Why Trump Is Winning the Battle for Young Men
(Maybe Because the Democrats Don’t Know Funny? Except Bernie, Of Course. And They Forgot to Do "This Past Weekend" with Theo Von?)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=theo+von+with+trump
Looking back through the Hot Globe archives, I notice Comedy Comes to Climate Change is in the Top 3 with Amory Lovins (the Godfather of All Climate Change Solutions) and Ralph Keeling, (the cheerful curator of the ever-depressing Keeling Curve of rising CO2. )
Yet right now, climate solutions are all about winning the November 5 Presidential election against a couple of weird guys who claim climate change is a Chinese hoax. And one of the most important mysteries to a liberal media that in fact does understand the climate crisis quite well is why so many young men, especially young white guys but others in the melanin sweepstakes, too, are slated to vote for Trump.
A big reason is that Trump goes where young guys listen, a broad band of the airwaves about which the elite press and networks are, alas, clueless or afraid to go.
Let me, therefore, introduce you to popular self-proclaimed white trash* comedian Theo Von.
Von points out he didn’t feel white privilege because he grew up too poor to own a sweater. (That’s a good joke.) He just wore two wife-beaters one over the other in the winter.
If you don't know who Theo Von is (or what a sleeveless wife-beater t-shirt is) then you might not understand why Harris is doing so poorly with this large cohort of the disgruntled.
Some stats: Donald Trump went on Von's podcast last month and 13.1 million viewers tuned in. Harris/Walz went on CNN with Dana Bash, an interview widely covered and praised to the heavens by the liberal media, and got 6.1 million views.
You do the math.
Lest you think young Von is some rabid, cat-eating Trumper, he hosted Bernie Sanders about a week before Trump, and Bernie, the perennial youth candidate, got a respectable 2.7 million listeners while talking folk music along with politics.
You really have to roll with the punches and think fast to do well with Theo. He does not possess an ordered mind. Which works well for Trump. It's unimaginable that Harris would survive the Experience. (But maybe?) If she did well, she would easily take the South and the Midwest. I’m not saying she should even try. But why isn't Tim Walz doing the Young Men Shows? Isn’t that what coaches do, talk to young people? I mean if Bernie can slay, shouldn't Walz give it a try?
Walz has a sense of humor and Von may be a surreal buzz-saw of verbal digressions—but he has a nice heart. Not to mention an audience of a few million undecided viewers under the age of 30.
If you want to win the male youth vote, you gotta take the ice plunge challenge and not freeze up. You gotta go for the belly—laugh—gotta go low, at least in humor. Not just speak to the choir on Bill Maher and CNN.
In fact the Democrats could use a slate of left-leaning comedian surrogates like Pete Davidson and Bill Burr to hit Call Her Daddy, Theo Von and for the hard-core, a nihilist like Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster of them all, with 200 million downloads a month. It’s going to take a really hardcore guy to handle Rogan. I suggest Sarah Silverman.
She’s one progressive Democrat who understands toilet humor and could certainly wipe his Covid-denying—
The Dems have no problem with chick singers (as is fashionable to say in LA these days) like Taylor Swift and Beyonce but they just don’t get guy humor.
Ooh, so gross, guys, snails and puppy dog tails! How deplorable!
So check out these clips. Trump might have lost a national debate but he is not losing with those who listen to 25-year-old comedians like Theo Von.
Trump even advises Von on the unwise use of cocaine, politely asking if it is like having several glasses of Scotch whiskey, with the calm, caring, curious tone of a favorite uncle. This is not the Trump the New York Times knows.