This really captures how the online right have completely and utterly outflanked the left among Gen Z and younger, chronically online millennials. It really is very different than 2016. Because its behind a paywall, I'll quote some of the relevant parts here:
"They are not
disenfranchised or
working class or
anti-elite or many of the other adjectives used to describe Trump supporters since 2016. Rather, they are young, imposingly well connected, urban, and very online. They are rebels once again storming Capitol Hill, though without the pathetic scariness of the January 6 rioters.
They are crypto nerds and influencer girlies and recent
MAHA converts and gays of all stripes, plus your standard-fare
Rogan-listening bros...
"This set’s most visible political stance is a reaction to what it sees as the left’s puritanical obsessions with policing language and talking about identity. A joke about Puerto Ricans or eugenics or sleeping with Nick Fuentes could throw a pack of smokers outside Butterworth’s into a gigglefest. Recounting her time at one of the balls, a woman tells me she jumped the velvet rope into a VIP section “like a little Mexican.” Then she lets out a cackle. This is the posture that has attracted newcomers to the cause...
"At least one TikTok employee who works in the “policy” department was there; asked about changes to the app’s guidelines in recent months, he told me cheerfully, “We’re letting a lot more stuff through. A lot.”
This was the media ecosystem that flourished under the noses of the Democrats while they busied themselves trying to court Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. “MAGA is MTV for Gen Z. This isn’t the fringe. This is youth pop culture. I’ve been saying this for years,” said Mitchell Jackson, a publicist and crisis consultant who works with conservative podcasters. “Meanwhile, Democrats sound like ’80s Republicans protesting rap songs.”
"All weekend, everyone in this set kept referring to themselves as “normal.” In their eyes, they are representative of the rest of the country — if not how they look, exactly, then how they talk. After all, the mainstream media had nearly declared a Harris victory after a comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally made racist jokes about Puerto Ricans, only for Trump to set a GOP record with Latino voters. Raquel Debono, when trying to explain why she likes to tell fat jokes, told me, “I’m normal, okay? Probably the most fecking normal person here.” Even her “lib” friends, she says, enjoy a not-so-PC joke every now and then, but only behind closed doors...
"Still, it was disconcerting how often a normal conversation with one of these so-called normal people could cannonball from politics and policy into, at the very least, a not-so-PC joke and, at worst, something hateful.
When I first reached out to Wexler, for example, asking to talk about her weekend plans for the inauguration, she wrote back, “Let’s do it. Full transparency, I think ‘pronouns’ are ‘retarded.’” She asked me to tell my readers that. “Tomorrow, we’re going to have images of them rounding up illegals and deporting them. That’s exciting,” she said another time, cackling."
) zombies crushing all hope for a future.
