5bfjXbJlspQv0l02MbhoRe4rPhk), femicide (https://www.spectatornews.com/campus-news/2020/03/jackson-katz-flips-the-narrative-on-gender-violence/), copycat crimes (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4032043) and mass killings (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1557085119896415?journalCode=fcxa).

Bateman and incel ideology influenced self-proclaimed incel and mass shooter Elliot Rodger (https://theconversation.com/elliot-rodger-when-sexual-rejection-turns-deadly-27205). In 2014, Rodger carried out a deadly mass shooting and stabbing spree in Isla Vista, California, killing six people. He blamed women for his celibacy and wanted to seek revenge by killing them.

Many misogynist incels now hail him as a hero (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189). Some men use his initials claiming (https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/red-pill-to-black-pill/) they want to “go ER” or “be a hERo”, implying they’re ready to commit mass murder.

A 2023 report (https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2023-08/Incels%20in%20Australia_1.pdf?VersionId=QW06l5bfjXbJlspQv0l02MbhoRe4rPhk) from the Australia Strategic Policy Centre highlights concerning incel content online. One user says “women should be stripped of their rights because they still have primitive minds that need to be tamed”. Another says “I might start a political movement. ‘BRING BACK RAPE’ […] ‘WANNA STOP BEING INCEL, TIME TO START RAPING’.”

Young people are under pressure

Our preoccupation with having a perfect appearance (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001450/) is an obsessive social disease (https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/02/social-media-body-image) alienating us from ourselves and others.

Researchers (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13675494231153900) point to a link between trends such as looksmaxxing and the broader cultural pressures young people face. They’re growing up in an increasingly precarious world with war, post-pandemic anxiety, environmental degradation, unaffordable living and unstable employment. This is juxtaposed with neoliberal hyper-individualism (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9605858/), hypersexuality and consumer capitalism.

Where young people feel like they can’t control their environment, they may turn to trends such as looksmaxxing as something they can control.

In recent years, former members of the manosphere (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/manosphere) have started producing their own counter-forums that challenge the beliefs they once held.

Studies (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13675494231153900) highlight young men and boys are beginning to recognise misogynistic ideology and restrictive performances of masculinity. These studies also argue these forums can offer alternative perspectives, with information that emphasises the importance of healthy socialising, consent and respectful relationships.

In the age of TikTok algorithms, schools and communities must do more to educate on masculinity, what it means to be a “man” and the dangers of incel culture, extremism, gendered hate speech (https://www.anrows.org.au/media-releases/new-report-finds-education-is-an-important-step-in-reducing-rates-of-gender-based-violence/) and sexual violence (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13675494231191490).

Celebrities and influencers also have a role to play. Actors such as Mark Ruffalo (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/mark-ruffalo-tells-ignorant-people-who-aren-t-feminists-to-kiss-my-a-10291291.html) and Ryan Gosling (https://time.com/6287484/barbie-male-fragility-ken/) have helped foster positive ideas about what it means to be a man. Real, positive change can come from instilling the belief that collectively we can create a more equal and empathetic world.

Jamilla Rosdahl (https://theconversation.com/profiles/jamilla-rosdahl-112768), Senior Lecturer, Australian College of Applied Psychology (https://theconversation.com/institutions/australian-college-of-applied-psychology-1533)

This article is republished from The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/) under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article (https://theconversation.com/looksmaxxing-is-the-disturbing-tiktok-trend-turning-young-men-into-incels-221724).

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Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and his MAGA allies repeatedly accuse mainstream media outlets of spreading "fake news" — which, Trump critics argue, is projection in light of all the conspiracy theories that MAGA Republicans promote.

In an article published the day after Christmas (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), Salon's Amanda Marcotte stresses that "disinformation" and a "poor information ecosystem" played a key role in Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) in the 2024 election.

"In the face of Vice President Kamala Harris losing the presidential election to Donald Trump," Marcotte writes (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), "the punditry's focus has been almost exclusively on asking how the Democrats couldn't beat a relentless liar with 34 felony convictions and a previous attempted coup under his belt. Everyone has a different theory about Harris' 'messaging,' with every critic inevitably arguing that if she had just talked more about their pet issue, she would have won."

Marcotte continues (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), "Another option, however, is to listen to what swing voters who backed Trump said about their decision."

READ MORE:[Businesses are already 'capitulating to Trump' for fear of retribution

Many U.S. voters, Marcotte laments (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), are "addicted to BS." And she cites research from conservative strategist Sarah Longwell, a Never Trumper who recently interviewed 2024 Trump voters who listen to Joe Rogan's podcast.

"Rogan's audience perfectly illustrates the way the firehose of disinformation online — his conspiracy theory-hyping podcast has over 16 million followers — has pickled the brains of so many otherwise normal people," Marcotte explains (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/). "Most of the people Longwell interviewed couldn't go two minutes without coughing up a conspiracy theory. Everything is a shadowy plot, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the guy who shot Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania."

Marcotte points to (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/) the far-right QAnon as an example of how outlandish conspiracy theories can be.

"After the insurrection of January 6," Marcotte observes (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), "a lot of attention was paid to the rise of QAnon, because so many rioters were adherents to this online cult that preached that Trump is a savior prophesized to stop a worldwide Satanic conspiracy. Alarming reports showed millions of Americans believed QAnon myths, such as the divinity of Trump or that Democrats drink children's blood."

READ MORE:'Throwing in the towel': NYT columnist slammed for urging Trump critics to 'wish new admin well' (https://www.alternet.org/bret-stephens-trump-ny-times/)

Marcotte continues (https://www.salon.com/2024/12/26/conspiracy-theory-is-the-new-normal-2024-was-the-year-qanon-went-mainstream/), "QAnon is still around, but it gets much less media coverage these days. One likely reason is what we see in these focus groups: bonkerballs levels of conspiracy belief is no longer a fringe phenomenon. QAnon-style beliefs are simply the norm in American society…. One of the best predictors, if not the best predictor, of a Trump vote is how poor a person's information ecosystem is. People who read or watch real news outlets voted overwhelmingly for Harris. People who get their political information from social media voted for Trump."

rupar

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Trump and his Republican Party benefit from a right-coded social media ecosystem (https://substack.com/redirect/43de7ed2-0b26-4e38-a2f9-ebac1cea001b?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw) and a mainstream press that normalizes their lies and sanewashes their extremism (https://substack.com/redirect/57486ec8-afe6-486c-9d6e-ca99d893e8f2?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw). Faced with those obstacles, it’s clear Democrats need to find a way to fight back.

In his recent piece headlined “Democrats Lost the Propaganda War, (https://substack.com/redirect/81eec011-e151-42ca-a5e4-d087ea61f4a4?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)” American Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper outlines a vision of how Dems can be more proactive in getting their message out.

