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.”
[…]
The first out of the gate has been Chorus, a well-publicized liberal nonprofit group co-founded by the Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen.
But others have stayed under wraps until now. In November, Ms. McBride and other liberal operatives gathered in Washington for a series of meetings to survey the election wreckage. At the headquarters of American Bridge, one of the largest Democratic donor networks, they eventually hatched a plan for a for-profit media company called AND Media, which stands for “Achieve Narrative Dominance.”
The company, incorporated in March, says it is aiming to raise $45 million over the next four years. The group hopes to have a $70 million budget over that time frame based on predictions of $25 million in revenue. It says it has raised $7 million so far. Ms. McBride and Christian Tom, who led digital strategy for the Biden White House, have pitched the company to American Bridge donors as a broad cultural project.
Reminder that Rogan endorsed Bernie in 2020. They had a Joe Rogan, it was Joe Rogan.
Yeah that’s even worse though
They already have these people. It’s Bill Maher, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, etc. They’re just on cable TV which nobody under 50 watches anymore. Not to mention, they’re insufferable to everyone except establishment dems.
Republicans realized this a decade ago, so they gave Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, etc. large online platforms in addition to their cable appearances. Then, they had a slew of talking heads like Candice Owens and Milo Yiannopoulos branch out further into online spaces while the original grifters kept their distance. People like Kirk maintain plausible deniability if they need to burn anyone who steps out of line or becomes too controversial (as was the case with Milo).
It’s why the conservative outrage machine grows and keeps its momentum going, while dems sit around with their thumbs up their asses wondering if some D-list celebrity can topple Joe Rogan.
It also doesn’t help that the dems don’t have any sort of coherent message beyond “We aren’t those guys.” They struggle to stay relevant because their entire thing is being “republican lite” and no one wants that or likes that.
For me this is the pink elephant in the room. How could you appeal to people when your philosophy, or lack thereof, is to be a ratchet for things that make life worse and concentrated wealth upwards? The discussion has nothing to do with how to make life better? No dosing rod for the sentiment of the people you intend to serve? Maybe if you were responding to some societal, cultural desire like Trump did somebody could tap into that and metabolize it for people, becoming popular in the process. Plenty of people did plenty of numbers after Trump noticed angry people and it got metabolized into rants about how Liberals want to steal your penis. You’re not my manager; you’re auditioning for the role of my servant. If you don’t know what I want you’re going to have a hell of a time finding someone who resonates with me.
I think the lib characters you mention also have online presences, but they don’t really appeal to anyone under the age of fifty.
Yeah the lib boomers I know love Kimmel and watch him on YouTube TV. Don’t know anyone younger than them who watches him.
The sad thing is the left kind of had some of that energy too. The old school “edgy atheist” movement was pretty left-wing, and they did something really important: they mocked the fascists instead of being openly scared of them. Like literally, back in the day, homophobic people were written off as dumbass slobs, and their bigotry is a byproduct of their lack of intelligence. Unfortunately that kind of came apart when people on the right realized they can just basically tell some more privileged atheists 'just play along with it and you can use religion as a crutch to demand special treatment for being one of us ‘normals’."
If dems want an online media presence, I’d argue to try the skeptic thing again now that the right is abandoning it in favor of “I’m sexy!” as an argument.
It’s Bill Maher, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, etc. They’re just on cable TV which nobody under 50 watches anymore. Not to mention, they’re insufferable to everyone except establishment dems.
When I was back watching some Hasan streams last year I think IIRC even at the height of that mini donor revolt and Biden dropout, the problem was that these are not even all that bad, there was some good reaction from both Hasan and his type of viewers(chat) to that stuff when they were(I think John was best?) consistently shitting on both candidates but specialy Biden.
I’m going from memory but from the clip segments Hasan would watch on stream, it didn’t even look that bad if they had all kept that consistent at least appearance of indignation and revolt towards the situation. They could have managed to pull some younger viewers through that sort of pipeline, even if just temporarily. But once Kamala’s campaign got underway and that brief moment she was up in the polls etc it was all back to normal then it was realy over.
So I’d even argue the issue is not necessarily just its old cable shit since you know you can find these clips on YT later etc. It realy is more of the shit content. They’re so old and disconnected etc. But if they all even tried to shift there is already a sort of pipeline ready for them.
They are ideologically incompetent and are going to end up funding an honest to god Nazi party because they’ll get duped by a gay fascist or something
They’re trying to find someone likable with smug liberal politics? You’re better off paying millions for the capture of Bigfoot.
Pod Save America, but with $2k tickets for shows subsidized by the US Petroleum Institute of Genocide. I’m sure many people who aren’t already fully in the liberal tank would tune in!
