A Legion of Influencers Enforces Trump's Agenda

Vani Hari, who campaigns against food additives as the "Food Babe," has 2.1 million followers on Instagram.

- AARON ZITNER

Patrick Bet-David's news and business commentary draws 6.4 million YouTube subscribers. A million people follow Lance Wallnau's Christian ministry on Facebook, while Michael Knowles brings his social values-inflected podcast to more than two million on YouTube.

They were all here, along with familiar, right-wing lightning rods such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, to celebrate the return of Donald Trump to the White Housebut also their own place in an ascendant, conservative newmedia ecosystem that is increasingly reaching over the heads of traditional news outlets to speak to voters.

The online commentators and influencers had come at the invitation of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old activist who has earned a spot at the apex of the MAGA movement, and they had a message for the rest of the country: Trump's election showed that conservatives have built a media infrastructure rivaling the mainstream press and TV networks.

Now, they intend to use it to enact Trump's agenda.

"We are the media now, not them. Their power is fading and waning," Kirk said at the outset of the four-day AmericaFest conference sponsored by his group, Turning Point USA, which said 21,000 people were attending.