Mehdi Hasan sounds off (https://substack.com/redirect/66eb563b-7252-44bf-a7c4-cbe67b36fded?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)

Instead of spending predominantly on TV ads and mailers, Cooper argues that Democrats should invest in party-friendly media outlets, including local publications in “news desert” counties that are especially susceptible to rightwing propaganda, as well as websites with a national reach. (As an example of the latter, he cites my former employer, ThinkProgress, the progressive news website that was housed in the Center for American Progress before it was shut down due to internal drama in 2019. TP was a good website and is missed.)

“My idea is to put Democratic messaging in the form of either just reality-based coverage of what the Biden administration was doing — with all of these investments all over the country — or Democratic editorials, and getting that message consistently in front of voters,” Cooper told us. “That’s the other problem with the usual way of campaign spending. It only comes during election time, so there are long stretches where people aren’t hearing anything. You’re not cementing the impression of what you want to communicate.”

Josh Marshall on how the "liberal media" works against Dems (https://substack.com/redirect/517fc752-2ec1-406d-8c5a-28a33231b271?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)

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We recently connected with Cooper to discuss Trump’s victory in the 2024 messaging battle and the conclusions that can be drawn from it, why Democrats are “foolish” to trust the mainstream media, and the importance of Dems building online presences on non-X social media platforms like Bluesky.

“It’s the only one that’s not run by a Trump-supporting billionaire,” he said. “If you actually want to get your message out there, Bluesky is the place you ought to be doing it, rather than a platform owned by Elon Musk. He’s just implacably hostile to everything you stand for.”

A full transcript of Cooper’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.

*A note from Aaron: Happy holidays to the Public Notice community. We will not publish tomorrow in observance of Christmas, but I’ll be more with more Thursday. I hope you have a lovely holiday.

Thor Benson

Why do you think Democrats’ media problem played such a large role in Kamala Harris’s loss?

Ryan Cooper

Donald Trump has all sorts of baggage that would have been utterly disqualifying for any other candidate, or at least any previous Republican candidate. He was found legally liable for sexual assault. He was convicted of 34 felonies. He attempted to overthrow the government. He’s constantly saying all kinds of crazy stuff — almost Nazi, Nuremberg-esque things.

Yet he paid no price for it. I think that’s basically because voters didn’t hear about his campaign platform or didn’t believe it if they did hear about it.

Trump hoodwinked voters about his worst policy commitments (https://substack.com/redirect/34aca142-7bef-4f26-9b28-7f29332b2cd0?j=eyJ1IjoiN3ltancifQ.i0HJl3aVWG8sHp566T-pebMssFGKcgvxVOFLuZyEDpw)

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You have, on one hand, the right-wing propaganda machine, which has been built up over 30 or 40 years now, and on the other you have a mainstream media that is just structurally hostile to the Democratic Party.

The New York Times, which now supposedly employs like 10 percent of the journalists in the country, absolutely botched their coverage this cycle. It was probably worse than they botched it in 2016. They had a scoop from John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, calling him a fascist. They basically caught and killed their own scoop. They put it on page A34 or something.

The media knows how to raise a stink about things, and they basically never did it for Trump, even though there are about 50 things they could have done. And Democrats don’t have anything like the right-wing propaganda machine. There is some progressive media, like The American Prospect, but it’s pitifully small compared to Fox News or Joe Rogan.

Thor Benson...

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Throughout the 2024 election cycle, reproductive rights were an electoral vulnerability for Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump). Though popular with the Republican base, his appointment of antiabortion judges gave serious pause to many key voting blocs, including undecided young men (https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/abortion-is-going-to-be-a-major-issue-in-2024-but-for-whom/).

In pursuit of these voters, Trump’s strategy wasn’t demagoguery but comedy.

Trump’s October appearance (https://open.spotify.com/episode/1w7mg1hfxQ0bKQqTW4hBTT?si=d2a45b172cc44b68) on comedian Andrew Schulz’s podcast, “Flagrant,” demonstrated his approach to the touchy issue.

Schulz playfully invoked Trump’s youngest son, who’s a student at New York University – “Barron is 18. He’s unleashed in New York City. Are you sure you want to reverse Roe vs. Wade now?” After a beat, Trump laughed, Schulz laughed, and then, presumably, thousands of young male listeners joined in.

Trump continued with boilerplate answers about states rights, but this substance – as is so often the case – was divorced from the strategy. Schulz had helped Trump turn an unpopular position into a frat boy punchline, something to be discarded along with last night’s empties. Trump won that media cycle and, ultimately, a majority of the votes of young men on his way to a second White House win (https://www.vulture.com/article/donald-trump-andrew-schulz-flagrant-theo-von-podcast-interviews.html).IFrame Content (https://youtu.be/iCwTekh5S08?wmode=transparent&start=0) Podcaster Andrew Schulz pokes fun at the touchy issue of abortion in an interview with Donald Trump on Oct. 9, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house), by contrast, appeared on mainstream comedy shows with aging, liberal audiences (https://www.forbes.com/sites/elsaramo/2024/09/13/late-night-talk-shows-are-turning-into-next-day-recapsbut-the-eras-not-over/) like “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Pundits criticized her failure to engage young voters in online comedy platforms (https://www.ft.com/content/9292db59-8291-4507-8d86-f8d4788da467). They also urged liberals to develop a new crop of political comedians (https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-rogan-trump-kamala-harris-b2643492.html) to match the influence of Schulz and podcaster Joe Rogan.

However, these criticisms of Harris’ strategy miss the failure of liberal comedians to evolve with media and political trends.

While Jimmy Kimmel cries (https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-jimmy-kimmel-crying-election-reaction-harris-b2643556.html) and Jon Stewart rants (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2024-11-06/jon-stewart-2024-election-night-rant-donald-trump), the right wing in the U.S. has successfully depicted itself as the new home for free speech and cutting edge comedy. We explored this development in our book, “That’s Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them (https://www.ucpress.edu/books/thats-not-funny/paper).”

The right has become a home for comedians not by making political arguments through jokes, but by positing that there are funnier things to do than to argue.

A formula goes stale

Liberal comedy and political satire have stuck to the same formula of Stewart’s “The Daily Show” for much of the 21st century.

It goes something like this: A sarcastic, eloquent host uses meticulously researched data to describe a pressing social issue, and then delivers a punchline directed at right-wing hypocrisy. The resultant pairing of righteous laughter and anger has been repeated by “The Colbert Report,” “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” and “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj,” among other comedy programs.

These satirical shows filled the void left by an increasingly profit-driven news media. However, they have come to prioritize political preaching at the expense of laughs.

Perhaps Stewart’s most successful successor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_John_Oliver) – and the best example of liberal satire’s patronizing tone – is HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Because the show appears on prestige cable, Oliver has a bigger budget to tackle controversial topics in depth.

Indeed, journalists (https://time.com/3674807/john-oliver-net-neutrality-civil-forfeiture-miss-america/) and academics (https://doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2022.2130003) alike have celebrated the “John Oliver effect,” in which viewers mobilize behind a cause shortly after the host devotes an episode to it, whether it’s vaccines or internet regulation.

