The Manosphere That Delivered Trump Back to Power
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Former president donal trump, we wrote the walls, held the american justice system, treats our nations most powerful people. Hello, it's antia bernstein and the host of the law, according to trump, a special series from sleep plus. Long before the supreme court granted presidential immunity, down of punk created a blueprint for shield ding himself from legal accountability on everything, taxes to fraud to discrimination. Listen, as we explore a trump y history of bending the law to his will, check out the law according to trump wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you very much. well.

On election night, Donald trump delivered his Victory speech surrounded by those who had helped him regain control of the White house. And at one point he handed the microphone to dana White, whose CEO of the ultimate fighting champion shop.

I I want to thank some people real quick. I want to thank the mail is in .

ross theodore .

basson with the boys and last but not least, the mighty powerful joe rogan.

A lot of people responded to this list with a resounding who, but weird senior writer mechanic Kelly wasn't shocked to hear them.

And I think I just signifies how important these folks were to trust Victory.

In the run APP to the election, the trump campaign bypass traditional media outlets. Instead, he spent three hours talking .

the joe rogan face in chatting with podcasting theodore. I've been in recovery most of the last ten years. How did you get addicted? No, I would just do cocaine.

And being gifted a cyber truck by kick streamer aand ross, right? Well, you got ready.

See the gift. Yeah, I ww.

you can't miss IT. That's an elan.

These men are all headliners in a new media ecosystem, and talking to them was a calculated move.

In twenty twenty, I think everyone on the campaign realized that trump hat hit his peak in popularity. There was no one else that he was going to turn out that was as high as he was going to go. And so this year, what they focus on, especially towards the end of this election cycle from the summer on, they really were focused on getting those people who typically don't vote.

Crucially, these creators all had one thing in common, a largely Young male audience. IT was a bold move by the campaign, but IT worked.

You want to put prompt front of a political audience as people who are more interested in sports and maybe you're registered to vote. Um and I think you know if if these podcast appearances and influencing our clubs were not the reason for trump winning, IT definitely played a significant role.

Today on the show, how Donald trump used a new generation of media influencers to reach hearts, minds and ballots. I'm Shawn, a raw filling in for lazy, and you're listening to what next? T, V, D, A show about technology, power and how the future will be determined. Stick around.

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Hi, carver wallace. And on this week's slay device podcast, how to we're tackling the future of reproductive health care in the U. S. Which now feels uncertain after twenty and twenty four, but has been uncertain for some time. But there is one thing that is certain, which is that men need to share a greater responsibility for contraception.

This idea that there's something that's unmaintained reproductive health care means that we don't welcome men into our health care settings.

Look for how to man up about male birth control in the how to feed and find IT wherever you listen.

To understand the connection between Donald trump, these influencers and the Young men that connect them all, you first have to understand the mano sphere, the very online, very male, very White fear that reveals in hyper malindy and has its own set of stars.

And you tate, for example, who is an informal mythos us, who is kind of one of one of the main people, and pick up culture where you're teaching Young men how to pick up women and youtube videos in podcast.

women want to be with a man which keeps them entertained and a men which they trust, and a man which they believe can fix all their problems. This is another important thing. If a woman comes due with an issue and you can't fix IT, you'll see very quickly how soon they lose attract.

would you? These people were speaking to what people like to call this loneliness epidemic with a Young men where they're feeling more left behind as women um are going to college more than they are. Women are trying to make you know more money than they were still not as much as men or more than men.

And I think these people, these men, feel a bit threatened. And these people, these toddlers like, and are to tell them that you're right. I want to confirm your feelings. And you know what, with trump having these conversations with trump, he's giving them an outlet to create this kind of political change, or the social change, cultural change they're looking to do anyways.

These influencers might not be household names, but they have huge fan bases. And rotate had millions of followers, at least until he was arrested for rape and human trafficking. Joe rogan and theo van have two of the most popular podcast in the country, eight.

And ross has more than seven million followers on the streaming platform. Kick for their fans. Watching or listening isn't just about entertainment. It's an identity.

You know, someone who listens to joe rogan, there is a type of person who is a joe rogan listener. There is a type of person who watches boxing and wrestling and nose of login jack paul. These are specific communities of people who engage with each other very frequently.

