Headline Roundup • December 16th, 2024
Does the Left Need a Joe Rogan?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Following the election, there has been online chatter about the impact of podcasts on the election results.
Male Voters: In the final days of the campaign, Trump went on many male-oriented podcasts, including Adin Ross, Theo Von, and Joe Rogan's podcasts. The Joe Rogan Experience was the most listened to podcast in 2024 with 14.5 million listeners—80% of listeners are men. Trump won the men's vote, leaving Democrats wondering how to better appeal to young men.
Joe Rogan's Views: Left leaning late night host Jon Stewart said in response to whether the left needs its own Joe Rogan, "I think that's oversimplifying Joe Rogan," adding, "I don't know what I would necessarily classify him as he has some ideas that I think are wildly progressive." Rich Lowry (Right bias) mentioned Rogan was once a Bernie Sanders supporter, and "a key aspect of Rogan-type influencers is that they question authority." He added, "woke Democrats" could never embrace such a figure.
The Path Forward: Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker said, "I don't think that the Democratic Party can podcast itself out of this issue. Joe Rogan, he endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020, maybe they should do an autopsy on why he left the party." Piker argued the Democrats need to adopt left-wing populist policy change. A New York Magazine (Left bias) writer argued that Democrats should engage in left wing alternatives to Rogan-types, like Piker, as well as engage more with Rogan-types, whose audiences often have politically fluid opinions.
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Illustration via Noah Hickey. Getty Images by Michael M. Santiago, Jeff Bottari, and Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC.
During his successful presidential campaign this past year, Donald Trump consciously tried to raise the testosterone quotient of the Republican ticket.
Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock were wheeled out at the Republican National Convention, as was UFC chief executive Dana White. Trump even attended a UFC match in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. In an October speech, the president-elect cast himself as the “protector” of women … “whether they like it or not.” His running mate, Sen J.D. Vance of Ohio, had in the past talked disparagingly about “childless cat ladies”...
Getty Images
One of the new cliches of American politics is that progressives need their own Joe Rogan. The comedian turned podcaster has an audience that is four-fifths male and 51 per cent aged 18-34, and it has not escaped the Democrats’ notice that, while women aged 18 to 29 voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris, men in the same age group went narrowly for Donald Trump. This tracks with pre-election research which showed a majority of Rogan listeners, regardless of sex or age, planned to vote Republican while only a quarter intended to back the Democrats. Rogan himself endorsed Trump,...
Scott McIntyre for The New York Times
Three weeks before Election Day, Donald J. Trump appeared on a podcast hosted by two former professional football players. They spent about an hour together, talking as much about sports as his presidential bid.
At one point, the hosts asked Mr. Trump why he had made time for them and other similar shows, spending dozens of hours in podcast studios over the course of the campaign.
“It’s a young world,” he explained. “You’re in a young world, right?”
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