The reality is that the Left spent years denigrating young men and male culture. Why would any man want to host the poster woman for failed DEI woke policies? Rogan is a perfect example of a left wing man who got sick of the insanity and delved into the other side.
I think another reason is that Trump is clearly a sports fan and Kamala is not. What are you going to talk about with Kamala? It's going to be so cringe as she fakes interest in the topic. Why would you inflict that on your audience? I would think the first rule podcasting is don't invite guests that don't care about the topic of the show.
Yeah. I guess as a proxy, her husband Doug Emhoff went on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. That was enjoyable, because he knows ball and can shoot the shit.
To this point, Trump played 18 holes with Bryson on his YouTube channel. 1 - it takes some guts to put your golf game on TV. 2 - for the hour of video, they basically just talked about golf. No politics, no talking points. It was just a normal way that guys play golf (to the extent those two can be normal). Trump didn't really say anything impressive or memorable- he just came across as a guy who likes and knows about golf.
And he's actually good. He has a hideous swing and putting stroke, but he hits it solid and straight just about every time.
It was crazy right? He had one pitch that he hit a little fat, but every drive was solid and in the fairway, every iron on line with close to the right distance, good speed on all of his putts.
Looks like he only hit it around 200 off the tee, which is awesome for his age. But playing from the appropriate distance tees, he could shoot in the 70s regularly. And all of that with what looks like horrible technique.
I also watched the Tom Brady one and Trump would definitely smoke Brady in a match.
Think a lot of this comes down to how preachy and condescending the left all over the world have become and sports fans want to disengage with real world shit when they watch sports don't want to turn on their favourite sports podcast to hear some preachy MSNBC talk instead of something they actually enjoy - the comments under the all the smoke IG post with Kamala is a good sign of this
They still lack self awareness. There is an underlying assumption that a softball interview with Bill Simmons would somehow be good for her campaign. It was left to Simmons to gently signal that “if I give you the View treatment, my audience isn’t going to be influenced into liking you—they’ll just turn on me.”
There was ample space for her to go on podcasts perceived as hostile where a good performance may actually have won her respect (see Fetterman on Rogan) but she did not. Even (especially?) very dumb men sense who fights (Trump) and who hides (Harris).
No. They tried to go on podcasts in the space where they thought the *hosts* would be friendly to her. The hosts signaled that if they give her a friendly welcome they want it would not help her and only hurt them. I bet Portnoy would have had her on.
I didn't vote for Trump, but I get why his appeal grew. All throughout the Great Awokening, the Left was VERY loud about this idea that if you're neutral, you're on the side of the oppressor. And when most people watch sports, they're not tuning in for politics. They want an escape from all that.
It's the constant social justice politicizing of everyday life that the Left was doing constantly for damn near a decade that was turning people off. Kamala wisely pivoted away from it, but it was too late. You can't undo a decade's worth of woke messaging in just a few months.
There's this dichotomy that typically starts in childhood but even continues into adulthood where most women don't mind being associated with male things, at least not too much, but most men have a much lower tolerance for being seen as girly. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think the broader point is true.
With Kamala, the abortion issue and continuing education polarization the Dem brand reached a peak of being associated with "Women-things" in 2024, which makes it harder to get men to publicly talk about voting for Kamala. There's also a double-standard, where women don't mind following male leaders as much as men don't like following female leaders. We can debate whether that's cultural or baked in in some way, but it seems to be true. So Trump didn't pay nearly as much of a penalty when his brand became even more masculine.
Sports is the ultimate meritocracy and melting pot; people with nothing in common can still play well together, and wins, losses, and stats supersede any other concerns. Why would any sports fan, steeped in that ethos, find anything appealing about a party that prizes innate traits rather than performance and presumes people from different backgrounds can't understand each other - let alone gravitate towards a candidate who never actually won anything?
It’s my belief that the campaign did not try to get on these podcasts. There is no chance that Simmons, nor any Ringer podcast would turn down a request. Their candidate’s inability to hold a normal conversation free of vapid talking points was why the campaign kept her out of these interviews.
Over the past few years, the Democrats "branding" has, intentionally or unintentionally, shifted from, "we are the better of the two options in front of you" to "the only reason one could possibly support the other side is bigotry." These sportscasters (as well as our host) rely on kind of a parasocial relationship. People may not care whether they vote the same way they do. They do care if the hosts are openly aligning themselves with people calling them bigots. So, for these hosts, the cost/benefits of having Harris (or a surrogate) on for a friendly interview don't pencil out.
