How is Michelle Malkin influential? I’m pretty sure even Nick has surpassed her in relevancy. As far as view counts even people like Vaush who started being a lefty political streamer last year are pulling those numbers on a bad day nowadays. Hell, his RNC stream surpassed Nick’s on Dlive iirc. Nick’s base is very insular and it seems like it hasn’t reached anywhere except the online far right.
There have been some attempts I've seen of Nick and his community trying to branch out and become 'mainstream'.
I think he's been trying to go for the meme route since I see so many Nickers like to quip his catchphrases and try get them viral as a meme (stuff like "NO EGIRLS, EVER!", "Google Dancing Israelis," etc,) and he does sometimes interact with apolitical comedians like that Canadian weather report guy (forgot his name), BGKumbi (okay not that apolitical but still comparatively), on Twitter and other platforms to branch out.
Its also why he plays video games on stream sometimes, and does 'cool zoomer stuff'. It's to garner an audience that others in the same political sphere wouldn't have otherwise. If its one thing Nick is good at, he tapped at a niche market. A market of teens to 20-somethings, who mainly just want another e-celeb to follow, but that's 'hip, rad, and totally understands the daily internet+political climate yo'. Basically, the Fellow Kids market, but actually successful to a degree.
It's kinda like how Coppercab is part of Gavin McInnes' network. Gavin may not be mainstream but if he can somehow 'rub off' his brand onto someone semi-famous like Coppercab then it'll spread his word out. I've yet to see Coppercab actually pull his weight though but thats a different topic.
Back to Nick, the issue is that its hard for someone like Nick to actually get into politics and become mainstream, it's gonna be very hard unless he makes changes and that ship may have sailed already. His optics are clearly not as good as what he says they are. Most people know him as that holocaust cookie oven guy. Which isn't an issue if he's just a comedian, entertainer, or even a pundit.
But if he's priding himself as the guy who'll SAVE AMERICA!!!11! and lead the TradCath Zoomer Revolution, then he won't get anywhere no matter how many times he claims to have better optics than the wignats. I have a feeling later down the road he's just gonna become something like Alex Jones or whatever.
Nick may have better optics than Varg, sure, but what's the point if a few days later you're going to say something that's just as edgy as what Varg would say.