Democrats are searching for “their Joe Rogan.” Here is why that is an exercise in futility.
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The 2024 election demonstrated the outsized impact of right-wing podcasters and personalities, as well as overtly biased media outlets — and, by contrast, showed the lack of progressive counterparts. Now, Democrats are desperate to build their own stable of voices that can compete with the likes of Fox News, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, or any of the dozens of other MAGA supporters who are reaching key demographics, such as disenchanted young men and low-information voters.
Several issues stand out in the emerging battle for media influence that may decide the future of democracy in the United States .
One is that Democrats are going about it the wrong way. In typical fashion, they are throwing money at the problem and believe it can be solved by consultants and focus groups from the top down instead of by the audiences themselves from the bottom up.
The reason why this right-wing propaganda machine is so successful is that it gives an uninformed and gullible audience exactly what it wants: a narrative that explains the world to them in a way that shows they are the victims, reality and truth be damned.
However, this aspect of the problem has been written about plenty, so we won’t waste much time on it here
Instead, we want to focus on a much bigger problem.
The reason why the right-wing propaganda machine is so successful is that it gives an uninformed and gullible audience exactly what it wants: a narrative that explains the world to them in a way that shows they are the victims — reality and truth be damned.
The contrast between the protests in Los Angeles and the events of January 6, 2021, perfectly illustrates this.
By any measure, Donald Trump’s insurrection was worse.
It was aimed at the heart of democracy, i.e., the certification of an election; more cops were harmed in one day in the Capitol riots than in a week of protests in Los Angeles; and the injuries to those officers were far more serious.
In addition, both on January 6 and in its aftermath, an entire political party, especially its leader, not only failed to condemn what happened but instead tried to create an alternative reality in which the attackers became “tourists” and “patriots.”
Of course, the entire nation had witnessed what happened, so that new narrative had to account for the violence that unquestioningly had occurred.
Watch Fox News for even a little bit, and you’d think that a horde of “illegals” is invading the city and would lay waste to it if not for the heroism of Trump, or that “paid agitators” are putting cops’ lives at risk. Paid by whom? China, Soros, socialists… take your pick.
But that turned out not to be a problem because conservatives have been conditioned to be so conspiracy minded that they don’t believe their own eyes when what they see conflicts with what they hear from conspiracy-mongers like Trump, Sean Hannity, Musk, Rogan, Libs of TikTok, etc.
So, who actually did attack those police officers? Obviously, it must have been Antifa, or FBI informants in the crowd. Or, despite hours and hours of TV footage to the contrary, there was no violence at all. Take your pick.
Simply put, no evidence to support this counter-reality exists… and yet, these are the “alternative facts” that keep being spread and accepted by the right.
Fast forward to the protests in Los Angeles.
In this case, even though there has been a lot less violence, right-wing influencers are working full-time to create a counter-reality.
Watch Fox News for even a little bit, and you’d think that a horde of “illegals” is invading the city and would lay waste to it if not for the heroism of Trump, or that “paid agitators” are putting cops’ lives at risk. Paid by whom? China, Soros, socialists… take your pick.
It actually doesn’t matter because to those right-wing influencers, the truth is not important. It’s just an obstacle that has to be overcome.
This level of dishonesty and deceit just doesn’t exist on the left.
It would be easy for MSNBC or the guys at MeidasTouch to concoct a narrative purporting that those masked individuals waving Mexican flags are actors hired by Musk.
Why would he do that?
Hmm, let’s see. Maybe they are being paid to set fire to self-driving Waymo vehicles so that the company, which does not use Musk’s cars, would suspend its service in Los Angeles (which it did) and open the door for Tesla to enter this market?
OK, that was easy. All we had to do was to take some real events (the protests, burning Waymo cars, and the company’s decision to halt its operations for now) and mix them in with stuff we made up.
Does that sound plausible?
Maybe to gullible, low-information individuals… and there are just way more of those on the right.
Or, to put it differently, if you are trying to reach uninformed, gullible, and incurious people with information that you feel they need to hear, you’re always going to lose against somebody who tells them what they want to hear instead.
– We know this because a large share of Republicans routinely believe the most outrageous falsehoods… like the Big Lie about the “stolen” 2020 election or easily refutable facts about the state of the economy.
– We know this because research has shown that people who watch Fox News exclusively know less about current events than people who watch no news at all.
– We know this because Americans without a college degree favor Republicans, and the less educated they are, the stronger the preference becomes.
– And we know this because this issue has been studied extensively.
Therefore, even if left-wing “journalists” or commentators with no integrity or shame were to conjure up such a baseless conspiracy, it stands to reason that fewer people would believe them and they would not be able to organically grow an audience.
However, most of the people on Fox have neither integrity nor shame, which is why, for example, “straight news” anchor John Roberts covered for Trump this week after the president had made up a phone call that he claimed to have had with California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday but that never happened.
What progressives have to do is to get these disenchanted young men and low-education voters to understand that the system is against them. But it’s not the political system — but rather an economic system that favors the rich.
Of course, it’s not as though the audience cares. In fact, Fox viewers probably only complain when the network makes the mistake of being honest.
Another great example is what happened to Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), who was manhandled and handcuffed when he crashed a press conference in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had just said that the Trump administration hopes to effect a regime change in his state.
In this case, what happened is on tape for everybody to see… and Fox and other right-wing influencers still lied about it or immediately suggested that this was some kind of a planned stunt.
At this point, turning to conspiracy theories has become the default for Republicans because the unvarnished truth is not something they can handle – after 30 years of Fox News and talk radio, as well as 10 years of Trump.
That’s the real reason why Democrats won’t be able to compete with right-wing influencers untethered from reality.
Or, to put it differently, if you are trying to reach ill-informed, gullible, and incurious people with information that you feel they need to hear, you’re always going to lose against somebody who tells them what they want to hear instead.
That is why Democrats should stop trying to emulate Joe Rogan or other right-wing influencers. No focus group is going to change the fact that they are talking to completely different audiences.
Or, more accurately, they may be trying to talk to the same people but in a different way.
What progressives have to do is to get these disenchanted young men and low-education voters to understand that the system is against them. Not the political system — but rather an economic system designed to favor the rich.
And you don’t even need to make up conspiracy theories and fairy tales to drive home that point… the reality will do just nicely.
