{"id":19789,"date":"2025-11-09T22:15:53","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=19789"},"modified":"2025-11-09T23:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:05:13","slug":"die-erfundene-naehe-wie-die-afd-mit-einem-trump-berater-wirbt-den-es-so-gar-nicht-gibt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/die-erfundene-naehe-wie-die-afd-mit-einem-trump-berater-wirbt-den-es-so-gar-nicht-gibt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Invented Proximity \u2013 How the AfD Promotes a \u201cTrump Advisor\u201d Who Does Not Actually Exist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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: \u201cThank you, Mr. Bruesewitz! Social media advisor to US President Trump.\u201d This is how the AfD presents its supposed transatlantic connection \u2013 a handshake with the man who, according to Markus Frohnmaier, \u201cplayed a major role in Trump\u2019s impressive election victory \u2013 \u2018otherwise all is well,\u2019 editorial note \u2013.\u201d The message: the AfD mingles with the architects of power. The reality: they invent them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Frohnmaier and Bruesewitz, yes, he could not even spell the name correctly\u2026.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Alex Bruesewitz, correctly spelled with an \u201ce,\u201d just as a small piece of advice to Mr. Frohnmaier from the AfD \ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23, is not an official advisor to Donald Trump, never has been, and does not appear on any list of official campaign staff \u2013 neither in Trump\u2019s campaign teams nor in the White House. The central figures of the social media strategy in Trump\u2019s circle are Dan Scavino, Trump\u2019s 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump mit Chris LaCivita<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Trump with Dan Scavino, who has since October 2025 risen to Deputy Chief of Staff<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Trump mit Susie Wiles<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bruesewitz, as we know from many investigations, is an advisor to the Trump-aligned \u201cNever Surrender PAC\u201d (registered with the Federal Election Commission under ID C00842602). This is a so-called leadership PAC, a private fundraising structure that financially supports Trump\u2019s political activities \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aha ...<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The classification is clear: \u201coutside adviser,\u201d not campaign staff. That is exactly what Bruesewitz is \u2013 an external propagandist in the orbit of Trumpism, not its architect. A German newspaper wrote that TIME had named him one of the \u201c100 Rising Stars\u201d \u2013 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 \u201coutside adviser\u201d \u2013 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 \u2013 and distorts the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the AfD nevertheless elevates him to \u201cleading social media advisor to the US President\u201d is no accident \u2013 it is the AfD. The party lives on self-aggrandizement through proximity to power, prestige, and supposed internationality. The claim that Bruesewitz \u201cplayed a major role in Trump\u2019s election victory a year ago\u201d is entirely fabricated and absolutely grotesque. He had as much to do with Trump\u2019s victory as Lassie, the collie \u2013 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\u2019s claim is therefore more than just rhetorical misjudgment \u2013 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 \u201cTrump ally\u201d and provides exactly what populist movements crave: a piece of pseudo-legitimacy imported from Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 \u201cTrump advisor\u201d without proper classification is not informing but amplifying \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2013 from a party and from newsrooms that willingly turned a thin fiction into truth. That is precisely the wrong path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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