Team Trump could also struggle to reach its usual base this year, meaning they will have to rely on alternatives. Earlier this week, The Atlantic reported that traffic belonging to the top 10 conservative and right-wing news sites has decreased 40 percent since the last presidential election, in 2020. It was these outlets, like Breitbart, that took advantage of the Internet to elect Trump in 2016. Now that machine is breaking down.
“The mainstream media is dead. They are dead. They just haven’t realized it yet,” a former Ramaswamy staffer told me at his caucus night party in January. “If you look at the types of voters that make up the America First movement, they get their news from alternative media. “Fox News is just a very small portion.” Paul and other creators like him could fill this void.
Trump’s team is realizing this. Before, right-wing media and Trump’s online fans together generated enough buzz that he didn’t need to build these relationships himself. But as the media landscape has changed, so must the campaign. Last year, the former president appeared on the Nelk Boys show. Complete shipping podcast, where he was interrogated, of all things, on spice ice. He too organized a dinner for conservative influencers. The fact that the campaign is considering joining forces with Paul marks the next step in his strategy.
It’s not just about the presidential candidates, either. On Tuesday, NBC News reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is trying not to be fired by his own party, briefed popular conservative influencers and activists about his election integrity bill. Popular social media figures, including LibsofTikTok, DC Draino, and End Wokeness, were informed and in turn posted messages in support of the bill.
While Johnson’s briefing was an attempt to create his own viral moment, Trump’s attendance at the Paul fight would mean he would take advantage of an opportunity that makes sense for his brand. Trump’s involvement in the bravado of men’s fighting sports has spanned decades. More than a decade ago, participated in a Wrestlemania match with Vince McMahon. Recently, Trump has been attending more UFC fights and becoming friends with Dana White.
Not only will Paul be promoting this summer’s fight through his social media accounts, but Netflix will also livestream the fight, allowing him to reach the more than 260 million users of the streaming platform. Many digital consultants say Political advertising on streaming apps like Netflix. It will be huge this year. Unlike with a New York Times article or an Instagram post, users are often glued to a movie or show, and some services can force your audiences to see ads, depending on their subscription level.
“If I were a political candidate, this would be the moment where I would recognize that Jake Paul has an exceptionally large audience and I would want to leverage it to benefit myself in some way,” Lukito told me.
All of this is to say that we live in a world where Jake Paul’s endorsement carries weight in politics. Social platforms no longer prioritize news content: they are fixated on the creator economy. Influencers dominate these feeds, where most American voters read the news, and we should expect more YouTube-style collaborations like these, at least through November. Get prepared. It’s going to be every day, brother..
The chat room
NextGen America, the nonpartisan youth voting organization, announced it would launch a new Discord bot to register young voters earlier this week. The bot is adorably called VOTE-E and is built on OpenAI’s GPT-4. You’ll apparently be able to answer a variety of voting questions in direct messages via Discord.
“There’s a big problem: communications to the gaming community from the political space haven’t really felt authentic, like ‘Pokémon goes to the polls,'” Grant Wiles, vice president of data, research and surveys at NextGen, told me. the phone.