Why Democrats’ Media Problem is Deeper than “Liberal Joe Rogan”

Summary

Offline with Jon Favreau: Why Democrats’ Media Problem is Deeper than “Liberal Joe Rogan”

Release Date: November 17, 2024

In this insightful episode of Offline with Jon Favreau, hosted by Crooked Media, Jon Favreau and co-host Max Fisher delve deep into the multifaceted media challenges facing the Democratic Party. With the thought-provoking guest, Jeremiah Johnson, co-founder of the Center for Neoliberalism and author of the acclaimed Substack Infinite Scroll, the discussion unpacks how the digital landscape, conspiracy theories, and polarized media ecosystems are shaping the political terrain for Democrats.

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Introduction: The Depth of Democrats' Media Challenges

Jon Favreau opens the episode by highlighting the persistent debate around "Liberal Joe Rogan" and introduces Jeremiah Johnson as a key voice in understanding the Democratic media conundrum.

Jon Favreau [00:30]: "But someone who I've been wanting to have on the show for a while because I really like that substack and everybody loves Robert Redford and he does the... And he also does the worst tweets bracket."

The Rise of Conspiracy Theories in Liberal Media

The conversation shifts to the surge of conspiracy theories within liberal circles post the 2024 election. Favreau and Fisher discuss various unfounded claims alleging election rigging in favor of Donald Trump, orchestrated by entities like Starlink and figures such as Elon Musk.

Jon Favreau [02:36]: "These conspiracies have now been seen by millions of people on Twitter, with one thread getting over 26 million views."

Jeremiah Johnson provides psychological insights into why such conspiracies gain traction, emphasizing them as coping mechanisms for individuals feeling a loss of control.

Jeremiah Johnson [04:14]: "Psychologists will also tell you that conspiracies are more than anything else, a coping mechanism for feeling a loss of agency or control..."

Conspiracies: A Double-Edged Sword for Democrats

Favreau and Fisher explore the stereotype that conspiracy theory believers are predominantly right-wing, challenging this notion by highlighting the emerging conspiracies within liberal media. They discuss how, unlike their conservative counterparts, Democrats rarely see high-level adoption of these theories within party leadership.

Jon Favreau [05:57]: "Conspiracies come from trying to explain the inexplicable. And people are more vulnerable to conspiracies when they feel like they have lost and they feel like there's a sense of loss."

The Polarized Media Ecosystem: Conservative and Progressive Media Undermining Democrats

A critical examination is presented on how both conservative and progressive media outlets are contributing to the Democratic Party’s media woes. While conservative media aggressively criticizes Democrats, progressive media also engage in similar tactics, albeit at a smaller scale.

Jon Favreau [73:55]: "Because you have this explicitly conservative media ecosystem... and you have a progressive media ecosystem... Both sides, the Democratic Party is just getting savaged and criticized no matter what they do."

Trump’s Digital Dominance: Leveraging Social Media and Online Platforms

Favreau and Fisher analyze Donald Trump’s strategic use of digital platforms to influence voter sentiment, contrasting it with the Democratic Party’s traditional ground game. They discuss the potential reversal of policies in a Trump administration, particularly concerning tech regulations and the TikTok ban.

Max Fisher [13:33]: "Trump will drag it out because he loves the drama of the will... The day of, it's probably a coin toss whether he bans it or not."

Potential Trump Administration Policies on Technology and Media

The episode delves into specific policy areas likely to be impacted by a Trump administration:

• TikTok Ban: Discussion on the potential delay or halting of the ban, influenced by Trump's preference for controlling social media narratives.

  Jon Favreau [14:44]: "He doesn't care a lot about people's privacy... and letting election denial conspiracies flourish on the platform."

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Oversight: Examination of the controversial proposal to appoint Elon Musk as President Trump's special advisor on AI, and its implications.

  Max Fisher [18:41]: "Elon Musk is co-chair of a powerless panel... He's already annoying everybody around him in the Trump administration."

• Cryptocurrency Resurgence: Analysis of Trump's promise to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world," the ensuing boom in cryptocurrency prices, and the problematic nature of crypto as speculative and unregulated gambling.

  Jon Favreau [21:10]: "Cryptocurrencies have reached historic heights... just a cash transfer from low-income people and immigrants to the rich."

• Antitrust and Consumer Protection: Insights into how the Trump administration might handle antitrust issues differently, potentially leveraging threats to influence tech companies.

  Max Fisher [25:36]: "He will throw around the threats and then those companies will send someone to the White House who will convince him we fixed the Google News feed and now it's all pro Trump."

Finding a 'Liberal Joe Rogan': Gamifying Democratic Media Outreach

In a playful segment, the hosts and guests engage in a game to identify potential candidates who could emulate Joe Rogan's influential podcast presence but with a liberal bent. Names like Stavros Halkias, Shane Gillis, and Charlamagne are tossed around, highlighting the challenges Democrats face in finding engaging, non-partisan media figures.

Emma Iluk [31:31]: "Get him... You just triggered Austin."

This segment underscores the difficulty in finding media personalities who can resonate broadly without alienating segments of the base.

Production Over Consumption: Enhancing Mental Well-Being and Political Engagement

Jeremiah Johnson emphasizes the importance of production—creating content or engaging in productive activities—over passive consumption of media. He argues that active creation fosters a sense of purpose and improves mental health, contrasting with the addictive nature of endless content consumption.

Jon Favreau [93:28]: "Too much consumption. Very bad."

J.D. Vance and the Extremes of Online Conservative Thought

The discussion turns to J.D. Vance, examining his influence and the hyper-online, insular conservative ideology that he represents. Favreau criticizes Vance’s alignment with extreme figures like Curtis Yarvan, underscoring the peril of politicians adopting fringe online personas.

Jon Favreau [84:49]: "JD Vance has managed to put a slightly more respectable face on it. It hasn't worked that well because he is quite unpopular."

Jeremiah Johnson’s Insights: Building a Big Tent Democratic Party

Johnson offers strategies for Democrats to overcome their media challenges by fostering a "big tent" approach. He advocates for embracing diverse viewpoints within the party, standing up against problematic narratives, and reforming institutions instead of merely defending them.

Jeremiah Johnson [68:06]: "We need to be open to the idea of a big tent... Democrats have to be more accepting of just people whose views agree with you only 90% of the way."

Conclusion: Navigating the Complex Media Landscape

The episode wraps up with final thoughts on the necessity for Democrats to evolve in their media strategies. Favreau stresses the importance of engaging directly with individuals rather than relying on traditional gatekeeping methods, which have lost efficacy in the age of decentralized social media.

Jon Favreau [75:39]: "But I think that it requires a level of discipline and focus from the left that I don't know that we've had."

Jeremiah Johnson reiterates the need for Democrats to move beyond being merely defenders of institutions and to actively work on reforming them to align with contemporary challenges.

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Key Takeaways:

• Conspiracy Theories: Both conservative and progressive media perpetuate conspiracy theories against Democrats, hindering the party's public perception.
• Digital Strategy: Trump's effective use of digital platforms contrasts with Democratic struggles in similar arenas.
• Media Figures: Identifying influential, non-partisan media personalities remains a significant challenge for Democrats.
• Big Tent Approach: Embracing diverse viewpoints and fostering inclusive policies can help Democrats build a broader electoral coalition.
• Active Engagement: Encouraging production and active engagement over passive consumption can enhance mental well-being and political efficacy.

Notable Quotes:

• Jeremiah Johnson [04:14]: "Psychologists will also tell you that conspiracies are more than anything else, a coping mechanism for feeling a loss of agency or control..."
• Jon Favreau [05:57]: "Conspiracies come from trying to explain the inexplicable. And people are more vulnerable to conspiracies when they feel like they have lost and they feel like there's a sense of loss."
• Max Fisher [18:41]: "Elon Musk is co-chair of a powerless panel... He's already annoying everybody around him in the Trump administration."
• Jeremiah Johnson [68:06]: "We need to be open to the idea of a big tent... Democrats have to be more accepting of just people whose views agree with you only 90% of the way."

This episode of Offline with Jon Favreau offers a comprehensive analysis of the intricate media challenges facing the Democratic Party, providing valuable insights and actionable strategies to navigate the polarized digital landscape.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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JD Vance, in a stump speech, mentioned Peanut the Squirrel, the squirrel story that circulated through conservative media. And if you're listening and you've never heard of this, congratulations, you lead a healthy life. But you know, you can think about stuff like that. Like they were a super online campaign to begin with just in terms of what they focused on. And this is something that makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. But if you think about the most important conservative thinkers of the last 10 years, you are probably thinking of people with usernames and not real names. You're thinking of Bronze Age pervert. You're thinking of Mincious Moldbug.

I'm Jon Favreau.

[Max Fisher]

I'm Max Fisher.

[Jon Favreau]

And you just heard from today's guest, co founder of the center for Neoliberalism and writer of the phenomenal substack Infinite script, Jeremiah Johnson.

[Max Fisher]

Not the mountain man, to be clear. Not the mountain man, but we've got him on. On a future week.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

But someone who I've been wanting to have on the show for a while because I really like that substat and everybody loves Robert Redford and he does the. And he also does the worst tweets bracket.

[Max Fisher]

It's a very funny. He's someone who is a chronicler of online and how annoying it is.

[Jon Favreau]

Which we love.

[Max Fisher]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Which our wheelhouse. So last week we did a bit of an election post mortem where we talked about the Internet's role in the outcome and all of the challenges facing the Democratic Party as we try to communicate in this media environment. Somehow the interminable who is the liberal Joe Rogan debate still raging a week later?

[Max Fisher]

I'm so excited to engage in a debate that I hate so much.

[Jon Favreau]

Hate so much. We wanted to offer you all a conversation about communicating in this media environment. That's a bit deeper.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Bit deeper. So in a bit you'll hear my chat with Jeremiah, who argues in a new piece that a progressive Joe Rogan may actually be impossible and that Democrats need to spend more time articulating what an alternative to the right's masculinity looks like. Stick around for that. But first, Blueinon is at it again. Max.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, they're back.

[Jon Favreau]

Over the last week, there have been viral conspiracies floating around Twitter and threads and TikTok by liberal accounts that the 2024 election was rigged. It was rigged in favor of Donald Trump by Starlink. That's just one. The Democratic conspiracy theories include claims that anywhere between 15, 20 million Democratic votes have gone missing, that Elon Musk used Starlink to hack into voting machines.

[Max Fisher]

Didn't finish counting, guys. It takes them a little time to count the votes.

[Jon Favreau]

There's also one. This is less about the legitimacy of the election, but still fun, I guess, that the Harris campaign paid Oprah Winfrey a million dollars for her endorsements.