Oliver’s long-form lectures can be compelling. However, his appeal is not to young undecided voters who can’t afford HBO, but to college-educated liberals predisposed to support progressive reforms.

Twice in a recentelection postmortem episode (https://youtu.be/LU2atCWyAos), he reminded viewers of topics his show has covered in depth, like a professor chiding students for not remembering recent lessons. In one segment about Trump’s disingenuous economic message, Oliver pleaded that his show had already “explained inflation for 24 human minutes.”

While Oliver’s exasperation can be amusing, he’s clearly more upset at – even disdainful of – the American electorate, chastising them for failing the final exam of election night.

For liberals to reconnect with young voters – especially young men – we think they have to reinvent political comedy. Doing so will mean moving beyond the haranguing that has long been its primary delivery style. This will be a challenge, however, as the right fortifies the relationship between its own comedians and political power.

Comedians like John Oliver and Jon Stewart tend to appeal to college-educated liberals predisposed to support progressive reforms. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/john-oliver-and-host-jon-stewart-appear-on-the-daily-show-news-photo/483217396?adppopup=true)

Rise of the right-wing comedy complex

Trump’s success with comedy is a result of the new relationship between digital media and the business of joking. For decades, liberals were thought to hold a monopoly on comedy (https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2015/02/why-theres-no-conservative-jon-stewart/385480/). Moreover, there was little money to be made in comedy acts devoted to right-wing politics.

Since 2016, however, a new crop of right-wing comedians has taken to digital platforms and algorithmically driven audience targeting in order to change this reality.

Libertarian podcasters like Rogan (https://theconversation.com/how-joe-rogan-became-podcastings-goliath-176124) have long danced around the political spectrum, finding diverse positions that intrigue his primary target of young male listeners. He routinely platforms right-leaning cultural and comedic voices, features them as guests, and promotes their shows and products. In doing so, he has helped create a de facto right-wing comedy network.

Although each comedian or show in this network doesn’t have the audience and impact of, say, “The Daily Show” in its prime, their aggregate strength is precisely targeted at coveted young consumers and potential voters.

It is no coincidence that the most heralded stops on Trump’s October podcast tour were shows hosted by three regulars on “The Joe Rogan Experience”: Schulz, comedian Theo Von (https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jyZQDJdalfNfYHJ8tlmG8?si=842acb5da95b463c) and libertarian scientist Lex Fridman (https://open.spotify.com/episode/2jesNeddpvEHo4m5k8eOmo?si=af7cd3ff85e94cb6). Trump also appeared on Rogan’s show for a three-hour episode (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0e9ynAH6hmZIIeOx0SaGQu?si=b433d1d5678b4439).

Changing styles and platforms

Importantly, the type of political comedy featured on these programs is distinct from that of liberal satire of the past two decades.

“The Daily Show,” “Last Week” and their ilk dazzle viewers in 30-minute episodes using intricate arguments and sardonic punchlines.

Rogan and his affiliates hang out for hours, and audiences can listen as they go about their daily routines. In the process, podcast hosts shape their audience’s taste in culture, technology and recreation in what’s known as parasocial bonding (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/parasocial-relationships).

Trump’s appearance on Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” for example, featured little in the way of biting jokes and rollicking laughter. Instead, Von and Trump held a meandering conversation full offunny, personal anecdotes about drug use (https://youtu.be/R80tJ4lAz20) interspersed with gestures to political topics.

Comedy styles are cyclical. In the 1950s, stand-up comedian Mort Sahl would read a newspaper on stage (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59058489), peppering in sarcastic observations about the day’s headlines. The Smothers Brothers played with yo-yos before they introduced protest songs. The apolitical observational humor of Jerry Seinfeld (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/jerry-seinfeld-intends-to-die-standing-up.html?pagewanted=all) reigned supreme in the 1980s and ’90s.

The 2000s liberal satire of Stewart and Oliver was driven by cable television industry mandates to court young men (https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476415577212). The tastes and media habits of this audience have moved on, but liberal comedy has failed to follow them.

Nick Marx (https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-marx-1264596), Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University (https://theconversation.com/institutions/colorado-state-university-1267) and Matt Sienkiewicz (https://theconversation.com/profiles/matt-sienkiewicz-1264600), Associate Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston College (https://theconversation.com/institutions/boston-college-1631)

This article is republished from The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/) under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article (https://theconversation.com/how-liberals-lost-comedy-and-helped-trump-win-244380).

an 12 24

For the past few years, right-wing media have argued (https://www.foxnews.com/media/experts-warn-devastating-effect-traditional-male-roles-deemed-toxic-media-hollywood) that the U.S. is plagued by a masculinity crisis (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-men-crisis-rooted-one-big-lie), whether it’s former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson warning of collapsing testosterone levels in his 2022 documentary “The End of Men (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tucker-carlson-end-of-men-most-absurd-moments-1234606090/)” or Sen. Josh Hawley decrying what he called the left’s project (https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-delivers-national-conservatism-keynote-lefts-attack-men-america/) to “deconstruct” men and “define traditional masculinity as toxic.”

Rhetoric aside, there may be a real vein that these pundits and politicians are tapping into.*

Deaths of despair (https://www.statnews.com/2021/12/29/deaths-of-despair-unrecognized-tragedy-working-class-immiseration/), which are caused by drugs, alcohol or suicide, are disproportionately experienced by men (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/u-s-men-die-nearly-six-years-before-women-as-life-expectancy-gap-widens/). Meanwhile, many of the traditional markers of manhood – earning enough money to raise a family, buy a home or even rent an apartment – are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/opinion/donald-trump-economy-millennial-genx-working-class.html).*

Adam Stanaland. adam_stanaland/X (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSPBMteW4AAOOqt?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)

What does it mean for society if young men sense that their masculinity is under threat? Or for our politics if young men see less hope for the future?

*In 2021, psychologist Adam Stanaland (https://psychology.richmond.edu/faculty/astanaland/) and his colleagues conducted an experiment exploring masculinity anxiety in young men (https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220984298) between the ages of 18 and 40. They found that statements as simple as “you are less masculine than the average man” could provoke aggression among the study’s participants.

*For their next study, they turned to adolescent boys, with a couple of key questions in mind: When does masculine anxiety start to appear? And what fuels it?

In the findings, which they published in July 2024, they were able to show that boys in late puberty – but not those in early puberty – would respond aggressively (https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13544) when their masculinity was challenged.

*Not all boys in late puberty reacted this way; those most prone to aggression tended to care a lot about what other people thought about them. Their parents were more likely to have lower incomes, less formal education and associate masculinity with traits such as power and dominance. They were also much more likely to live in counties that supported Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) in 2020.

*In an interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Stanaland discusses some of the broader economic and social forces that may have influenced his team’s findings and explores how they relate to the results of the 2024 election.

