Hanna Rosen (2:20)

Their enthusiasm for Trump infected a new generation of men. Younger, not that ideological, not necessarily white, definitely not woke. They are a rare demographic that a political pollster might call soft, possibly persuadable, definitely prone to apathy. So what does their shift away from Trump mean for maga, for the Republicans, maybe even for the Democrats? We talked to political reporter Elaine Godfrey, who's been tracking a lot of manosphere podcasts lately and noticing this shift. So you are tuning into them as a microcosm of the general national sentiment, not because you've discovered the manosphere?

Elaine Godfrey (3:10)

No, I, I had like been aware of the manosphere. I listened to Theo Vaughn just generally because I think he's funny. I hadn't really listened to like a lot of these other guys, but no, I was just interested in like, okay, what are their listeners hearing from them on this issue? Like, are they still getting pro Trump content? What are they getting? Like, how critical are these guys willing to be? And it turns out like pretty critical.

Hanna Rosen (3:35)

And listeners, meaning voters. That's why you who are a political reporter care.

Elaine Godfrey (3:39)

Exactly.

Hanna Rosen (3:40)

As voters.

Elaine Godfrey (3:40)

Okay, what are voters hearing about?

Hanna Rosen (3:41)

Yeah, right. So who manosphere is a big term? Could be any man with a microphone. There are more influential ones. What is the manosphere? It's just a catch all term. Who does it include?

Elaine Godfrey (3:53)

So I think so for the purposes of my story, the manosphere is more the sort of non ideological, like bro podcasts. And I focus mostly on comedians, interviews for entertainment, basically like chatting with the guys. These are the people that I think have a lot more cred actually with voters because they're not explicitly political. And so when they say political stuff, I think it reads as more true or more authentic. But I'm talking about people like Joe Rogan and this is sort of like a spectrum. Like the manosphere is not, they're not all the same. But this is like Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon, Andrew Schultz and all the guys on flagrant. Sean Ryan is not really part of this. He's sort of more of a serious interview podcaster who's like former military. But I sort of lumped them all in here because their audience is not specifically there for politics.

Hanna Rosen (4:54)

So give me an example of how politics comes up, because it is a curious cultural phenomenon. Like if you zoom out, you have to wonder, why are people who started out as comedians, then became podcasters who talk about a huge range of things, like why do they have this kind of political significance? For example, lay out Andrew Schultz's politics.

Elaine Godfrey (5:12)

Yeah, I mean, Andrew Schultz is comedy first. He brings up politics when it touches his life in some way or when it touches some Internet meme or joke he wants to discuss with the boys his politics, at least as far as, you know, the past couple years goes, that I've been observing. It's very like pro free speech, pro jokes, anti woke. He does not like when people talk about identity politics in a serious way.

Hanna Rosen (5:46)

So no earnestness.

Elaine Godfrey (5:47)

Right. And just this sort of eagerness to be contrarian. And I think all of these reasons are primarily why he preferred Trump. I don't think any of it came down to, like, specific policies. It was more, you know, he's not one of the regular politicians. He's funny. Kamala Harris is too woke. Like, we're tired of the Democrats being so pious, which is totally just like, that's a vibes thing. And I think a lot of voters, I mean, I know a lot of voters say that to me, like, this is the reason we don't like Democrats. So I would say his politics are very much like what the average kind of independent, frustrated, like, young American would say.

Hanna Rosen (6:29)

And just to compare. So there's Andrew Schultz. There's also a lot of other. Other people, like Joe Rogan, who's the most well known. What's the spectrum?

Elaine Godfrey (6:38)

I think the difference between those two in particular is their willingness to engage in conspiracy thinking. Rogan has entertained a lot of conspiracy theories. He's had on a lot of folks talking about UFOs, ancient aliens, vaccine skepticism, that kind of thing. So I would say that's a difference between them. The spectrum kind of is more entertainment versus a little more serious. I would say Joe Rogan has actually moved into the more serious kind of category because he takes some of this stuff so seriously.

Hanna Rosen (7:12)

Right.

Elaine Godfrey (7:12)

Andrew Schultz and the guys on Flagrant are more like, they just wanna have fun on the podcast and they have these moments of earnestness, but, like, mostly not.

Hanna Rosen (7:21)

And then in this taxonomy, where does someone like Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes. I don't think of them necessari as primarily podcasters, but I do think of them as influential in the manosphere.

