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Xaviaer DuRousseau, a 27-year-old conservative influencer, knows he looks like he belongs at the Democratic National Convention. His bleach-blond hair is the giveaway.
“It’s like wearing a costume,” he says, pointing to his ’do when I catch him at a bar inside the Milwaukee arena hosting the Republican National Convention. “I wanted to look the part. . . it’s allowed me to infiltrate a lot more spaces in that world.”
Then he gives me a wink: “And I just think it looks good.”
DuRousseau, a former liberal turned Trump supporter, is one of some 70 influencers invited to the RNC as part of its first-ever content creator program. The influencers get half an hour of access to the arena floor each day, where they take selfies with fans and film videos that later make the rounds on TikTok, Truth Social, and X.
Their inclusion is part of a push to reach Gen Z voters, but polls show that many of them have already been won over by Trump. Numbers from Pew now show Trump leading among American voters under the age of 30. Young voters say that pressure to go along with “woke” politics is lifting, and it’s even become “cool” to back Trump.
DuRousseau tells me he grew up in the “corn-fed town” of Pontiac, Illinois, in a family that was “very left wing” and “broke as hell.”
“Then over time, I started to realize that wasn’t what I wanted for myself,” he says. “I always had this perspective of working hard to get out of there.”
He did, becoming an influencer in Los Angeles, with more than 180,000 Instagram followers.
Before his political change of heart, he tells me that he crafted his “entire perspective around being black.” But he says he realized cities like his birthplace of Chicago were “plummeting” because of the left’s judicial reforms, such as when Illinois became the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail.
He says when crime is rampant, black people are the losers. Businesses flee “because the crime is getting so insane. And then you wonder why all these black people are unemployed? All these black people don't have opportunities.”
He tells me he was instrumental in bringing his friend Amber Rose, a heavily tattooed OnlyFans model, onstage Monday. In her speech, Rose described her journey from believing “left-wing propaganda that Donald Trump was a racist” to endorsing him for president. DuRousseau sees the moment as part of a cultural shift.
“For far too long, we've been told that you either have to be blue-collar or an old, rich white man that just does nothing but just go to church to be a Republican,” he says. “And I’m just ready for that narrative to be over.”
He describes a caricature of Republicans “dressing like a pilgrim and churning butter on the weekends.” But that’s changing, he says.
“You can be artsy, you can be gay, you can be any demographic and be a conservative—it does not matter. What matters are our principles. Are you going to fight for my freedom? And am I going to fight for yours? That’s the bottom line.”
Olivia Reingold is a reporter for The Free Press. Follow her on X @Olivia_Reingold and read her piece, “Why America’s Zoomers Are Turning MAGA.”
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