The Invented Proximity – How the AfD Promotes a “Trump Advisor” Who Does Not Actually Exist

It is an image meant to have an effect: two men, two suits, the US flag in the background, and above it in large letters: “Thank you, Mr. Bruesewitz! Social media advisor to US President Trump.” This is how the AfD presents its supposed transatlantic connection – a handshake with the man who, according to Markus Frohnmaier, “played a major role in Trump’s impressive election victory – ‘otherwise all is well,’ editorial note –.” The message: the AfD mingles with the architects of power. The reality: they invent them.

Alex Bruesewitz, correctly spelled with an “e,” just as a small piece of advice to Mr. Frohnmaier from the AfD 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣, is not an official advisor to Donald Trump, never has been, and does not appear on any list of official campaign staff – neither in Trump’s campaign teams nor in the White House. The central figures of the social media strategy in Trump’s circle are Dan Scavino, Trump’s longtime Social Media Director and now Deputy Chief of Staff, and Susie Wiles, his campaign manager. Bruesewitz does not appear among them. Chris LaCivita, the key figure, represents the professional essence of conservative campaign-making in the United States: long experience, large networks, campaign and media expertise. His role in the Trump campaign makes him a key figure behind the scenes – not a trading figure, but someone responsible for strategy and execution. Bruesewitz runs a private communications company called X Strategies LLC, which advises Republican candidates and right-wing influencers – a lobbyist, not a strategist in the strict sense, an opportunist who lives off proximity to power, not within it. Even international media such as TIME, Axios, and Politico describe Bruesewitz as a Trump ally or outside adviser, but never as a leading social media advisor. Bruesewitz markets himself, and anyone who is not really excellent in understanding US politics, well connected, and not afraid of research, falls for it, as this example once again shows.

Bruesewitz, as we know from many investigations, is an advisor to the Trump-aligned “Never Surrender PAC” (registered with the Federal Election Commission under ID C00842602). This is a so-called leadership PAC, a private fundraising structure that financially supports Trump’s political activities – but not the official campaign or social media operations. Those who advise there have nothing to do with the campaign strategy itself and are certainly not part of the administration.

The classification is clear: “outside adviser,” not campaign staff. That is exactly what Bruesewitz is – an external propagandist in the orbit of Trumpism, not its architect. A German newspaper wrote that TIME had named him one of the “100 Rising Stars” – that is true in substance, but the context is decisive. The US magazine did indeed portray Alex Bruesewitz as an emerging actor in the Republican power apparatus but made it unmistakably clear that he is not part of the official Trump campaign. TIME described him, as Axios and Politico had before, as an “outside adviser” – an external, loosely connected supporter from the broader circle, not as an employee, strategist, or communications chief. In other words, he stands beside the apparatus, not within it. Anyone who turns that into an official Trump advisor conceals the crucial distinction – and distorts the facts.

That the AfD nevertheless elevates him to “leading social media advisor to the US President” is no accident – it is the AfD. The party lives on self-aggrandizement through proximity to power, prestige, and supposed internationality. The claim that Bruesewitz “played a major role in Trump’s election victory a year ago” is entirely fabricated and absolutely grotesque. He had as much to do with Trump’s victory as Lassie, the collie – namely none. He had neither a function in the official communications staff nor was he listed in the digital campaign systems that are documented in the United States. Frohnmaier’s claim is therefore more than just rhetorical misjudgment – it is the usual AfD chatter, without sense or reason. Bruesewitz represents no official American institution, no government mandate, no campaign function. He is an activist from the periphery who portrays himself as a “Trump ally” and provides exactly what populist movements crave: a piece of pseudo-legitimacy imported from Washington.

This creates a dangerous game of mirror images. The AfD seeks international connections that do not exist in serious political circles. And so they have themselves photographed with men whose influence lies mainly in self-promotion. The social media advisor Frohnmaier praises is not an architect of Trumpism but a marketer of its aesthetics – an influencer, not a strategist, a product of the digital parallel world that transforms populism into clicks and reach. The difference between an official advisor and an external supporter is significant in politics – legally, organizationally, symbolically. But for the AfD, that seems irrelevant. They create their own reality in which proximity to Trump is not a fact but a feeling.

And here begins the failure of many German media outlets that missed a good opportunity to publish the facts and instead seemed to carry this narrative forward unchecked. Anyone who hypes Bruesewitz into a “Trump advisor” without proper classification is not informing but amplifying – artificially elevating the AfD and reproducing its PR in news disguise. Poor research thus becomes career assistance for populists. Those who truly want to enlighten must use terms precisely, define roles accurately, and identify facts and propaganda for what they are: a performance.

The truth is simple: Alex Bruesewitz is not a Trump advisor. He has no documented share in any election victory. He is a political entrepreneur who in the United States lives off others attributing significance to him. And in Germany, he has just received it – from a party and from newsrooms that willingly turned a thin fiction into truth. That is precisely the wrong path.