How Fandom Became the Dominant Language of Modern US Politics

In the landscape of modern American politics, a profound transformation is underway. The traditional language of policy debates and stump speeches is being supplemented—and in some cases supplanted—by the emotional vocabulary of fandom. From Zohran Mamdani's Survivor-themed campaign advertisements to the US government's engagement with Halo gaming communities, political movements are increasingly operating like fan clubs, cultivating loyalty through shared narratives, inside jokes, and community belonging rather than purely through ideological alignment.

This shift represents more than just clever marketing; it reflects a fundamental change in how political engagement functions in a digitally connected society. As traditional media ecosystems fragment and attention becomes increasingly scarce, successful political campaigns are learning to speak the language of the communities they seek to engage, translating complex political stakes into emotional narratives that resonate with specific audiences.

The Mamdani Campaign: Politics Meets Reality TV Fandom

Zohran Mamdani's New York City mayoral campaign provides a compelling case study in fandom-driven politics. Rather than relying solely on traditional political advertising, Mamdani's team created television ads that placed him in the middle of Survivor's infamous Tribal Council. For approximately 30 seconds, former Survivor contestants addressed the camera while explaining their decisions to vote Mamdani's opponent, Andrew Cuomo, off the "island" of Manhattan.

This approach was strategically designed to reach beyond individual voters to entire fan communities. As Eric Stern, a Democratic strategist who developed the ad, explained, "We believed, because of the social nature of this show [Survivor], that we could convince more than just one person, but we could convince everybody at their watch party." The campaign recognized that fandom operates socially—conversations at watch parties, online discussions, and shared community experiences could translate into political engagement.

Fandom as Political Organizing Framework

Contemporary fandom extends far beyond simple appreciation for television shows or celebrities. It represents belonging to communities with shared interests, lore, inside jokes, and narratives that color worldviews. Political movements increasingly operate along similar lines, with supporters engaging in behaviors once reserved for pop culture figures—creating merchandise, developing elaborate lore, and participating in community rituals.

The most prominent example of this fusion remains Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" movement. For nearly a decade, MAGA supporters have demonstrated fandom-like behaviors that transcend traditional political engagement. They create and purchase merchandise, travel to rallies like concert-goers, and develop intricate online narratives about political adversaries. More significantly, the MAGA movement has demonstrated remarkable ability to absorb surrounding fan communities—from professional wrestling aesthetics to gaming culture—creating multiple access points for potential supporters.

Government Engagement with Gaming Communities

The intersection of politics and fandom reached new heights when official government accounts began engaging with gaming communities. In a notable example, the White House X account quoted a GameStop post about the end of "console wars"—a long-standing memeified competition between video game console manufacturers—claiming that Trump "presided over the end of the 20-year Console Wars." This engagement represented a calculated effort to position political messaging within existing fan narratives.

Simultaneously, the Department of Homeland Security leveraged the same gaming moment to call on audiences to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement to "destroy The Flood"—referring to the main villains in the Halo franchise. This post, which received over 100,000 likes, demonstrated how government agencies are attempting to translate complex policy issues into the language of specific fan communities, though not without controversy regarding the implications of comparing immigrants to fictional alien invaders.

Beyond Influencer Politics

This focus on fandom represents a significant evolution from the influencer-heavy digital strategies that dominated political campaigns in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, campaigns like Joe Biden's turned to streaming platforms and creator collaborations as lockdowns forced traditional in-person politicking online. The Biden White House regularly briefed political creators on policy issues and provided messaging guidance, treating influencers as distribution channels for political content.

However, as Kurt Braddock, an American University professor studying political persuasion, notes, successful fandom-based campaigns operate differently: "By addressing and engaging with individual communities, it allows campaigns to deliver their messages, and then to step away from those communities, and the communities will take the message that they just got, and then they'll do their own myth-making surrounding it." This organic extension contrasts sharply with campaigns that treat communities as passive audiences for political messaging.

Strategic Implications for Political Campaigns

The Mamdani campaign's approach demonstrated several key advantages of fandom-based political strategy. First, by seeking out communities that already shared the candidate's values—whether subway riders, nurses, or specific neighborhood residents—the campaign ensured authentic alignment rather than forced political transactions. Second, this approach generated organic engagement that extended beyond the initial campaign messaging, as communities continued discussing and interpreting the political content within their own frameworks.

In contrast, Andrew Cuomo's campaign attempted to force its way into internet culture through trend-chasing posts, MAGA creator collaborations, and AI-generated videos. These efforts largely fell flat, demonstrating that successful fandom engagement requires genuine understanding of community dynamics rather than superficial appropriation of internet aesthetics.

The Future of Political Engagement

As political campaigns continue to navigate increasingly fragmented media environments, fandom-based strategies offer promising approaches for building sustainable political movements. The key insight is recognizing that political power in digital spaces derives not just from broadcasting messages to large audiences, but from translating those messages into the specific languages and logics of existing communities.

This represents a fundamental shift in political communication—from treating voters as individual decision-makers to engaging with them as members of interconnected communities with shared narratives, values, and emotional languages. The most successful future campaigns will likely be those that can authentically integrate into these communities, contributing to their narratives rather than simply borrowing their aesthetics.

Fandom has become more than just a marketing tactic in contemporary politics; it has emerged as a new framework for political engagement in a digitally connected world. As campaigns continue to experiment with these approaches, the challenge will be balancing authentic community engagement with substantive political messaging, ensuring that the language of fandom enhances rather than replaces meaningful political discourse.