Republicans have long ceded the TikTok battleground to the left, but one conservative has gone over the wire – and he’s quickly gaining ground.
MAGA-world conservative John McEntee, CEO of the dating app Right Stuff, which caters specifically to young conservatives, has rushed full bore into TikTok, leveraging humor, snark, and the occasional skewering of the left to gain a staggering 3.3 million followers on his @daterightstuff account.
His formula is simple: create a brief, sentence-length soundbite, often filmed during the middle of a meal. End with a sarcastic “got it.” Rinse and repeat. Detailed policy platforms are out, while inflammatory “shitposting” is in.
It’s not exactly a Wall Street Journal op-ed, but that’s the point. In a world where many young voters admit to getting their news from gaming social media platforms like Discord, McEntee’s TikTok account might actually reach more people than a coveted Journal piece.
There are signs McEntee has broken through beyond his gaudy follower numbers. The Washington Post profiled a TikTok “feud” he developed with a liberal TikTok creator. The Post described some of the typical banter:
“So the pope says you can’t vote for Trump because he has a strict immigration policy,” says John McEntee, a former Trump White House staffer, from Newport Beach, Calif., to his 3.3 million followers before tearing into a saucy meatball. “You know who else has a strict immigration policy? Heaven.”
“So, MAGA says Kamala can’t be president because her parents were immigrants, but they’re fine that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland?” quips comedian Walter Masterson from New York City to his 2.4 million followers, before dunking a sandwich in sprinkles. “Got it.”
McEntee’s back and forth with Masterson, the leftwing comic, “certainly hasn’t hurt our account,” McEntee told the Post. “Probably the more attention, the better,” while characterizing Masterson’s videos as “all in good fun — mostly.”
But in a landscape littered with progressives, the conservative McEntee is a lone wolf.
“TikTok was known as a left-leaning platform, and not many conservatives had tried to break into it,” McEntee told Breitbart News. “We got traction initially by making fun of liberals in a lighthearted way. We’ve discovered that TikTok is an extremely effective weapon for conservatives, and it’s a ridiculous self-own that Republicans are trying to ban it.”
Washington insiders, who take pride in stuffing their head through a necktie to speak to their parents’ generation on basic cable, might look down on McEntee’s schtick. But McEntee is filling a crucial void, reaching generations of voters that would-be voters Republicans have struggled to reach.
“It’s tapping into a different audience, one that isn’t reached on Fox News, or other traditional cable news media,” McEntee told Breitbart.
McEntee is certainly familiar with traditional media, and how politics works more broadly. Late in the Trump administration, McEntee was elevated to Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, where he is widely credited for reorienting staffing efforts towards applicants with a record of supporting Trump’s America First agenda that extended beyond memorization of interview talking points.
He understands that in politics, authenticity is a valued commodity. But in the buttoned-up world of Washington, authenticity often falls to the wayside as staid talking points passed down from on high take precedent over original, organic communication.
Those official talking points might reach boomers on Facebook or politicos with their eyes stapled to Twitter, occasionally even resulting in a home run in the form of a Fox hit. But McEntee believes conservatives can hit easy singles by leaning into TikTok, reaching voters who don’t wake up and poach the broadsheets from their porch.
“Raw, short form content does well and can be filmed anywhere at any time on your iPhone,” McEntee told Breitbart. “More conservatives should be doing it.”
Many Republicans – and China hawks on the left – are opposed to TikTok due to the close ties between its owner, ByteDance, and the Chinese Communist Party. The Department of Justice says TikTok sent very personal U.S. user data to the Chinese Community Party, and allowed the app’s users to be profiled based on their attitudes towards topics like gun control and abortion.
Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring TikTok and ByteDance to break ties or face a ban in the U.S. by mid-January. The legal battle is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the app is undoubtedly popular, as congressional receptionists quickly recognized during that legislative battle. Capitol phone lines melted in response to TikTok’s call to arms, in which it prompted its users to contact Congress to protest the legislation.
Those calls surprised congressional offices by coming from not just young voters but retirees as well.
With the 2024 election just weeks away, at least one other key Republican has embraced the platform, at least for the time being.
Trump, who had expressed doubts about the app, now uses TikTok himself, gaining millions of followers since joining the app in June and campaigning to protect it.
Stuffier elements in the Republicans party may be slower to catch on, but ultimately, reaching voters where they are may win out.
“We can’t be picky about where we reach voters, especially as it’s getting more and more difficult to reach voters,” explained Eric Wilson, the executive director for the Center for Campaign Innovation and a Republican digital strategist.
Democrats are far ahead in using TikTok to reach voters, but if Republicans one day catch up – or even use the app effectively – McEntee deserves to be remembered as a pioneer.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.