I think the key is someone who can sell liberal ideas to those who aren’t already sold on them. Rogan’s appeal is that he’s not like Rush Limbaugh (a right winger talking to right wingers) but rather an entertainer first, whose politics may lean right but are often not, and whose approach is that of someone approaching politics from his preferences rather than determining his preferences from his politics. That’s how he gets non-conservatives to follow him, and get non conservatives to even vote Republican.
Not sure what sort of equivalent we’d have on the Left but right now the young, male, not overly political demo has drifted Right of late, seems pissed right now with Republicans but aren’t yet sold on Democrats. There’s an opportunity here but it’s unclear what’ll happen with it.
I suppose that I'm too old to be the demographic for this new form of information system. I prefer to read a coherent, consistent set of arguments which demonstrate that the author has drawn their thoughts from history, philosophy of government, literary knowledge, and current events (such as Stephen). Instead we are offered podcasts which are largely (IMHO) loud blathering by and for people who are uninterested or misinformed on all of the above criteria which I highly value.
I hope that I'm not alone in wanting to hear from people who are smarter or better educated than I am, rather than someone who hosted a show about eating cockroaches. If I never hear someone say the word "bro" again, I would be extremely satisfied. I suppose my attitude is slowly passing into the get-off-my-lawn category. I like pop culture, or parts of it anyway, but I'm definitely not in the demographic that advertisers are searching for any longer. I'm OK with that.
Unfortunately that puts you in a decided minority. It’s not that the majority is stupid, or rotten, but most people just have no time for politics, or conclude that it doesn’t really affect their lives (until it does). Or they just hate it (it’s admittedly unpleasant). So if our side is the one that only offers nuanced arguments that require extensive understanding of politics and current events to follow, we’re leaving the majority to be picked up by those who equate politics more with commercial advertising.
I've spent my whole life mostly in the minority. I was in the minority who protested the Vietnam War. I'm in the minority who protested the war on drugs, which was the devil's lettuce until the government finally decided after wasting countless lives and countless billions that there was money to be made so they did a 180 degree turn in policy. I'm in the minority who thought that Reagan was a terrible president who set the country on the road to greater income inequality, killed unions, and who convinced the majority that government could not be a force for good, but instead was the enemy. I'm in the minority who loudly announced that putting Trump in office the first time would destroy the Supreme Court for the next generation or two.
Now I guess I'm in the minority who despises the general dumbing down of the electorate by TikTok and Reels and podcast idiots in stocking caps babbling about masculinity.
Sure, trump showed up where young men congregate and told them what they wanted to hear. It's too bad those young men didn't remember trump's first term, which they lived through, or research his life before 2016. They voted for their vibes - they liked trump, but not VP Harris, so now we are all stuck with the evil moron as president. I wonder how those young men feel now about voting for trump, because they are the ones that he will send to fight his war of choice.
Haven't heard of him which tells me he isn't as known as Rogan.
Of course, I don't understand the appeal of Rogan either. He's your high school friend's idiot older brother who graduated a couple years earlier, but doesn't have a job, still lives at home, and smokes weed all the time but pretends to know everything about life and how it REALLY works, but he's somehow made that into a very successful career.
Anyway, if you want to try and copy that success, you need people out there creating content even if you don't agree with them all of the time. Kids aren't going to listen to fifty year-old party hacks and by and large, they probably won't get excited most of the time if you give them the chance to vote for 70 year-old establishment candidates either. I've never heard a 20 year-old say "Wooo! Chuck Schumer! Wooo!"
This isn't the take. Hasan might not have the same numbers as Rogan, but he still has millions which isn't something to scoff at. At the No Kings Rally he attended this weekend, he was swarmed by fans. I've watched enough of him - and Nick Fuentes - to confidently say that they are in no way the same. For Slotkin to even suggest that means she's a middle aged white lady who has never really invested any time in understanding what he's about. He's a really good guy and despite the 9/11 thing that he apologized for, he's not constantly stepping on landmines in what he says. Establishment Dems disavowing him shows why the Democratic party is despised in polling. They aren't paying attention to the leftward shift that's taking place, especially in Gen Z. I guess Zohran and the other progressives that have won since Trump was elected haven't opened the eyes of consultants advising middle-aged Slotkin. I wish she and every centrist who thinks the middle of the country is the "real America" would f*ck off but I'm not that lucky. In the meantime, let's not puff them up as knowing anything about anything. If America wanted a centrist they would not have elected Donald Trump. I can't believe that's not more evident to even smart people.
