Politics
A comic, Trump and Alpha Male walk into an election
Alpha Male has won.
What happens now?
Comedian Brent Terhune has for years satirized the angry, working-class white man who rails against libtards and expresses unyielding devotion to Donald Trump. His monologues resound with right-wing rants and epitomize toxic masculinity in a character he calls Alpha Male. But the aggrieved American man now rides on a sense of vindication in celebrating Trump’s return to the White House. And Terhune wonders what that means for his character and the nation.
“I think he’ll go from being a sore loser to a sore winner,” said Terhune, who lives outside Indianapolis in a blue-collar neighborhood. “Alpha Male will always exist. He was there before Trump. He doesn’t go away. He’s your dad, your cousin. We all feel misunderstood and betrayed at times. But he’s got to find a way to justify everything Trump and MAGA do. It’s a weird hurdle, and a way for me to get out my frustrations.”
Terhune — a former Boy Scout and a Catholic-school-raised liberal — abhors Trump and is nothing like his alter ego. Alpha Male, who wears a russet beard, wraparound sunglasses and a backward ball cap, is enamored with the likes of Tucker Carlson and has no tolerance for gender studies, critical race theory or what he sees as the liberal radicalization of a country that has succumbed to snowflakes and bibliophiles.
The character is at once emblematic and a caricature of the Joe Rogan demographic, bros and aging bros, mostly white but with a growing number of Latinos, who revere Elon Musk and march to Trump’s crass, weaving rhetoric.
“His people will be encouraged,” Terhune said of the president-elect, suggesting that the most extreme of Trump’s followers will become more of a threat to democracy, civil rights and gender equality than during his first term.
“He’s an embodiment of who they are,” he said. “They believe he hates the same things they do. They’re willing to excuse anything and everything for their guy. There’ll be no repercussions.”
Trump and his allies ran a high-testosterone, anti-immigrant, protect-the-economy campaign that appealed to ranchers, mechanics, pastors, billionaires, college students and the radical Proud Boys. Musk — who has 204 million followers on X — urged men to turn out and vote, posting a militant reference on the day of the election: “The cavalry has arrived. Men are voting in record numbers. They now realize everything is at stake.”
Musk reposted an artist’s depiction in which he, muscle-bound and stripped to the waist, resembles the Hulk carrying an American flag. Rogan sits atop Musk’s shoulders lifting Trump toward the sky in a trinity that evokes both a savior complex and hyper-masculinity.
Such imagery suits Alpha Male. Terhune’s character does not apologize. He does not equivocate. He represents, said Terhune, who was profiled in The Times last year, men who feel empowered by Trump’s showman brashness and the belief that he shares their rage and bewilderment at a left-wing, woke society that conspires to leave them behind.
Alpha Male was born out of what Terhune saw as the hypocrisy of conservatives who espouse American ideals, such as freedom of speech and religion, but attack anyone opposed their prescribed views. The character’s first appearance came when Terhune posted “Redneck Burns Nikes” in reaction to then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick taking a knee in 2016 during the national anthem to protest racism. That was followed by Alpha Male diatribes on book banning, the Black “Little Mermaid,” Trump’s mug shot, ruminations on Hunter Biden’s laptop and swipes at President Biden, whom he calls “Papa Long Hugs.”
Brent Terhune channels his character Alpha Male in a video rant from his car in Greenwood, Ind.
(AJ Mast / For The Times )
Alpha Male, whose videos have had millions of views on social media, has become a way for Terhune to understand and navigate the nation’s divisions. The character is a funny, if unsettling, mirror who at times — like Archie Bunker before him — earns a degree of empathy. Terhune’s irony and satire can be so sly that some people don’t get the joke, thinking that Alpha Male is not an act but the comic’s true self.
“Is this satire or is this guy really as deranged as he sounds?” one man posted on Facebook.
Like many liberals, Terhune, who spoke by phone from his home on the day after the election, was finding it difficult to reconcile the many ruptures and recriminations that have jolted the country since Trump’s first campaign eight years ago.
Trump’s recent victory is “a shocking but not so shocking revelation of where we are as a country,” said Terhune, the son of a lunch lady and a father who trucked fuel to construction sites. “A lot of people were fed up with the last four years, but this says that people don’t think past themselves. It is their need to put party over country for perceived patriotism. I’m a straight white guy. I’ll probably be fine. But what about people who aren’t straight and white?”
Through it all, though, the focus of Terhune’s Alpha Male bits will stay on Trump and what he has shaped. In a recent video about Trump working at McDonald’s, Alpha Male says, “Mr. Trump doesn’t need to work there. He was just sticking it to lying Kamala Harris. … There’s no proof she even worked there. Hell, are we even sure she was the attorney general of Commie-fornia? No. Are we even sure she was vice president? No. Nobody knows. There’s no proof.”
In another skit, Alpha Male is the driver in the garbage truck Trump rode in after Biden’s verbal gaffe suggesting that Trump’s supporters were garbage: “You done pissed me off, Joe, and if being a patriot is what they’re calling garbage these days, then, yeah, I am garbage cause I’m going to show up to the polls wearing a garbage bag to show you what us white trash can do.”
