In the aftermath of an election that saw substantially more people vote for Donald Trump than said they were going to, Jason Hewlett has a pretty good idea why.
Jason’s at his home in South Jordan, reliving a dizzying two months that preceded this past Election Day.
One minute he was a political bystander, the next he found himself immersed in the conservative orbit of one Donald J. Trump.
He’s still trying to understand why so much vitriol and ridicule was heaped upon him just for being there.
The whirlwind began in early September when Tucker Carlson, the former Fox commentator and conservative firebrand, brought his Tour Across America to the Delta Center in Salt Lake City
John Hewlett, Jason’s father, was the main sponsor of the Utah event, using it to promote his supplement business, Cardio Miracle. Capitalizing on his leverage as lead sponsor, John was able to get his son a spot on the program as the opening entertainer. The idea being that during his bit, Jason would mention Cardio Miracle whenever appropriate.
Having never heard of Jason Hewlett, the tour manager was understandably hesitant when John made his request.
“Who’s your son?” he asked. To which John replied, with fatherly hyperbole, “the greatest living entertainer.”
The claim might be debatable, but not the entertainer part. Over the past 20 years, Jason — delivering what he calls his “Utah family friendly version of a Las Vegas show” — has become one of Utah’s best-known home-grown local talents, with more than 50,000 followers on social media.
At any rate, that’s how Jason came to replace the comedian who was originally scheduled to open the Delta Center show. In his place, Jason did his act of singer impersonations and weird facial contortions, closing with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” which whipped the crowd into a patriotic frenzy.
A stunned and relieved tour manager hugged Jason backstage and asked if he’d open every show after that.
Jason agreed and over the next 21 days he wound up opening 14 shows, jetting from one corner of the country to the other to set the stage for Tucker Carlson and his guests, which included the likes of Glenn Beck, Kid Rock, RFK Jr., Sen. JD Vance, and, at the last regularly scheduled stop in Florida, Donald Trump Jr.
Then, at the end of October, he appeared in one more show, this one on Halloween night at a sold-out 20,000-seat Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. The special guest this time was Donald J. Trump.
Politics had never played a big part in Jason’s world. He was a “vote for the person not the party” kind of guy. “I was a semi Republican, sometimes Democrat, mostly Libertarian,” he says, “so this was a weird time for me.”
Made more weird by the reaction he got when he posted what he was doing on his website and social media platforms.
“A lot of people lost their minds,” he says, “I was getting the most hateful messages, from people in my past, from my youth, all the way up through today. Some of my dearest friends were saying you can’t do this, I don’t know why you’d align with this side.
“I lost multiple gigs, dates that were holds for the future, when I announced on my blog I’m doing this tour with Tucker Carlson. I was unfriended, I lost followers, friends and fans. I was written off by a lot more people when I announced I was doing the show on Halloween night, because they thought I was just doing the Tucker tour but now I was actually endorsing Trump.”
The outrage stung even more, Jason says, because he found himself agreeing with much of what he was hearing on the tour stops. “It was all about the Constitution, about our Founding Fathers, about values I believe in,” he says.
He had a suspicion Trump might prevail in the election even though the currents in the media and online forums — not to mention his own correspondence — seemed to suggest otherwise.
He felt there were many others who felt like he did, but they weren’t going public.
“The further we went into the tour the more I realized people across America want a change,” Jason says. “I did say (before the election) I think it will be a landslide because of what I just witnessed, but I’m not a political guy so I wasn’t sure.”
Turns out, his suspicions that a “silent majority” would decide the outcome proved to be accurate.
“I’m grateful Trump was elected, I’m grateful I played a small part in it,” he says, “although it’s the absolute opposite of what I would have told you at the beginning of the year I would be doing in 2024.”
Going forward, he’s hopeful the personal stings he’s felt will subside as he gets back to being “a family friendly entertainer who doesn’t offend.”
Although it’ll be awhile before he gets over the review he got in “Rolling Stone.”
After a Tucker tour stop in Washington, D.C., the rock and roll bible summed up Jason’s performance like this: “A sweaty comedian comes up and tries to entertain the crowd with a voice of Marge Simpson singing Guns N’ Roses. The response is tepid … (until) the dude pulls an ace from the bottom of the deck; he leads the faithful in a karaoke version of ‘God Bless the USA.’”
Jason smiles ruefully. “I’ve spent my whole career hoping to get in Rolling Stone,” he says as he finds a picture on his phone. “Here’s a photo of that event. Look at those people, standing, waving their lighted cell phones. Does that look tepid?”