In your more recent study, you broke your adolescent participants down into two groups. There was this early puberty group and a late puberty group. And you found that the threats to masculinity only really started to have an effect in that later puberty group. Can you talk about why that might have been the case?

In prior research (https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220984298), we had already detected a pattern: The pressure to act stereotypically masculine predicts aggression in young adult men in the U.S., particularly when they feel like their manhood is under threat.

So we started to wonder – OK, well, when does this pattern start? We thought about age. But age is somewhat of a rough predictor of development, right? It’s just a number. Although age corresponds with social changes, such as changing schools and navigating new social situations, boys go through puberty at different ages.

For example, changes in secondary sex characteristics, such as height, body type and voice – these are going to affect how other people treat you. As boys’ bodies start changing, there’s going to be much more of an expectation for them to act in stereotypically masculine ways, just like adult men do. There are also vast cognitive changes going on during this time (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.016). You’re able to grasp social pressures with much more nuance than you could before. And part of that is realizing, “Oh shoot, if I don’t defend my manhood, then I won’t have friends, I won’t fit in, my parents might disapprove.”

In our research, puberty captured these nuances better than age. Age did predict these things, but puberty was just a much stronger predictor.

How did you threaten the boys’ masculinity?

Half of the participants were threatened and the other half were not, at random. We had everyone take two quizzes: a “Boy Questions Quiz” and a “Girls Question Quiz.” For the half whose masculinity we threatened, we would tell them they did poorly on the guys quiz – “Well, you missed more questions than other guys usually do. Based on your quiz results, it seems like you’re more like the average girl than the average guy.”

This was age-adapted from past work on masculinity threats to adults, because we wanted to be able to build on those findings.

Then you used a word completion task – for example, having boys complete the fragment “GU_” – to indicate whether they responded aggressively to threats to their masculinity. Those who wrote “GUN” as opposed to, say, “GUM” were said to be reacting aggressively. How do you know that this task is connected to real-world aggression?

This measure has been used in seminal research on masculinity and aggression (https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411402669), so we wanted our findings to directly align with that work. That research and others have found that this task is associated with actual violent behavior.

However, we tried to be very careful to say that we weren’t measuring aggressive behavior. Think of cognition as a first step. People who are thinking aggressively are going to be more likely to act violently or aggressively. Not everyone who is thinking aggressively is going to act on it, but cognition can predict it.

This measure is also great because it’s implicit – our participants didn’t know that we were measuring aggression. They were simply given this word completion task, which we presented as a game, and how they performed indicated how aggressively they were thinking in the moment.

In the study, you found that parents’ beliefs were a strong predictor of whether their sons reported being pressured to be stereotypically masculine. Specifically, it was parents’ endorsement of hegemonic masculinity (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/hegemonic-masculinity) – what you define as the belief that men need to be powerful, gain status and have authority over women.

Yes. We asked boys to respond to statements like, “My parents would be upset if they saw me acting like a girl.” And we found that this fear of upsetting their parents indicated whether they would endorse statements such as, “I’m like other guys because I want other people to like me.”

We also found that a fear of upsetting peers could pressure certain boys to feel as if they needed to “act like a man.” We just didn’t have data from peers to look at. So we couldn’t really try to understand, within peer groups, what exactly was going on.

We did, however, have data from parents, including the types of beliefs about masculinity that they endorsed, as well as certain social and demographic variables reported by parents.

Two data points for the parents stood out to me. Having less income and less formal education – which is also tied to less income (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/research-summaries/education-earnings.html) – strongly predicted whether they possessed beliefs about hegemonic masculinity. Do you see any connection between economic anxiety and masculine anxiety?

There’s research showing that people who are under more economic stress – who experience economic hardship – more readily cling to racial stereotypes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2022.104354). This work has argued that poverty leads to stereotyping because high-status people are motivated to maintain the status quo when they believe that their position in society is threatened. Or this could be an example of cognitive depletion (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/25/cognitive-depletion-how-burnout-can-affect-your-shopping-habits.html): The greater your anxiety over paying the bills, the less you’re going to be able to ponder gender and race.

We observed that working-class parents were more likely to endorse these rigid, masculine ideas, especially about men being strong, powerful and dominant over people of other genders. And they’re the ones whose sons reported the most pressure to be stereotypically masculine.

And I think economic anxiety and poverty are a key part of this story. In times of prosperity, or in societies that are more socialist in their orientation – where you’re guaranteed basic health care and education, for example – do men feel less pressure to be on top, because they feel more economically and socially secure? I don’t know. It’s an interesting avenue for future research.

I know that voting-age men weren’t the subject of your most recent study, but I wonder about the political implications of masculine fragility as young people come of age. Trump picked up a larger percentage of male voters under 30 (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/young-voters-trump-gen-z) than any GOP candidate had since 2008. In what ways did you see Trump tap into masculine anxiety on the campaign trail?

I think we, in academia, expected Gen Z to really just go all in for Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house), and it just doesn’t seem to be like that’s the case, especially among Gen Z men who are working class.

You saw this play out when Trump appeared on several podcasts whose hosts lean into that strong, macho persona, especially in the weeks leading up to the election (https://apnews.com/article/trump-young-men-voters-election-latinos-democrats-ff30e38698a41132cf90345fffabe579?).

In our two studies, we found that pressures to be masculine can predict aggressive responses among boys in later adolescence and young men – times of their lives when they are really trying to figure out what kind of man they will be in their relationships, at work and in their day-to-day lives. Coupled with rising economic uncertainties, these celebrities and politicians can give these men an outlet to demonstrate their masculinity, burnish their status and make them feel like they belong.

Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan flexes at the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2024. Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hulk-hogan-speaks-during-the-republican-national-convention-news-photo/2161987341?adppopup=true)

So much status in our society is tied to wealth. Might teens and young men – who are at the bottom of the totem poll, in terms of wealth (https://www.empower.com/the-currency/life/average-net-worth-by-age) – be latching on to more visceral expressions of power and masculinity?

I think it’s all wrapped up in that. Men start experiencing these pressures to be the provider in their family, to get their relationships and careers going, to make their way up the ladder at work.

A lot of these goals are becoming more difficult to attain. And so what we’re seeing is that in order to gain that status – or even out of fear of losing that status if they have it – boys and men will go to great lengths. Obviously, aligning with people – celebrities, politicians, business leaders – who have those same values will become more enticing.

What are your thoughts about how much of an influence media consumption can have on the development of certain beliefs about masculinity?

We don’t have great measures of peers or other factors like that. But we do have this measure where we asked parents for their ZIP codes, and we mapped that to the proportion of support for Trump in 2020, so not this past election. And we saw that it wasn’t necessarily parents’ self-reported political identity – so how liberal or conservative they are – that predicted their masculinity beliefs. It was this county-level, community-level variable.

So if you think about that finding, you would imagine that it’s not just the “physical counties” that boys are in. Digital spaces – social media spaces that boys are living in – are probably having an effect, too.