I'm with you on Slotkin - though I appreciate her courageous stance with the others on military service and standing up to Trump. I'm an old white guy who thinks the Democrats should go back to their roots - universal healthcare, gun control, progressive taxation closing loopholes, pro choice, clean energy, etc, and keep hammering at it. If that platform loses, it loses. It's been way too many years, including Clinton and Obama, since we've had a real "democratic" President.
Slotkin and other establishment Dems need to ditch their consultants and meet the people where we are. Hasan said something stupid, and apologized for it, which means that he's more a of man than trump could ever hope to be. His podcast may not have the reach of Rogan's, but so what? It still has a pretty big reach, and there are probably others as well that Dems could visit. If they still want to do broadcast and cable TV, OK, but going on podcasts will reach more people, especially the young.
I literally think that it'd be impossible for there to be a liberal Joe Rogan because liberalism kinda is not based on telling entitled young men what they want to hear (that women have it easy and minorities and women have too much power).
And social media algorithms, which are designed to push those kind of viewpoints, would suppress liberal voices. Hell, think about how little I see people referring to Brian Tyler Cohen, for example, who is presumably famous. It feels like only my own carefully curated YouTube algorithm picks him up.
"Democrats in Michigan have created a Streisand Effect for left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker, whose existence was likely news to most people"
!!!!
So it wasn't just me then....OK...cool. I kept hearing about him as if he was some new firebrand but was wondering why he never showed up in my curated algorithm. I constantly saw him talked ABOUT (especially on reddit) but had never actually seen him...
So, if not Hasan Piker...then *who* would fit that bill who wouldn't be absolutely skewered in the left wing online identitarian space? "Getting" young men is going to involve elevating (I hate that word but it does apply here) a man at least somewhat comparable to Joe Rogan, and that guy is bound to hold social media published views that won't be abided in lefty spaces (frankly, I often get the idea that the left isn't even interested in attracting young men, mostly because they're men and that in and of itself is an indictment). I'm rambling here but I think my overall point is valid. Joe Rogan isn't MAGA even though he and his audience have sympathy with many of their arguments; any more progressive version of him is not going to be AOC with a penis.
Yeah, that is my point. It’s not about finding a liberal Joe Rogan but getting men like Rogan to support Democrats again, which did happen in our lifetimes.
Yes, they did. But they also held some pretty retrograde views, even as they were voting for Dems. If we want to get these guys to vote for Democrats we are going to need to tolerate some manosphere antics as well, and I'm not sure certain sectors of our party are willing to do that (I am obviously not talking about the gutter racism and misogyny we see from the current administration). I mean, a Graham Platner type would be a perfect Joe Rogan-replacement in my opinion and look what the internet is doing to him, even after he explained and apologized. Not sure we're ready for what a lefty Joe Rogan would look like.
Platner is a very good example. The freak out from certain corners is eye rolling and almost something you'd seen in an old movie (and they wouldn't be the good guys!) There are legitimate reasons to have concerns about Platner, but calling him a secret Nazi because of a stupid tattoo is like calling Ralph Northman a Grand Wizard of the Klan because he wore Blackface in college once. Hell, there are stupid college kids who have gone to parties dressed as Klansmen. It was dumb kid stuff -- not an expression of an extremist white supremacist ideology. Hell, people have forgotten about Prince Harry's Nazi costume disaster. He's grown up a lot since then but even at the time, it's not as if he was a secret antisemite.
One thing I don't think our liberal gerontocracy is ready for is how many Graham Platners there are in the candidate pipeline. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and the rest of the octogenarians ruling over the party did not come of age when you wrote every thought on Reddit or Twitter. They will be digging up long forgotten posts on most candidates and they won't be able to disqualify *every* candidate because of them because there will be no one left. Hell, it doesn't even work now-Janet Mills has been running “Platner Loves Rape” ads 24/7 here and it has not yet cut into his (sizable) lead. So between the lefties canceling everyone and the old guard pearl clutching, the liberal Joe Rogan will have his hands full.