[Max Fisher]

I saw that one breaking blue and on containment. I have to be honest, it made it into my feed.

[Jon Favreau]

I see. I saw that one started on right wing Twitter.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, did it?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, okay. I saw it among, like.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm gonna guess the. Let me guess. The red roses. Picked it up.

[Max Fisher]

I don't know what that is.

[Jon Favreau]

The lefties.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, okay. Oh, oh, right, okay. Yes, the red. You know, we'll get into it.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, cool.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

These conspiracies have now been seen by millions of people on Twitter, with one thread getting over 26 million views. And even popular liberal radio host and MSNBC contributor Dean Obadallah has just been asking questions about whether the election was rigged. Max, what do you make of this? Why do you think so many of the online libs have taken to these conspiracy theories? And there's some of the same accounts that, you know, they started off a little. Biden dead enders.

[Max Fisher]

It was some of that, some of.

[Jon Favreau]

That, some of the. When Trump was almost assassinated, was it a false flag operation?

[Max Fisher]

It really reminds me of 2016 and Jill Stein especially pushing. We're going to do a recount. We didn't lose. Part of it is definitely Jill Stein was just like, oh, seven and a half million. Never gave it back. Part of it is definitely copium. It's not over. And I will be honest, there are times when I wake up and I'm just like, oh, are we sure they finished counting Pennsylvania? Are we sure the election is over? And like, yeah, the election is over. Psychologists will also tell you that conspiracies are more than anything else, a coping mechanism for feeling a loss of agency or control, which I think we're all feeling because it's this lawless, authoritarian, corrupt government that has promised to use the power of the state to go after people, it's scary. It's not that different from, you know, I think a lot about like this interview with a middle aged mom who went deep on QAnon in 2019, 2020 because a hurric forced her to move in with her kids. She's spending a lot of time online. We're all kind of feeling this sense of wanting some way to feel like we're in control. And a conspiracy that tells you, you see the hidden hand that's pulling the levers. Even if it doesn't fix the thing that's making you scared, it makes you feel less scared.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and I think it's very well put. And also conspiracies come from trying to explain the inexplicable. And people are more vulnerable to conspiracies when they feel like they have lost and they feel like there's a sense of loss. And I think one just good thing for us to recognize is as liberals, there's a stereotype of people who buy into conspiracy theories. One, that they're dumb and two, that they tend to be right wing folks.

[Max Fisher]

It's them. It could never be us.

[Jon Favreau]

Can never be us. And certainly conspiracies among the right wing have flourished to say the least. And also MAGA conspiracies are now represented by the highest levels of government.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

The next President of the United States and much of his administration. Right. Whereas not a single Democratic politician has, you know, bought into any of this election.

[Max Fisher]

We've even played footsie with it.

[Jon Favreau]

He's even played footsie.

[Max Fisher]

It's a really important distinction and is why this is. You make a very good and important point that everybody is susceptible to this. But we do not see it in the same way on the left as we do on the right. Because in the right you get sanctioned from elites, from the people you trust, from the people you follow, you believe in. They tell you to believe in these conspiracies. It just doesn't happen on the left, partly because Dems are the party of college graduates. So if you're more educated, you're less prone to this. Also partly because it is the party of governing an institution. So conspiracies are not useful for Democrats the same way they are for Republicans who want to tear it down, who want to create distrust. I think the closest we ever got to this was Bernie very briefly toying with election denialism after the 2016 primary. It was truly like a day. And then he clawed it back and it was mostly, I think, useful as a reminder of why even Prominent Democrats whose audience might want them to give sanction to conspiracies. Oh, we didn't actually lose the primary. It was rigged by the centrist Democrats. Whatever. That ultimately his instincts and the incentives of his politics pulled him away from it. But this has me thinking about, I think, think a softer version of this that we are seeing outside of the, like, blue and on people who are easy to make fun of. And there was again, to like, I'm not trying to pick on Bernie, but just to kind of carry the thread forward. His statement accusing Harris of basically losing for not doing the very same things that he praised Biden for doing just a few months ago when Bernie was making an argument for Biden staying in the race. The kind of like bottom 90% of the iceberg of left wing election conspiracies. And not people denying the. But people convincing themselves that Kamala Harris lost because she or the Democrats were sabotaged by, like, party hacks or faceless consultants who got her to run either to the left or to the center, depending on who you're talking about. That somehow, like, our true politics or our true message was betrayed by these hidden forces within the party that, you know, they muzzled Tim Walls or they forced Kamala to pick Tim Walls over Josh Shapiro, or Kamala wasn't allowed to do economic populism, or she did the wrong kind because the got to her. These are all ways of telling people that the policies and the people you support didn't really lose. That, like, yes, there was a real free and fair election, but the things that you wanted to win, that you believe in would have won if they were given a fair shot. Which is not election denialism of the kind that we are used to thinking about. But it is really unhelpful if we as a party and movement want to think about what actually happened here and think through what are the constituencies that were not reached.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I do think that it's even difficult for me to think about it in the same conversation as conspiracies, because what that really is, which we have seen quite a bit of in the last several weeks or in the last week. Oh, my God. It's only been a week since the election. No.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Is that true?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, my God, you're right.

[Jon Favreau]

It was a week.

I know. It feels like a fucking lifetime. Wow.

[Max Fisher]

How many more weeks do we have of this? Seven, right? He's only president for seven or eight more weeks.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. It's eternity where never. We're just gonna be in a loop forever.

[Max Fisher]

That's it, we're here, but we're gonna gird ourselves. We're gonna get through it. I'm trying not to spiral.

[Jon Favreau]

That's good. That's good. No, the election outcome confirms everyone's priors, of course. Right. And so whether you're on the left, whether you're a centrist thinking whatever, whether it's not ideological, but you're just pissed about this or that, so many of the takes have been. Oh, of course you think that.

[Max Fisher]

Right. The message of so many election takes is your personal politics, your preferences. The rhetoric you want to see is universal. It's what everybody wants. And if the Democratic Party hadn't been captured by XYZ group that you don't like, they would have catered to that and easily won. And that's very reassuring for people in the manner that conspiracy theories are reassuring. But it lets people get off the hook of engaging with what are the policy trade offs? What are the things that need to be done to win over voters who might have different views or preferences than you?

[Jon Favreau]

Yep. No, that is. That is the challenge. Do you worry that even though there's no Democratic politicians that have flirted with these conspiracy theories, that Democrats could ever go the way of MAGA in more of an institutional way, or do you think that because we are the party of institutions, much to our detriment, it turns out politically it's not helpful, that it's just not helpful and the incentives aren't there?

[Max Fisher]

I think that for the actual political leaders, I think the incentives will never be there to engage in kind of election denialism and conspiracies. You just can't govern as a Democrat that way, and you can't build a functional coalition as a Democrat that way. But I do worry about it from our media figures, and we were going to talk about the liberal Joe Rogan, and I do worry about, you know, I'm not saying that someone like John Oliver or Jon Stewart does this, but it's so easy to start down that path with. The Democrats could have easily won if they hadn't done this stupid thing.

[Jon Favreau]

One weird trick to defeat fashion. Exactly.

[Max Fisher]

This. One weird trick to defeat. Or that, you know, obviously all of my preferences could have prevailed. And it kind of starts with, you know, the party has been captured by X, Y or Z group that I don't like. I don't know that it needs to go to outright election denialism. The vote was stolen.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Interesting. There's sort of a fine line between conspiracies and echo chambers and sort of the Warm bath of your own priors.

[Max Fisher]

Right?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right, right. And I do think guarding against the latter is important, you know, but it's.

[Max Fisher]

Part of what makes it so pernicious is that you can't point to anything that is factually false that says, well, you're trafficking misinformation, conspiracies, which are all very girded towards. And it makes it a lot tougher to kind of force yourself to think through the, the difficult lessons from this election.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. All right. Speaking of this election, over the last couple of days, the second Trump administration's cabinet and policy agenda have begun to take shape. We started talking about this on Pod Save America, but I wanted to chat with you about what a Trump White House might mean for the Internet and technology lot to cover. So I thought we'd do this as a bit of a rapid fire.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

First up, the TikTok ban. While the President elect has not yet made an announcement about the future of the TikTok ban, Trump allies, including Kellyanne Conway, who's on TikTok's payroll, told the Washington Post that they expect Donald Trump to halt the ban sometime early next year. At the moment, ByteDance, the Chinese owned parent company of TikTok, has until January 19, the day before Trump takes office, to divest from TikTok or face the ban. But it's likely that ongoing litigation will push that deadline into a second Trump term. Right. Trump's already announced a few China hawks as members of his national security team. And this ban, the legislation received support from Democrats and Republicans, overwhelmingly bipartisan. Trump has obviously flip flopped on this ban once. Why do you think he may actually stop the ban now? And can he?

[Max Fisher]

I mean, the. Can he? A good point that you've made is that a competent president probably could stop it, but he really struggles to act without the consent of his inner circle because he doesn't know how to pull the levers of government. He just, he needs the people around him to do it for him. And if he's surrounded by a lot of China hawks, they might not do it and they might steer him away from it. The why he would do it. There's been this kind of implicit quid pro quo between him and TikTok that they will do basically what Meta did in his first term, which is to tilt the platform in his favor, or at least make him believe that they're tilting the platform in his favor. There was this great story in the information that claimed, based on some sources from people in TikTok, that TikTok modified its algorithm and lucid since it's moderation rules again, just like Meta did to boost conservative topics and appeal to the Trump campaign. I suspect that what will happen here is that Trump will drag it out because he loves the drama of the will. He won't he. And he'll get a lot of concessions from TikTok, or at least they will make him believe that they are giving him concessions. And then honestly, the day of, it's probably a coin toss whether he bans it or not.

[Jon Favreau]

I feel like, okay, he wants the kids to like him because he wants everyone like him to be the hero.

[Max Fisher]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

He doesn't care a lot about people's privacy. Yeah. Obviously that's not a stickler for that. And I do think he maybe because of that change the content moderation and making it friendlier to conservatives and letting election denial conspiracies flourish on the platform. I think he believes that TikTok has been a great way for him to get his message out in this campaign and or serve his political ends by at least having all kinds of videos that are not helpful to Democrats and liberals. So I could see him liking it and just saying, I want, you know, I want to keep it as a. As a potential tool for himself.

[Max Fisher]

Do you think he's right about TikTok that it was helpful to him?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I do. I think it was helpful in that anything where there's enough content, challenging the status quo, institutions, trying to deepen people's mistrust in institutions.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Which certainly most social media does.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And TikTok can do quite effectively with video more than just words like a. Like a Twitter or Facebook or whatever. I do think that that is helpful to him on balance.

