Episode 278 finds us in a frankly unprecedentedly juicy convo with someone who’s been in the inner circle of the MAGA influencer ecosystem and has all the tea on their shady coordination systems: Ashley St. Clair. 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. 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 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 take a deep dive into the inside of the Trump machine, 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.

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