I think the key is someone who can sell liberal ideas to those who aren’t already sold on them. Rogan’s appeal is that he’s not like Rush Limbaugh (a right winger talking to right wingers) but rather an entertainer first, whose politics may lean right but are often not, and whose approach is that of someone approaching politics from his preferences rather than determining his preferences from his politics. That’s how he gets non-conservatives to follow him, and get non conservatives to even vote Republican.
Not sure what sort of equivalent we’d have on the Left but right now the young, male, not overly political demo has drifted Right of late, seems pissed right now with Republicans but aren’t yet sold on Democrats. There’s an opportunity here but it’s unclear what’ll happen with it.
I suppose that I'm too old to be the demographic for this new form of information system. I prefer to read a coherent, consistent set of arguments which demonstrate that the author has drawn their thoughts from history, philosophy of government, literary knowledge, and current events (such as Stephen). Instead we are offered podcasts which are largely (IMHO) loud blathering by and for people who are uninterested or misinformed on all of the above criteria which I highly value.
I hope that I'm not alone in wanting to hear from people who are smarter or better educated than I am, rather than someone who hosted a show about eating cockroaches. If I never hear someone say the word "bro" again, I would be extremely satisfied. I suppose my attitude is slowly passing into the get-off-my-lawn category. I like pop culture, or parts of it anyway, but I'm definitely not in the demographic that advertisers are searching for any longer. I'm OK with that.
Unfortunately that puts you in a decided minority. It’s not that the majority is stupid, or rotten, but most people just have no time for politics, or conclude that it doesn’t really affect their lives (until it does). Or they just hate it (it’s admittedly unpleasant). So if our side is the one that only offers nuanced arguments that require extensive understanding of politics and current events to follow, we’re leaving the majority to be picked up by those who equate politics more with commercial advertising.
I've spent my whole life mostly in the minority. I was in the minority who protested the Vietnam War. I'm in the minority who protested the war on drugs, which was the devil's lettuce until the government finally decided after wasting countless lives and countless billions that there was money to be made so they did a 180 degree turn in policy. I'm in the minority who thought that Reagan was a terrible president who set the country on the road to greater income inequality, killed unions, and who convinced the majority that government could not be a force for good, but instead was the enemy. I'm in the minority who loudly announced that putting Trump in office the first time would destroy the Supreme Court for the next generation or two.
Now I guess I'm in the minority who despises the general dumbing down of the electorate by TikTok and Reels and podcast idiots in stocking caps babbling about masculinity.
As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "so it goes".
Neither am I, but it is the wave of politics these days.
Im a construction worker from Texas . Working class. And if you don’t think that Piker is for working class, than you don’t know the working class.
Sure, trump showed up where young men congregate and told them what they wanted to hear. It's too bad those young men didn't remember trump's first term, which they lived through, or research his life before 2016. They voted for their vibes - they liked trump, but not VP Harris, so now we are all stuck with the evil moron as president. I wonder how those young men feel now about voting for trump, because they are the ones that he will send to fight his war of choice.
Haven't heard of him which tells me he isn't as known as Rogan.
Of course, I don't understand the appeal of Rogan either. He's your high school friend's idiot older brother who graduated a couple years earlier, but doesn't have a job, still lives at home, and smokes weed all the time but pretends to know everything about life and how it REALLY works, but he's somehow made that into a very successful career.
Anyway, if you want to try and copy that success, you need people out there creating content even if you don't agree with them all of the time. Kids aren't going to listen to fifty year-old party hacks and by and large, they probably won't get excited most of the time if you give them the chance to vote for 70 year-old establishment candidates either. I've never heard a 20 year-old say "Wooo! Chuck Schumer! Wooo!"
This isn't the take. Hasan might not have the same numbers as Rogan, but he still has millions which isn't something to scoff at. At the No Kings Rally he attended this weekend, he was swarmed by fans. I've watched enough of him - and Nick Fuentes - to confidently say that they are in no way the same. For Slotkin to even suggest that means she's a middle aged white lady who has never really invested any time in understanding what he's about. He's a really good guy and despite the 9/11 thing that he apologized for, he's not constantly stepping on landmines in what he says. Establishment Dems disavowing him shows why the Democratic party is despised in polling. They aren't paying attention to the leftward shift that's taking place, especially in Gen Z. I guess Zohran and the other progressives that have won since Trump was elected haven't opened the eyes of consultants advising middle-aged Slotkin. I wish she and every centrist who thinks the middle of the country is the "real America" would f*ck off but I'm not that lucky. In the meantime, let's not puff them up as knowing anything about anything. If America wanted a centrist they would not have elected Donald Trump. I can't believe that's not more evident to even smart people.