Remember, during late puberty, teens are trying out different identities. For whatever reason, some of these more conservative online spaces have become really appealing to certain boys and men. There is definitely some important ongoing work (https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12308) in this area, specifically on the manosphere (https://www.nature.com/collections/bhgheifbef).

Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

These pressures to be stereotypically masculine come from parents, peers and the community. And they don’t seem to be changing or dissipating as quickly as we in academia thought they might.

For example, you might think of Gen Z as this liberal group that’s super into social justice. And that just doesn’t seem to be the case, especially among certain men and boys from working class backgrounds.

So I think we should be a lot more attuned to that lack of change – the social and economic sources of these pressures, how to address them, and what they mean not just for voting behavior but also for some of the more problematic behaviors associated with men and masculinity (https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683221141176).

Nick Lehr (https://theconversation.com/us/team#nick-lehr), Arts + Culture Editor, *The Conversation (http://www.theconversation.com/)

This article is republished from The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/) under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article (https://theconversation.com/is-masculine-anxiety-spurring-support-for-trump-among-gen-z-241655).

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ref 2 vallerga

Abstract

Websites, blogs, and message boards of the “manosphere” are dedicated to a worldview that celebrates hegemonic masculinity and decries feminism. In a reflexive thematic analysis of 227 posts (389,189 words) from two manosphere message boards (The Red Pill and Incel), we analyzed how posters viewed women and men. We found that beliefs about women and men formed an ideology comprised of (a) evolution-based views of gender essentialism, (b) an informal psychology of women's motivations, and (c) a typology of men.

Women were seen as having three primary motives: to deceive and manipulate men, to promiscuously satisfy their own sexual needs, and to trade sex for power. Men were seen as falling into two (The Red Pill) or three (Incel) types: alpha men who are attractive, powerful, and sexually successful, beta men who give to women as their only route to sexual interactions, and incel (involuntarily celibate) men who are too unattractive to achieve sexual success. Posters acted on these beliefs either to improve themselves (The Red Pill) or give up on life and endorse suicide and/or violence (Incel). We discuss these beliefs and actions in relation to theories of sexual aggression, the psychology of radicalization, and the American Psychological Association's Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.

In 2014, Elliot Rodger committed a mass shooting in Santa Barbara, California, killing six people and wounding more than a dozen (Branson-Potts & Winton, 2018 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0006)). Hours before, he uploaded a YouTube video explaining his intent to punish women for not sleeping with him, and sexually active men because he envied them. Rodger also discussed these beliefs on PUAhate.com which was frequented by people known as incels (short for “involuntarily celibate”). This message board is part of the “manosphere,” a collection of websites, blogs, and message boards dedicated to a worldview that celebrates traditional masculinity and decries feminism as a source of male weakness or subordination (Ging, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0021)).

The Texas Department of Public Safety's (2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0057)) Domestic Terrorism Threat Assessment states that incels are an “emerging domestic terrorism threat” (p. 3), noting the severity of the violent online rhetoric. Our goal for this study was to conduct a reflexive thematic analysis of posts on two websites that are part of the manosphere (The Red Pill and Incel.me), to better understand the men who are part of this community and to gain a better sense of the ways in which traditional and hegemonic masculinities are currently enacted among one group of younger, more technologically savvy men.

HEGEMONIC AND TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY

The ways that men in manosphere communities see women and other men have been compared with hegemonic masculinity (Ging, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0021); Van Valkenburgh, 2018 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0060)). Hegemonic masculinity is the configuration of enacting gender in a way that grants legitimacy to patriarchy, and subsequently to the dominance of men and subordination of women (Connell, 2005 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0012)). In addition to hegemonic masculinity, there are other constructions of masculinity that legitimize patriarchy (Connell, 2005 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0012)). Subordinated masculinity involves practices that constitute the reception of dominance from other men. Complicit masculinity consists of practices by men who do not embody hegemonic masculinity but go along with patriarchy and thus benefit from men's domination of women.

Marginalized masculinity encompasses practices of men with other intersectional identities such as race, that results in their dominance from other men. Scholars who theorize hegemonic masculinity are typically less concerned with the degree to which men live up to these enactments (few men actually do), but more concerned with how the attempts to do so reinforce patriarchy (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0013)). Hegemonic masculinity may present differently across time and place. However, a constant is that implicit or explicit threats of violence are directed towards women in service of the hegemonic masculinity project of legitimizing patriarchy (Connell, 2005 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0012)).

In their current forms, these hegemonic legitimizations of patriarchy become central to an identity that strongly emphasizes adherence to traditional masculinity in the face of perceived threats to it. Traditional masculinity ideology refers to a constellation of beliefs about what masculinity should be. Because cultural definitions of masculinity, even traditional masculinity, are fluid and multiple, a static definition is not practical (Pleck, 1995 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0048)). However, consistent components of these beliefs (hostility toward femininity, dominance and aggression, nonrelational sexuality, and restrictive emotionality) are seen in the measurement of the endorsement of traditional masculinity ideology (Levant, 2011 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0035)). These are difficult ideals to live up to and men face negative consequences attempting to do so.

O'Neil (2013 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0046)) summarized 30 years of research on such consequences describing several forms of gender role strain. Self-imposed restrictions connected to traditional masculinity are related to anxiety, intimacy problems, loneliness, and emotional dysregulation. Violating traditional male gender roles is related to substance abuse, self-objectification, and suicide. Endorsement of traditional male gender roles is related to violation of others through hostile sexism, dating violence, rape myth acceptance, and violence. All of these are common experiences of men, which we expected to see represented in posts on The Red Pill and Incel.

How people enact gender is deeply important to their self-identity. For men who construct a masculine gender identity using sexist attitudes, enactment of those sexist attitudes has generally gone underground (Glick & Fiske, 2011 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0024)). However, in community spaces friendly to displays of sexist constructions of masculinity and femininity men congregate and reinforce these beliefs (Matthews, 2014 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0041)). Our research examines discursive constructions of masculinity and femininity, represented on The Red Pill and Incel message boards. The semi-anonymity of these boards and the community culture facilitate frank discussions of these gender constructions.

THE MANOSPHERE

The manosphere is a collection of digital spaces in which hegemonic and traditional masculinity are articulated bluntly and without artifice. These spaces are rich in useful data for researchers interested in documenting the ways in which these masculinities are enacted, because it is not necessary to “read between the lines” to discern the meaning of coded messages. In addition, many sites in the manosphere have a large membership and produce an outsized impact on the world. The Elliot Rodger mass shooting is one key example but, in addition, many spaces in the manosphere seek to encourage men to internalize core red pill tenets, one of which is to subjugate women and coerce them into sex (Dignam & Rohlinger, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0017)). These sites often redefine sexual assault to exclude the kind of coercion promoted there (Gotell & Dutton, 2016 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0025)). Furthermore, the manosphere is an echo chamber where sexism and misogyny are reinforced and escalated (Ging, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0021)).

