Episode 278 with Ashley St. Clair
Former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair joins the pod for an absolute bombshell of a conversation about the intense public manipulation schemes happening behind the curtain of the Trump administration. We talk to her about her journey as a conservative personality, connecting with TPUSA in college and garnering words of support from Charlie Kirk. And we discuss the careful manufacturing of media narratives achieved through the coordination of the American right.
Is Elon actually a Nazi? Who are the worst MAGA sellouts? Who are the biggest degenerates?
Watch below to find out
Through her ascendance to national attention as a major MAGA influencer, Ashley saw firsthand how comprehensively the top brass of Trump’s Republican Party controls every aspect, aesthetic and ideological, of MAGA’s public image. Ashley describes scrutiny and pressure to change her body as a woman and to conform to rigid standards of femininity. The actual State Department, in Trump’s America, is involved in enforcing aesthetic standards for online content creators without any evident formal connection to the U.S. government. Class signaling, she says, is equally important. Trump’s Republican Party is obsessed with show, not substance, when it comes to its degraded idea of leadership, and an essential element of that show is an image of femininity that women in the right-wing influencer ecosystem must adhere to.
The cornerstone of our conversation, though, is an in-depth exploration of the major information Ashley spilled in recent weeks about the coordinated efforts of the Trump administration and its allies in media to dominate the narrative. We all saw the total about-face Trump came back with after an attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, capitalizing on the moment to pursue his insane goal of building his ballroom. We ask how detailed the ecosystem is, looking at its systems of communication (apparently a nest of group chats) and endless feedback loop of power between Trump and his influencer allies. That ultimately leads to the proliferation of dark money organizations routing around regulations as nonprofits, meanwhile giving Trump unprecedented financial support for his political agenda.
Thank you for watching this (especially juicy) episode and for keeping us ad-free. Listen to the conversation again as a podcast episode tomorrow evening on major streaming platforms.
