While Sliwa’s popularity online has been organic, many politicians have tried to implement their own Gen Z social media strategy—for example, Gavin Newsom’s Twitter trolling. Some candidates are even trying to parrot one of the arguably most successful online campaigners: Donald Trump.
Along with the president’s early days of online ranting, his 2024 victory was partly attributed to investing in relationships with social media influencers. Today, as Sliwa appears on popular TikTok shows, some social media users have begun to make the comparison.
“They thought [Trump] was a joke, and he was getting clipped and memed all the time,” Divyne said Tuesday.
“The ‘he’s funny’ rhetoric is how we ended up with Trump,” another TikTok comment agreed.
Khalil Gamble, 27, said that Sliwa reminded him of 2016 Trump, calling it “diva” behavior to refuse to play by the invisible rules of debate.
Gamble’s own video about the debate, uses the typical format of the Mamdani-Cuomo-Sliwa meme that’s circulating the internet. It goes like this: Mamdani answers a question while staying cool and collected. Andrew Cuomo refuses to answer. And Sliwa says something related to his strange lore. It typically has something to do with his vigilante days—or how he was shot in the back of a taxi.
In Gamble’s video, for example, he pretends to ask the candidates: “Who won the Kendrick Lamar-Drake beef?”
“Kendrick, obviously,” he says as Mamdani.
“I don’t listen to rap music,” he says as Cuomo.
Then, in a gruff voice, he impersonates Sliwa: “On Sep. 7, 1996, I killed Tupac Shukar.”
The video has been viewed more than 2.5 million times.
People like to adopt public figures as “pets,” Gamble said. “Especially if they’re strange, like Sliwa is.”
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa speaks during an anti-migrant rally in 2023.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