That’s the entire alumni of the Daily Show and they’re all insufferable to listen to. Jon Oliver is okay but god his jokes are annoying.
I like him, although I haven’t watched him in awhile. He has the occasional bad takes (an episode on Venezuela and China for example) but usually every episode is an explanation of why capitalism sucks, which I think needs to be the beginning of every lib to leftist pipeline. They don’t use those words, but it’s obvious when the cause of the problem of basically every episode is something being privatizated, deregulated, and/or some corporation or CEO.
Part of the reason his foreign policy takes are all dogshit is (IIRC) because his wife is a republican and was a US army medic at a torture camp.
That makes so much sense.
Crazy that their idea is to completely manufacture a guy rather than engaging with any already popular left winger on the internet
that’s why it’s not possible
say what you like about Rogan, he got to where he is very organically
Democrats are just a fundraising corporation. That is why they will never change their politics.
They have politics?
So, 2010s Joe Rogan?
They just gotta get their time machine to work and then they’ll be aces.
They can probably just pay Joe Rogan.
The most popular democrat podcaster I know is already willing to take the reins.
It’s hilarious that the dems, supposedly the adults in the room, are dummer than Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan doesn’t convince people to think like him he says what people already think.
Hassan is your Joe Rogan of the left.
But they want a liberal Joe Rogan. Aka a neoliberal who appeals to populist.
Not an internally coherent political movement.
The “hall monitor” image, as they put it, is inherent to liberalism. Because you always have to make excuses for terrible shit everyone can tell is terrible but then also pretend you care about a bunch of smaller social issues on the side that doesn’t affect most people. “More black women cops!” just feels artificial, and always will no matter how much money you throw at it.
“More black women cops!” just feels artificial, and always will no matter how much money you throw at it.
“More black women overseers!” — that same liberal in 1825
they could simply have told reddit not to ban the chapo traphouse if that’s what they wanted
Smug insufferable online neolib that thinks they have all the answers that appeals to smug young neolibs
That’s D*stiny
I mean, they do desperately need to do something about things like the fact that virtually all the top politics streamers are right-wing. But rather than trying to artificially promote someone whose message they can control (which people will easily see through), they should probably start by buddying up with the one big politics streamer who isn’t on the right, Hasan Piker. But that would require engaging with someone who doesn’t perfectly pass their shitlib purity test, so they’d rather pour money into tame mouthpieces that everyone will ignore because it’s not how the current media environment works.
They’re almost certainly going to lose in 2028, unless Trump nukes the economy and maybe even then.
they should probably start by buddying up with the one big politics streamer who isn’t on the right, Hasan Piker.
Piker would honestly play ball if the Demonrats reached out, acted in good faith, and were not brainless.
But they are the biggest losers on the planet so there’s no way they’re digging themselves out
It’d end up just like what happened at the DNC convention. They’d drop him the second he did something they didn’t like, while also not understanding that’s one of the reasons people like him.
Absolutely. These people have no interest in negotiation or compromise, they’re just gonna keep throwing their weight around (whether it’s in domestic politics or the world stage) and by the time they realize they’re not strong enough to do that (if it ever happens) it’ll be too late.
They do love to compromise with the republicans though
Is it really a compromise if you want the same things
‘collaborators’ has a more appropriate connotation imo
It’s sort of funny how they just can’t understand that you can’t have “independent organically-developed Democrat-aligned media” that is also simultaneously 100% palatable to big money donors.
It’s wild how much better the right is at playing the system, despite both sides being filled with out-of-touch, soulless geriatrics. From what I can tell, every right-wing personality has their own “brand” and many of them aren’t “ideologically pure” at all, but still break right where it matters and pipeline people in that direction. But I guess at the end of the day, dems don’t want people getting pipelined to the left in a way they don’t 100% control, because then they might start getting funny ideas about “having healthcare” or “not killing people.”
Well there is something to be said about how much simpler right-wing politics is, and how the audience susceptible to the messaging is less critical. The problem for big money corporate Dems is that the majority of Americans who don’t vote Republican are either too far left to agree with Democratic positions or too skeptical of politics in general to fall for focus-grouped big-donor-funded BS shoved in their faces. That’s why Bernie gained so much more momentum than any other Dem in 2016 and 2020. He had principles and a history of sticking to them. Hell, Obama was the last Democratic presidential candidate who vocally opposed the Iraq War.
Trump is currently nuking the economy and facing zero consequences.
I’m not sure democrats win another election without a serious change of course.
Even if things are as bad as they were from 2016-2020 I really dont think the general p7blic will give the current democratic party another shot because of how bad they fucked up last time.
