Market turmoil strains bro-sphere’s bromance with Donald Trump

Adin Ross, the wildly popular online streamer, had only three words to describe the market slump triggered by US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz: “Bro, holy fuck.”

“What the fuck is going on in our country? Guys, why am I poor?” he asked his legions of fans. “Can someone please explain what’s going on? Why are we all losing? Why are we all negative right now?”

Ross’s reaction was typical of the bafflement among America’s “bro-casters” over the market fallout from Trump’s liberation day reciprocal tariffs on dozens of the US’s trading partners.

Online influencers whose support for Trump was a crucial factor in his election victory last November are seeing their political sympathies tested by a slump that has sheared trillions of dollars off global equity valuations, sparked fears of a US recession and left huge dents in their net wealth.

One of those to lament the market meltdown in recent days was Dave Portnoy, founder of digital sports media empire Barstool Sports, who publicly came out for Trump during last year’s election campaign.

Portnoy, a popular figure among retail investors via his “Davey Day Trader” alter ego, said he was “down 7mn bucks, in stocks, in crypto”, and blamed Trump’s tariffs. “Everything’s in the shitter because of it,” he said.

“If this was [former president Joe] Biden, and he did some sort of scheme like this, and he absolutely tanked the stock market, he would be getting crucified, and front of the line would be Trump,” he said. “He’d be going bananas about what’s going on right now.”

Reacting to further market sell-offs at the start of the week, Portnoy went even further. “Don’t call it Black Monday, it’s Orange Monday,” he said on X. “Trump’s tariffs have absolutely decimated the market. And it’s ugly.”

Portnoy’s reaction has been replicated across the “bro-sphere”, the online world where young men gather to socialise, discuss sports and energy supplements and consume content produced by a growing army of brash, pumped-up livestreamers, podcasters and pranksters.

Trump courted these influencers assiduously in the run-up to November’s election, spending about 1,000 minutes chatting with online personalities such as Ross.

After his victory, Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a Trump ally, praised Ross and other social media stars such as the Nelk Boys and Theo Von for mobilising support for Trump.

Perhaps most influential was Joe Rogan, the US’s most successful podcaster, who hosted Trump before the election and endorsed him just hours before polls opened.

Even before the market slump, Rogan was expressing misgivings about some of Trump’s policies. Last month he criticised the White House over its decision to send a Venezuelan make-up artist and hairdresser to a prison in El Salvador.

Andry José Hernández Romero, who is gay, had sought asylum in the US, claiming he faced persecution at home because of his sexual orientation and political views. US immigration officials said he was a member of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang, and deported him.

Speaking on his podcast in late March, Rogan said it was “horrific” that “people who aren’t criminals are getting lassoed up and deported”.

The market slump has triggered more widespread anger in the manosphere than the administration’s immigration policies.

Ben Shapiro, the conservative pundit who is considered one of the leading Maga influencers and has 7mn subscribers on YouTube, said responsibility for the slide in share prices lay primarily with Trump.

“This is not being inflicted by an external shock, like, for example, Covid,” he said. “This is being inflicted by a deliberate choice, by the Trump administration.”

He went on to say that in slapping reciprocal tariffs on most of the US’s trading partners, Trump had imposed “hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans without public or congressional input”.

But there is a big difference between streamers and podcasters such as Portnoy and Ross, who may be pro-Trump but are not overtly political, and the more hardcore rightwing influencers such as Charlie Kirk or Tim Pool, who have been unwavering in their support for the president, despite the market gyrations of the past few days.

“They are four-square behind these tariffs and trying to make the case to their audience that the current market turmoil is a small price to pay for the glorious future that awaits them all once tariffs are able to ‘work’,” said Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog.

Trump was attempting a “historic reorganisation of the global and the American economy, and it’s gonna come as a shell shock”. “It’s basically like taking cough syrup,” said Kirk. “It doesn’t feel good, but it is good for you, it’s necessary.”

Clay Travis, a conservative talk-show host and founder of OutKick, the sports website, said the president was trying to correct decades of mistakes in immigration, fiscal and trade policy. “Sometimes in order to fix things, you have to disrupt, you have to destroy, you have to tear down existing systems.”

Others mocked investors for complaining about their paper losses and pensioners who lamented the hit to their 401K retirement accounts.

“Losing money means nothing. Digital ones and zeroes,” said Benny Johnson, a conservative YouTuber. “Losing your country costs you everything. You will never get that back.”

But another rightwing commentator, Lane Kendall, took to X to call Johnson “stupid”.

He said he broadly supported Trump’s tariffs, but “if Joe Biden had this EXACT same policy you’d never hear the end of it from guys like Benny that Biden was killing the stock market and destroying American livelihoods”.

Gertz said he doubted the Maga podcasters would desert the president, however strong their misgivings over the market sell-off.

“All of these people have become quite wealthy by becoming part of the Maga movement, and their inclination is that they’re better off sticking with Trump,” he said.

“I have faith,” Portnoy said last week. “I’m not panicking. I don’t think [Trump’s] a crazy person.”