Hunter Biden is posting on X an average of 23 times a day, cracking jokes about his drug history, trolling JD Vance with ice cream photos, and telling interviewers he'd inform Donald Trump to 'go fuck his fucking self.' This is real life. This is American politics in 2026. Buckle up.
The Comeback Nobody Saw Coming
A couple of years ago, Hunter Biden was one of the most reliably toxic names in Democratic politics. Republicans used him like a stress ball. Democrats quietly wished he'd stay off the front page. He was a walking opposition research gift that kept on giving.
Then something strange happened. Hunter reactivated his X account in May, started posting at Elon Musk frequencies, and people started actually liking him. As The Guardian reports, he's averaging 23 posts a day and pulling fans from across the political spectrum, with some going so far as to call him the 'Maga whisperer.' When Hunter himself was told about the nickname, he accepted it warmly, writing on X in June: 'Left, right, D or R we all want the same things. We're being divided on purpose by the Epstein Elite Oligarch class because as long as we're at each other's throats, they get fat and rich off of our misery.'
Is that message sharp political analysis or is it the product of someone who's been on every podcast that will have him and figured out what plays? Probably both. Doesn't mean it's wrong.
The Ice Cream Incident, Explained
On National Ice Cream Day last Sunday, Hunter Biden posted a photo of himself licking an ice cream cone with the caption 'Hey @JDVance. I wish I knew how to quit you.' This was a direct shot at Vance, who had made public comments about Joe Biden's supposedly 'suggestive' ice cream licking. The Guardian wisely spared its readers JD's thoughts on corn dogs, and we're going to follow that editorial choice.
The troll was clean, timed perfectly, and required no explanation. That's actually harder to pull off than it looks. Hunter Biden is doing things on social media that entire Democratic Party communications departments have been failing to do for years: making people feel something other than vague institutional dread.
For context, this is the same week that JD Vance is serving as Vice President of the United States. The ice cream thing wasn't a distraction from serious politics. It IS serious politics now. The sooner everyone accepts that, the better.
The 2028 Murmurings Nobody Is Shutting Down Fast Enough
Here's where things get genuinely weird. When a Fox News reporter asked Donald Trump last month about Hunter Biden's 2028 presidential odds, Trump said Joe Biden's son might 'do well.' He added that if other 'basket case[s]' in the Democratic party could succeed, Hunter probably had a shot. Trump meant this as an insult. The internet received it as something more complicated.
The Times ran a headline reading 'Could Hunter Biden run for office? Don't rule it out,' and quoted a Biden biographer saying that in a 'populist, social media-driven political environment, you have to never say never.' That's a very careful, hedged, non-committal piece of analysis that is nevertheless getting passed around like it means something.
To be clear: Hunter Biden has zero realistic path to a presidential nomination. The Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi says as much flatly. But in a political environment where the qualification bar for the White House has been jackhammered into rubble, the fact that this conversation is happening at all tells you everything you need to know about where we are.
The Debt, the Podcasts, and the OnlyFans Joke
Let's be honest about what's actually driving the Hunter Biden renaissance. The Guardian points out that the man has millions of dollars in debt, has always been skilled at capitalizing on his last name, and has now figured out that being maximally provocative online is convertible into real money. He's launched a paid Substack called 'Where's Hunter?' (a reference to one of Trump's favorite rally catchphrases), and has joked publicly about starting an OnlyFans.
He's also been doing the podcast circuit at a pace that would exhaust a 25-year-old. That circuit has included, and this is not a misprint, sitting down with far-right conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Hunter Biden talking to Nick Fuentes is the kind of sentence that would have broken news desks two years ago. Now it's just Tuesday.
On the progressive commentator Jennifer Welch's podcast over the weekend, Hunter argued that America's biggest problem wasn't oligarchy but what he called 'closetocracy,' or an angry 'closeted gay mafia' of Republicans in DC. He suggested that this 'internal conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world.' He also said Ted Cruz didn't set off his gaydar but gave him a 'really kinky weird' vibe. Whether any of this is responsible political commentary is one question. Whether it's entertaining is a different question entirely.
Don Jr Still Has Not Accepted the Cage Fight Challenge
Hunter Biden told an interviewer recently that if he were sitting next to Donald Trump, he'd tell him to 'go fuck his fucking self.' He also mentioned that he has challenged Donald Trump Jr to a UFC fight three times and received no response. His proposed plan for paying off his debt: winning that fight.
Don Jr has not publicly responded. This tracks.
The Guardian's assessment is that Hunter has no shot at winning a presidential nomination but would probably beat Don Jr in a cage fight, and that this particular Biden-Trump rematch is the one version of that contest the entire country could actually unite around. That's probably the most accurate thing written about American political consensus in years.
The Dingo Take
Here's the thing about Hunter Biden's political moment: it's not actually about Hunter Biden. It's about how completely the Democratic Party has fumbled the culture war for a decade straight, so thoroughly that a guy who was radioactive opposition research two years ago is now being discussed as a potential presidential candidate because he's willing to be funny and mean on the internet. That's the bar. That's where we are.
The people treating Hunter as a folk hero are making the same mistake they made with every previous outsider savior figure: projecting their own politics onto someone who is, by his own apparent admission, primarily trying to pay back a lot of money. The Guardian's Mahdawi is right to pump the brakes. Hunter Biden going on Nick Fuentes' platform is not the behavior of someone building a coherent political movement. It's the behavior of someone who needs downloads and subscribers and doesn't want to think too hard about who's on the other end.
Still, watching a guy who spent years being used as a prop by people who genuinely despise him turn around and make JD Vance look stupid with an ice cream photo on a national holiday is, at minimum, deeply satisfying. The Democrats need a lot of things in 2028. A coherent economic message. A candidate people actually believe in. A reason for people under 40 to show up. Whether Hunter Biden can provide any of those things is genuinely unclear. That he's the most interesting person in their orbit right now is not a compliment to anyone. It's an indictment of the rest of the field.
