Episode Summary Following her recent electoral defeat, many people have questioned why Kamala Harris didn't go on to the podcast of Joe Rogan, the standup comedian and sports commentator who has the number-one podcast in the world.For the record, Harris’s former advisers have said that they tried to coordinate a time with Rogan, but they very obviously did not make it a priority.The more interesting related question that other people have been asking post election is why is there no left-wing Joe Rogan?The immediate answer is that there is not a full-service Democratic ecosystem that includes media, legal, and local components. There are also some larger reasons why Rogan and other libertarian-oriented people have signed up with the Republican Party, after having hated it in the 1990s and 2000s when party was less radical.But there are some more specific reasons for why Rogan and people like him have become de facto Republicans that are especially relevant since Rogan himself once supported the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders—and they involve how the Democratic Party communicates, or rather, doesn’t, to the public. In recent decades, Democrats and the American left as a whole have moved to a communication strategy which focuses more on controlling the message in every possible way rather than trying to forcefully advocate and explain its ideas to people who have never heard them. On issues of science, economics, race, climate, gender, and regulation, Democrats have, by and large, resorted to blindly pointing to expert consensus rather than making the case to the uninformed.Joining me to discuss on this episode is Lisa Corrigan, she’s a professor of communications and gender studies at the University of Arkansas. She’s also the author of several different books, including Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation.The video of our December 9, 2024 discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.Related Content—How podcasts became a key source of news and entertainment for millions of Americans—Right-wing comedy isn’t particularly funny, but it’s extremely effective at persuading low-information voters—Joe Rogan and the epidemic of pseudo-expertise—Former establishment Republican have made the Democratic party more conservative, and less electorally successful—As libertarianism has radicalized, some of Silicon Valley's biggest names are turning toward fascism—Why Christian authoritarians and atheistic libertarians decided to meet in the middle—The ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ and the long history of right-wing rebranding—How the Donald Trump fandom completely reshaped the Republican media ecosystemAudio Chapters00:00 — Introduction03:24 — Democratic leaders' excessive desire to control all media encounters08:42 — Howard Stern, Joe Rogan, and the rise to dominance of casual infotainment14:05 — Democrats have lost the urge and the ability to debate23:11 — Democrats' post-graduate economic bubble27:06 — Republicans overthrew their obsolete party establishment, can Democrats?31:38 — How "The West Wing" encouraged Democrats to adopt a fictional communications strategy35:08 — Kamala Harris's initial media interview strategy and Democrats' total risk aversion39:56 — Trump targeted disengaged Americans with media appearances, Harris with advertisements42:39 — Why did Democrats lose ground with women despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade?46:49 — The Democratic Party doesn't want to talk to low-information voters54:40 — As Democrats have won more prosperous voters, they've become less interested in economic populism59:20 — The ALEC behemoth outside the Beltway01:03:19 — ConclusionAudio TranscriptThe following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Lisa Corrigan. Welcome to Theory of Change, Lisa.LISA CORRIGAN: Thanks for having me.SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So I think one of the questions that is almost inescapable in the 2024 election post mortems is, is why is there no left wing Joe Rogan?But it's a very strange and weird question to ask because Joe Rogan was a Bernie Sanders.CORRIGAN: He certainly was. Yeah.I think there's no tolerance in the Democratic Party for class analysis, and I think that there is. a class [00:03:00] politics that really chafes at someone like Rogan's style,And also that he's not controllable. So they prefer to control, highly control their own media, such as it is. And so I think we can read that as a sort of intolerance and lack of curiosity, not just about Rogan, but also his audience.SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm. Well, okay.Democratic leaders' excessive desire to control all media encountersSHEFFIELD: So, but when you say, I think, I agree with you when you say that the, ...
