The Gen Z Influencers Giving MAGA a Youthful Glow: “Our Voices Are Being Heard”

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Riley Gaines shouts over the music at Sax, a packed lounge in Washington, DC, where chandeliers seem to outnumber tables. It’s the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, and Gaines is partying at the TikTok–sponsored Power 30 Awards along with fellow young conservative influencers who rallied behind the 47th president. Gaines, a 24-year-old with more than a million followers on X, first gained notoriety as a competitive swimmer who led a campaign against trans women participating in women’s sports. Now, she says as Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” blares in the background, “we’re pushing back” and “our voices are being heard.”

The first time Gaines met Trump was in 2022, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where she snuck her phone backstage for a meet-and-greet. After Trump’s security rushed over to tell her it wasn’t allowed, the then candidate stopped them in a defiant gesture. “Oh, shut up,” she says Trump told his detail, before turning to her. “You’re beautiful, babe. Of course, we can take a selfie.” Gaines has since spoken with Trump too many times to count, she says, and the president has always remembered her name and never failed to ask how her husband’s construction business was doing: “It’s remarkable how sharp he is.”

Another pro-Trump influencer I caught after the party, Alex Clark, 31, recalls the ecstatic experience of meeting Trump backstage at a Phoenix rally in August. After telling him that nutrition and Big Pharma were crucial issues for undecided female voters, she says Trump responded, “You’re going to be really happy tonight.” Later onstage, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long railed against Big Pharma, publicly endorsed Trump, hours after suspending his presidential bid. Clark says that Trump looked her directly in the eyes and gave her a thumbs up: “I’ll never trust another politician as much as I trust him.”

Gaines and Clark, as New York magazine reported earlier this week, are hardly the only young celebrities who have come to believe that their hopes, fears, and anxieties were heard far more by Trump than Kamala Harris in the 2024 election cycle. They feel that the president, who—through phone calls, podcast appearances, or fleeting backstage moments—validated their advocacy and could offer them opportunities they never would have dreamed of.

Take Clark: In 2019, she was working on a pop culture radio show in Indiana, where she was giving away free Taylor Swift tickets and calling out men for cheating. She didn’t go to college and had no formal medical background. Five years later, the “conservative wellness warrior,” as The Washington Post dubbed her, was testifying at a 2024 Senate hearing on chronic illness with Senator Ron Johnson and RFK Jr. in DC.

Utilizing voices like Clark’s proved absolutely crucial for Trump’s campaign, and it’s fair to say that few political candidates took advantage of the power, energy, and reach of young advocates as much as he did in the lead-up to his reelection victory. While the Democrats were winning over Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and the unexpected accolade of Charli XCX’s “brat,” Republicans faced a temporary, gaping void left by a lack of celebrity political endorsements or support. Perhaps fuelled by the terrifying prospect of looking “weird,” the political insult of the moment, they set their sights on podcasters and right-wing influencers, whose platforms were replete with opportunities to capture a young target audience that was ripe for the electoral picking.

Trump went all out. He tore through the social media circuit, posing and podcasting, and, at times, offering apparent moments of genuine intimacy: From playing up dad jokes with livestreamer Adin Ross to having a candid conversation about cocaine addiction with comedian Theo Von, he displayed flashes of warmth and empathy. (Perhaps these showcases were simulated, or maybe they were genuine. But what they did undoubtedly show was a side of him that young people could continue to see if they were willing to align themselves with his conservative message.)

“I really do feel like he is the people of Gen Z, like he actually cares about what we have to think,” says Xaviaer DuRousseau, a 28-year-old conservative influencer based in Los Angeles. “I feel like Joe Biden and a lot of prior politicians looked at us like we’re all just laughable at best, but Trump paid attention to what we had to say.”

For DuRousseau, who used to be against Republicans and describes his younger self as “very woke, very liberal, and marching for everyone,” his political epiphany came, in part, from an intense disillusionment with the Democrats and the siloes he felt they forced young people into. “As a Black man, I was always being told I was repressed and that I wasn’t capable of everything I truly am,” he says. “I started realizing that these people don’t want the best for me; they tell me I’m a victim and systematically disempower me so that I’m so afraid of racism and so afraid of people calling me a mean name. I’d subscribed to a cult of ideology that ultimately doesn’t benefit anyone.”

