Performing a Divine Calling to Save the Nation: Tech-Driven Political Mysticism in Călin Georgescu’s YouTube Live Streams

The 2024 Romanian presidential election was marked by the seismic ascent of independent candidate Călin Georgescu, whose electoral success bypassed traditional media gatekeepers through a sophisticated confluence of algorithmic engineering, voter disenchantment, and foreign election interference. While initial reports labeled him a “TikTok candidate,” this paper examines a more complex phenomenon that we term “tech-driven political mysticism.” Drawing on the conceptualization of populism as a performative communication style, we address a critical theoretical gap by asking: how does religious discourse function both as a peripheral element and as a constitutive mechanism of populist legitimation in digitally mediated environments? Treating Georgescu’s campaign as a theory-building case study, we employ a mixed-method content analysis of eight publicly accessible YouTube live streams to evaluate how digital platform affordances were used to transform ancient messianic themes into tools for modern political mobilization. We identify a central narrative of a divine “calling” ( chemare ) and spiritual “working” ( lucrare ), through which Georgescu positioned himself as a messianic moral leader. By leveraging multimodal cues, such as closed-eyes gestures and a calm vocal tone, within the “digital pulpit” of YouTube, Georgescu performed a type of spiritual authenticity that successfully negotiated authority outside formal institutional hierarchies. On this basis, we propose that “tech-driven political mysticism” describes how platform-enabled charismatic proximity may combine with institutional disillusionment to recast political supporters as a community of spiritual followers.