The manufacture is like a whole group of, you know blogs and youtube videos and all of this stuff, discord servers where these people are constantly connecting with each other you know, in reaffirming again, you know, these believes. So yeah, I do think it's not only just the size, which definitely places huge role, but also like the communities behind them and how active that they are. These .

communities have their differences, but there's one thread that links all of them together.

Well, if you look at all of the guys that trumps ent a lot of time, where they all have this specific definition of masculinity, which is not what I think tim walls or the commonly Harris campaign was selling over the summer, I think their definition masculine y is not is more focused on you know this concept of protection um protecting women, whatever they think that is even though it's not support you know abortion rates for things like that um but protecting women uh being the men of the house there has been this this even amongst the women in many ways, this desire to go back to know traditional values and I think even though these men are maybe a bit more hyper massu in, they don't they most of them don't have girls, you know, girlfriends or wives themselves. They still preach the stuff to people who have these feelings .

and thoughts. What was the trump campaign method for these voters? Did they, like, initiate this relationship with these pod casters and these influencers? How did this work?

Yeah uh IT sounds like there is a lot of reaching out to these people specifically um and targeting them. Uh I think they saw that the audience that these boxes had was the audience that they needed to reach and um I think they know White also helped on he, of course, the C E. O of U F C.

He's well connected to the paul brothers, for example, people like eight and ross. He's in that circle. I'm sure he was a mix of reaching out to these people and having people on the campaign with president relationships and setting all that up. The trip told me after the election was that traditional media outlets do not reach Young men the way that they want to be reached. And if that was the audience that they were hoping to contact and turn out, then they need to define different methods in different mediums of doing so.

When we come back, the democrats social media game was going well until suddenly IT wasn't. Can they find their own joe rogan experience?

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Biden really leaned heavily on influencers in twenty twenty, and they seem to they seem poised to capitalize on that in this election too. But he didn't seem to work. What happened?

No, I think IT actually starts with um the biden campaign before we even move into Harris over the last you know hundred days or so of the campaign that he ran. We lost the entire narrative of biden who was biden you know we have been told for so long that bit and know he's a sweet grandpa who likes ice cream wars.

Amy, is he that what? Or is biting the old, you know, senate man who will save democracy? You know, he IT was very hard to kind of decide.

Know, is very hard to identify exactly who bin was. And I think we lost that a lot of IT. I think the same kind of happy with commis where they were focusing so much on whatever the data and analytics were telling them to do. I think they were just so include in on that, that they lost the bigger picture. And we didn't really have I think voters didn't really see a true clear picture who commonly was through their digital IT.

Almost sounds like you're saying they overthought IT on some level.

I think that's exactly yet. And I think you know there's a big reason why, which I think you know a lot of the same people who are running the biden campaign digital team this year with the same folks who help in twenty, they have been doing this for a while. You know at this point, anything, they've developed a playbook and they wanted to um refine that playbook and instead of, you know they miss the force for the trees because they were just too too glued in on the numbers. All this content and viral but IT didn't come back together to create that you know that that real final image of who who was that that they were trying to sell to voters and how .

did that differ from the influences for trump .

yeah what I think trump specifically, he is known and the people who love trump r gonna turn out for trump regardless, no matter what. Um and I think the decision to go after these Young men he jump did IT in so many different ways. We talk about the podcast um and joe rogan eth seta.

But the one thing we have to mention like elon musk and x like that is a very he leans into the same stuff. He leans into the same a people should you have traditional families? They should have lots of children.

Um he likes to you know say that he made IT on his own and he is a successful businessman like trump. Um that is a very you know that plays its own part in this reaching Young man. And also like you look at what trump did a lot through, you know the final months of this campaign, he reached out to crypto voters.

You turning into this kind of more right leaning libertarian folks who also, you know, kind of if they are not a part of this ecosystem, they at least circle IT. And so for trump, P R E new that he had the people that he had, he decided that these were the folks that we needed. And he just went straight into IT did not think too much about other people, other groups of people, on what they needed to see, because they already know.

So how did sort of make her own attempt at utilizing influencers, particularly podcast? He went on, call her daddy, trying to appeal to Young women SHE went on the all the smoke sports podcast are trying to peal a particularly to black men. And I just didn't seem to take for her yeah.