I don’t think USians are savvy enough to even understand the democrats fucked up.
It’s worth noting, I think, that most of the big right-wing influencers are absolutely artificial and propped up by far-right billionaires. Imo this is partly because a majority of conventional TV media was (at least perceived as) liberal-aligned, so they felt they needed to invest in alternate methods. Dem-aligned billionaires already have billions invested in traditional media, so they won’t invest in alternative media. Not to mention that, as billionaires, they’re doing fine under Trump, even if they find him distasteful. That leaves people who built their audience organically, who are, as far as I can tell, at least socdem and therefore not acceptable to the dems. There’s no way out for the dems except for the party to die.
It’s worth noting, I think, that most of the big right-wing influencers are absolutely artificial and propped up by far-right billionaires.
Yeah, but it’s a mix, right? You wait for someone to become mildly successful, to find the right nerves to hit, the right formula to corner an audience, then you prop them up and promote them to help them get bigger. I mean, not all, there’s like the Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro types that are fully just mouthpieces, but then you’ve also got streamers who tapped into something organically. At least, that’s my impression, I don’t watch them or know anything about them, really.
Having thought on it a bit, I think both types exist, with the notable difference that the less artificial ones are onboarding younger people accidentally, while the more artificial ones are deliberately trying to onboard older people. Like, how many 30 year olds (who aren’t already massive chuds) are going to become fans of Andrew Tate or Asmongold, and conversely, how many 17 year olds are going to start watching Ben Shapiro? How much the different demographics matter is up for debate, but dems are definitely lacking in the group that targets younger people, and probably also need to invest in media that appeals to people who have checked out of the political process because the dems don’t fucking do anything even when they win.
But rather than trying to artificially promote someone whose message they can control (which people will easily see through), they should probably start by buddying up with the one big politics streamer who isn’t on the right, Hasan Piker.
So uh they did actually react out to him…
…
…
…
To ask him for advice on how to create a “Leftwing Joe Rogan”.
Bit idea - Trump nukes the economy yet it’s a bloodbath for the dems because they remained worse than useless and have no message other than “Vote!”
> Trump causes a second great depression
> Dems: “Wow, we cannot let this stand, this is absolutely horrible…”
> oh thank god.
> I guess this is what it took for you to finally do something
> better late than never I guess
> “…for the banks. We gotta bail them out, that’s our highest priority and the focus of our campaign.”
People saying Trump is killing the economy and the #1 proof is… the stock market going down.
After years of “Bernie bros” and even some Dem playing with the idea that billionaires and Wall St are bad or at least deserve to pay more taxes etc, the first proof that Trump is bad is the damn line going down.
They say this unironically and expected this to resonate with the same people that voted from Trump when the line was also going up and the Biden team celebrated it. Bidenomics shit and liberal news asking themselves why people hate them when the “economy is doing so great”. Go to reddit during the tariff crash, it was literaly this leopardatemyface shit but all stock market line go down pearl clutching shit.
And now that the market did the 180 all those dems look like clowns as expected. They have no message, even when they try its blatant stupidity and hipocrisy. The economy is only crashing when the line goes down, tell that to the Trump voter that suffered years of Bidenomics inflation shit “everything is great” lol.
I take it the Pod Johns’ star has dimmed
Trying to retool the Pod John Biogenesis Facility to produce an authentic-style Pod Joe, but they all either go feral or go full wonk.
Like the Montage when they’re trying to create RoboCop 2 and every one fails
There’s nothing inherently special about Joe Rogan, he’s just a popular media figure who repeats generally right-wing talking points and presents a right-wing aesthetic, and thereby funnels his audience into that mode of thinking.
Liberals have several of their own equivalents of this figure on various talk shows and news stations, but people don’t like them because they’re smug dickheads who exist to cough up the same tired lib-shit that people are only ever more burnt-out on. And young people don’t really watch television media anymore.
There are popular liberal / left figures online that democrats could tap into, but the most popular tend to be too far left of the party leaders to support. The democrats ultimately do not want leftists or even just “progressives”, they want the moderate republicans – the dragon they can’t stop chasing – and only tolerate the left flank of their party at best.
They literally just need better politics, and they’re hellbent on rejecting that change, unless it’s moving rightward and becoming a wussier version of republicans. So (god willing) they will die as a party, and they will deserve it.
There are popular liberal / left figures online that democrats could tap into, but the most popular tend to be too far left of the party leaders to support.
Almost as if the democrats’ political stances literally represent no one other than a portion of the bourgeoisie which is a problem if you are a political party that relies on votes. At least the republicans know how to grift their base.