[Max Fisher]

Something I thought was really interesting that showed up in a recent Pew poll is that TikTok news consumers, not overall users, but the people who get their news there lean Democrat by 55 to 39 and are 2 to 1 women to men. So it's a very like, Dem friendly news audience. I agree it would be much better if they read the newspaper for the Democratic Party and also for our society. But there is a kind of funny irony to this that if TikTok was banned, it would push those users towards Instagram, which is much more tilted in favor of the right and in favor of Trump because they've been very open about doing that.

[Jon Favreau]

Something I wonder about the questions on where you get your news from is like there's certain. There's a certain group of people who get their news will say they'll get their news from TikTok. There's other people who probably wouldn't say they get their news from TikTok, but use TikTok. And I wonder if some of the messaging. And because you don't. It's not like Twitter, where you decide who you follow necessarily. Like, the algorithm just gives you the. I wonder if people are getting content that may, you know, push them in a more MAGA direction.

[Max Fisher]

I think that's probably true. I think I know a lot of people personally who, if you asked, where did you get your news? Where do you get your news? They would say the newspaper. And they do read the newspaper, but they also bring up a lot of TikToks.

[Jon Favreau]

To me, that's exactly what I was trying to say. Yeah. On what he could do, he could push for the repeal of the law, which I don't think he would. That seems messy.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

He could get DOJ not to enforce the ban.

[Max Fisher]

Specifically his boy, his Troy Mac Gates.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my gosh. Or in the legislation, he could say, I saw Casey Newton was reporting this, that ByteDance has done enough to divest from TikTok. So if ByteDance just pushed some paper around and made a little change here and there, it's totally up to the president's discretion.

Right.

[Max Fisher]

If they, if they sell $1 worth of TikTok assets, they could be divested.

[Jon Favreau]

Went through a process. I'm good to go.

[Max Fisher]

I mean, he's the president. If he wants to not ban TikTok, he can stop the ban, I'm sure.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, onto artificial intelligence. How do you feel about Elon Musk overseeing AI policy for the entire country? This week, Americans for Responsible Innovation and AI advocacy group began circulating a petition calling for the Trump administration to appoint Musk as President Trump's special advisor on AI, saying no one is better equipped to help the Trump administration make America lead on AI than Elon Musk. A reminder. Elon runs his own AI company, X AI, and was a co founder at OpenAI. At the same time, he has warned that unregulated AI could be catastrophic for humanity. And he's one of the signatories on last year's letter calling for a pause on AI development.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you make of potential AI czar Elon Musk? Realize he's very busy with doge, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is, I guess he's going to be an outside advisor to that. He's not going into government. He's going to be an outside advisor with Vivek Ramaswamy. So they're going to be looking to cut government.

[Max Fisher]

So here is the good news about the idea of Elon Musk as aizar, to your point that he gave the largest in kind political contribution in history. And his reward is that he is co chair of a powerless panel.

[Jon Favreau]

Blue Ribbon Commission.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, Blue Ribbon Commission with Vivek Ramaswamy. That's his reward.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like maga. Simpson Bowles. How's that for.

[Max Fisher]

Is that a big laugh line for.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, for. For you and me and for like. And for the other Obama alumni that.

[Max Fisher]

Listen to this, I was just going to ask how many people had to pull their car over because they're laughing. Simpson Bowles.

[Jon Favreau]

If Dan Pfeiffer's listening, he's laughing.

I know that's about it.

[Max Fisher]

There's someone said where they just got in a little. Yeah, Ben Rowe just got an offender bender because of that one. So I look, he's not gonna be the AI Czar of shit. I, you know, do the podcast equivalent of screenshot me saying this, like, own me if it turns out I'm wrong. Elon Musk is the only one who doesn't know that his days are numbered in this administration. It's been, oh, you feel confident with that? I listen, prove me wrong. Or don't, because then I lose. I lose either way. No, I don't. The reporting you're seeing a fucking weekend, less than a weekend, is that he's already annoying everybody around him in the Trump administration. He's already powerless. The idea that he's going to be in trouble, I don't think there's going to be an AI policy from the Trump administration, which is bad news.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, I was going to say that's no news is bad news in that situation.

[Max Fisher]

Yes. Because it's already deep fakes are ramping up. There's already a lot of bad stuff happening. The good news is that I think that the need for AI regulation is actually going down because Silicon Valley is pivoting so fucking hard into crypto away from AI. Even Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, is like, he's a crypto boy again.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, speaking of which.

[Max Fisher]

Speaking of which, yeah, the crypto bros are back. They're really back.

[Jon Favreau]

Donald Trump promised to make the United States the, quote, crypto capital of the world. And now following his win, cryptocurrencies have reached historic heights with bitcoin trading at over $89,000 a coin as of Monday evening. Of course, Department of Government Efficiency Doge, a play on Elon's own Dogecoin, which.

[Max Fisher]

He has a ton of money in. Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

So what would a crypto resurgence mean for our politics, which it looks like we're going to get? They're going after Gary Gensler, who is.

[Max Fisher]

At the SEC chair. Crypto hates him. Trump has promised to fire him. Trump has also promised to put billions of dollars into crypto, which just means a handout to people already own a lot of crypto. It's just a straight up cash transfer. If you were not following this, listeners, you may have missed that crypto has emerged as one of the largest lobbying forces in the country. In the last few years, they've been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into races. The Trump family is deep into crypto. Trump personally has a lot into crypto assets. And it's worth being clear about what crypto is so you can understand why they're doing this and what this is about. Crypto is legalized gambling. That's all it is. It is legalized and increasingly unregulated gambling because this is an asset with no inherent value. It's not like when you buy a stock, at least there's a company attached to it that has some value that can go up and down. The sole reason that crypto currently exists is a speculative asset because the price fluctuates a lot. And not only is crypto gambling, crypto is rigged gambling because the market is incredibly, is very highly influenced by big institutional investors and by tech CEOs or not tech CEOs, sorry, tech venture capitalists, because it's very easy to make the price go up or down because it's all kind of meme stocks, because it's all speculative and because even with Gary Gensler, who is doing a lot to regulate it, it is such a just wild out of control market and is going to be much more so. What this is going to mean for America is what all forms of legalized gambling mean, which is just a cash transfer from low income people and immigrants to the rich.

[Jon Favreau]

I actually heard from a bunch of people and like Kamala Harris sort of softened the position, her position on crypto or softened it from what Biden had. She did, she did. And I've heard from people just anecdotally be like, oh, do you think that maybe the crypto, her crypto position cost her the election? Because people are really mad about. I know a lot of people are really mad about crypto. Like is there a good use case at this point? I've talked about this like a long time ago on this show. But like what the crypto defenders, they're not going to go out there and be like, it's gambling and I want the legalized gambling.

[Max Fisher]

No, of course. So there was a great, very long story by Charles Duhigg in the New Yorker recently about the kind of crypto lobbying investment. And something that the top lobbyists for crypto will talk very openly about is that there was not really a crypto voter. It's not unless you have a lot of money tied up in crypto, in which case you want to see the price go up. It's not something that affects you or you really care about. And it's something that has been created by crypto lobbyists spend a huge amount of money with podcasters, with sports hosts to get people amped up about the idea that crypto is analogous to freedom. But again, it doesn't provide any service. There's nothing attached to it except that the idea that you buy a bitcoin, you buy a dogecoin, and you cross your fingers and you hope that the price will go up. And the price is going to go up eventually because it fluctuates. It's booming right now because so many people are putting money into it. But again, there's these big institutional investors who are really good at doing what's called a rug pull, where they get a lot of people like you and me, normal investors, to say bitcoin is going up, it's going to keep going up, so I'm going to buy and ride the high, and then they sell right before it peaks and they make all the money and you end up with nothing.

[Jon Favreau]

Sounds great. It does sound like a very Trumpy thing, though. Finally, poor Lina Khan.

[Max Fisher]

I know our girl.

[Jon Favreau]

At the moment, the future of the trailblazing chair of the FTC is still up in the air. But with the second Trump administration on the horizon, it's likely her tenure is coming to a close. Elon Musk already said she's gonna get fired.

[Max Fisher]

Although you know who's a big Lina Khan fan? Matt Gaetz.

[Jon Favreau]

Matt Gaetz, our new attorney General.

That's right.

[Max Fisher]

And J.D. vance, conservative.

[Jon Favreau]

Max sent us a tweet from Matt Gaetz where he just like, quote, tweeted a Lina Khan thing and just said conservative.

[Max Fisher]

That's right.

[Jon Favreau]

Very interesting.

[Max Fisher]

Listen, there's something for everybody in consumer protection and antitrust regulation. Unless you were the party of billionaires and selling out to corporate interests.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. What do you think is going to happen there with, like, antitrust for in a Trump administration? Do you think there's going to be not a lot of antitrust. Do you think that some of the, like the Gateses of the world or JD Vance are going to.

[Max Fisher]

I mean, he, in his first term, he wielded the threat of antitrust regulations a number of times to coerce social media companies to tilt platforms in his favors. Or he has like a vague sense that Google News is unfair to him, which appears to solely be because he doesn't know how to set up his Google News feed and has threatened massive antitrust regulations against Google for that. And there is a school of thought, including by Elizabeth Warren, that antitrust can just be a blunt instrument. You can just use it to break up companies, to weaken their market power. And that in and of itself is good. I think that it's likelier that he will, as he did in his first term, he will throw around the threats and then those companies will send someone to the White House who will convince him, we fixed the Google News feed and now it's all pro Trump all the time, and then he'll drop it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it does seem that that's just to end this section, that the overall theme here is that the tech world is very much going to in Silicon Valley, bend to Trump's will ahead of time.

[Max Fisher]

Right. Which Mark Zuckerberg has been doing for months. Yeah. Because they know that this can be really good for them. They understand how erratic he is, but also that he's kind of easy to appease and kind of easy to buy off. But my hope is that a lot of the consumer protection stuff that Lina Khan got in for us will still, even if most people don't learn her name, even if most people don't give her the Biden administration credit for it. You know, she pushed down inhaler prices by a huge amount. She got rid of a lot of, like, junk fees for airlines. It made it easier to unsubscribe from paid services. She got Epic Games to refund customers by hundreds of millions of dollars, which some of the fucking gamer youtubers would have talked about that had Lena Khan on Joe Rogan. And if you're worried that grocery prices are too high, you know Lena Khan is your friend because she stopped a big merger of grocery stores that probably would have pushed up prices.

[Jon Favreau]

There you go.

[Max Fisher]

So thank you, Lena.

