Would you entertain a Nazi for clout?
Dems look for leadership online and find more questions than answers
What is journalism if not an excuse to get involved in other people’s drama?
At least that’s my personal view. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I didn’t excel in journalism school until my senior spring semester. I undertook a thesis-style exploration of Tom Wolfe’s shorter works, and in return, Wolfe offered me the blueprint for a type of journalism animated by love of gossip. We got an A+ for our respective outputs.
Covering politics is as much about wanting to brief the masses as it is about trying to satisfy my seemingly bottomless craving to know other people’s business. I’m sure my friends are very grateful that the never-ending pettiness of contemporary politics keeps me well-fed. How can I not be? When Cheesecake Factory-sized servings of scandal are served — for free — every day.
On that note … good news for those of you seeking an even bigger dose of drama and laughs: I’m cranking the output of Who Broke It to an all-time high starting tomorrow, only for our paid subscribers. A discount awaits, don’t miss it 😇
Niche internet drama scratches a particularly relentless itch of mine because I usually have no one to share it with. But every so often an under-the-radar, digital dustup serves as the perfect introduction to an incoming problem in our political culture. This tends to happen in the closing months of an election cycle, which, believe it or not, we’re entering now.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed … but Democrats have been in the throes of an identity crisis for almost two years (arguably more like four-six). There is pressure mounting on pretty much everyone who’s affixed a “D” to themselves:
On party heads to step back
On new candidates to pick an ideological lane
On influencers to outmaneuver intraparty opponents
On all the above to sell voters on their vision of the future of the Democratic Party
This isn’t a clean process with clear rules of engagement. It pushes a lot of people to show up in new places and practice making strong cases for themselves or the group they belong to — Hasan Piker keynoting at the College Democrats of America Convention, James Talarico facing serious criticism from Black voters in Texas, the co-chair of NYC’s DSA pulling up to Fox News, of all places.
There’s an understanding that, while things might get weird, if you hold on to your values, take criticism on the chin, and own your mistakes, you can weather any storm … right? What if you decide to buck convention, choose chaos, and invite depravity into your social media strategy instead?
How a Democratic countermovement to TPUSA ended up hosting the nation’s biggest bigot, why their leader doubled down in response to backlash, and what this drama reveals about the dangers of fragmented influence … all below!
MADE IN HIS IMAGE
“And I gotta give credit to this one young lady, she is very annoying. She follows me around the country … She has, more so than most, accurately depicted what we’ve been able to do here.”
This is how Charlie Kirk summed up the persistent presence of Zee Cohen-Sanchez back in a 2025 video titled, “Temu ‘Charlie Kirk’ Tries to Take Out the Original (MAJOR FAIL).” Zee launched the “Unfuck America Tour” in April of that year, with the stated intention of building a countermovement to Turning Point USA — “to reignite the Democratic youth vote, fight back against right-wing propaganda, and build real grassroots power on campuses.”
Zee mentioned in multiple early interviews that innovation was not the priority here: “We need to build the same thing he has.” Kirk pointed out in his segment that building the same thing required 300 days of travel, $100M in fundraising, and 500k donors per year. Almost one full year later, have the countermovement and its sister org, National Ground Game, even scraped the surface?
🥅 Goals for this election cycle 🥅
500+ new college chapters: ❌— eight current, seven “in progress”
Catch up to GOP registration numbers: ❓— no data provided
Infrastructure to take back youth vote: ❓— no details given
Insert ourselves into “red pill” pipeline: ✅ — hold that thought
I’m never one to shade anyone else on missing target growth goals, as I sit here trying to figure out how the hell to scale this Substack. But I’m in the business of scouring social media to get a grip on just how influential these young “movements” really are. The activity of these college chapters proved a good gut check.
The eight current college chapters all have Instagram accounts + one account created for a school “in progress” which has no posts yet
Ohio State is the only consistently active chapter on social media
University of Arizona last posted in June. Wisconsin, UC Berkeley, NCSU, and Ole Miss (who only posted once) haven’t posted since May. UCLA last posted in April. Arizona State’s one and only post was in March.
If the core of your commitment relies upon activating college-aged voters nationwide — an enormous challenge, no doubt — these numbers reveal some flaws in the strategy. Crunch some more numbers, like only six campus visits in over a year despite reporting almost $1M to the FEC, and you can color me confused.
It’s not until you frame that data against Unfuck America’s nearly 500k followers on Instagram and TikTok, that it all starts to look more like a purposeful pivot than a strategic flaw.
LANGUISHING IN INFAMY
It should speak volumes to you that even I — a person who constantly exposes you to the nastiest warts attached to our political underbelly — have refused to cover Jake Lang. There are going to be few times when I’ll ever ask you to take my word for something. This is one of them. Take my word that he is as grotesque, immoral, and violent a shit-stirrer as they come. Not at all in the spirit of fun gossip ever. Ok?
