A Giant Pile of Money Won't Fix Democrats' Joe Rogan Problem
If he's chosen, he ain't Rogan.
Democrats want to spend millions searching for a liberal Joe Rogan. It won't work.
"We need our own Joe Rogan," has rapidly become the most important insight the Democrats took away from the 2024 Election.
And they're not wrong: President Donald Trump's podcast-based media strategy, which culminated in a highly anticipated Rogan interview, clearly did help the GOP make historic gains with young people, particularly young males. Gen Z is embracing Trump, in large part because the alternative media ecosystem—a network of independent podcasters, journalists, entertainers, influencers, and everything in between—is much friendlier to the contrarian contours of modern conservatism than the elite-consensus obeisance of modern liberalism.
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Neither The Joe Rogan Experience nor its peer programs are explicitly political, or at all moments geared toward promoting a pro-Trump worldview. They talk about sports, entertainment, culture, working out, humor, dating, video games, whether aliens exist (and have visited us recently), and all sorts of other topics. But the cumulative effect is a friendliness toward dude topics, political incorrectness, and mainstream skepticism that inexorably channels viewers toward the Republican Party.
The Democrats are not wrong to want their own version of this, or at least a competitor who can staunch the bleeding in terms of youth enthusiasm for progressive politics. To that end, The New York Times reported this week, top Democratic donors, consultants, political operators, former government officials, and activists are working to spend millions of dollars searching for their very own liberal Joe Rogan.
"At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party's rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, 'find the next Joe Rogan,'" writes the Times. "The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump—if only they can throw enough money at the problem."
These are not theoretical plans: the Times detailed efforts by several well-funded Democratic organizations to recruit talent by raising—and spending—millions and millions of dollars. An illustrative example is "Project Bullhorn," which aims to spend $35 million to supplement the efforts of left-leaning YouTube channels, and book left-leaning YouTube hosts on bigger and better media platforms.
The Times, to its credit, is keenly aware of the overarching problem these efforts will encounter.
"The quiet effort amounts to an audacious—skeptics might say desperate—bet that Democrats can buy more cultural relevance online, despite the fact that casually right-leaning touchstones like Mr. Rogan's podcast were not built by political donors and did not rise overnight," notes the Times.
Indeed. No amount of money can pay for authenticity, and Democratic efforts to coronate a liberal Joe Rogan—no matter the price tag—elide the unfortunate reality that liberals already had their own Joe Rogan: His name was Joe Rogan.
Bought and Paid For
Today, Rogan is a supporter of Trump who pals around with Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock, and other right-wing media figures at UFC Fights. But just a few years ago, he endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) for president and promoted skepticism of corporations from a left-leaning perspective.
Many in the mainstream media might find this odd: How does one go from endorsing the avatar of democratic socialism in 2020 to endorsing Donald Trump in 2024? But in truth, it's directionally consistent with the paths taken by other leftist alternative media and political figures. Prior to 2020, leftist alternative media was the home for skeptics and contrarians. There was The Young Turks, The Jimmy Dore Show, and even Rising, the YouTube show I currently co-host on The Hill, which catered to a much more left-leaning sensibility under the previous hosts, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti—who left in 2021 to launch their own channel, Breaking Points. There was Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and Russell Brand. There was Robert F. Kennedy Jr and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii), progressive Democrats who became popular for making frequent appearances on such programs.
Many of the personalities associated with these programs would deny that they have moved to the right or joined the Republican Party. (Though RFK Jr. and Gabbard obviously have.) And in most cases, they more or less have a point: It's not so much that they changed, but rather, that their audiences changed.
Undeniably, a main motivating factor was the COVID-19 pandemic. As an observer of left media trends whose own show was growing in popularity at this time, I had a front-row seat to the civil war that broke out over the response to the pandemic, which some lefties viewed—still view—as a mass disabling event, and others viewed as a convenient excuse for tyrannical overreach on the part of the government. This later attitude was also the view of most people on the right, and thus significant segments of the Joe Rogan left found themselves making common cause with MAGA.
As a result, the Trump media coalition is for people who distrust elite institutions, legacy journalism, and the expert consensus; leftists who wanted to remain true to their anti-establishment brand have found that the audience is simply bigger on the right these days. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump coalition is more or less satisfied with traditional media offerings: print journalism, cable news, etc.
Therein lies the problem: A new, liberal Joe Rogan must rise organically, but such an individual is likely to already exist in the mainstream media, or quickly become captured by it—which is a fine career path for him, as far that goes, but is unlikely to lure undecided or independent voters back to the Democratic folds. Merely throwing money at the problem is a nonstarter, since Democratic elites picking the next liberal Rogan creates a kind of paradox: If he's chosen, he ain't Rogan.
Moreover, if they did somehow find a popular, heterodox podcaster who appealed to young males and possessed the ability to steer them away from Trump, the Democrats would turn on this person the second he called out woke shibboleths or made a serious challenge to the party's establishment. In other words, the very characteristics that make a Rogan a Rogan are anathema to the Democratic Party.
In Case You Missed It
It's been a big week for the Joe Biden cognitive decline coverup! If you missed my earlier commentary, check it out here. The bottom line is this: It is absolutely appropriate to wish Biden a full recovery and to empathize with his family in the wake of his cancer diagnosis. At the same time, we must not cut short the vital work of exposing those in the White House who hid his mental state from the public in the closing months of the campaign.
This Week on Free Media
I am joined by Amber Duke to discuss Biden's cancer diagnosis, Bernie Sanders, Ezra Klein demolishing Sam Seder, chaos at CBS, and more.
Worth Watching
Well, Thunderbolts is easily* the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since Avengers: Endgame. The film just works on every level, anchored by a characteristically strong performance from Florence Pugh, who portrays Yelena Belova, the depressed younger sister of Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff. It's reminiscent of the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films, which also managed to wring both humor and pathos from an unlikely team of antiheroes. And unlike many of the recent MCU adventures, Thunderbolts is well-plotted, consistent, and features characters making logical decisions. It's the first time since probably Loki that Marvel hasn't had me rolling my eyes.
*Okay, Deadpool was also very good.