[Jon Favreau]

Thank you, Lena. All right, in a moment, we're gonna jump into my interview with Jeremiah Johnson. But before we do, it's time to gamify Democrats favorite overly simplistic post election recommendation with a round of. Should we give this dude A podcast. Go. This week, Ryan Broderick, who writes Austin's favorite newsletter, Garbage Day, published A list of 10 liberals, slash leftists who could become the next Quote lib Joe Rogan. The list includes familiar faces such as Hassan Piker and the aging neolibs from Pod Save America.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

You guys did not rank very highly.

[Jon Favreau]

Did not have much good things to say about us.

[Max Fisher]

Tough beat. Not cool anymore.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm just throwing them in there because they shouldn't be in here because they're too old and boring.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

He did have interesting things to say about Hasan Piker in Ponte of America.

[Jon Favreau]

That's true. That's true. So we're gonna go ahead and draft our own picks. And we have Offline's amazing producers here, Austin and Emma.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Hello.

[Jon Favreau]

Hey, guys.

[Emma Iluk]

Hello.

[Max Fisher]

Perfect to have you guys because you have to explain the Internet and zoomers to us all the time, so I can't think of a better set of choices.

[Jon Favreau]

Your moment to shine.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Too many millennials.

[Jon Favreau]

Everyone gets two picks. You can pull from garbage day's top 10 or you can select anyone else you follow, subscribe to or listen to. Max, let's start with you. Who is your liberal Joe Rogan?

[Max Fisher]

I suspect that it's probably Kai Senat because I have no idea who he is.

[Jon Favreau]

Raf.

[Max Fisher]

Okay, he's on the list. He seems to incredibly popular.

[Emma Iluk]

Get him.

[Max Fisher]

I know very little about him.

[Jon Favreau]

Seems to be incredibly popular.

[Max Fisher]

He's incredibly popular.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

He's in a McDonald's commercial right now.

[Max Fisher]

Well, I don't need to talk about it.

[Emma Iluk]

You just triggered Austin.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

You do know Kai Sanat is like the fifth most watched Twitch streamer right now. Make the case.

[Max Fisher]

Show me.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Well, I don't think he's actually going to be the next Joe Rogan. His audience is too young. They are way too online even compared to Joe Rogan's audience.

[Max Fisher]

How young are we talking?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

They're teenage boys. Like 13 year olds, 14 year olds. I think it was two years ago when I was still living in New York, there was a riot where a bunch of 13 year olds came to Union Square Park.

[Max Fisher]

I remember that. That was.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Those were Kai Snot fans. Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

I don't know. It sounds like the future.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

But he got popular on Twitch because he does video game streaming as everyone does on Twitch. But he would do it in fancy costumes, like playing samurai games while dressed as a samurai or streaming from the back of a U haul with Ice Spice.

[Max Fisher]

Do we think samurais are left wing coded or right wing coded? I feel pretty right wing coded.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Ninjas are left wing coded.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah. Okay. So from the folks on the Ryan Broderick list, I would. A comedian named Stavros Halkius. Do you always know he's.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Yeah, I know I was gonna say that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

That's a good one. So to his credit, I should say he would hate to be part of this conversation and everything I'm gonna say in support of him, which is, I think, a big mark in his favor. He's a comedian, he's part of the Chapo Trap House extended universe. But he does not have the kind of meanness or insularity of Chapo, which of course, just speaks to people who have already formed their politics. But he's very personable, he's very warm. He kind of talks to everybody. He's on everybody's podcast and his personal. And these are words he would use. So I'm not trying to be mean, that he is a dirtbag slob, but he, like, enjoys life and gets a lot out of life. And I think that if he started Stav, if Stav started a dating and lifestyle show for young men who are trying to find themselves, I think 300 electoral votes for Democrats.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Would you like to share what Stav's old podcast was titled? Because I don't wanna say it.

[Max Fisher]

So this version of him, I think, is not the liberal Joe Rogan. Because that podcast, which is unfortunately called Cometown, I was good.

[Jon Favreau]

I knew that's what you were gonna. I did not know he was the host of that. But as we were getting there, I'm like, oh, I think I know what he is.

[Max Fisher]

So in my mind, he has softened a little bit because that podcast was very Chapo in that it was quite mean and quite insular.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

But also he does a lot of crowd work at his standup sets where he just calls on people and say, what do you do for work? And then he just riffs off of that. He's like, very funny off the cuff.

[Max Fisher]

He's very self effacing. Everybody who's ever met him likes him. Very personable, big Ravens fan. He's my first fan.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, Emma, are we doing two votes?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Yeah, you just did two.

[Max Fisher]

Did I?

[Jon Favreau]

Who was. Oh, you just decided not to do Senate.

[Max Fisher]

Yes. Got it.

[Emma Iluk]

Okay.

[Max Fisher]

Because I still don't. Still don't really know who he is, but congratulations to him.

[Emma Iluk]

My vote is for Joe Rogan.

[Jon Favreau]

That's a good one.

[Max Fisher]

Yes.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, That's a good one. Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

Emmett told me this before. It's very compelling that the liberal Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan.

[Emma Iluk]

Here's the thing. This is a guy who wants to fix the healthcare system. He wants to expand it. He's pro legalizing currently illegal drugs. I mean, he smokes weed on his podcast, which he tapes in Texas, where weed is not legal. I think there's common ground that we can find. I mean, he endorsed Bernie Sanders.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Emma Iluk]

Obviously he says things that are horrible. He platforms people like Alex Jones. I mean, I can't vouch for where he is, like on the political spectrum. He's certainly not like the left.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Joe Rogan, we did try to chart this out before we came here.

[Emma Iluk]

We did try to do a 3D XYZ plot of all of this.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

He wasn't that far off from the bucket.

[Emma Iluk]

It wasn't too far. But I think that Joe Rogan's audience, it's like they're coming to him not because he's political, they're coming to him because they like to hear people ramble with minimal pushback for up to three hours. And that's a huge platform. Obviously there's a lot of people already saying, like, Kamala should have gone on Rogan, blah, blah, blah. But I feel like Rogan has been pushed further and further to the right and he considers himself open minded, anti establishment. He questions things. I think he could be pushed back to the left. I think we could do that. I don't know if it involves sending him a toupee. There's a lot of things we could do. Maybe nice like sativa tour of Area 51.

[Max Fisher]

That's nice.

[Emma Iluk]

Pander to him. Or just like send more politicians on his podcast and then don't cancel them.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Hey, John, what are you doing next week? Wanna fly to Austin?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know if he'd really be that interested in talking to me, but of course I would talk to him.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Joe Rogan, if you're listening, please book Jon Favreau.

[Emma Iluk]

Yeah, but yeah, so liberals go on there, be less of scolds, don't get up in arms about conspiracy theories if they're not actually damaging. And I feel like he's our guy.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's a good one. It's a really good one.

[Emma Iluk]

So that's my first, my second. I thought we had to choose someone from off the garbage day list. I went with Travis Kelce.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I have Travis.

Kelsey.

[Emma Iluk]

I told Austin. I was like, john's gonna, I have a backup. So I'll let you weigh in on it first. And if I have anything else to add in, we can come back to Me?

[Jon Favreau]

No, I just. I didn't have much to say about Travis, which was just that, like, I think to your point about Joe Rogan, like, the liberal Joe Rogan shouldn't be someone who's like, spending the whole time talking about politics.

[Emma Iluk]

Exactly.

[Jon Favreau]

And he and Jason, on their podcast, his brother, Jason Kelce, they don't. But it's a huge podcast. Talk about sports. They seem like they're at least not conservative coded.

[Emma Iluk]

Right, right.

[Jon Favreau]

So I feel like it's, you know, you bring a politician on there once in a while, not all the time. Once in a while, see what happens. Have a conversation.

[Emma Iluk]

Yeah. I feel like they're not gonna be alienating moderates or independents or people who are completely apolitical. You know, they can talk to people with a mix of viewpoints.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I do think Jason Kelce is a more compelling case than Travis Kelce, though. Travis Kelce just seems like the lovable younger brother, and Jason Kelce feels like the authority figure that can have these tougher conversations.

[Max Fisher]

We did go through a thing like a year ago with Fetterman and J.B. pritzker's rise that we were like, what if the solution to Democratic dominance is just somewh who's left wing? But they're a big boy.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Why did we stop that? That was so much fun.

[Jon Favreau]

It's good. You know what? In 2028, Pritzker might be coming back for that.

[Max Fisher]

You know, he might be. That's true. The big boy vote.

[Emma Iluk]

The other thing about Travis Kelce, I mean, I agree. I feel like Jason Kelce, he steers the conversations. He, like, has more to say. But Travis has these people who want to make him as big as Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Like, that is their explicit goal. And they are pushing for him to become more popular. And they don't really care why or how. And I think that that is similar to the way that Joe Rogan has chased fame over his career, like, spanning all of these different areas of entertainment. I think that's really similar with the kind of people that Travis has building his brand.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, I think if he stays with Taylor, that's a win for him, being the liberal Joe Rogan. Right. Because of her popularity and fame. If he doesn't, then that helps him also because now he's coded as a T. Right. It works either way. It works either way.

Yeah.

[Emma Iluk]

Exactly.

[Max Fisher]

Should Jay Z be in the conversation?

[Jon Favreau]

Jay Z, Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

Speaking of, like, very well liked men, popular with young men.

[Jon Favreau]

The thing with Jay Z is he doesn't. When have you heard Jay Z give a long interview.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

That's a good point.

[Max Fisher]

Do we think he's. He actually gave a great interview to Dean Biquet, who did exactly one article in his last year as executive editor of the New York Times, and he was interviewing Jay Z, and he was actually really smart.

[Jon Favreau]

He is very smart. I just. I feel like he and Beyonce both, like, they don't love talking a lot.

[Max Fisher]

No. They've got to lower the castle walls a little bit.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I do think an important part of the next Joe Rogan is that they need to be a skeptic and they can't be too closely tied to, like, institutions and authority. Sure. And I think he's reached that kind of point of fame that he is so famous, he's married to Beyonce, that, like, he can't effectively talk to so many of these people that Joe Rogan speaks to.

[Max Fisher]

He's not a businessman. He's a businessman.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

There you go.

[Max Fisher]

I just.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I don't know if I.

[Max Fisher]

There you go. Those millennial deep cuts for you.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

This is like 10 minutes.

[Jon Favreau]

Venn diagram of the people who got the Simpson Bowles joke. And it's just a circle.

[Max Fisher]

It's a fucking circle. Let's be honest with ourselves here.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Does this mean I should pitch Marshall Mathers?

[Max Fisher]

Honestly, it's a great pitch.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I don't really have a full thought out pitch for the selection of Marshall Mathers, other than. Can you imagine who would listen to an Eminem hosted podcast?