Research on the manosphere generally focuses on one or more distinctive subcultures, including Men's Rights Activists (MRAs), masculinist separatists called Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), groups formed around misogynistic seduction techniques, called Pick-Up Artists (PUA) or red pill groups, and incels. In their discourse analysis of MRA websites, Gotell and Dutton (2016 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0025)) found that the focus has moved away from fathers’ rights and toward recruiting young men by stirring up anxiety around changing consent standards and sexual assault. A recent content analysis of a MGTOW site revealed that many of the discussions about why posters identify as MGTOW concerned misogynistic constructions of women as a threat (Wright et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0063)). In an ethnography of London-based PUA communities O'Neill (2018 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0047)) elucidated how neoliberalism and post-feminism shape men's engagement with PUA instruction-based seduction communities.

Similar dynamics between masculinity and neoliberalism were present in The Red Pill message board's ‘sidebar’, a collection of essential readings prescribed by the moderators of the message board (Van Valkenburgh, 2018 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0060)). Cosma and Gurevich (2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0014)) conducted a discourse analysis with PUA media and found that women's bodies were constructed as commodities and used to bolster men's masculinity. In another study, members of the manosphere construed men as active and women as passive and discussed women through misogynistic lenses including objectification, gendered scrutiny, and the assumption that women are immoral and untrustworthy (Krendel, 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0032)).

In general, incels have not been included in data collection as part of larger explorations of the manosphere. Understandably, incels are typically discussed as a culture unto themselves, with a focus on their violent acts and violent discourse. Tomkinson et al. (2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0058)) defined incels as a violent extremist threat and recommended government intervention in terms of mobilizing public security agencies and employing deradicalization processes.

The incel subculture has been found to malign women, validate male oppression of women, and encourage violence (Glace et al., 2021 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0022); O'Malley et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0045)). In a recent study, incels presented themselves as the victims of new dating technologies, with women manipulating this new system to give themselves a higher status than (male) incels (Preston et al., 2021 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0050)). Maxwell et al. (2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0042)) theorized that incels, beset by severe loneliness and unable to live up to internalized masculine ideals, become radicalized through experiencing romantic rejection and commiserating with the incel community.

Despite the separate treatment of the incel community in the literature, the Incel message board is embedded within the manosphere, both in terms of shared membership (Ribeiro et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0051)) and beliefs about gender (Hoffman et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0027)). These beliefs about gender center around the idea that there is a surface level cultural story (that women are oppressed by patriarchy) which covers up the true nature of gender relations (that male dominance represents the natural order, which feminism is upsetting with negative consequences for everyone). This is codified through a metaphor taken from the film “The Matrix”, in which a blue pill would allow the protagonist to return to his existence in the false world and a red pill would allow him to break free and learn the truth about reality.

The term “red pill” is shared across the manosphere, tying different groups together with the underlying belief that the metaphor represents (i.e. a kind of libertarian heterosexuality in which men and women are rational actors seeking to maximize different kinds of gains; Gavey, 2005 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0020), Hoffman et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0027)). This is where The Red Pill forum in the manosphere gets its name. The corresponding “blue pill” in the ideology of the manosphere represents everyone else who remains ignorant of red pill “truths” (Labbaf, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0034)). Both Incel and The Red Pill position themselves in opposition to the blue pill ideology, the only difference being the presence of “black pill” terminology among incels, which represents the additional “truth” of permanent hopelessness (of having a romantic or sexual relationship) that they accept for themselves (Hoffman et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0027)).

The relatively small body of social scientific research on the manosphere has been somewhat diffuse in both purpose and focus. The studies conducted to date differ from our proposed study most centrally in terms of scope, in that no research thus far has collected data from both The Red Pill and Incel. Our study seeks to do so in recognition of the fact that Incel formed in reaction to The Red Pill and other communities like it (Labbaf, 2019 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0034)) and the two communities continue to be in dialogue with each other. Our study also differs from past research in that the only previous study that conducted a content analysis on data from The Red Pill examined core ideological texts rather than direct member discourse (Van Valkenburgh, 2018 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0060)).

Research focused on Incel has relied on exploratory thematic analyses of member discourse, similar to ours (Maxwell et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0042); O'Malley et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0045)). However, our analysis of the Incel community connects it back into the larger manosphere, weaving common threads together to speak to the diverse responses that participants in the manosphere can have to similar underlying misogynistic ideologies. This goal is in line with quantitative findings that, over time, different spaces within the manosphere tend to share the same user base (Ribeiro et al., 2020 (https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/asap.12308#asap12308-bib-0051)).

THE PRESENT STUDY

To better understand hegemonic and traditional masculinity in the current sociohistorical moment, and to explore the ways in which masculine ideology is articulated in online message boards that are part of the manosphere, we conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of posts on The Red Pill and Incel message boards. Our goal was to better understand these men's beliefs about men and women. To facilitate this exploratory study, we used a thematic analysis of conversations in the message boards to develop themes that highlight and explain members’ ideologies.

METHOD...

12 24 an

One-half of the country duo Big & Rich laid into Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday evening over the senator's comments about Pete Hegseth (https://www.rawstory.com/hegseth-trump-2670311766/), President-elect Donald Trump's embattled pick for Pentagon chief (https://www.rawstory.com/pete-hegseth-2670313712/).

John Rich, a vocal supporter of Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) — and vehement opponent of Joe Biden (https://www.newsweek.com/john-rich-joe-biden-donald-trump-new-york-1904941) who once mocked the president as "Sniffy" over his sniffles — took to the social media site X to voice his displeasure with Republicans waffling on Hegseth's nomination.

"The pro-war RINO's (https://x.com/johnrich/status/1864290125061992698) are all against @PeteHegseth and that tells you all you need to know," wrote Rich. "Pete is a threat to the war machine. Recess appointments?"

He added in a separate post, "Don't Kavanaugh our Hegseth," referring to the tough confirmation hearing of Supreme Court (https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court/) Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination was dogged by a sexual assault allegation and protests.

Rich then set his sights on Graham, who has called the allegations against Hegseth "disturbing." (https://www.rawstory.com/lindsey-graham-pete-hegseth/)

"I think some of these articles are very disturbing. He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is it's going to be difficult..." Graham told CBS News.

Rich unleashed a series of posts on X targeting Graham, including at least two that used a homophobic reference.

"Who do you trust more (https://x.com/johnrich/status/1864420374429028826)? (repost for maximum results and hilarious responses:)" Rich asked his followers, providing just two responses: Santa Claus and Lindsey Graham.

"I sat across from Lindsey Graham at dinner with DJT a while back. As I was answering a direct question from POTUS, Lindsey twirled his Chardonnay (https://x.com/johnrich/status/1864428115323208026) (pinkies up) and told Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) I was a raging conspiracy theorist. I gave him a look that would hairlip the devil, then dismantled him," Rich later posted.

He added: "I've seen tougher guys at Starbucks."