Alpha Male, sometimes tearing up when he recounts his many grievances, mythologizes Trump, a leader who survived an assassin’s bullet, an army of prosecutors, 34 felony counts and endless scandal.
After what authorities said would have been a second assassination attempt against Trump at his golf course in Florida, Terhune reimagines the incident in a video in which Trump grabs a golf club to deflect bullets: “The first one he sent flying went back to the shooter, knocked his Bud Light clean out of his hand and he took off scared. And he was running away and there was an envelope of cash that fell out of his pocket. You could see on it, it said, ‘Pay off from the Dumb-ocrats.’ It was then that the Secret Service finally got off their lazy asses and did something.”
That is the kind of fervor — James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” played at the Republican National Convention in July — that has surrounded Trump since he swaggered onto the nation’s political stage.
“He can do no wrong,” said Terhune, mimicking his alter ego. “If you don’t like it, deal with it.”
For Tehrune, the only way to deal with it is to keep channeling Alpha Male’s deep well of suspicion and anger.
Politics
Dan Bongino officially leaves FBI deputy director role after less than a year, returns to ‘civilian life’
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Dan Bongino returned to private life on Sunday after serving as deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for less than a year.
Bongino said on X that Saturday was his last day on the job before he would return to “civilian life.”
“It’s been an incredible year thanks to the leadership and decisiveness of President Trump. It was the honor of a lifetime to work with Director Patel, and to serve you, the American people. See you on the other side,” he wrote.
The former FBI deputy director announced in mid-December that he would be leaving his role at the bureau at the start of the new year.
BONDI, PATEL TAP MISSOURI AG AS ADDITIONAL FBI CO-DEPUTY DIRECTOR ALONGSIDE BONGINO
Dan Bongino speaks with FBI Director Kash Patel as they attend the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City on Sept. 11, 2025. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump previously praised Bongino, who assumed office in March, for his work at the FBI.
“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump told reporters.
FBI DIRECTOR, TOP DOJ OFFICIAL RESPOND TO ‘FAILING’ NY TIMES ARTICLE CLAIMING ‘DISDAIN’ FOR EACH OTHER
“After his swearing-in ceremony as FBI Deputy Director, Dan Bongino paid his respects at the Wall of Honor, honoring the brave members of the #FBI who made the ultimate sacrifice and reflecting on the legacy of those who paved the way in the pursuit of justice and security,” the FBI said in a post on X. (@FBI on X)
Bongino spoke publicly about the personal toll of the job during a May appearance on “Fox & Friends,” saying he had sacrificed a lot to take the role.
“I gave up everything for this,” he said, citing the long hours both he and FBI Director Kash Patel work.
“I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself, divorced from my wife — not divorced, but I mean separated — and it’s hard. I mean, we love each other, and it’s hard to be apart,” he added.
The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building in Washington on Nov. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
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Bongino’s departure leaves Andrew Bailey, who was appointed co-deputy director in September 2025, as the bureau’s other deputy director.
California has tried all manner of design in choosing its governor.
Democrat Gray Davis, to name a recent example, had an extensive background in government and politics and a bland demeanor that suggested his first name was also a fitting adjective.
Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, by contrast, was a novice candidate who ran for governor on a whim. His super-sized action hero persona dazzled Californians like the pyrotechnics in one of his Hollywood blockbusters.
In the end, however, their political fates were the same. Both left office humbled, burdened with lousy poll numbers and facing a well of deep voter discontent.
(Schwarzenegger, at least, departed on his own terms. He chased Davis from the Capitol in an extraordinary recall and won reelection before his approval ratings tanked during his second term.)
There are roughly a dozen major candidates for California governor in 2026 and, taken together, they lack even a small fraction of Schwarzenegger’s celebrity wattage.
Nor do any have the extensive Sacramento experience of Davis, who was a gubernatorial chief of staff under Jerry Brown before serving in the Legislature, then winning election as state controller and lieutenant governor.
That’s not, however, to disparage those running.
The contestants include a former Los Angeles mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa; three candidates who’ve won statewide office, former Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, schools Supt. Tony Thurmond and former Controller Betty Yee; two others who gained national recognition during their time in Congress, Katie Porter and Eric Swalwell; and Riverside County’s elected sheriff, Chad Bianco.
The large field offers an ample buffet from which to choose.
The rap on this particular batch of hopefuls is they’re a collective bore, which, honestly, seems a greater concern to those writing and spitballing about the race than a reflection of some great upwelling of citizens clamoring for bread and circuses.
In scores of conversations with voters over the past year, the sentiment that came through, above all, was a sense of practicality and pragmatism. (And, this being a blue bastion, no small amount of horror, fear and loathing directed at the vengeful and belligerent Trump administration.)
It’s never been more challenging and expensive to live in California, a place of great bounty that often exacts in dollars and stress what it offers in opportunity and wondrous beauty.
With a governor seemingly more focused on his personal agenda, a 2028 bid for president, than the people who put him in office, many said they’d like to replace Gavin Newsom with someone who will prioritize California and their needs above his own.