I know I don't know this for sure, but what a trump adviser did tell me, and when I came to trump in the strategy was that there were no rules uh when uh trump ent IT was a trump in this person, there is no discussion about what questions are going to be asked.

You're just going to let these men yet like that was the agreement um and IT seems you know from what working hearing a behind the scenes you know from joe rogan about his discussion of the comparison amp ign, they wanted to be a bit more hands on in his podcast and joe rogan podcast with the of on after the election. He said that the uh campaign wanted to be able to look at the final edit before I went up, or you have some role, the editing process, they used these people further audiences that I don't think that they put calmly there in the way that their audiences are used to seeing people. But again, like you have to look at commonly hair and understand what it's like being a woman running for president. They are going to say that they are going to crutty everything that you do anyways.

This way of presenting Harris, professional, calculated and maybe a bit bland, Carried over to the ecosystem of many democratic influencers.

There are have a bit more professional class, I think you could say, and their audiences know what they're getting from them in terms of politics. They're going to croats and they're going to run, you know, maybe some side me account sets like talking about all of commonality asses wins and their kind of predictable there for that reason.

And then I think on the side, the right side, the republican side, these are they're it's not a political professional you know, ecosystem. These are guys who am have built their platforms themselves for the most part, and they have huge followings. Uh, and they don't need Donald trump really. Donald trump is getting a lot more from them at this point that they are getting from him.

Do we know how much people these days get their news from alternative media like your joe rogan or other podcast versus that traditional media like CNN, fox news, M S N B C you know old .

media is not reaching the types of the Younger groups of people and as those people grow into a larger voting blog, um i'm afraid that you they might unless you know CNN or the york times or whoever decides to change their business model radically or find one that works in the now in this uh industry in this moment in time um they're going to lose these people and uh so longer that doesn't change. I think the joe rogan of the world um all of these pod casters will be far more dominant uh in the coming years.

Do you think it's just the distrust in traditional media that is causing this shift? Or is IT something more?

Distrust certainly plays a role, something that I think a lot about as reporter is how to make myself more than my byline.

How am I beyond the name that's on the magazine, right, the black sea front? And how can I take readers in behind what my reporting is in order to may be earn a little bit more trust and get let them get to know me Better uh whether you know people know joe and really they watch all of his episodes every week um what they are driving in their cars or they're working um he's on all the time. They're very familiar with him. What people are seeking more and more online is not just especially with how capture the internet is, is not just a place to post you know, their thoughts, but they are looking for online communities.

I think one of the things that makes people nervous about all this is that part of the role of traditional media is to be impartial and push back against a campaign when they feel it's necessary. But influencers are beholding into that, and they're not even required to a search thereby as or sort of make IT obvious.

You know, I thinking about how when someone is selling something on social media, they have to put add, if you are working for a campaign, either directly or indirectly, you don't have to put campaign sponsor or anything on your post. Is the uptake in alternative media as a way to get a politicians message out concerning to you? Or is IT really just an an inevitable natural evolution of where our media landscape is going?

It's messy, so and it's going to continue to get messer. Um and I think I would want to be a bit more optimistic about audiences online. And I think a lot of them are starting. I saw so much push back um from tiktok ers, just regular users on instagram being like this person sold out to the biden campaign or whatever know we don't know they actually receive money pursue but they definitely know told the party line and I think that was pointed a lot, pointed out a lot by audiences. And I think the best case scenario for the future is the best parts of influencer media, meet the best parts of journalism and um create something that you know is still back checking is in the holds a certain standard of ethics um but also you know understands that these people know what they're doing, at least in a shop now, at least in a couple different ways, right and we should take lessons from them. We shouldn't just disregard them entirely because, of course, you know, there's a reason why they're so popular and we could learn from that.

Mechanical elly, thank you so much for joining us.

course. Great being here.

Mechanical elly is a senior political writer for wired, and that is IT for our show today. What next? T V D is produced by evan cambell, Patrick ford, analisa, Young Perry.

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You get all your slight podcast add free, as well as exclusive bonus content like what the surge, which on tax the crazy political news surrounding the election and let's face IT, in these upcoming months, years, you're going to need IT. We will be back sunday with another episode i'm shame a rah filling in philoxenia you can find me a blue sky and instagram. Thanks for listening.