Elaine Godfrey (7:33)

Yeah, I think of Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes. I mean, Nick Fuentes specifically is like a provocateur, influencer type. He's a streamer, he is a podcaster. He's explicitly political and cultural. He's got things he wants to say and ideas he wants to push. So. So he's sort of. I wouldn't even put him in this fear, actually. He's sort of the explicitly, like, provocateur, kind of hateful, like, section of the Internet. I think, like, some people put someone like Tucker Carlson in the manosphere, and I don't think he really belongs there. I think he's pretty explicitly political. So he's not doing this for entertainment.

Hanna Rosen (8:19)

Got it. Okay. So this is a loose category. The people you're primarily interested in are more entertainment forward, as you said, because they are likely to be more akin to the average voter who's not like, politically obsessed, not like Tucker Carlson. They're just like guys who are listening and then they pay attention. To politics when it impacts them or like, they see gas prices or something like that. They're not like, obsessed. Okay, got it. So here's how I remember this love affair starting is that Barron Trump, Trump's son, tells Trump, who primarily lives in 1980s media culture, that there are these podcasts and they're influential and he should go on them. And then Trump does go on them, and then that turns out to be a grand and successful move. How's that as a summary?

Elaine Godfrey (9:12)

So that is the common summary. But I would say, like, these guys, Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon, this whole, like, Trump friendly podcast world, whether they endorse Trump or not explicitly, some of them didn't explicitly do. So they were really Trump friendly and, like, they brought him to their listeners. And so I think that they really were a big reason why Trump went back to the White House for sure.

Hanna Rosen (9:34)

Right, okay. So just for the purposes of this conversation, maybe we'll just give them credit for helping to create an unexpected coalition around Trump. Like not the usual MAGA Republican. They kind of broaden the coalition. Maybe we can at least say that. Because what we'll talk about is like, okay, so what now? When did the cracks first start to show? Because it was before Iran.

Elaine Godfrey (9:55)

Yeah, the cracks started to show a while ago, actually. And I'm gonna speak specifically about the Andrew Schultz podcast, the flagrant podcast, but the same sort of contours repeat themselves across the other shows. So Andrew Schultz, it seemed, started getting cold feet about Trump in July when the big beautiful bill was signed, which added to the federal deficit. This is the big spending package. When Israel Gaza conflict had not wound down and the Ukraine Russia conflict had not wound down. And most importantly, when Trump reversed himself and blocked the release of some of these Epstein files, that last thing specifically was like, so such a big about face because, I mean, we all remember Trump and all of his allies campaigned on, you know, unmasking the predators. Right. Releasing these files. So that was the first crack in the coalition.

Hanna Rosen (10:52)

And what were they saying? I'm torn here because on the one hand, it feels really naive to be like, the politician didn't keep his promise. I'm outraged, you know, but was there something deep? Was there emotion? Like, what was. What were they responding to? Like, did it feel real to you?

Elaine Godfrey (11:11)

Yeah. Oh, I think it did feel real. I mean, it also seems naive for people who followed this and probably for all the people who didn't vote for Trump. But no, I think they thought he was sincere in his desire to release the files, to name names I think they saw him, or at least his team as like one of them, as someone who is not part of the deep state, who wanted to sort of, you know, let's arrest the criminals. And I think it gave them this sort of like shock of is Trump just like any other politician? That was, I think, what the betrayal felt like.

Hanna Rosen (11:45)

Yeah, a betrayal. Okay, so that's the word. The word is betrayal. It's interesting cuz Trump does break the system, the norms in a lot of ways, but just not in the ways that they wanted. So then what other things started coming up as you were listening, there was

Elaine Godfrey (11:58)

a lot more Epstein chatter throughout the fall. Then what happened is the world started noticing how indiscriminate a lot of the ICE deportations were. And the guys on Flagrant had actually talked to Trump about deportations when he was on the podcast and they had said, you know, something to the effect of, can you prioritize criminals? Cuz we, you know, that's what we want to see.

Andrew Schultz (12:22)

There are people that maybe would like a path to citizenship. Did I have a lot of empathy? You have to start with the criminals. Agreed. Okay, look, but maybe we can, it's very tough. Maybe we can open our hearts a little bit to the people who are trying to be good, hard working Americans.

