I Am Not Loving the Influencer Economy

It was a grotesque embarrassment, and rightly so. It was pure gaslighting, and it made every single one of these people look bad, and I say that as somebody who thinks that most of them do a great service to the cause. Nobody is perfect, of course, and it's pretty hard to throw shade on the White House as you go out the door, but it looked terrible. 

Governor DeSantis brutally MOCKS all the asshole Con Inc influencers like Jack Posobiec and DC Draino with their stupid Epstein Files binders. “So you have like these influencers show up at the White House and they get these Epstein binders and they're like waving them around. They're waving the binder. Here it is! And it turns out all that stuff had already been released, right? There was nothing new in there. So our voters are looking at that. They're like, yeah, what are you doing? Are you whizzing on my leg and telling me it's raining? Don't do that.”

— Chris Nelson 🏝️🇺🇸 (@ReOpenChris) November 7, 2026

Governor DeSantis brutally MOCKS all the asshole Con Inc influencers like Jack Posobiec and DC Draino with their stupid Epstein Files binders.

“So you have like these influencers show up at the White House and they get these Epstein binders and they're like waving them around. They're waving the binder.

Here it is! And it turns out all that stuff had already been released, right? There was nothing new in there. So our voters are looking at that. They're like, yeah, what are you doing? Are you whizzing on my leg and telling me it's raining? Don't do that.”

DeSantis hit the nail on the head, at least in describing how I felt that day. I felt embarrassed, and from that moment I wanted Bondi gone. It reminded me of the worst sort of performative politics where a lot is promised, and nothing is delivered. And it took at least a bit of shine off my view of the influencers themselves, who had to be forced to admit that it was a big nothing. 

Christina Pushaw points to a current example that, while hardly as bad as the Epstein Files fiasco, casts a bad light on some of the biggest "influencers" in the conservative ecosystem. They are doing what so often offends me about all influencers: putting out a coordinated narrative. 

not that I particularly disagree with policies on this list, but how about at least trying to make this look organic and not totally astroturfed? it's crazy that influencers get paid for this lol

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) November 9, 2026

We value these people for who they are and what they do; they aren't generic bots and shouldn't behave like them either. When everybody is on the same page saying the same things, it doesn't, at least for me, make the message more credible and stick so much better; it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, even when I agree with the message. 

I am not in the camp that we should do whatever the Democrats do because it appears to work. Sure, we should learn from them and, when it makes sense, adopt some of their tactics. But some of the tactics themselves are scummy, and others only work because the left's audience is fundamentally different from ours. 

Of the six tweets posted, I follow only two of the authors, and I like both quite a bit: Scott Presler and Data Republican. They both do amazing work and deserve the kudos they get. But participating as human bots in a bot-farm-adjacent campaign is a terrible look and undermines their credibility, IMHO. 

I don't know if any of these posts are paid, and it doesn't really matter to me. I want them to prosper, but only for doing the kind of work they have done for free, and they have to remain independent to maintain credibility. Working for a cause and getting support for it is perfectly legitimate; you can't expect 24/7/365 work on a volunteer basis. It's stupid to be that naive. 

But as with any great company that sells exceptional products, the supply side drives demand: make it great, and they will come. If you sell commodity slop, what's the point? 

I'm not turning my back on these guys, or calling them "sellouts" because of one incident of pushing talking points. That would be ridiculously short-sighted. 

But this is a warning to all of us, and a parallel to what happens to almost every elected official: once you get there, the pressure to become one with the system is overwhelming, and it turns you into a cog in the machine. It's a danger I have seen countless good people succumb to. 

If you dive into the swamp, you can easily drown.