As the sun sets on Kamala Harris’s Brat summer, Donald Trump is motoring full steam ahead into Brovember.
Surrounded by middle-aged campaign aides, the former president turned to an unlikely source to court young male voters: his youngest son and his influencer best friend.
Despite barely being old enough to vote, 18-year-olds Bo Loudon and Barron Trump were unofficially recruited onto team Trump to help the oldest presidential candidate in history tap into the manosphere and capture the “bro vote.”
Earlier this year Trump, 78, began experimenting with the new audience by engaging with YouTubers and podcasters, many of whom are sympathetic towards the MAGA movement.
“They don’t grow up watching television the same way as we did,” Trump told the Daily Mail. “They grow up looking at the internet or watching a computer, right?”
But the Republican presidential candidate can’t engage the 47 million Gen Zers eligible to cast their ballots on November 5 alone.
Loudon, a conservative content creator, and the youngest Trump heir were apparently tasked to help Trump navigate the complex web of internet celebrities and influencers.
“The strategy is reaching an audience that maybe isn’t being recognized,” Loudon told Piers Morgan on Thursday.
An unnamed campaign source coined the aggressive new media tactic “Trump on steroids,” they told CNN.
Loudon, from Palm Beach, Florida, is the son of Dr Gina Loudon, the conservative television pundit and former co-chair of Women for Trump in 2020, and John Loudon, a former Missouri state senator.
The family are patrons at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
“[Bo’s] over at Mar-a-Lago every night that Barron is home. The two of them are inseparable,” a source close to the family told The Mail.
The young conservative firebrand has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers online under the moniker, “Trump’s Young Gun.”
Loudon’s Instagram page is crammed full of selfies with conservative celebrities and MAGA loyalists – from psychologist Jordan Peterson to former Trump strategist Roger Stone.
Sporting similar blue suits to his idol whom he dubs the “rightful president,” Loudon regularly posts photographs alongside Trump – including one beside him and Barron with the caption, “Best Friend, Best President.”
In one TikTok video, the self-styled “pro-Trump influencer” even declared that he’d take a bullet for the former president.
The Loudon-Trump relationship appears mutually beneficial: Trump deploys his young gun; Loudon gets access in return.
“Trump asked how I was doing,” Loudon gushed on X in one photo next to Trump in Mar-a-Lago in August. “Double checked about 5 times if I got a photo, made sure everyone knew that I’m best friends with his son Barron.”
“Gen-Z Stands With Trump!”
Loudon repeated the claim on a Fox News appearance in August: “Trump loves the youth. Gen Z loves Trump.”
Trump began his podcast and YouTube offensive with right-wing content creators in the summer.
Barron and Bo are said to have been behind Trump’s 90-minute interview with Kick influencer Adin Ross in August which saw the former president gifted a flashy golden Rolex and a Tesla Cybertruck.
“It was the honor of my life to be able to organize and attend the LEGENDARY stream between Rightful President Trump and my friend @AdinRoss,” Loudon wrote on X after the meet.
Trump has sat with the likes of YouTuber Logan Paul, comedian Theo Von, podcaster Lex Freidman, YouTubers the Nelk Boys, political commentator Ben Shapiro, and entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David.
Loudon now claims he helped set up the Joe Rogan podcast appearance with Trump.
“I definitely talked to some people about that,” he told the host of Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Twenty percent of prospective Trump voters say they’ve listened to one of Trump’s podcast appearances, according to a Suffolk University/USA Today survey.
Harris quickly became a favorite amongst the young electorate after stepping on the Democratic ticket in July and still maintains a hefty 20-pointy lead among Gen Z over her GOP rival.
Trump, however, has nearly doubled his appeal from 21 percent support to 40 percent in the past three months, according to a CNBC/Generation Lab survey.
Recent surveys also suggest that young men under 30 are shifting towards Republicans at a 14-point swing compared with 2020, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Politics’s director of polling John Della Volpe told The New York Times.
Bo, Barron and the bro podcasters might have played their part.
