The Tiny Men of Toxic Masculinity

Does that Cybertruck make Donald look small?

Andrew Tate, rapist and human sex trafficker, with the guy Donald invited to Mar-a-Lago.

Donald followed up his rally in Atlanta on Saturday, by hosting Adin Ross, a right-wing influencer who, after their interview, gifted Donald a Tesla Cybertruck (which Donald called “an Elon”) and a Rolex watch, potentially in violation of FEC campaign finance rules.

Will anybody care? Probably not.

What is of much greater concern is the company Adin Ross keeps. I understand that it’s important for both campaigns to reach out to Gen Z on platforms Gen Z frequents and to talk to people Gen Z listens to—especially for a campaign led by an old man who does not have his finger on the pulse of what is important to the youth and a thirty-nine-year-old who often acts like an old man yelling at people to get off his lawn.

But who the candidates choose to speak with matters. Or at least it should. Ross is an influencer among young white men who gravitate towards the kind of grievance and misogyny so expertly deployed by Donald and Vance. The reason he live-streamed his interview with Donald on Kick is because he’s been banned from Twitch for homophobic and racist slurs. Kick is much more permissive in allowing the kinds of rhetoric Ross uses.

The bigger problem is who Ross’ friends are. He’s had Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist, on his livestream. He not only supports, but is friends with Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer who has amassed a fortune as a social media influencer through a vile mixture of misogyny and fascist ideology. Tate, who, along with his brother, is currently awaiting trial for sexual assault, rape, and human trafficking. Adin Ross was the only non-family member, other than his lawyers, Tate put on his visitor’s list when he was in a Romanian prison.

We know Donald hosted Fuentes at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022 shortly after announcing his re-election bid. Donald claimed not to know who Fuentes was, and perhaps that was the case, and after the uproar caused by his dining with the notorious anti-Semite, his campaign allegedly put a more stringent vetting process in place.

Donald’s interview with Ross shows that he no longer feels the need to worry about what people think of those he chooses to spend time with. It would be helpful if the corporate media thought it warranted some attention.