Politics

Trump’s last-ditch strategy to boost his support among young men

Published

2 years ago

November 11, 2024

Trump’s last-ditch strategy to boost his support among young men

Young women don’t trust Donald Trumpso his campaign has doubled down — or maybe tripled down — on reaching out to young, mostly white men.

In recent weeks, Trump has met with right-wing creators such as Jake Paul and Andrew Schulz who have a lot of young male fans. He’s also latched onto issues that he thinks young men like, such as supporting cryptocurrency and vaping.

This is a microcosm of his strategy more broadly: to redouble his efforts on his baseof whom men comprise the majority.

Trump is either incapable or unwilling to expand his coalition.

Trump is either incapable or unwilling to expand his coalition, likely because his politics (and character) are simply too off-putting.

But it’s a precarious strategy considering the groups he’s targeting are already low-propensity voters — made evenmoreprecarious by the fact that he’s not exactly giving them a clear reason to turn out.

Trump issues a lot of unhinged warnings about a post-apocalyptic future if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election and offers somewhat confused support for niche (and scammy) issues like crypto.

But when you compare that with the very real motivator of abortion rights for young womenI’d venture to guess that Trump’s strategy has a low likelihood of success.

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Brian Tyler Cohen

Brian Tyler Cohen is a political commentator, podcast host and BLN contributor. He hosts one of the biggest progressive channels on YouTube, with over 2 million subscribers.

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

10 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”