I'm with you on Slotkin - though I appreciate her courageous stance with the others on military service and standing up to Trump. I'm an old white guy who thinks the Democrats should go back to their roots - universal healthcare, gun control, progressive taxation closing loopholes, pro choice, clean energy, etc, and keep hammering at it. If that platform loses, it loses. It's been way too many years, including Clinton and Obama, since we've had a real "democratic" President.
Slotkin and other establishment Dems need to ditch their consultants and meet the people where we are. Hasan said something stupid, and apologized for it, which means that he's more a of man than trump could ever hope to be. His podcast may not have the reach of Rogan's, but so what? It still has a pretty big reach, and there are probably others as well that Dems could visit. If they still want to do broadcast and cable TV, OK, but going on podcasts will reach more people, especially the young.
I literally think that it'd be impossible for there to be a liberal Joe Rogan because liberalism kinda is not based on telling entitled young men what they want to hear (that women have it easy and minorities and women have too much power).
And social media algorithms, which are designed to push those kind of viewpoints, would suppress liberal voices. Hell, think about how little I see people referring to Brian Tyler Cohen, for example, who is presumably famous. It feels like only my own carefully curated YouTube algorithm picks him up.
"Democrats in Michigan have created a Streisand Effect for left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker, whose existence was likely news to most people"
!!!!
So it wasn't just me then....OK...cool. I kept hearing about him as if he was some new firebrand but was wondering why he never showed up in my curated algorithm. I constantly saw him talked ABOUT (especially on reddit) but had never actually seen him...
So, if not Hasan Piker...then *who* would fit that bill who wouldn't be absolutely skewered in the left wing online identitarian space? "Getting" young men is going to involve elevating (I hate that word but it does apply here) a man at least somewhat comparable to Joe Rogan, and that guy is bound to hold social media published views that won't be abided in lefty spaces (frankly, I often get the idea that the left isn't even interested in attracting young men, mostly because they're men and that in and of itself is an indictment). I'm rambling here but I think my overall point is valid. Joe Rogan isn't MAGA even though he and his audience have sympathy with many of their arguments; any more progressive version of him is not going to be AOC with a penis.
Yeah, that is my point. It’s not about finding a liberal Joe Rogan but getting men like Rogan to support Democrats again, which did happen in our lifetimes.
There’s a nontrivial segment of the population that were gung ho for Obama but would up voting for Trump one or two cycles later.
Yes, they did. But they also held some pretty retrograde views, even as they were voting for Dems. If we want to get these guys to vote for Democrats we are going to need to tolerate some manosphere antics as well, and I'm not sure certain sectors of our party are willing to do that (I am obviously not talking about the gutter racism and misogyny we see from the current administration). I mean, a Graham Platner type would be a perfect Joe Rogan-replacement in my opinion and look what the internet is doing to him, even after he explained and apologized. Not sure we're ready for what a lefty Joe Rogan would look like.
Platner is a very good example. The freak out from certain corners is eye rolling and almost something you'd seen in an old movie (and they wouldn't be the good guys!) There are legitimate reasons to have concerns about Platner, but calling him a secret Nazi because of a stupid tattoo is like calling Ralph Northman a Grand Wizard of the Klan because he wore Blackface in college once. Hell, there are stupid college kids who have gone to parties dressed as Klansmen. It was dumb kid stuff -- not an expression of an extremist white supremacist ideology. Hell, people have forgotten about Prince Harry's Nazi costume disaster. He's grown up a lot since then but even at the time, it's not as if he was a secret antisemite.
One thing I don't think our liberal gerontocracy is ready for is how many Graham Platners there are in the candidate pipeline. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and the rest of the octogenarians ruling over the party did not come of age when you wrote every thought on Reddit or Twitter. They will be digging up long forgotten posts on most candidates and they won't be able to disqualify *every* candidate because of them because there will be no one left. Hell, it doesn't even work now-Janet Mills has been running “Platner Loves Rape” ads 24/7 here and it has not yet cut into his (sizable) lead. So between the lefties canceling everyone and the old guard pearl clutching, the liberal Joe Rogan will have his hands full.