To feature a person like this in any content exercise, in any capacity, for any length of time, broadcasts to the world that you care about views, not voters. A stance, might I add, that’s regularly rewarded in our culture when people are honest about it. So when Unfuck America posted a clip of Jake Lang walking onto their set with very warm welcomes, you can imagine how it went.
The comment section of the walk-up video is engulfed in fiery rage. Unfuck America’s parent org, National Ground Game, posted an unnecessarily long caption defending their decision to host the J6-pardoned, blackface-wearing, Nazi-saluting Lang. If that was all she wrote, I don’t think this would’ve exploded — like for fucks sake, the actual debate with the guy only has 27k views.
But Zee decided to put her spin on promoting the debate in a video that now has 5,000 comments compared to 3,000 likes. This is what the kids call a ratio. And a pretty bad one at that. Her video opens with: “Abdul El-Sayed just platformed January 6er Jake Lang.” Rerouting the anger tossed at her, straight to the Senate hopeful from Michigan instead.
One absolutely enormous difference: Lang crashed the candidate’s event, only to be immediately and unceremoniously thrown out. The clip of this face-off and El-Sayed’s thoughtful comments that followed has 1.2M views.
“He hates the idea of what America was always supposed to be … He wants America to be small, he wants America to be like him, he wants America to be hateful, he wants America to be a place that does not include. Everyday when we go out there and we knock on these doors, we make an argument for what America actually is — an America that is bigger than his hate …”
To say El-Sayed is beloved among the progressive influencer set would be an understatement. And some huge names jumped at the chance to expose the false equivalence set up by Zee, who did compliment the candidate’s response.
Ed Choi: “She decided to use a brown, Muslim man as a shield to deflect from the criticism that they’re getting.”
Jolly Good Ginger: “You misrepresented his video stating he ‘platformed’ Jake Lang which is incorrect, but you used that language because THAT is the accusation against you.”
Zee’s replies to him are lowkey kinda crazy, calling him the morality police and demanding they debate: “I’m sorry but your lectures and weird protests are so cringe bro. Either have a debate or admit you will lose.”
Slaythegop: “Debate is supposed to be a tool for persuasion, it’s supposed to challenge people who are actually open to changing their minds, not handing over a microphone and legitimacy to someone whose public record is extremist rhetoric and provocation.”
Alex Cascio: “You invited him to sit down with him and willingly platformed him, do you seriously not see the difference?”
Pissedoffbartender: “The Unfuck America Tour is a grift and anybody involved with it should not be considered the left, or collaborated with, followed, or respected … No this is not leftist infighting. This is acknowledging the line in the sand that has been drawn along fucking time ago.”
The creators associated with Unfuck America and National Ground Game have not answered to any of the backlash. To some degree, I wonder if they are replicating PR strategies from Charlie Kirk and TPUSA, too. The one thing you never do after doubling down? Apologize.
AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MOBILIZER
The Unfuck America Tour got a leg up in a crowded field of newly-formed, creator-led organizations scrambling to make an impact after Charlie Kirk was shot. I’ve started keeping a list that I wouldn’t be surprised to see double by Election Day:
Pick Up The Mic (from TPUSA)
The Unfuck America Tour (from National Ground Game)
Uncensored America (from Myron Gaines)
Take America Back Tour (from Digital Ground Game)
Disrupt PAC (from my friend Carlos Calzadilla-Palacio)
Timing is everything to get off the ground. But one year later, two years later, what does it mean to actually make an impact among young voters — outside views, debates, and trends? Does having a following mean literally anything if they’re not following you to the voting booth?
As factions of Democrats continue to ragebait each other into oblivion, sharing daily decrees of who’s in and who’s out, one member of their tribe is consistently insistent on the idea that none of this bitching and bickering, drama and division needs to even happen: Zohran Mamdani.
🥹 Something to make you smile today, brought to you by our friends at Goodable!
Erling Braut Haaland Donates Rare 1594 Viking Saga Book to Bryne Library to Inspire Young Readers
“World Cup breakout star Erling Haaland of Norway, recently sent a 1594 piece of Norwegian history home to Bryne, and he wants local children to pick up books because of it.
Haaland and his father, Alfie Haaland, have bought the only surviving privately owned copy of Mattis Størssøn’s 1594 edition of Snorri Sturluson’s royal sagas and given it to Time Municipality. The book will be displayed and made accessible to the public at the library in Bryne, where Haaland is from.
‘I want the book always to lie open so that people can read about those who came from where I come from, from Bryne and Jæren,’ Erling Braut Haaland says in a comment.
‘It’s easier to feel drawn to reading when you can recognise yourself in the people and places being written about.’”
Grace Note: This story isn’t exactly breaking news but I figured, in honor of Erling’s 26th birthday today, it would be worth resurfacing. As he would say … “nice 👍🏻”