[Max Fisher]

Honestly, it would be conservative young men. It would be.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

It wouldn't just be 2/3 of young men.

[Jon Favreau]

It would be aging millennials for sure.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Everyone. I don't think he would ever pivot to podcasting because why would he? He has all the money on Earth.

[Max Fisher]

Everyone else, I feel like I've actually heard him on a number of podcasts. This is actually my favorite answer so far.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I would also say Lose Yourself is a great song that he could open his podcast up with every single day.

[Max Fisher]

That's true.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Because he gets the right pump now.

[Max Fisher]

We're really going into elder millennial producing now. Eminem call Crooked media.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

We also already know his politics, which many of the people on this list, we do not.

[Emma Iluk]

That's true.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

But into actual selections on this, I think my main one, actually.

[Jon Favreau]

How many people are we throwing out here? Everyone's like, I was gonna do this one, but now I'm gonna do this.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I have eight on here. Actually 11 if you count the Costco guys as individual people.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, I will say I had to.

[Jon Favreau]

I had to make One second.

[Max Fisher]

Beg Austin for permission for us to have even a second choice, and Austin.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Comes in here with a. Yeah, that's unfortunate. The one I will say I think is the most likely is Andrew Santino. Do you know who that is?

[Jon Favreau]

Not very well, but, like, do you know who that. I've never heard of him either. So.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

To people listening that have never heard of him, if you've seen the show. Dave. Little Dickie show about being a guy named Dave. He is Dave's redheaded friend and manager.

[Emma Iluk]

Oh, okay.

[Jon Favreau]

He's good.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

He's a coward.

[Jon Favreau]

What about Dave?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I also almost had Dave on this. I thought he'd be good. He's actually a big liberal. He endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 while wearing just a sock.

[Jon Favreau]

He's.

[Max Fisher]

Where was the sock?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, he is. First of all, that show is amazing.

So good.

He graduated with Emily.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Did he really?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, at Richmond. He was a University of Richmond alum. And so she knew him and knew that he was, like, trying to be a rapper when she was in college, and suddenly it was like, now he's. Yeah, we've been to a couple of his concerts. Wow.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Okay.

[Max Fisher]

Sounds promising.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I didn't know you were a big little Dicky fan.

[Jon Favreau]

Huge little dicky fan. Okay.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Is it the writing or is it the vibe?

[Jon Favreau]

Everything. It's the vibe. He's very funny.

[Max Fisher]

Fiverr, who's your favorite so far of the names you've heard?

[Jon Favreau]

I'm kind of leaning towards Emma right now. Towards the Joe Rogan as the liberal.

[Max Fisher]

It's a pretty strong case.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Emma Iluk]

Or towards me as Queen.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

That's also the one on the Santino thing, though. The reason I chose him is because he's had two podcasts that he's launched since the Pandemic. One of them is called Whiskey Ginger, because he is a ginger that drinks whiskey with his friends, where they talk about their, quote, most deviant moments of the past. And then the other one is the show called Bad Friends, which he hosts with another comic. It's just a two dudes talking podcast, you know, like this one. But both of those have really taken off in ways that I think it's very hard for podcasts to do in this current. Everyone has a podcast environment, and I think he kind of, like, talks to a very specific part of masculinity that is not like Joe Rogan's Jake Paul, MMA fight masculinity, but that kind of like Scottsdale golf, bro, masculinity. And I think that is a place that liberals can still own.

[Max Fisher]

Going Forward country club.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Not country club as much as like, oh, we don't need to start about Golf 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, but the young version of guys that just want to go outside and do things. And golfing is one of those activities now where it's less country club and more accessible to people from all back. It's a lot more about, like, drinking with your friends and going out on the course than it is about drinking with your accountant and sitting in the club.

[Max Fisher]

I don't do either of those, but God bless anybody who does one or both.

[Jon Favreau]

That's a good one.

[Max Fisher]

John. What do you got?

[Jon Favreau]

Charlamagne.

[Emma Iluk]

I was gonna do that.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

That's a really good line.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's where my head went. It's like all of these people who have huge followings on YouTube or they do this or that. Joe Rogan is famous. Was famous before he was Joe Rogan. Cause the fear factor, Right. Like, you need someone who is sort of established. Also, Charlamagne talks about politics, but doesn't talk only about politics. Also, a huge issue is not just like, white men, but black men. And I think that Democrats and progressives think about most black men as one way. And I think Charlamagne probably has a better handle on the politics and culture of what black men actually believe. And so I don't know. I think he'd be. I think he's a really good one.

[Emma Iluk]

He's also not 100% politically correct, as we know.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Exactly.

[Emma Iluk]

And I think that people have an appetite for that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes. Yes. Shane Gillis.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Are his politics aligned?

[Jon Favreau]

I think having watched a bunch of Shane Gillis, it is. He's very careful to, like, not reveal. I saw someone write this, which I thought was really smart, which is like, liberals and conservatives can both take the same joke from Shane Gillis and think that he's liberal or think that he's conservative. Like, he does this whole riff about, like, fuck, like, I don't want to become a Republican. Does anyone want to become a Republican? But, like, does your dad want to become a Republican and suddenly become old and start complaining about everything? No, but it just happens to you. Like, you can feel it happening, you know? So, like, he gets a little bit into politics, but not enough. And he kind of goes after. Not a country club, not a Scottsdale golfer, but just like a. Like, I'm from a suburb of Boston, schlubby mashhole, you know, or Philly guy. Like, that is a huge contingent out there.

[Max Fisher]

I love the idea of the anti woke Comedian turning left like the Trojan horse within the Trojan horse. That's kind of brilliant.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, I know. That's why I thought about him. And he was third. Travis Kelce was my third.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

You both chose the schlubbiest comedians I could have come up with right now with Stav and Shane Gillis, but they're not. They both have very specific vibes.

[Max Fisher]

The name I would add is the. Is Dan Carlin, the history podcaster.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah.

[Max Fisher]

You know, history podcasts are huge. They're very male. They're very young. They're, like, kind of vaguely conservative coded, but not overtly political in a way that I think is helpful for getting people, like, further up the information stream before their views are formed. His political views are like heterodox to the point that they are almost inscrutable, which people seem to love.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's all the rage these days.

[Max Fisher]

He made a big deal about voting for Joe Biden in 2020, and that was the first presidential candidate he voted for since 1992. And he's left libertarian, which I think appeals to that sense of distrust of institutions or the system establishment.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I also want to highlight that Aaron Ryan made a point before we came in here that the next row Rogan doesn't necessarily need to be a man, but it could be a woman that has an audience that is both male and female.

[Jon Favreau]

I was thinking of Alex Cooper, Nikki Glaser. Oh, Nikki Glaser.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Because Nikki Glaser has a lot of this, like, shock comic value, but could also build that audience.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that's a good one, man. She crushed the Tom Brady roast.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

She was so good.

[Jon Favreau]

She was so good. She was the best one.

[Max Fisher]

He didn't seem very happy about that.

[Jon Favreau]

What's that?

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Could Tom Brady be the next Joe Rogan?

[Jon Favreau]

I thought about that. I was like, no, no, absolutely not.

[Max Fisher]

Is Gisele Bundchen the next the liberal Joe Rogan?

[Jon Favreau]

All right, before we get to break, some quick housekeeping. Now that the race is over, let's take a look back at the polls on last week's. No, just kidding. Just kidding, Dan. On last week's new episode of Polar Coaster, Dan reflects on what they got right, where they fell short, and what we still don't know. Dan did an episode of Polar Coaster over the weekend. He talked to Sarah Longwell and Carlos Odio. It was so smart. I was like, thank God. Dan still doing the show. Then producer Caroline Reston joins to tackle listeners burning questions. To catch this exclusive subscriber series, sign [e-mail] friends. In case you missed it, the host of Strict Scrutiny broke down what the election means for the future of the supreme and state courts. We love the show because it's nice to have some brilliant, funny lawyers telling us about everything that's going on in our fucked up legal system right now.

[Max Fisher]

It's a topic that I would find so unbearably stressful to think about if not for having these posts kind of guide us through it.

[Jon Favreau]

A new episode drops tomorrow, so make sure to tune in and subscribe to Strict Scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube after the break. My Conversation with Jeremiah Johnson this podcast is sponsored by the Washington Post. If you listen to this podcast, you care about what's going on in the world. Listening to us is great, but if you want even more great coverage of our crazy world, you should subscribe to the Washington Post. The Washington Post does great work on topics like Capitol Hill, the economy, climate change, foreign policy, and much more. And if you're in a rush, you need to catch up quickly on the day's most important and interesting stories. The Post the seven newsletter is a quick commute read sent each weekday morning. The Post even offers a cool feature for audio lovers like you. You can actually listen to articles in addition to reading them, so you can tackle your to do list and catch up on the news at the same time. Love the Washington Post. Wouldn't be able to do offline without it. Wouldn't be able to do Pods of America without it. Some of the best political reporters and other reporters in the business. So we love it. Now more than ever. It's important to stay up to date on the world, so go to washingtonpost.com offline to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. That's 80% off their typical order, so this is truly a steal. Once again, that's washingtonpost.com offline to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year.

[Max Fisher]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm poet Saeed Jones.

[Max Fisher]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford. And we are the hosts of a.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

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[Max Fisher]

On Vibe Check, we talk about everything. News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels. That's right, we talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

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Super excited to be here, John. Thanks for having me.

We've only met on Twitter, so it's nice to actually see you on a screen. Your initial take on the election in your excellent substack Infinite scroll was a piece titled the Internet is more Real than Real Life. So at one point you talk about how people like me have spent a lot of time saying things like, Twitter is not real life. You need to log off and talk to real people. And you write, quote, it's almost more correct to say that people knocking on doors need to get off the street and get back on the Internet. This goes against the very core of my belief system, but I'd love to hear you make your case because I do think you have a good point here.