Rich didn't stop there. He shared Graham's office number to his followers and urged them to let him know their feelings about confirming Hegseth.

"This better have 5k reposts before I go to bed," he challenged his followers.

Within an hour, the post had thousands of reposts.

"Welp, that didn't take long (https://x.com/johnrich/status/1864439083122012324)," he followed up.

12 24 rww

Angry White Men (https://angrywhitemen.org/2024/12/03/jake-shields-tells-david-duke-that-the-u-s-should-stay-a-majority-white-country/): Jake Shields Tells David Duke That The U.S. ‘Should Stay A Majority-White Country’

On his Rumble and YouTube show, Fight Back, MMA fighter-turned-antisemitic podcaster Jake Shields interviewed ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. During the show, Shields denied being a “white nationalist” while declaring that “we’re doing way too much immigration,” and that “we should stay a majority-white country.”

11 24 BB

Former comedian Russell Brand ended up selling "magical amulets" for "EMF protection" (https://boingboing.net/2024/11/22/how-former-comedian-russell-brand-ended-up-selling-magical-amulets-for-emf-protection.html)[

Manosphere influencers and Rumble streamers respond to Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy by claiming it's a coup and the 2024 election will be rigged (https://www.mediamatters.org/kamala-harris/manosphere-influencers-and-rumble-streamers-respond-kamala-harris-presidential)

08/02/24

...

ymail 11 24

SR

A near-majority of American voters willingly reelected Donald Trump. This harsh reality is a collective moral failure, but it’s also not a choice made in sound mind.

Consider that voters believed (https://www.axios.com/2024/04/15/trump-presidency-poll-biden-memories-remember) Trump’s first presidency was a roaring success and Joe Biden’s only term a Carter-level catastrophe. It’s an upside-down Bizarro World view that ultimately played a key role in dooming Kamala Harris.

[

The global anti-incumbent backlash doomed Kamala Harris

\Noah Berlatsky (https://substack.com/profile/2185926-noah-berlatsky)

·

Nov 7

\Read full story (https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kamala-harris-anti-incumbent-backlash-2024)](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/kamala-harris-anti-incumbent-backlash-2024)

Trump’s 2024 platform was rooted in an obvious lie — that the nation under Biden’s leadership is a flaming dumpster fire and everyone was much better off when Trump was president. Democrats challenged this false reality with facts, but they ultimately lost the messaging war. Their best efforts were no match for the most powerful weapons in Trump’s propaganda arsenal — a timid press and a right-coded social social media environment.

Greg Sargent reports (https://newrepublic.com/article/188238/trump-won-voter-perception-2024) in the New Republic that the Harris campaign’s own internal polling revealed an alarming trend: “Undecided voters didn’t believe that some of the highest profile things that happened during Trump’s presidency — even if they saw these things negatively — were his fault.”

According to exit polls (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-pollshttps://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls), Trump decisively won the questions “who do you trust more to handle the economy?” and “who do you trust most to handle a crisis?” Of course, in reality Trump utterly botched the 2020 pandemic response, which researchers concluded resulted in 40 percent more deaths (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/10/us-coronavirus-response-donald-trump-health-policy) than necessary. And yet swing voters are willing to risk it all again in hopes of cheaper eggs and cruelty against outgroups.

Disinformation on demand

Legacy media shoulders significant blame for their “sanewashing” of Trump’s incoherency and deteriorating mental state. Voters believed Trump could fix a steadily improving economy despite his promotion of inflationary tariffs. The media even presented Trump’s rants as cogent discussions of economic theory.

Sanewashing and the damage done

\Stephen Robinson (https://substack.com/profile/52692688-stephen-robinson)

·

Sep 10

\Read full story (https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-sanewashing-2024-campaign-nyt-cnn)](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-sanewashing-2024-campaign-nyt-cnn)

It’s worth noting, however, that an NBC poll (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-trump-supporters-sharply-divided-media-consume-rcna149497) from April revealed that voters who received news primarily from legacy media (newspapers, cable news, etc.) still overwhelmingly supported Biden. Trump owes his victory in great part to low-propensity voters of all races, including young men, and those voters don’t necessarily form their views based on mainstream media reporting. Rather, far too many are stuck in an online social media bubble where they are delivered a steady diet of rightwing propaganda.

The median age of a Fox News viewer is 68, and liberals have joked about the network “brainwashing” their conservative parents. But rightwing social media content has effectively targeted and radicalized younger people, who — unlike the typical Hannity-obsessed grandpa — can vote for the next several decades.

TikTok, which Trump joined in June, has 170 million users in the United States, and according (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/) a Pew Research survey, more than half of them said they regularly get their news from the platform. That’s up from just 22 percent in 2020. This is a serious concern because the far right uses (https://vsquare.org/far-right-tiktok-lies-conspiracies/) TikTok to advance unfounded conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Rightwing content on TikTok goes mostly unchallenged. In the past year, there were twice as many (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/us/politics/trump-biden-tiktok.html) pro-Trump posts as pro-Democratic ones. A recent estimate places 70 percent of TikTok’s users between the ages of 18 to 35. Once a key Democratic constituency, Kamala Harris won voters aged 18 to 44 by just 5 points (51 to 46 percent), a steep decline from Joe Biden’s 14 point margin (56 to 42 percent).

Trump surrogates boosted his youth appeal on the platform with videos of him attending Ultimate Fighting Championship matches and college football tailgates. Meanwhile, over the past year, TikTok users have encountered an onslaught of posts criticizing the Biden/Harris economy. The term “Silent Depression” went viral, as seemingly average, everyday young people complained about increased costs for housing, food, and transportation.

IFrame Content (https://cdn.iframe.ly/api/iframe?media=1&app=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40woodsowned%2Fvideo%2F7287644943944781098%3Fq%3Dinflation%26t%3D1701718192609&key=e27c740634285c9ddc20db64f73358dd) tiktok vid]

(https://www.tiktok.com/@woodsowned/video/7287644943944781098)

@woodsowned (https://www.tiktok.com/@woodsowned)💰Inflation on the rise!📈 Brace yourself, it's a rollercoaster ride!😱 #EconomyCrisis #economy #inflation (https://www.tiktok.com/@woodsowned/video/7287644943944781098)

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser]

Woods Owned frequently posted video compilations of Americans shouting about inflation. Blair Allison, an avowed Trump supporter, received millions of views for her video that wondered “how people can afford to live right now.” These videos fostered a negative feedback loop, and content creator Kyla Scanlon, who birthed the term “vibecession (https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-vibecession-the-self-fulfilling),” warned last year that people were steadily getting angrier about the economy.

Lower income Americans, particularly young people, do spend more of their income on groceries, rent, and gas. That’s why Republicans were so laser focused on the price of eggs. Unfortunately, there’s a dearth of liberal content countering the negative vibes. Of course, explaining the post-pandemic economic recovery is complex and requires more than a punchy one-minute video can convey. Although people might idly scroll TikTok all day, consuming 60-second quick hit videos like potato chips, they will balk at reading an extensive, well-reported news article. That’s too filling a meal.