DuRousseau, who recently launched Respectfully, Xavier, a show for the conservative nonprofit PragerU, believes there would be an opportunity for him in the administration if he sought it. But for the time being, he’s good. “Right now, where I am is the lane I belong in. I won’t be working directly for Trump, but I’ll be on the sidelines along the way.”

Being on the sidelines, it appears, has been an advantageous position for the older media personalities Trump worked in close orbit with in the lead-up to his reelection.

Trump has credited the likes of Theo Von, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, and the Nelk Boys, some of whom went on to attend the inauguration alongside him. Inside the Capitol rotunda on January 20, they mingled with Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and the innermost circles of the Trump elite, reveling in their political power and sway over young voters tangibly playing out before their eyes.

While none of the key players leading this new generation in the conservative media landscape have officially been nominated for a role in the administration, it’s clear they certainly don’t need to worry about having an influence. In November, Politico reported that Kirk, the Turning Point USA cofounder and well-known influencer, was sitting in on meetings and providing advice on how the president should staff his administration.

“In a typical stodgy administration, there are established channels for influencing certain picks, but because we have a cultural maven in the White House who pays attention to what is going on in popular culture, there can be a great deal of influence from the outside,” says 34-year-old Michael Knowles, a political commentator, YouTuber, and media personality known for hosting The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles Show. He received Trump’s support on the book he published in 2016, Reasons to Vote for Democrats, which consists mainly of blank pages. “A great book for your reading enjoyment,” is how Trump described it.

Knowles demurred when asked about the prospect of taking a formal role in the administration, and says simply that “some people feel they may have more influence from the outside.” When asked what specific role he would choose, if there were one, his response is to facetiously diffuse the question: “White House chef.”

Perhaps, though, this will be a major theme going forward for Trump’s new administration: a coterie of influencers and young advisers having a say in American politics from outside the White House. (On Tuesday, at her first briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration will be adding seats for “new media,” including independent journalists, podcasters, and influencers.)

At the TikTok party the night before the inauguration—attended by some of the youngest and biggest conservative influencers of the moment, like Gains and 25-year-old Bryce Hall—cool was indeed the buzzword of the night. Young people gathered in clusters to literally gush about Trump and his return to office, and to diss the Democrats and the mistakes they feel they made during the campaign.

A sea of red and black MAGA hats bobbed up and down below rapper Waka Flocka Flame, in a building that resembled an old theater but was decked out with cutouts of Elon Musk and JD Vance. Hosted by CJ Pearson and Raquel Debono, both in their 20s, the event was practically a prom for the conservative influencers who helped Trump engage young voters. Congregating from behind their screens, they dressed in black tie with a campaign-merch twist. They didn’t even seem to care that TikTok had just been banned; they were just happy to be in DC, in such close proximity to the man they believe they helped win.

One of Trump’s Gen Z advisers, 27-year-old Alex Bruesewitz, who sat in a guarded-off booth on the top floor of the party and was hard to reach, seemed to think that a lot was in store for the young group of influencers around him. The nature of which, though, he was not willing to divulge—especially surrounded by friends, the night before inauguration, with a drink in hand.

“We don’t need designated programs to unite our people; we understand the tools at hand to get our messages out,” he finally says. “The Democrats always wanted to check the boxes on certain items like age or race or sexual orientation. President Trump is just focused on confidence.”

Later, the attention in the room quickly faded from a who’s who of VIP guests and the McDonalds fries being handed around to something far more important: rumors of an after-party held by Charlie Kirk. DC’s buzzy new nightclub, the Arcade, was said to be the setting. And since Trump himself was (tentatively) swinging by, you’d likely need a password to get in the door. Tensions were running high. Whoever knew the magic word or phrase seemed to be part of a very privileged few.