Elaine Godfrey (12:36)

And you know what's gonna happen in late fall. You start to see them reacting to a lot of stories about ICE deporting, like women and kids and cleaning ladies and workers at restaurants and it just becoming this thing that felt cruel and inhumane. So they started talking about it a lot. There was an episode on Flagrant where they talk about like, and this was apropos of nothing, I think. There wasn't like a specific news. They just started saying, dude, would you hide a migrant from ICE if you had to? It was a very dark conversation, but it was like you're watching them realize this in real time, that this was a consequence that they hadn't anticipated of voting for Trump. And at the same time you had Joe Rogan and others speaking out about this. Like this seems like a little much. So the punctuation on that was the killing of Renee Goode in Minneapolis. But then it was, you know, I would say in an even bigger way, the killing by federal agents of Alex Preddy.

Hanna Rosen (13:33)

So how would you characterize where they are right now? Like, I just heard a clip of Joe Rogan calling, what did he say? Magazine A bunch of fucking dorks.

Andrew Schultz (13:44)

Cause a lot of them are dorks, a lot of them, these really weird fucking uninteresting unintelligent people that have got something they cling to. And yet there's a lot of people that are.

Hanna Rosen (13:54)

Now, it's funny because them are not strong words like dorks. I wouldn't fucking dorks. Is not like, I will never vote for you again, and you have betrayed us. So how, like, are they done with Trump? Like, how would you characterize it?

Elaine Godfrey (14:08)

Yeah, I think you have to be careful here because there's a spectrum on what people are willing to say. So, I mean, after Alex Preddy, so this was in January, after Preddy was killed, Andrew Schultz said, you know, this is fucking disgusting. Disgusting the way that the administration has handled this. Like, he's rarely earnest on the podcast, as I said. And he and the guys took like five minutes to just sort of absolutely go off on this. Very shortly after that, you have Iran. And now I would say the feeling is kind of like they feel almost comically betrayed. I think it's different for someone like Joe Rogan, who I think is still giving Trump. I don't think you see him saying, I'm so done with this guy. But in this world, you also have people like Sean Ryan, former military guy, podcaster. He's saying, republicans better not fucking come to my door this November.

Andrew Schultz (15:07)

I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear more of those fucking lies. I hear that from a lot of people. Hear that from a lot of people.

Elaine Godfrey (15:15)

It's everything, Joe.

Andrew Schultz (15:16)

It's everything.

Elaine Godfrey (15:18)

So that's the spectrum. But none of it's good for Trump. They're somewhere between totally baffled and really fucking angry

Hanna Rosen (15:29)

after the break. The political implications of all this anger. What losing the manosphere could mean for maga in the midterms.

Andrew Schultz (15:46)

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Elaine Godfrey (16:39)

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Hanna Rosen (16:52)

So we care about the manosphere because it has a lot of cultural influence, but we also care because of the political implications of everything. You're saying Trump is not on the ballot in 2028. These guys maybe were never reliable down ballot Republican voters. So why are you paying attention to this?

Elaine Godfrey (17:13)

What this does for Republicans is bad in that the midterms are already going to be low turnout. Midterms typically are the incumbents party. Trump's party needs enthusiasm to win.

Hanna Rosen (17:28)

Ah.

Elaine Godfrey (17:29)

No one thinks that the people who voted for Trump in 2024 are gonna be so pissed they vote Democrat, at least not en masse. The risk is they're gonna stay home, they're gonna be like, you know what, whatever. Like this guy's just like all the other politicians. He's lied so many times, now we're in another war. They're frustrated, they're gonna stay at home. You have so many voices in his coalition saying, we're disappointed in Trump, he's betrayed us. That isn't gonna get people out to vote. It's not gonna get people out to volunteer. So I think what could have been a pretty like bad year, an absolute disaster for Republicans thanks to this.

Hanna Rosen (18:07)

How about the MAGA movement? As you are listening to all these podcasts, what tea leaves are you reading about the future fracturing of the MAGA movement, what the splinters might be, where the power might shift, all of that.

Elaine Godfrey (18:22)

Yeah. So even the most hardcore MAGA voters, like Marjorie Taylor Greene are frustrated with Trump about this stuff. So the non ideological podcast guys and the hardcore MAGA guys and women have that in common. So what you'll see is different candidates trying to pick up this sort of fallen mantle of Trumpism and sort of take it to its conclusion. Right. And that could mean different things, but I think there's an opening now for someone to call themselves maga, call themselves a Trumpist, but actually not want to go to war with Iran and sort of truly be America first. Right. Like cut off funding to Ukraine, for example, and be like also a fiscal conservative. I think there's a lot of room there for someone to do that now. I think it's really hard at the same time because if you're going to do that and win, I think you have to be charismatic. You have to sort of have the kind of Juice that Trump has, which has allowed him to unite this complicated coalition. I don't know that anyone has that at this point, but.

