Democrats losing the culture war as Trump builds authentic influencer bonds

Democrats once dominated pop culture. We had Beyoncé campaigning for Obama, Katy Perry performing for Hillary, and Kamala Harris appearing with celebrities like Lady Gaga and Megan Thee Stallion. Pop culture was blue. But something’s changed.

Now, it’s Trump engaging with UFC personalities, podcast stars, and crypto influencers. He doesn’t just appear on their shows; he builds relationships. He invites figures like Theo Von to visit troops in the Middle East and welcomes them to Mar-a-Lago, not just for content creation but to connect. It’s not about messaging. It’s about belonging.

In contrast, Democrats have viral creators mocking Republican makeup or roasting right-wing talking points, but it’s mostly self-congratulatory. It doesn’t win converts — it amuses the base. Meanwhile, undecided voters are tuning into Theo Von, who recently called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide, Andrew Schulz, who recently hosted Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. These figures aren’t lockstep conservatives. They’re credible, curious, and, most importantly, relatable.

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As a recent New York Times article highlighted, Trump’s connection to influencers isn’t surface-level. It’s relationship-driven. He’s not using them. He’s including them. That’s the kind of real-world, real-time attention Democrats need to start paying to the influencer class. Today’s conservative influencers aren’t your father’s talk radio hosts. They’re running podcasts, headlining comedy tours, and dominating TikTok. They’re the new mainstream.

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Democrats are now spending $20 million trying to figure out how to talk to young men, launching a strategy called “SAM” to study what makes this group tick. But here’s the issue: the same consultants who taught Barack Obama to say “Yes We Can” in 2008 are still the ones deciding messaging in 2025. It’s stale. It’s top-down. And it completely misses the point. 

Young men don’t want to be targeted like a marketing demo. They want to be spoken to like actual people. They’re forming political opinions in podcasts, in group chats, and in the comments — not from someone’s paid ad in a video game.

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If Democrats want to win the next generation, it’s not enough to put celebrities on stage every four years. We need a strategy that actually engages voters where they live: online, in the algorithm, and in the culture.

If we don’t, we’ll keep losing influence to a movement that figured out long ago that attention is power, and culture wins.

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