Red Tribe Dynamics
2024 was the year that popular individuals, super-empowered by the network, decided the US election. Here's how they did it and what it means.
July 13th was the turning point in the 2024 US election;
Trigger. A near-miss assassination attempt on Trump that shocked the red tribe.
Battle Cry. Trump raised his fist in defiance, yelling, “Fight, Fight!”
Rally. In response, Elon Musk (200m+ followers) publicly pledged to support Trump.
In that moment, everything changed;
The moral stigma (successfully imposed by the blue tribe) associated with supporting Trump lifted, making it acceptable to support Trump publicly.
This led to a cascade of endorsements from well-known accounts and an intensification of existing support.
The well-known people endorsing Trump didn’t just provide a one-and-done public relations endorsement; they aggressively mobilized the red tribe’s network.
Red vs. Blue Leadership
Although both networked tribes attracted dozens of endorsements from well-known individuals, that’s where the similarity ended. Let’s compare them.
The blue tribe was able to secure support from well-known celebrity powerhouses, from Taylor Swift (280m+ followers) to Beyonce (300m+) to JLo (250m+) to old media celebrities (like Oprah and George Clooney, with nearly universal name recognition).
However, the blue tribe’s celebrity leaders did little besides appearing in a few staged events or making a post or two in support of the blue tribe’s candidate.
In contrast, the red tribe’s well-known leaders (Musk, Rogan, Carlson, Cernovich, Poso, etc.) leveraged their network status to the hilt — from relentless posting on their accounts to active offline measures to mobilize voters.
For example; Elon Musk, like many red tribe leaders, posted 17,595 times up until the election in 2024, with most of the posts focused on the election in the months after July 13th. In contrast, the blue tribe’s celebrity accounts posted infrequently (hundreds), with almost every post focused on their core business (music, etc.).
Let’s dig into why the red tribe’s leadership mattered in this election and how it works. This is where it gets interesting.