Hanna Rosen (19:37)

Yeah, but you're saying there are openings. We can start to see, like how a future candidate could position themselves.

Elaine Godfrey (19:42)

Yep.

Hanna Rosen (19:43)

And flagrant had Mamdani on the show. Right. So it seems like what they're into, this is interesting is I can see why you were into them because they are kind of canary in the coal mine. Like, they're not that committed. They don't care that much about politics, but they kind of gravitate in. In. In almost the same manner that voters gravitate. So the fact that he had mom Donnie on the show means what?

Elaine Godfrey (20:03)

So this is such an important dynamic, which is so many of these podcaster guys are interested in anti establishment seeming candidates. This is why they like Trump. But it's also why a lot of them like Bernie Sanders. Andrew Schultz loved Bernie Sanders back in 2020 and he talks about it all the time. So I think for them, Mamdani fits the same thing. He's charming. He doesn't sou other politicians. And this is part of the risk with this coalition is the moment you betray them like a politician would, the moment you sort of seem inauthentic or two faced is the moment that they drop you.

Hanna Rosen (20:41)

This is such an old American story. We are stuck in a permanent cycle of charismatic politicians who portray themselves as being different from other politicians and against the system and win over a certain number of people and then betray them. That's our future.

Elaine Godfrey (20:58)

That's right.

Hanna Rosen (20:59)

By the way, did you talk to any of these guys?

Elaine Godfrey (21:01)

No, I reached out to Andrew Schultz and they declined.

Hanna Rosen (21:05)

So I know some of these guys are specifically angry about Israel's role in all of this and Israel potentially coercing Trump into this war. Sometimes this tips into anti Semitism. How does that fit into the broader anger of the manosphere over the war?

Elaine Godfrey (21:24)

So this is a really interesting dynamic at play, a sinister dynamic at play in the manosphere right now. I think you can separate a lot of these guys by how much they blame Trump himself versus how much people blame Israel. So you have people like Andrew Schultz who talk about Israel, but that's sort of as far as they're willing to go. They mostly blame Trump for a lot of his choices with Iran. You can sort of separate out the others, like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. They talk a lot about this being some big plot by Israel to rope Trump into it. It's their way of criticizing the war without criticizing Trump himself. The experts I talked to said they've actually seen a ton more anti Semitism in this space than they had previously.

Hanna Rosen (22:11)

Okay, we are in the middle of what seems to be an incredibly unpopular war. What's your sense of how big an issue this becomes?

Elaine Godfrey (22:22)

I think this could become a very, very big issue. I think it's already a very big issue, but there are many months until November. So I think it really depends on how. It depends on how things play out at this point. But I think, you know, in my view, there's no way he's stitching this back together before November.

Hanna Rosen (22:41)

Oh, really? So there's. You don't think there's anything he could do that would win them back?

Elaine Godfrey (22:48)

I think if prices generally were to magically drop somehow and Trump started talking more about affordable housing and healthcare costs, maybe. But a couple of things. I mean, a lot of these guys feel like he's betrayed them. I don't know how you undo that betrayal. A series of betrayals. Right. I don't know how you undo that in just a few months. They may also just feel fine about Trump and not want to go vote. Trump's not even going to be on the ballot. So I don't really see a bunch of these sort of manosphere types, manosphere listeners getting really excited suddenly in the midterms. I just think it would take a really special combination of things that Trump would have to do that. I just don't think he will.

Hanna Rosen (23:43)

Well, Elaine, thank you so much for spending a lot of time listening to manosphere podcasts and sharing with us. It was fun.

Elaine Godfrey (23:50)

Thank you so much, Hannah.

Hanna Rosen (23:52)

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Janae west and Rosie Hughes. It was edited by Kevin Townsend. Rob Smirciak engineered and provided original music. Isabel Rule and Alex Marona Porto Fact checked. Claudina Baid is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is. Is our managing editor. Listeners, if you enjoy the show, you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic. At theatlantic.com listener, I'm Hanna Rosen. Thank you for listening.