A dating app for conservatives is hoping to give “swipe right” a whole new meaning.
Date Right Stuff, founded by a trio of former Trump advisors, takes the familiar template pioneered by mainstream apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge and calibrates it specifically to Republican-voting singles. Beyond helping the right find love, Chief Marketing Officer Raquel Debono said that Date Right Stuff seeks to redefine conservatism by appealing to a younger, more urban base.
“With traditional conservatism, you usually think of someone in rural America who gets married young,” Debono said. “But there’s a whole slew of different young conservatives that are out and about now. It’s not like it used to be.”
Early Struggles, Recent Triumph
Date Right Stuff was launched in 2022 under the name The Right Stuff by John McEntee, Daniel Huff, and Isaac Saltzer, three former members of the first Trump administration. Despite its MAGA pedigree and a $1.5 million investment from Republican mega-donor Peter Thiel, early reviews of the app were not positive. Its initial invite-only registration process prevented some would-be users from signing up, and a promo campaign featuring Ryann McEnany (sister of former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany) that promised women a free premium subscription if they invited a friend, fueled rumors that the app’s gender ratio was out of whack. Further claims from anonymous customer reviews that the app was being used by FBI agents to hunt down suspected January 6 rioters (The Right Stuff denied the allegations) didn’t help matters, nor did a cease-and-desist letter from an older dating service operating under the same name.
But like the MAGA movement itself, the venture has gained a second wind in recent months
Part of that is due to co-founder McEntee’s sudden social media fame. A photogenic former personal aide to Trump who was fired for failing a background check, McEntee has raised awareness of the app with his TikTok hijinks, racking up millions of views while hurling pithy barbs at liberals as he enjoys a meal. “So I can’t have an opinion on abortion because I don’t have a uterus, but I can be a woman without one? Got it,” McEntee says in one clip before chomping down on a guacamole loaded tortilla chip.
McEntee’s TikTok fame also led him to Raquel Debono, a former lawyer who now serves as the app’s Chief Marketing Officer. A similarly prolific TikTok user who posts under the name @raqisright, Debono helped usher in a new era for the company, now renamed Date Right Stuff, through her Make America Hot Again events. The get-togethers are designed to help conservatives living in the “liberal hell” of New York City to mingle and, hopefully, pair off.
The first Make America Hot Again party was thrown in September and follow up events have since been held in concert with the vice presidential debate, election night, and Trump’s inauguration. The next MAHA soiree will be held on April 30th to commemorate the 100th day of Trump’s second term.
City Conservatives
Make America Hot Again’s inauguration bash – which was held in Washington instead of New York – was featured in “The Cruel Kids Table,” a splashy New York Magazine cover story documenting the cultural rise of young, wealthy Trump supporters. In the piece, Debono identifies herself as a “city conservative,” a demographic that seems to be Date Right Stuff’s prime target. According to Debono, “city conservatives” are glamorous, city dwelling right wingers who defy the “Nashville, cowboy-boot wearing 24-year old who’s already married or engaged” image that most people conjure when they think of young Republicans.
“The reality is that if you work in corporate America, you’re going to be based in one of these big cities,” Debono said. “And it used to be, if you lived in New York, you would be scared to say who you voted for. But I think the tide has turned, and people are willing to think a bit differently.”
Gen Z Trumpers
Debono’s observations about what’s driven young Americans to conservatism echo the surfeit of articles that have been published on the topic since the 2024 election. She says that Gen Z has been turned off by progressives’ increasingly rigid and censorious social attitudes, leading them to embrace the Trump-era right’s looser approach to language and social mores
“The left has taken everything too seriously, and they’ve become the party of the uncool. They’re the principles and hall monitors and sticklers,” Debono said. “And I think conservatives have sort of grabbed onto that and now, you know, it’s the cool, alt thing to say you’re a conservative or voted for Donald Trump.”
And, like cool kids everywhere, conservative cool kids want to hang out with their fellow cool kids. “At the end of the day, dating comes down to shared values,” Debono said. “When you find a partner who votes a similar way you do, it just makes your life a little easier.”
Despite Debono’s distaste for hall monitors, Date Right Stuff remains a managed experience. Accounts are manually approved by a Date Right Stuff employee before users can start swiping. My profile, which I created solely for research purposes, has yet to be approved roughly two weeks after I created it. Debono said they hope to roll out a Face ID feature to expediate this process.
One More Thing
In response to concerns that politically segregated spaces like Date Right Stuff will intensify America’s political polarization, Debono said that the app’s founders and users are just being realistic about what young people are looking for in a mate. Well, some people, anyway. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Date Right Stuff users can only seek dates with the opposite sex.
Michael Lovito is a Brooklyn-based reporter and critic whose work has appeared in Salon, Brooklyn Magazine, Pavement Pieces, and The District. He also serves as editor-in-chief of the politics and pop culture website The Postrider. @MLovito
