I’m not saying they share beliefs (obviously). It occurred to me recently, observing the whole ongoing republican shitstorm in the USA, how strikingly similar the marketing is.
In late 2000s, New Atheists seemed to have cracked the code how to get views from angsty teens on YouTube: stay completely cold and hyper-articulate while making your opponent look like an emotional and irrational mess. They invented the "facts over feelings" tagline before any republican commentators and the "DESTROYS/OWNS" highlight reels. In around 2014 that whole combative internet subculture needed a new target and pivoted to the "anti-SJW" era, aiming those exact same tactics at college progressives instead.
It seems to me that this pivot was the key. The sizeable audience watching secular debate bros dunk on campus activists, ended up getting recommended Ben Shapiro or Charlie Kirk videos which did the exact same thing.
Mainstream conservatives swooped in, inherited a massive pre-built demographic, and essentially took the New Atheist debate tactics and poured Christian conservatism back into the shell.
Hoping that maybe someone has more context to share on this (or if this observation is valid at all). The idea of these mainstream US conservative talking heads nowadays simply being Thunderf00t and TheAmazingAtheist repackaged in Christian nationalism, seems insanely ironic to me.