It Is So Embarrassing to Watch Dems Try to “Find” a Liberal Joe Rogan. I Have So Many Ideas About What They Should Do Instead.
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The fruitless search for a liberal Joe Rogan has gone on long enough to become its own cliché. Sure, the overarching diagnosis is spot on: Liberals have been sufficiently rooted out of the digital-media ecosystem at a moment when political conversations and activism exist largely online. In 2024 the Trump campaign adroitly understood that the old rules of engagement didn't matter anymore, so the candidate glommed on to a fleet of boorish but politically pliable podcasters and Twitch streamers—who cater to a legion of disaffected young men—appearances that humanized him far better than a 60 Minutes sit-down ever could. The rest is history.
Democrats are now sifting through the rubble of their coalition and have come to the only logical conclusion: Rehabilitation must be found by forging their own flotilla of alternative media—one that is scruffy, vulgar, but ultimately aligned with liberal ideals. Of course, these denouements will already be out of date by 2028, because by then the Republicans will have nominated an AI simulacrum of an Übermensch Donald Trump, while the rest of us rot in the gulag. But for now, at least, Democrats have reached alignment on what the problem actually is. Will they be able to solve it? That's another story.
Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that several big-name donors in the party have taken on this challenge. They're amassing eight-figure sums to juice a stable of influencers, YouTubers, and “content creators” to rejuvenate the flatlining reputation of the Democratic brand, which somehow still has an underwater favorability rating despite the material ramifications of Trump's reign. Career strategist Marissa McBride has broken ground on a for-profit brand called AND Media (a groan-inducing acronym for “Achieve Narrative Dominance”), which aims to raise something like $45 million by 2028 to take back the narrative, apparently. Meanwhile, Project Bullhorn, helmed by an associate of ex-Google megadonor Eric Schmidt, is targeting $35 million in spending money by the end of its first year in operation. These are big swings, and elsewhere in the story, unnamed party operatives feel a little queasy about their prospects of success. Indeed, some are raising concerns that the “excitement” about the assemblage of an insurgent lefty alternative-media arm “could cause money to flow into projects that are not fully fleshed out.”
I couldn't have said it better myself. These bosses continue to misunderstand the corporeal appeal of someone like Joe Rogan, an allure that can't be articulated within the bloodless context of a boardroom meeting. The man is both blessed and cursed with a squirrelly civic demeanor and innumerable stoner overreaches that, without fail, continues to land him in ludicrously incoherent political territory. (For example, the most influential podcaster in America is simultaneously amenable to universal health care and the idea that Hitler got a bad rap in World War II .) You simply cannot concoct such brain chemistry through the fires of consulting, which is to say that Rogan's rise is a product of the ebbing cultural tide, rather than its author . Unfortunately, the donors scraping vast tranches of cash into the coffers of libbed-up Twitch streamers will likely be the last people to figure that out.
Still, I'm sympathetic to their impulse. The deeper we venture into the Trump era, the more difficult it becomes to recall those wondrous days of yore when the status quo was suffused with young men excited to vote for Barack Obama. So, if you ask me, the organizations trying to reignite the Democratic Party's ineffable verve should spend their money on a suite of big-picture cultural projects. I just think that maybe, instead of trying to Frankenstein together some kind of hideous liberal Joe Rogan in a dreary McKinsey laboratory, the right thing to do is hark back to 2009. We were then a country stocked with fashionable Democrats! The vibes were on our side! That, my friends, is where we must return.
So how would I spend a mammoth bankroll of donor cash to reconquer our unruly, downwardly mobile American males? How would I engineer Hope and Change 2.0? What do we need to make boys fall in love with liberalism again? I'm glad you asked. Here are my proposals. These are mostly the result of a brainstorm in my dudes-only group chat, which is composed primarily of other Obama-voting thirtysomething boyfriends and husbands—none of whom is Ivy League–educated. That gives us some authority, right?
An infusion of dark money to the Tom Cruise estate in exchange for the production of a “woke Top Gun sequel.” Ideally one that concludes with Maverick bombing Jan. 6.
Super Bowl halftime artist Chappell Roan
A seventh OutKast album or, barring that, a new André 3000 album that sounds a lot like The Love Below . (Sorry, André—no flutes this time.)
A Theo Von guest-judging stint on RuPaul's Drag Race
A Yellowstone spinoff set in the 1930s in which all characters are enthusiastic about the New Deal and the virtues of big government
Noam Chomsky as co-host of the Call Her Daddy podcast
The surreptitious inclusion of Dead Prez into all of Spotify's algorithmically generated workout playlists
A Daft Punk reunion tour
A storyline in the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI that is oddly sympathetic to antifa and the virtues of civil disobedience
Ezra Klein–style Abundance policy but for the deregulation and availability of original-formula Four Loko—the one that gave you heart palpitations
Ezra Klein–style Abundance policy but for the deregulation and availability of human growth hormone and other supplements
Ezra Klein–style Abundance policy but for the reshoring of hair-transplant procedures at price points that can compete with Turkey's
While we're at it, an Ezra Klein–hosted reboot of Fear Factor that is accessible only to viewers who pay for at least one premium media subscription
The reintroduction of those “Read” posters from the '90s , except all the featured celebrities are UFC fighters and are reading Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Incentives to FanDuel, DraftKings, and all other sports betting companies to offer huge odds-boost promotions explicitly tied to Pride month—“Trans Day of Visibility Same Game Parlay” and so forth
Jackass 5
The reintroduction of single-day Coachella passes
An Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fortnite skin
Something that could be sufficiently described as “ Grease but for indie sleaze”
The addition of Luigi Mangione to the Crooked Media podcast network (first guest: Sydney Sweeney or Bernie Sanders)
If we're going down this path, which we should: Luigi Mangione as Saturday Night Live host
And last but certainly not least, an all-gender “ Hooters for ass .” With a smoking section.
There you have it. We've saved America. Donors, start cutting those checks!
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