[

Trump demands Senate recess so he can install Star Wars cantina

\Liz Dye (https://substack.com/profile/6000720-liz-dye)

·

Nov 13

\Read full story (https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-recess-appointments-demand-gop-senate)](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-recess-appointments-demand-gop-senate)

According to a University of Oregon study (https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/items/6b949c45-9233-42cb-8b9e-92498f3e0c19), 40 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans surveyed said they’d become more conservative from their TikTok usage. Half of the Democrats surveyed said they’d grown more liberal, but a lot of far-left content on TikTok is downright alienating and can sound like MAGA’s idea of a strawman leftist. For instance, one user boasted (https://www.tiktok.com/@leftistmommy/video/7433467296372346155) that she “didn’t care” if liberal economic and social policies “hurt the economy,” thus conceding that those policies are in fact harmful to economic progress.

TikTok’s artificial “vibecession” dominated the discourse, while abortion-related content was actively suppressed even while pregnant women were bleeding out in parking lots. Users of the platform resorted to disguising the word “abortion” as “aborshun” or “ab0rti0n” in order to reach an audience. TikTok has a longstanding policy against promoting abortion services, which it classifies as “unsuitable businesses, products or services.” However, TikTok, YouTube, and Meta have allowed users (https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/abortion-misinformation-social-media-losing-ground) to spread and monetize anti-abortion misinformation.

Studies have shown (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/09/social-media-traditional-news-elections-00188548) an interesting gender gap in where young people receive their news on social media: For most women, it’s TikTok, while most men learn about the world from YouTube, X, and Reddit, all of which have become havens of crude masculinity.

On YouTube, 56 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 44. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based nonprofit that researches extremism, conducted a four-part research project this year that determined (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtubes-algorithm-recommends-users-right-wing-religious-content-resea-rcna155478) YouTube’s algorithm consistently steers users to rightwing and Christian content. The algorithm does this even with seemingly apolitical search terms, like “male lifestyle guru,” which YouTube reflexively associates with conservative ideology. Rightwing news content was also more frequently recommended, including anti-vaxxer videos. As far back as 2019, both YouTube and Facebook’s autofill search boxes would return content that promoted (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/01/facebook-youtube-anti-vaccination-misinformation-social-media) anti-vaccine misinformation.

Meta’s social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Threads suppress political content, and while this has choked off liberal creators, far-right ones still thrive. Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro have millions of followers on Facebook and there’s significant engagement with their rage bait. They also drive the political debate, often putting Democrats on the defensive. Walsh supercharged the “groomer (https://www.vice.com/en/article/anti-trans-violence-2022/)” smears against LGBTQ Americans, which led to anti-queer legislation in Florida and other red states. There’s a direct line (https://forward.com/opinion/515868/libs-of-tiktok-is-fueling-a-pogrom-against-trans-youth/) from hate influencer Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok social media posts to Trump’s sudden fixation with trans youth.

Why rightwing content has the edge

When Kamala Harris appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast, host Alexandra Cooper told her listeners, “I do not usually discuss politics or have politicians on the show because I want Call Her Daddy to be a place that everyone feels comfortable tuning in.” Left-leaning podcasters/social media content creators often avoid politics for fear of turning off their right-leaning fans. Joe Rogan and Dave Portnoy at Barstool Sports don’t bother with such apologies when they have rightwing guests because it doesn’t compromise their brand. They are rightwing cultural influencers.

Liberal podcaster Hasan Piker recently commented (https://x.com/RealTStevenson/status/1845933434101027048) on the impact rightwing influencers have on young men of all races.

“There is a massive amount of rightwing radicalization that has been occurring, especially in younger male spaces. Everything is completely dominated by rightwing politics,” he said. “If you’re a dude under the age of 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever, whether it’s playing video games, whether it’s working out, whether it’s listening to a history podcast or whatever, every single facet of that is completely dominated by center right to [the] Trumpian right. Everything they see is rightwing sentiment.”

The wreckage Merrick Garland leaves behind

\Lisa Needham (https://substack.com/profile/10292-lisa-needham)

Nov 8

\Read full story (https://www.publicnotice.co/p/merrick-garland-failures-explained)](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/merrick-garland-failures-explained)

Rogan and Portnoy might not present as overtly political as Walsh and Shapiro, but their edgy, hyper masculine personas are pure MAGA. Even billionaire CEO Elon Musk likes to present himself as a “disrupter,” an agent of change who boldly confronts the status quo. Anyone who’s seen the more popular indie films of the 1970s would realize how compelling this narrative is to young men.

The subtle way that Rogan and Portnoy infuse politics into their personas presents a contrast with left-leaning social media content. The liberal TikToker or YouTuber who releases videos about home makeovers might endorse Democratic politicians during election season while wearing their “just voted” sticker, but rightwing influencers prime their audience on a daily basis. Young men marinate in a stew of rightwing sentiment and end up resenting the libs.

Trump significantly improved his performance among Latino voters, outright winning Latinos in Michigan and flipping some predominately Latino districts in the northeast. This shocked Democrats considering Trump’s brutal anti-immigrant rhetoric. But Latinos are a disproportionately younger voting cohort and they use social media more regularly (https://www.prri.org/spotlight/who-uses-social-media-most-frequently/) than white Americans. It’s reasonable to assume that most of those voters were shielded from Trump’s more grotesque positions or only encountered them through rightwing commentators defending them.

It’s true that Latinos are not a homogenous voting bloc, and a third-generation Latino in a Texas border town might have a harder line on border security than a white liberal in Portland. But it’s definitely convenient for Trump and the GOP that Latino voters ranked the economy and violent crime as their top issues, both of which right-coded social media platforms present as five-alarm fires.

Another area of concern for Democrats is that Trump doubled his share of support among young Black men. As the civil rights movement fades further into the past, Black voters’ cultural and traditional links to the Democratic Party are becoming less secure. Studies (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2023/09/26/black-americans-news-habits/) have also shown that Black Americans are now less likely to get their news from political and religious leaders than from social media platforms. (Rogan has a sizable Black audience, (https://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/The-Top-10-Podcasts-Among-Black-Listeners.png) more so even than The Breakfast Club.)

At first glance, it seems condescending to declare that voters made the wrong choice because they didn’t know any better. However, on every major issue, voters were fundamentally misinformed (https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/trust-mainstream-media-2024-election-20241110.html?id=bpjtJ3uwA0BYL&utm_source=social&utm_campaign=gift_link&utm_medium=referral) and insisting otherwise won’t improve Democrats’ chances in future elections. Democratic politicians and liberals need to quickly discover some way to engage in this Orwellian information environment. Otherwise, all the self-flagellation about messaging failures and policy changes won’t amount to much.

Thanks for reading Public Notice.