For months, pundits have decried the absence of a “Joe Rogan of the left” — an online media figure who can galvanize young men to support Democrats in the way that popular right-wing creators like Rogan, Adin Ross, and the NELK Boys have done for President Donald Trump. Now, it appears that Democratic operatives have a $20 million plan to build such a figure.
Nina Smith, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Stacey Abrams, said instead of propping up a creator who checks the perfect ideological boxes, Democrats should embrace the online spaces for young men that already exist.
For example, creators like Hasan Piker, a left-leaning creator with over 5.5 million subscribers on Twitch and broad popularity among young men, has largely been ignored by the Democratic establishment. Piker’s political content leans farther left, sharing a populist economic message paired with strong criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Israel.
“There is a tendency to shy away from those spaces because our favorite thing to do in the Democratic Party is to, pardon my language, shit on the left,” said Smith.
TLDR: democrats stay on brand being complete and utter shitheads.
I see that your favorite thing to do is also to shit on the left
Democrats want nothing to do with the left.
The Left Cheney party.
The establishment left
Without even saying goodbye? So rude…
The Democrats are never going to be able to build a liberal Joe Rogan because a liberal is going to have to stay extremely Centrist to appease the Democrats. So they’re not going to appeal to the left and they’re not going to appeal to the right, so they’ll start veering right more because that’s where the money is going to be. I mean hell people say Joe Rogan used to be left. I don’t agree with that I think he was just a fan of weed and got swept up in Bernie Sanders enthusiasm, I don’t think he was actually ever a leftist. However he chased the bag. Because it was a big fucking bag. That’s why he’s where he is now.
All this…All of it. ☝️
I think this misses that a lot of people “are Democrats” simple because the only other choice is Republican in our 2 sided system.
Which is why those voters will always be stuck in the uni-party hell. Throwing any vote at these neo-lib/neo-con parties is literally voting against your own self interest, because they are working for the elites/oligarchs. I would classify this ‘vote for XXX no matter what’ mentality as a ‘user error.’
Yeah but can you blame people, really?
There’s one party that wants to actively destroy the county and everyone in it, with a mob voting for them.
Then you have the other party that will sit back and watch it happen, but not actively help it quite as much.
I mean fuck. I don’t like the second option but I want to prevent the first one because it seems worse.
instead of propping up a creator who checks the perfect ideological boxes
Which is to say, slavishly regurgitates all of the just barely to the left of the Republicsns neoliberal swill that keeps losing elections.
Democrats should embrace the online spaces for young men that already exist.
What? Actually going with what the people actually support rather than trying to force some corporate-approved hack that nobodly likes on them, then blaming them when they predictably lose?
What a novel idea.
For example, creators like Hasan Piker, a left-leaning creator with over 5.5 million subscribers on Twitch and broad popularity among young men, has largely been ignored by the Democratic establishment.
And gee… I wonder why…
Piker’s political content leans farther left, sharing a populist economic message paired with strong criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Israel.
Oh. my. who. would. have. guessed. that.? Gee. whiz. what. a. surprise.
There is a tendency to shy away from those spaces because our favorite thing to do in the Democratic Party is to, pardon my language, shit on the left,” said Smith.
Huh. I thought their favorite thing to do was to lose elections.
Same thing either way though…
And I’m calling it now -;the Dem leadership is going to waste their time and money ham-fistedly promoting a pathetically transparent neoliberal shill, then blame everyone but themselves when they utterly and completely and entirely predictably fail.
Lmao if the Dems go with a literal terrorist supporter they will be forever cooked 😭
It’s incredibly sad how easily people can fall for dishonest and disingenous propaganda. Do you have any actual beliefs or principles or do you just oppose anyone you were told to call a terrorist?
I’ve never understood why anyone thinks that the hysterical propaganda and lies spewed by ignorant right-wing reactionaries who would never vote for a democrat in the first place should have any bearing on any decision the democrats might make about anything.
The Democrats will try anything other than policies that actually help people.
I mean it’s already John Oliver?
Gotem
The only person that can defeat Joe is Bill Burr. He’s left centrist and that Boston accent pulls people from the right because he’s relatable and unassumingly based.
Bill Burr should be considered a leftist icon.
At some point the person inhabiting the role described in the article has to want to be a political player and it seems Bill just doesn’t.
The irony here is that if the dems improved overall to be more likeable then he would champion them and people in general would gravitate that way. The bar is so painfully low at the moment.