That means a focus on matters such as traffic, crime, fire prevention, housing and homelessness. In other words, pedestrian stuff that doesn’t light up social media or earn an invitation to hold forth on one of the Beltway chat shows.
“Why does it take so long to do simple things?” asked one of those voters, the Bay Area’s Michael Duncan, as he lamented his pothole-ridden, 120-mile round-trip commute between Fairfield and an environmental analyst job in Livermore.
The answer is not a simple one.
Politics are messy, like any human endeavor. Governing is a long and laborious process, requiring study, deliberation and the weighing of competing forces. Frankly, it can be rather dull.
Certainly the humdrum of legislation or bureaucratic rule-marking is nothing like the gossipy speculation about who may or may not bid to lead California as its 41st governor.
Why else was so much coverage devoted to whether Sen. Alex Padilla would jump into the gubernatorial race — he chose not to — and the possible impact his entry would have on the contest, as opposed to, say, his thinking on CEQA or FMAP?
(The former is California’s much-contested Environmental Quality Act; the latter is the formula that determines federal reimbursement for Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents.)
Just between us, political reporters tend to be like children in front of a toy shop window. Their bedroom may be cluttered with all manner of diversion and playthings, but what they really want is that shiny, as-yet unattained object — Rick Caruso! — beckoning from behind glass.
Soon enough, once a candidate has entered the race, boredom sets in and the speculation and desire for someone fresh and different starts anew. (Will Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta change his mind and run for governor?)
For their part, many voters always seem to be searching for some idealized candidate who exists only in their imagination.
Someone strong, but not dug in. Willing to compromise, but never caving to the other side. Someone with the virginal purity of a political outsider and the intrinsic capability of an insider who’s spent decades cutting deals and keeping the government wheels spinning.
They look over their choices and ask, in the words of an old song, is that all there is? (Spoiler alert: There are no white knights out there.)
Donald Trump was, foremost, a celebrity before his burst into politics. First as a denizen of New York’s tabloid culture and then as the star of TV’s faux-boardroom drama, “The Apprentice.”
His pizzazz was a large measure of his appeal, along with his manufactured image as a shrewd businessman with a kingly touch and infallible judgment.
His freewheeling political rallies and frothy social media presence were, and continue to be, a source of great glee to his fans and followers.
His performance as president has been altogether different, and far less amusing.
If the candidates for California governor fail to light up a room, that’s not such a bad thing. Fix the roads. Make housing more affordable. Help keep the place from burning to the ground.
Leave the fun and games to the professionals.
Politics
Kamala Harris blasts Trump administration’s capture of Venezuela’s Maduro as ‘unlawful and unwise’
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday evening condemned the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, calling the operation both “unlawful” and “unwise.”
In a lengthy post on X, Harris acknowledged that Maduro is a “brutal” and “illegitimate” dictator but said that President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela “do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable.”
“Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable,” Harris wrote. “That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator does not change the fact that this action was both unlawful and unwise. We’ve seen this movie before.
“Wars for regime change or oil that are sold as strength but turn into chaos, and American families pay the price.”
SEE PICS: VENEZUELANS WORLDWIDE CELEBRATE AS EXILES REACT TO MADURO’S CAPTURE
Vice President Kamala Harris had strong words for the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
Harris made the remarks hours after the Trump administration confirmed that Maduro and his wife were captured and transported out of Venezuela as part of “Operation Absolute Resolve.”
The former vice president also accused the administration of being motivated by oil interests rather than efforts to combat drug trafficking or promote democracy.
“The American people do not want this, and they are tired of being lied to. This is not about drugs or democracy. It is about oil and Donald Trump’s desire to play the regional strongman,” Harris said. “If he cared about either, he wouldn’t pardon a convicted drug trafficker or sideline Venezuela’s legitimate opposition while pursuing deals with Maduro’s cronies.”
SECOND FRONT: HOW A SOCIALIST CELL IN THE US MOBILIZED PRO-MADURO FOOT SOLDIERS WITHIN 12 HOURS
President Donald Trump shared a photo of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima after Saturday’s strikes on Venezuela. (Donald Trump via Truth Social)
Harris, who has been rumored as a potential Democratic contender in the 2028 presidential race, additionally accused the president of endangering U.S. troops and destabilizing the region.
“The President is putting troops at risk, spending billions, destabilizing a region, and offering no legal authority, no exit plan, and no benefit at home,” she said. “America needs leadership whose priorities are lowering costs for working families, enforcing the rule of law, strengthening alliances, and — most importantly — putting the American people first.”
MADURO’S FALL SPARKS SUSPICION OF BETRAYAL INSIDE VENEZUELA’S RULING ELITE
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, left, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio watch U.S. military operations in Venezuela from Mar-a-Lago in Florida early Saturday. (Donald Trump via Truth Social)
Maduro and his wife arrived at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Saturday after being transported by helicopter from the DEA in Manhattan after being processed.
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Earlier in the day, Trump said that the U.S. government will “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
Harris’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
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