At a rally in Iowa earlier this year, the 700-strong audience gleefully reprised an old chant: “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Their target was Hillary Clinton, obviously. On stage, the hosts attacked Democratic politicians: Pete Buttigieg was denounced as a “bloodless asexual”, Michael Bloomberg as a “midget gremlin” and supporters of Joe Biden as “gelatinous 100-year-olds”. Afterwards, a journalist from The New York Times went home and wrote a disapproving report of what she’d seen. But she was not writing about a fringe event for supporters of President Trump, she was getting to grips with the new face of left-wing politics.

The five schlubby millennial hosts of Chapo Trap House, the podcast behind the rally, are the most prominent exponents of a burgeoning political