So this started from a observation that, like, the campaigns were conducted in very different ways, right? Kamala Harris won the campaign in every traditional sense that you're supposed to win a campaign. She raised more money and she had more ads purchased on television. She had more professional political operatives on the ground in swing states. Right. She had a really sophisticated door knocking campaign and phone bankers, arguably the most sophisticated ground game that anyone's ever had. And Trump's ground game was to like some first degree not existent. He outsourced it to Charlie Kirk, who as best I can tell, grifted the money and. And then he outsourced it to Elon Musk, who was wildly ineffective. But what they did get right on the Trump side was they really dominated a lot of the digital ecosystem. Elon Musk obviously purchased Twitter and turned it into X, which may be one of the biggest in kind donations to any political campaign in history. And Trump spent a lot of time going through kind of the podcast space. He went on Joe Rogan, he went on the Nelk Boys, he went on Logan Paul and Barstool Sports and Theo Vaughan and Lex Friedman and Andrew Scholz and Sean Ryan and Bussin with the boys. And like, you can go on and on and on. He did dozens of these and he did, he did a live stream on Kick with Aidan Ross, who very awkwardly gave him a MAGA themed cybertruck. And he also sent out JD Vance and Elon Musk to do a bunch of these kind of manosphere podcasts. And they really dominated the online cycle. And I think that we have to consider whether or not that contributed to kind of the nationwide shift towards Republicans. Obviously, a lot of that is just stuff like inflation. I don't want to discount that. But I think that, you know, Trump very deliberately had a nationwide strategy of just targeting everyone. You can think about the Madison Square Garden thing in this context. He didn't go to Madison Square Garden the week before the election because New York is a swing state. He went there because he knew it would get national attention and it would create a big media cycle for him. And boy did it. But that's kind of the core of that argument is like, we have to realize that this is where people's opinions are formed now. This is where identities are formed to a large extent. We used to all get our identities from in real life stuff like being a member of a school or going down to the elk lodge or whatever. But now you get your identity from. Well, I follow this tiktoker and I joined their discord and I support them on Patreon and now their whole worldview is my worldview. That's a lot of how people form political opinions.

Yeah, I think about this a lot in terms of strategies to capture people's attention who do not consume political news or even much news at all from traditional sources. And I think that is probably most people in this country. And I think the Twitter's not real life belief is real for partisans who are on social media politically sort of political social media sites. Right. Where a lot of politics are discussed. So I think that if, like, if I'm on Twitter, I know what Democratic partisans and liberals and leftists are thinking, and I know what MAGA folks are thinking and never Trumpers are thinking. But I don't really get a good sense of what most people in the country who consider themselves moderate and mostly uninterested in politics and have sometimes weird and conflicting views on different policy issues. I don't know what they're thinking, you know, and I do, as someone who has been on doors and knocked on a lot of doors, two observations. One, when someone does open the door and they haven't decided who they're gonna vote for, or they're not sure if they're gonna vote at all, that does feel like real life and that you can have these conversations with a person and actually persuade them and change their minds. But a lot of times, most time, I think when you're knocking on doors, you just don't get any answer. And that part of that problem is people aren't answering their doors, they're not answering their phones about politics. They don't want to answer texts about politics. And so the challenge is, and I know that the Harris Walls campaign was facing this challenge is to try to reach the people who are just not. Who are just not tuning into the traditional political news in any way, shape or form. And I think that's where Trump's strategy of going on these podcasts that aren't explicitly political was probably the right thing to do.

There's a great joke about this that I've seen before, and I wish I was smart enough that this was my Joke. But two geologists are standing next to each other and one of them says, you have to remember most people don't know as much about geology as we do. They may only know the chemical formulas for one or two varieties of quartz. And the point being that, like, you know, even if you adjust for the fact that, yeah, I talk about politics all the time and I know so much about politics, and most people are not like that, you're still not adjusting enough. And people's views are weird and idiosyncratic. And if you've knocked on doors, you know this. It's both the level of knowledge and also just that people have wildly diverse opinions. There's a lot of people out there who have a lot, you know, some right leaning views and also some left leaning views. And frankly, that's what like, someone like Joe Rogan is. He is hard to pin down in terms of a strict ideology. And he's just a guy who kind of thinks things and can be convinced one way or the other. And that's the kind of guy I think it's important to win. Because, you know, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot recently is that, that the Democrats, as currently constructed, cannot win elections with just their core voters, at least against Donald Trump. You need more people in the tenant who sometimes are not super progressive on a lot of stuff, but you need their votes if you want to win.

Yes. Well, that brings me to another point you made, which is you said that when you were growing up, your perception of politics was that that Democrats were the cool party and Republicans were the party of lame, upright scolds. I had the same perception. I think we're around the same age. And my perception was reinforced by my time working for Barack Obama. You argue that somewhere along the line the perception of the parties switched. What do you think happened?

I do think that's what happened. And I mean, look, when I was growing up, if anybody was going to get mad at something that was said on a comedy special or on Saturday Night Live, it was going to be a Republican. It was the Moral Majority. It was when Christian conservatism was such an enormous force in American politics, even more so than it is today. And yeah, something has switched where we all know this, that if something gets said on Saturday Night Live that is off color or offensive or outrageous or whatever, today it's going to be Democrats getting mad at it. And I think part of this is it's not the party itself. It's not, you know, Nancy Pelosi necessarily doing this or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. But there's kind of this blob. There's kind of this progressive blob of activists and academics and nonprofit workers and journalists. And they do a lot of scolding and shaming and lecturing about all kinds of topics. And this is what colors people's perceptions of Democrats. And look, I don't blame Kamala Harris for this individually. I don't think this is her personal fault because I didn't see her going out and, you know, campaigning on like DEI or saying Latinx or niche trans issues or whatever, whatever the culture war is right now. But it's these kind of stand in Democrats, these people who cement the view in the public eye of what a Democrat is, but who have no formal allegiance to the party. And this ultimately is one of the reasons that I think the whole conversation about, you know, can there be a progressive Joe Rogan? I don't think that it's possible because I don't think that Joe Rogan, you know, decided to leave and become a right winger of his own accord. I think we pushed him out. I think this was an active choice that a lot of people made that we don't want or need Joe Rogan, because as has been observed by many people, if you want to kind of a Democratic Joe Rogan, a Joe Rogan character who is sympathetic to Democratic ideas, we already had one and his name was Joe Rogan.

I mean, I'm glad you brought up sort of like the divide between elected Democrats. And I would throw most party strategists in there too, and this sort of amorphous blob that you talked about. And I think that what elected Democrats have tried to do about this is just be themselves, not. Not try to get outraged about every offensive comment. Like you said, try to just be the kind of politician that appeals to a broader electorate. But they get tagged with the perception. And then the question is, so what do you do about that? And it's really hard to. Since there's no leader of the blob, it's hard to sort of tamp that down and to make sure that that's not who's shaping people's perception of the Democratic Party. And I wonder, because I've thought a lot about this, I wonder how you think about this challenge for the more official Democratic Party to deal with this amorphous blob.

So there's two things that I would say here. How I think about this has been shaped by a book called Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurry and wrote this back. And he started writing it, I believe, in 2011, right after, like, the Occupy Wall street protests and kind of the Arab Spring was happening. And it was published a few years later. And basically the thesis of revolt of the public is that everyone, because of social media, is now mad all the time about everything. And that is a permanent feature of the world going forward. And that, you know, back in the day, you know, elites have kind of always not lived up to their promises. Whether you talk about media elites or political elites or business elites or whatever, they've always promised too much and not quite delivered on it. But it was easy to kind of paper that over back in the day when, you know, the media basically covered for politicians. And it was a very chummy ecosystem. With social media, it's much easier to see kind of that disparity between what was promised and what's actually been delivered. And the other thing that social media does, besides making it very easy to identify when people don't live up to their promises, is that it makes everything diffuse and leaderless. Right. When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, he built an alliance of named organizations like civil rights groups and unions and churches and people who could turn out members. And he had, like, a set agenda in writing. He got funding, he had an official program and met with people, and he told them what specific legislation he wanted, and then they went home. When we had Occupy Wall street in 2011, it was a series of people who just saw some tweets and showed up, and nobody's in charge, and nobody has an official list of demands. There's not even an official ideology behind other than kind of we're just mad about everything vaguely. And so this is a real problem, and I don't know that you can fix that. But the one thing that I would say, if I'm a Democratic strategist or a Democratic politician, I think you have to do some standing up to actually, you know, tell people. I disagree with this silly stuff that's going on. You know, there's this dynamic of shaming and scolding and lecturing whenever anybody disagrees about anything. And it makes Democratic politicians very, very hesitant to go against the progressive blob. The one example that I would use from this campaign is that Harris did not take a stance on Prop 36 in California. And Prop 36, for those who aren't in California was something that increased punishments for certain kinds of theft and drug crimes, I believe. And this ended up winning 70 to 30 in blue California. This kind of tough on crime measure won 70 to 30. But Harris was scared to say, yes, I support this because it would make some criminal justice groups mad. You have to be willing to stand up. And rather than just being silent, she didn't say she was against it, but she was silent and she should have been more willing to stand up and say, no, actually, this is a good thing. This thing that 70% of the voting public wants is good.

Yeah. I do think you've hit on the crux of it, which is thinking that you can just not take a position on whatever the progressive fight of the moment is and that you can just say, all right, well, I'm going to focus on, I'm going to focus on the economy, and I'm not focused on that other stuff. And, or sometimes I've heard Democrats say, I've probably said it myself, they want you to focus on X issue. That's a cultural wedge issue. But they just want to do that to distract you from the fact that they're going to give tax cuts to rich people and we're going to fight for you. Right. And I do think that there is a limit to the value of saying that for sure. Because people, you know, as much as people like to think that voters don't pay attention and are, you know, some people think they're stupid or look down on them. It's like voters are smart. They get. When you're, when you're bullshitting or when you're trying to avoid a touchy subject. I'm still wondering why. And look, I've read reports that in response to that trans ad that the Trump campaign ran, that Kamala's for they them and Donald Trump's for you, that the Harris campaign tested a response ad to that. It did not test well. And so then they just sort of moved on. But I always wondered, like, I don't know, if you could just move on and not address that in some way. And they just, I think that strategy of just ignoring those issues or minimizing them. Right. Because it is true. Right. If you start going through some of these cultural wedge issues, like how many people does, you know, trans athletes in sports actually affect in this country? Not many at all. And so there's a desire to say, well, this is a small issue that people really don't, and I'm focused on X, but if the other side is talking about it and the other side is putting like a couple hundred million dollars worth of ads about it, you kind of have to engage. Right. Like, you don't have the luxury of just. Just ignoring the issues and thinking that people aren't going to pay attention.

