Hunter Biden is not a genuine guy. And yet, a certain audience is liable to see in him something resembling forthrightness.
The Atlantic’s Hellen Lewis was clearly taken with the manic performance Hunter Biden turned in during a marathon interview in which the former president’s son began by waxing nostalgic about the joys of crack cocaine use, after which he spoke with unbridled passion about almost every conceivable subject for nearly three hours . . . which totally tracks.
Yet, in Lewis’s estimation, the younger Biden’s “temperament and vocabulary” suggested that he was everyman enough to represent the Democratic brand — at least, within the universe of male-coded podcasts that turned on the Democratic Party in 2024. She might have a point.
Lewis observed that this format privileges — indeed, encourages — “human” moments, and Donald Trump himself manufactured a few of those for himself over the course of the campaign. “You don’t have to like it, but this is the media world now,” she wrote.
Playing off his interviewer, Hunter displayed “the bullish charm of the narcissist.” He managed enough personal disclosures to create the impression of “total, raw, unfiltered honesty,” even if, she concedes, it was a front. And Hunter just might have tapped into the country’s appetite for comeback stories. Indeed, Hunter’s conspiratorial theory of conspiracy theories — that they are concocted by nefarious actors to “convince dumb people that they’re doing important research” — could prove a public service. As Lewis hopefully notes, “If this argument can’t deradicalize the extremely online, nothing can.”
The author has not glossed over the flaws, foibles, and malignant abuses of which the former president’s wastrel son is guilty. But she sees in him something that is hard to miss: the liar’s version of candor.
Lewis is justified in her observation that Hunter Biden evinces some of the qualities Donald Trump has perfected. Theirs is the pseudo-frankness that accompanies populist bombast. It deploys four-letter words to mimic passion. It substitutes sincerity with pretension. It approximates earnestness by sacrificing the practiced political affect that is designed to avoid offending anyone, thus diverting its practitioners into the uncanny valley.
Hunter Biden is not a genuine guy. He’s a proven liar, a deviant lout, a manipulator, and a criminal — albeit a pardoned one. And yet, a certain audience is liable to see in Hunter’s frenzied tempo, addlepated and disoriented thinking, and unrefined speech something resembling forthrightness. That’s not what it is, and Lewis makes it clear she understands the game that is being played on her. But she doesn’t think the oft-denigrated “podcast bros” are so discerning.
It’d be nice if Hunter evinced some contrition for the damage he has done to the lives of almost everyone unfortunate enough to have fallen into his orbit, Lewis concedes. “But I would settle for Hunter going on Joe Rogan’s podcast to show MAGA-curious voters that the person at the center of so many conspiracy theories is a real person,” she concludes, “not a shadowy villain.”
But Hunter is a villain. He did manipulate the people in his life toward his own sordid ends, and he did inestimable damage to his family’s prospects as a result. He’s doing the same thing even now. And, apparently, it still works.