It feels pretty simple to me.. democrats give off extreme loser energy. I say this as someone firmly on the left, but the modern democratic party is embarrassing. It's like rooting for the bad news bears. At a certain point if a bully keeps taking your lunch money and you don't hit back, people are gonna take the side of the bully. Democrats need a complete rebrand.
The current party lives in the past (if it ever worked this way) where you won votes by having the right policies.. just not the world we live in anymore. People want to be represented by people they like, and no one likes democrats these days.
Do we know if women like this woke shit? My wife sure doesn’t, but she was a stone cold killer college basketball player. She’s so competitive she can’t even play board games anymore. I dunno, it feels like the recent “am I the bad guy” campaign (which is GREAT) gets closer to the female athlete mindset than “wow that legless infant can almost dribble a basketball how inspiring”
I really like all the resources/hyperlinks you provided in this piece. A lot for me to go back to. "Intrinsic Perspective" looks like a fascinating Substack. From reading this, it's also having me think of things differently.
I was a Freshman in College during the "Bush" v "Gore" Presidential debacle. Then people are comparing this Harris flop to when Kerry lost to Bush in 04. But, then the rise of Obama disrupted the rightward shift young American males might or might not have made.
Sometimes, I'm too in the weeds on politics and policy to appreciate or even pay attention to the visceral reaction of young American males, and the politics of today. This piece is definitely on the pulse of what's been going on. The fact that I was largely missing this, either points to me not paying enough attention, or the fact that I'm not just funny ha ha getting old, but I'm legit getting "OLD".
The reality is that the Left spent years denigrating young men and male culture. Why would any man want to host the poster woman for failed DEI woke policies? Rogan is a perfect example of a left wing man who got sick of the insanity and delved into the other side.
I think another reason is that Trump is clearly a sports fan and Kamala is not. What are you going to talk about with Kamala? It's going to be so cringe as she fakes interest in the topic. Why would you inflict that on your audience? I would think the first rule podcasting is don't invite guests that don't care about the topic of the show.
The Tim Walz "AOC can run a mean pick 6" post comes to mind (was probably an intern who did that).
Also hilarious in hindsight how they thought he could appeal to young men pretending to be a football coach and a hunter (who couldn't use a shotgun)
That's such a good example. Really highlights how the plan was fundamentally missing a step:
1) go on sports podcast
2) ?????
3) connect with sports fans / male vote
Just going on a podcast is not itself a strategy!
Yeah. I guess as a proxy, her husband Doug Emhoff went on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. That was enjoyable, because he knows ball and can shoot the shit.
To this point, Trump played 18 holes with Bryson on his YouTube channel. 1 - it takes some guts to put your golf game on TV. 2 - for the hour of video, they basically just talked about golf. No politics, no talking points. It was just a normal way that guys play golf (to the extent those two can be normal). Trump didn't really say anything impressive or memorable- he just came across as a guy who likes and knows about golf.
And he's actually good. He has a hideous swing and putting stroke, but he hits it solid and straight just about every time.
I was blown away by how good he was at golf lol, that was seriously impressive stuff for a guy who is almost *80*
It was crazy right? He had one pitch that he hit a little fat, but every drive was solid and in the fairway, every iron on line with close to the right distance, good speed on all of his putts.
Looks like he only hit it around 200 off the tee, which is awesome for his age. But playing from the appropriate distance tees, he could shoot in the 70s regularly. And all of that with what looks like horrible technique.
I also watched the Tom Brady one and Trump would definitely smoke Brady in a match.
Underrated point
Think a lot of this comes down to how preachy and condescending the left all over the world have become and sports fans want to disengage with real world shit when they watch sports don't want to turn on their favourite sports podcast to hear some preachy MSNBC talk instead of something they actually enjoy - the comments under the all the smoke IG post with Kamala is a good sign of this
They still lack self awareness. There is an underlying assumption that a softball interview with Bill Simmons would somehow be good for her campaign. It was left to Simmons to gently signal that “if I give you the View treatment, my audience isn’t going to be influenced into liking you—they’ll just turn on me.”
There was ample space for her to go on podcasts perceived as hostile where a good performance may actually have won her respect (see Fetterman on Rogan) but she did not. Even (especially?) very dumb men sense who fights (Trump) and who hides (Harris).
isn't the point of this article that they tried to go on these podcasts and the podcasts turned them down?