The trans athletes in sports thing is interesting because we just had something in the last couple days. And, like, I don't want to tell anybody specifically what they should believe, but what I do want to say is that you can't win the public debate on the 75, 25 issue if you're exiling everybody on the 75 side. Seth Moulton, who's a member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts, got into hot water recently. And Moulton, from what I can tell, wants trans people to exist. And he believes they have the right to transition and that they should not be, like, discriminated against in housing or in the workplace and stuff like that. But he also came out after the election and said he thinks that trans women should not compete in, like, college sports or in sports. And he was absolutely raked over the coals for this. He had some of his staffers quit with, like, public denouncements of him. There were university professors in his district that threatened to, like, we're not sending interns to you anymore. We're not cooperating with you. Other Massachusetts Democrats criticized him. The governor of Massachusetts called him out. And again, I'm not trying to tell you that you have to think one way or the other, and I'm not telling you even that Seth Moulton has to be your best friend. But the trans sports thing is like a 70 to 80% issue, depending on which poll you want to believe. And it's not on the progressive side. And you can't build a winning coalition unless you at least permit these people to exist in your tent, even if you don't agree with it, like, to some degree. The Democrats have to be, I believe, more accepting of just people whose views agree with you only 90% of the way, rather than 100%. We can't shun people and purge them from the party in this kind of diffuse way via activists and journalists and shaming. If we want to be a big tent party. And there's one example that I can't stop thinking about when I think about this, and you will probably be familiar with this as someone who worked with Obama, if you want to think about what it actually looks like when Democrats win big, crushing victories, I think about 2008, which is a big crushing victory for Democrats. And in that election, Obama had a lot of outright racists who voted for him. There were people who would tell reporters with a straight face, we're voting for the inward.

I Have told the story myself, because I was on the campaign and heard from the organizer, the field organizer in West. It was in West Virginia that they knocked on a door. Someone opened the door, and it was a woman, and she said, honey, who are we voting for? And then in the back, he said that exact line that we're voting for the N word. And I remember all of us thinking about it in the campaign and being like, whew, that is wild. And yikes. And okay, that's. That's voters.

Look, again, I'm not saying this is a good thing that that happens.

No, it's right.

And I'm not saying that guy needs to be your best friend, but I'm saying in practice, what does it look like to win, like, 55% of the vote in America? You're going to have some people in your tent if you're winning that kind of crushing election that have weird views and that have views that make you uncomfortable. But you know what? That's. That's what big, sweeping victories look like. And we need to be open to that idea. We don't need to be open to the idea of using the N word. We need to be open to the idea of a big tent.

Well, I was going to say, I think sometimes what gets confused is a Democrats say, or people like us might say, okay, we need a big tent. And then the pushback is, why are we compromising our values and our principles for X group or Y, Why are we giving them this? Right? And look, this goes on both sides, right? Like, this was the complaint about Kamala Harris with Liz Cheney. You know, campaigning with Liz Cheney. How could she campaign? It's like, Kamala Harris didn't have to do anything to get Liz Cheney's endorsement. She didn't have to give on any policy issue. She didn't have to compromise on a single policy issue. Not one. Liz Cheney had to compromise on many of her policy beliefs to say that she was gonna support Kamala Harris. Right? And I think that's key, because at some point, you know, you may need to compromise, and you need to work with someone. But, like, the idea that we shouldn't even go after people with the values and policy positions that we hold, because if they don't hold them, we don't even want them to vote with us. It's like, that's just not. The math doesn't work on that. You know, I do think with the back to the, like, the Seth Moulton example, and this is where social media and the way that information travels is a problem because Seth's quote, right, the one that like ricocheted everywhere, which is like, I don't want my two daughters being run over by. At first he said like a man or someone who used to be a man, you know, it was like, it's probably the worst version of the quote that you could give. And like that is what's everywhere. Right. If you sat down with Seth Moulton, I am sure his position on this would be similar to what you talked about, which is like, I believe that not only do trans people have a right to exist, but they have the right they should have the same civil rights as every other person in this country. And look, I was just reading this piece, this Vox piece today by Rachel Cohen and she made the point that the Biden administration actually weighed in on this with a policy in 2023 where a bunch of Republican states were trying to do pass outright bans on children who are trans participating in any sports. And the Biden administration said, no, no, no, we don't want to do an outright ban. What we want to do is say that there should be exceptions school district by school district for safety. Right. And so there are some sports and there are some people depending on age, depending on individual circumstances where it is not fair and it is maybe not safe for a trans person to compete in high school sports. And there are plenty of other cases where it is completely fair. And the only reason that you would exclude them from sports is because you didn't want to treat them equally. Right. And so the Biden administration actually had this position put out a policy. And Rachel's point in the pieces, no one, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Democrats never talked about it because they. Because when the Biden administration did this, they got criticism from trans rights activists, they got criticism from the right for not being tougher on and saying no, no blanket ban everywhere. And so they got criticism from both sides and so that everyone just dropped it. And then we all moved on and no one ever talked about it. And it's just like, I don't know that that's an option in this information environment.

Yeah. One of the things I would say about the media ecosystem that we have, everybody knows that there's kind of the mainstre and then there's conservative media, which is its own thing, and there's kind of a progressive left leaning media ecosystem that not nearly as big or as influential as conservative media. But the problem for Democrats is that you have this explicitly conservative media ecosystem. And I'm not talking about Joe Rogan here or Logan Paul. I'm talking about Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens and talk radio and cable news and things like that. That. And they exist to professionally shit on Democrats. And that's what they do all day, every day. And then you have a progressive media ecosystem with people like Chapo, Trap House or Hassan Piker, who I know you've had on the show. And that progressive media ecosystem also exists to shit on Democrats. And so from both sides, the Democratic Party is just getting savaged and criticized no matter what they do. And that's a real problem for Democrats, this kind of imbalance of how both ideological extremes basically make their money taking shots at Democrats. We need kind of a, you know, I don't know if it's an expansion of Pod Save America until you guys are the number one podcast in the country, but we need something to counteract that because it's not working right now.

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[Max Fisher]

Hey, I'm journalist Sam Sanders.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm poet Syed Jones.

[Max Fisher]

And I'm producer Zach Stafford. And we are the hosts of a.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Podcast called Vibe Check.

[Max Fisher]

On Vibe Check, we talk about everything. News, culture and entertainment and how it all feels. That's right, we talk about any and everything on our show, from real life issues like grief to music and movie critiques. And that barely scratches the surface.

[Jon Favreau]

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Here's the challenge. And it's sort of a challenge that you identified earlier, right? Which is when social media has made everyone angry all of the time, and it's made it easier to identify people in power, institutionalists, whether they're in government or media or business or whatever, it may be, fucking up. And when someone who has some kind of authority or power within an institution screws up, it is bad, and everyone's mad at it. Democrats have now become. Because of the hard turn that the right has taken towards authoritarianism, Democrats have now become the party of defending democracy, defending democratic institutions. And it is very difficult to go out there and be like, no, no, no, the institutions are great. Everything is working great. And you're complaining about Democrats. What are you talking about? We're trying our best, but there are these larger forces at play, and the right's given us shit, and the voters aren't paying attention, and we're trying to do our best, and we're the experts. And then everyone's like, okay, I'm just pissed. I'm just pissed. And it's so. I've felt this deeply, especially since, like, I didn't feel it as much in the Obama years because. Because the axis of debate was about the size and role of government. It feels different now because the axis of debate is around identity and democracy itself and who gets to participate and who doesn't. And I don't know, it's just. It's a really difficult problem to solve. And, like, we've been saying this over the last week. You know, we don't want to be the defenders of institutions. We want to be the people who say, no, our institutions need to be reformed. I just think that's. It's easier said than done. And I think that will be. Figuring it out will be the big challenge going forward.

Yeah. There's a couple related thoughts I have. Just. I can't get away from the thought that Democrats just have to stop being the party of nags and scolds and lecturing people and, you know, policing their language and stuff like that. And this is especially impactful when we talk about, like, how the Trumps campaign. Trump's campaign was so focused on social media and the Internet and podcasts, because podcasting is a medium that was really pioneered and is dominated by comedians. And what is the one group in America that is the most ultra sensitive to being told what they can and cannot say? It's comedians. They're so sensitive to First Amendment issues like formal government restrictions on speech, but also to cultural shaming and cancellation. And if you tell them they can't say something, they're going to react against you. And so I can't get away from that thought. But I also think about like, historically the Democrats have acted as gatekeepers. We used to have very much a gatekeeping society where if you wanted your views out there in academia or media or politics, you had to go through a series of gatekeepers. This is what the world was like in the 70s and 80s and 90s. And in almost all those cases, the gatekeepers themselves were very, very liberal and progressive. Think about Hollywood or the arts or academia or any of these things. Very, very well educated and liberal gatekeepers. But we don't exist in that world anymore. You can't actually gatekeep someone so that their view just doesn't show up. That is not an option anymore. You can try to keep them off a platform, but they'll go build their own platform. It's very easy to start your own podcast, your own blog, your substack. Even if you're hounded off an entire website, you just go start a new website that does the same thing. And they've been very, very successful at this. And I think the Democrats still kind of have this cultural urge that's like decades old to be the gatekeepers of acceptable opinion. And I just don't think in any sort of practical sense that works anymore. That's not a viable strategy.

No, I think the only way, if you don't like an opinion, you have to go engage with the person who delivered the opinion. And whether you convince them or not, many times you may not. At least if there's an audience listening, the audience will be exposed to an opinion that's different from the person who's hosting the show, whether it's a Joe Rogan or whoever it may be. How do you think about, like, how does J.D. vance's childless cat lady rhetoric and the entire Christian nationalist wing of the, of the Maga movement sort of fit into the party of scolds theory? Because I thought about this for a while with Democrats, you know, policing language and especially people on Twitter doing this. But when JD Vance was picked and he started talking about childless cat ladies and then they started talking about eating the pets and all this shit, I'm like, and just everything that happened after Dobbs and how extreme some of the abortion bans were, you know, my first thought was they are now becoming again the party of scolds and this is going to be damaging to them. And maybe it was just not damaging enough. But what do you think about that?