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Best we can do is 100 percent unthinking support of Israel while you go die in a gutter. If you disagree you’re antisemitic. What, why won’t you vote for me?
We all live in a bizarro world where it’s the voters’ fault for not voting for you.
The politicians don’t need voters anymore they need donors.
Too easy
Someone doesn’t realise who their sponsors are and who they work for.
I don’t see how it can work because in general left leaning people have a brain and the form their own opinions. We’re not out looking for some hero daddy figure to tell us what to think.
Building propoganda to make the current democrats seem good isn’t the solution. The democrats actually need to be good. But, of course, that will never happen because it would mean dumping the billionaires and the Zionists. We’re fucked.
“Vote blue no matter who”
Yeah really using that brain and forming your own opinions.
This isn’t a leftist slogan.
That’s a centrist liberal slogan that - thankfully - is falling by the wayside.
For example, creators like Hasan Piker, a left-leaning creator with over 5.5 million subscribers on Twitch and broad popularity among young men, has largely been ignored by the Democratic establishment. Piker’s political content leans farther left, sharing a populist economic message paired with strong criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Israel.
They know that their billionaire donors would rather they build a neoliberal Joe Rogan rather than help support someone one iota to the left of the status quo
Instead of building a liberal Joe Rogan, they should be mocking the concept of Joe Rogan and destroying him. Make him damaged goods. Make him a joke. “Where do you get your news, dumbass? Joe Rogan? Or, some other pothead like him?”
There’s no need to throw around the term “pothead” like it’s 1995. Most of the country smokes weed. The Dems are really good at alienating people, so I wouldn’t put it past them to say such a thing, but the issue with Rogan has nothing to do with his use of intoxicants.
You’re not going to make him “damaged goods” because a huge part of his appeal is that he’s a conspiracy theorist asshole who platforms people that completely fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Again, that does sound like a good way to lose an election, i.e. a Democratic Party strategy. Maybe you should work for them.
Actually, I think you’re both right. Yes, Joe Rogan (as a cultural phenomenon) has no good reason to exist and I, too, want to see him destroyed.
But the evidence is mounting that many people love to listen to a wretched, moronic, self-important piece of shit like him (or Alex Jones or countless others on the right). Because he validates all of their worst tendencies for bigotry, conspiracist thinking, and intellectual laziness. Building up another Hasan Piker or Jimmy Dore isn’t helping because all they do is preach to the choir.
If you want meaningful change you have to get money out of politics, reform the voting system, and focus on education. Not that any of that is going to happen without a major upheaval but hey, I’m trying to be constructive here…
I get your goal, but denigrating them won’t work. They tried that with Donald Trump. They tried it with Alex Jones. Neither of these cases resulted in a smaller aufience for those two- instead they became the figureheads of their respective demographics, audiences swollen by those the Democrats (and traditional Republicans) dispossess and mock as being “too fringe”.
Because they don’t want someone who’s actually left. They want someone who pretends to be left while actually shilling for Democrats, who are neoliberal (i.e. economic right-wing).
Or even more general: Someone who’s popular will almost by definition be anti-establishment, because the establishment is often shit and someone who isn’t willing to say that won’t be authentic. Even non-leftist insurgent voices (David Hogg seems pretty mainstream progressive, for example) are immediately attacked, so an authentic speaker would never stay in their good graces.
They already tried the “Dirtbag Left”. The problem was that, if they’re meant to be edgelord assholes, they don’t stay reliably left.
We just need a new Mr. Rogers.
That’s All.
Joe Rogan was the liberal Joe Rogan. What they should do is study how he fell to the right because that’s basically how everyone in America did. There’s plenty of his podcasts material to work with. In his very early years he had plenty of scientists and actual doctors and interesting people on there where he would just shut the fuck up and listen. It took years for his public opinions and guest pool to devolve to what they are now.
Money. The answer is money. No study is needed, it was just greed. You’re not going to come across some grand character arc of a “good guy turning into bad guy” with some kind of study. He was always a greedy bad guy from when he started on Fear Factor. The more outrageously dumb his podcasts became with really off the wall guests, the more money came in.
I think there’s also an anti-intellectual streak in this country where some idiots think that contrarianism is a shortcut to the truth.
I listened to a lot of joe Rogen back in my podcast years. It was definitely the money and he pretty much said so a long time ago when he signed that deal to spotify. He was so excited to be even richer, that’s when he fell to the darkside, it was spotify.
David hogg should start a podcast. He would do great! And he could start with how the dnc just screwed him over. Democrats love to hate each other just as much as Republicans love to hate democrats.