No. They tried to go on podcasts in the space where they thought the *hosts* would be friendly to her. The hosts signaled that if they give her a friendly welcome they want it would not help her and only hurt them. I bet Portnoy would have had her on.
The reporting on Rogan is that they had a list of acceptable and unacceptable topics and guidelines.
Hasn't Alex Cooper tried to distance herself from the whole 'Kamala's campaign spent $100k on the set' thing?
I didn't vote for Trump, but I get why his appeal grew. All throughout the Great Awokening, the Left was VERY loud about this idea that if you're neutral, you're on the side of the oppressor. And when most people watch sports, they're not tuning in for politics. They want an escape from all that.
It's the constant social justice politicizing of everyday life that the Left was doing constantly for damn near a decade that was turning people off. Kamala wisely pivoted away from it, but it was too late. You can't undo a decade's worth of woke messaging in just a few months.
There's this dichotomy that typically starts in childhood but even continues into adulthood where most women don't mind being associated with male things, at least not too much, but most men have a much lower tolerance for being seen as girly. Obviously there are exceptions, but I think the broader point is true.
With Kamala, the abortion issue and continuing education polarization the Dem brand reached a peak of being associated with "Women-things" in 2024, which makes it harder to get men to publicly talk about voting for Kamala. There's also a double-standard, where women don't mind following male leaders as much as men don't like following female leaders. We can debate whether that's cultural or baked in in some way, but it seems to be true. So Trump didn't pay nearly as much of a penalty when his brand became even more masculine.
Sports is the ultimate meritocracy and melting pot; people with nothing in common can still play well together, and wins, losses, and stats supersede any other concerns. Why would any sports fan, steeped in that ethos, find anything appealing about a party that prizes innate traits rather than performance and presumes people from different backgrounds can't understand each other - let alone gravitate towards a candidate who never actually won anything?
The party of racism and hatred, whose main move is calling others racists and hateful.
It’s my belief that the campaign did not try to get on these podcasts. There is no chance that Simmons, nor any Ringer podcast would turn down a request. Their candidate’s inability to hold a normal conversation free of vapid talking points was why the campaign kept her out of these interviews.
Reminds me of the Gillis joke about the fox news mom and fox news dad. No one wants msnbc dad.
Over the past few years, the Democrats "branding" has, intentionally or unintentionally, shifted from, "we are the better of the two options in front of you" to "the only reason one could possibly support the other side is bigotry." These sportscasters (as well as our host) rely on kind of a parasocial relationship. People may not care whether they vote the same way they do. They do care if the hosts are openly aligning themselves with people calling them bigots. So, for these hosts, the cost/benefits of having Harris (or a surrogate) on for a friendly interview don't pencil out.
It feels pretty simple to me.. democrats give off extreme loser energy. I say this as someone firmly on the left, but the modern democratic party is embarrassing. It's like rooting for the bad news bears. At a certain point if a bully keeps taking your lunch money and you don't hit back, people are gonna take the side of the bully. Democrats need a complete rebrand.
The current party lives in the past (if it ever worked this way) where you won votes by having the right policies.. just not the world we live in anymore. People want to be represented by people they like, and no one likes democrats these days.
Clearly a nazi wrote this. Or at the very least you are nazi adjacent since you read ESS.
Do we know if women like this woke shit? My wife sure doesn’t, but she was a stone cold killer college basketball player. She’s so competitive she can’t even play board games anymore. I dunno, it feels like the recent “am I the bad guy” campaign (which is GREAT) gets closer to the female athlete mindset than “wow that legless infant can almost dribble a basketball how inspiring”
Never thought of gambling money influencing the politics in that way, interesting
I really like all the resources/hyperlinks you provided in this piece. A lot for me to go back to. "Intrinsic Perspective" looks like a fascinating Substack. From reading this, it's also having me think of things differently.
I was a Freshman in College during the "Bush" v "Gore" Presidential debacle. Then people are comparing this Harris flop to when Kerry lost to Bush in 04. But, then the rise of Obama disrupted the rightward shift young American males might or might not have made.
Sometimes, I'm too in the weeds on politics and policy to appreciate or even pay attention to the visceral reaction of young American males, and the politics of today. This piece is definitely on the pulse of what's been going on. The fact that I was largely missing this, either points to me not paying enough attention, or the fact that I'm not just funny ha ha getting old, but I'm legit getting "OLD".
Higher interest rates may be a factor in companies having to respect their customers once more.