You might take this in a slightly different direction. Because when I think about JD Vance and some of that stuff, this is proof that the right really has been marinating in kind of online spaces. And, you know, Democrats should not be surprised at how successful they've been more than just like, oh, we're going to focus on Twitter because Elon Musk bought it. Oh, we're going to focus on podcasts. The right attention was really on a lot of the issues that are super, super online. They spent entire media cycles for their campaign talking about Haitians eating cats. And this is the people who were on the ticket. This is not randoms. J.D. vance talked about it. J.D. vance in a stump speech mentioned Peanut the squirrel, the squirrel story that circulated through conservative media. And if you're listening and you've never heard of this, congratulations, you lead a healthy life. But, you know, you can think about stuff like that. Like, they were a super online campaign to begin with just in terms of what they focused on. And this is something that makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. But if you think about the most important conservative thinkers of the last 10 years, you are probably thinking of people with usernames and not real names. You're thinking of Bronze Age pervert. You're thinking of Mincius moldbug. And like, J.D. vance has been really, really influenced by Moldbug, who's a guy named Curtis Yarvan. He's a blogger. And like, Yarvan is a wild extremist. Yarvan has written long essays defending slavery. Like, he believes slavery should be a part of society and that some people deserve to be enslaved. Very explicitly. He says, yes, this is a good thing. And J.D. vance mentions him approvingly on podcasts. So when I think about this whole thing, I think about J.D. vance's kind of the epitome of like Internet driven, extreme conservative thought that is really sprung up here. And these are people who, you know, to shock and to make angry is a benefit. You know, they want to own the libs. If you get outraged at them, they think, awesome, I'm winning. You know, cry more. You know, let me drink those liberal tears. That's the tradition he comes from. And JD Vance has managed to put a slightly more respectable face on it. It hasn't worked that well because he is quite unpopular. His favorable ratings are pretty poor for a vice presidential pick. But I mean, yeah, he makes a lot of mistakes. He makes some gaffes that are probably on net, not helpful, but it's kind of the epitome of they just don't care. They're going to go after these kind of moderate voters or these idiosyncratic voters, and they don't think the idiosyncratic voters will punish them for saying weird stuff. And by and large, they're right. Because to take it all the way back to the Joe Rogan thing, I think that the right for the last eight years or so has very actively courted Joe Rogan. They have gone on his show, they have said, we like you, you should like us. Here's a bunch of things we think. What do you think? And like, they're very much trying very gratuitously to court him. And at the same time, the Democrats have been pushing him away. You know, one or two people went on his show like Bernie Sanders went on Rogan, but the net result of Bernie Sanders going on Rogan was that, number one, it works. Rogan enjoyed him and endorsed him. But number two, Bernie Sanders fans got super mad at him and said, how dare you do this? Rogan is a bigot and he's beyond the pale. And so nobody does it anymore.

Right, Right. Which is like. I mean, I do think that the J.D. vance point, I do think this is like a vulnerability for them that they Republicans, that they seem sort of like too online, weird, insular. But where I really agree is that we have to focus less on what people say or people, meaning Republicans in power, what they say versus what they do. Because I do think that idiosyncratic voter, it matters to them if legislation is passed or proposed or they think that a Republican's gonna do something that takes away a right of freedom, makes things more expensive, whatever it may be. I think that the age of like, well, that's something offensive that I heard from them. And that's gonna move votes. It's just not likely to move votes of people who haven't already made up their mind at this point. And I think that with. It's hard, it's really hard to internalize that when you're dealing with Donald Trump or Even someone like J.D. vance, because they will give you something outrageous to get outraged about every single day, multiple times a day. But I do think it requires, like, a level of discipline and focus from the left that I don't know that we've had. And I don't know that social media really incentivizes or even just life on the Internet incentivizes. But I do think that it is very notable that I was thinking about this with RFK Jr God help us as the HHS secretary. And you know, Mike Pence this morning, we're recording this on Friday. Mike Pence this morning opposed him because he's not sufficiently anti abortion. Now, I'm gonna wager that Mike Pence is gonna be pretty lonely in that kind of opposition. The anti abortion groups, a few of them, I'm sure, will oppose him, put out statements. I don't think it's gonna be a problem for his confirmation because I think Republicans, like you said, are more willing to be like, yeah, I don't like this guy's views on X, Y and Z. But he's in the MAGA tent now. He's part of the crew, he's part of the identity. So let's, let's. And he's going to piss off the libs, so let's put him in hhs.

I agree. Donald Trump has been reasonably good at moderating on key issues, I think, and he doesn't get credit from Democrats for doing that. And you can say whether this is sincere or not sincere, but he has a few things he cares about. He cares about, you know, I hate trade, I want tariffs, I dislike immigrants, and I want to crack down on immigration. And he's got kind of this isolationist view of the world. But on stuff like, you know, wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security, kind of Paul Ryan politics, he was like, yeah, I don't care about that. We're going to protect your Social Security in terms of abortion. He flip flops back and forth all the time. And progressives have just got to get better at this, especially the activist wing of the party. There's kind of one more example of this that I would share. There's a guy whose blog I really like. The blog is named Garbage Day and it's written by Ryan Broderick. And he proposed a set of, like, who could be the Democratic Joe Rogan who could fill this spot? And just so you know, John, you were one of the potential nominees on.

This episode because Garbage Day is Austin, our producer Austin's favorite newsletter. We actually played a game that people have now already heard on this episode where we take the Garbage Day list. And of course, we made fun of us on Pod Save America and did a funny draft of the liberal Joe Rogan. So, yeah, we just talked about that. But yeah, go ahead.

I thought it was an interesting list, especially because one of Ryan Broderick's favorite candidates was Sam Reich and the Dropout Crew. And I think Ryan is really insightful in a lot of ways, but I don't think he realizes that Sam Reich and the Dropout Crew could never be a progressive Joe Rogan because of what happened just two to three weeks ago. There was this incident where Dropout, if you're not familiar with them, is a sketch comedy site and they've got several hundred thousand paying subscribers. They're very popular, they're growing. And so it's natural to think that they also wear their progressive politics on their sleeve. Like, Sam Reich is actually the son of Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor, I think. And so it's natural to think, oh, maybe it's them, they're non political, but they are like, they show their views. But about two to three weeks ago, they brought somebody named Noah Grossman on one of their sketches, like a guest comedian, and they do that kind of thing a lot. And their progressive fan base realized very quickly, oh, Noah Grossman is a Zionist. And by Zionist they meant that he had made one statement six years ago about how his great grandfather immigrated to Israel, like when Israel was founded in 1947, and he was proud of him. That was the extent of his Zionism. But I'm telling you that the Dropout fan base tore itself apart on. They were fighting on Twitter, there were great battles on subreddits, people started organizing boycotts, and Dropout had to kind of issue this like, groveling statement about, like, we promise in the future we will not be platforming Zionists ever again. And like, this is why a progressive Joe Rogan to some extent doesn't work right now. Because as soon as they say anything, Joe Rogan esque, as soon as they deviate from the party line in any way and are just have a weird view like Joe Rogan does about a lot of stuff, as soon as they do that, they're going to get torn apart. That's the environment that we're in. And to some extent that's what we have to fix. And the good news is, I think we can fix it. It's hard to change culture, but we've seen culture change from what we had before to this kind of shaming. So we probably can change it back if we try.

Yeah, I mean, to me, that example, like, that's almost the easy part. Like if, if Grossman had gone on the Dropout and started, you know, saying, you know, Netanyahu's strategy is right and let's talk about the war. Right. At least then you could be like, okay, let's have a conversation with our listeners, because we don't think those views are Correct. And Vicki's wrong. And, like, debate the war like people have done for the last year or so. But the idea, like, we've dealt with it, like, you know, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes, who host Pod Save the World. I mean, they have talked about Gaza almost every week, and they've had really thoughtful conversations and have been very critical of Netanyahu and the Israeli government. And sometimes, like, they will post a clip on our social media and some of the comments will be like, oh, I see Tommy's still drinking Starbucks in that picture. And Starbucks, they're a bunch of Zionists. And I'm like, I just. Come on, guys. But my view on that is those people, I just don't. They don't get the response anymore. They get ignored. And I actually think that sometimes we do a disservice, like lifting those people up just to attack them, because that. Or disagree with them or whatever it may be, because I don't think they represent many people. And I don't think that, like, amplifying those views is actually all that helpful for anyone because all it's doing is just getting that view out there. And then some people are like, oh, is Starbucks bad? Should I look into this? And you look into it and you're like, oh, no, this is silly.

Yeah, but it's funny because that's what social media does, right? Social media is structurally built to amplify extreme views and to amplify conflict. And conflict gets engagement. Extreme views get engagement. And so it's this thing that's very hard to escape from. This kind of doom cycle of weird stuff keeps happening, and everybody reacts to it, and it just makes it more incentivized to say and do weird things.

Yep, that's right. Last question. On a slightly different topic, I loved your Infinite scroll piece this morning about why production makes us happier than consumption and why the Internet makes production hard. It's a very offline take, so I'd just love you to talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but, like, sometimes I'm in a position where, like, young people ask me for advice. And the one piece of advice that I usually give. I'm not a mental health expert, I'm not a counselor or a life coach, but the one thing that's helped me is that I tell them, you have to do things. And consuming content is really easy these days. And I love all the people who listen to Pod Save America and Offline with Jon Favreau. I love all the people who read my blog and listen to my podcast. And I'm not saying you shouldn't consume content, but it's so easy to get sucked into a cycle of just, you're scrolling and you're scrolling and you're scrolling and you're consuming. You're watching Netflix, you're listening to podcasts, you're reading blogs. And there are a lot of people who are very, very well paid who have PhDs dedicated to keeping you inside the algorithm, to keeping you scrolling. And you end up kind of passively just living your life, consuming rather than producing. And I don't care what it is that you produce or what it is that you create, but you should do something that creates value for the world for someone else other than yourself. Maybe you take up woodworking and you learn to make furniture. Maybe you learn to crochet. Maybe you volunteer at a homeless shelter. Maybe you learn to code and you build like a fun Twitter bot or something. Maybe you learn to play piano and you can perform for people sometimes. Maybe you raise a kid, maybe you start a business. It can really be anything, but it has to be something you create, something you produce that has an impact on the outside world. Because I think for a lot of young people who are unhappy, you know, we're in this, like, mental health crisis. I think for a lot of them, they're unhappy because they don't do anything. And if you asked them, like, what are the good things about you? They would list, like, internal stuff, like, I'm nice and I'm kind and I'm considerate and I remember people's birthdays and I'm not a bigoted sexist jerk like that other guy. And I'm like, if the only. If the only nice thing you can say about yourself is negative qualities you don't have, then, like, you need to stand back and reevaluate. Like, what have you done that's left an impact on the world? I think that improves people's mental health and makes them happier than all the inward focused therapy speak stuff, which can. Maybe sometimes that's helpful. But I think focusing outward and doing stuff that impacts the world will make people happier than anything else.

Yeah, I could not agree more. And when I think back to the weekend before the election, you would think that I look back at that and our door knocking in Arizona, Nevada, and all the events we did is like, oh, God, that's a bad memory. But even though the election went so badly, I will still look at that weekend as something that was fun. And meaningful and fulfilling because we were talking to people, we were trying to convince them, we were persuading them. Like we were trying to like actually interact with people, do something, move, move voters as opposed to just sitting home and scrolling through the takes for two days, which would have driven me fucking nuts. So I totally agree with that. Production is good. Too much consumption. Very bad. Jeremiah Johnson, thank you so much for joining Offline. The substack is infinite. Scroll, everyone. Check it out. And also follow you on Twitter because I'm very excited for the worst tweets bracket that you do every year. It's like one of my favorite things on Twitter. So everyone, I'm excited for this year's entries.

Looking forward to it too. Thanks for having me. John.

Offline is a crooked media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Iluk. Frank Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, Reed Sherland and Adrian Hill for production support and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Del Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.

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