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Posted on 05/21/2025 1:11:01 PM PDT by Red Badger
Democrats have a man problem. And no, it’s not new, but their goofy solution is.
After a brutal 2024 loss, the Left is now throwing tens of millions of dollars into the influencer pool, scrambling to find their own progressive “Joe Rogan.” Yes, you read that right, they’re trying to find a “manly” podcaster to appeal to the effeminate poofs they’ve created for a decade and who are the foundation of their failing party. They’ve got pitch decks, investor meetings, and spreadsheets with 26 different proposals, all in a frantic, dizzying effort to manufacture cultural relevance like it’s something you can buy in bulk.
The New York Times got a look at what’s going on behind the scenes: think investor meetings, podcast blueprints, and spreadsheet warfare, all to try and reverse a cultural tsunami that’s already crashed down on them.
The New York Times:
Six months after the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 defeat, the party’s megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers.
At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, “find the next Joe Rogan.” The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump — if only they can throw enough money at the problem.
Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media like sports or lifestyle podcasts. Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump’s victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.
The quiet effort amounts to an audacious — skeptics might say desperate — bet that Democrats can buy more cultural relevance online, despite the fact that casually right-leaning touchstones like Mr. Rogan’s podcast were not built by political donors and did not rise overnight.
The Left’s fix for their masculinity crisis is a full-blown influencer “cattle call.” They’re treating this like a Hollywood casting call to find their next Rogan, but they already canceled, shamed, or scared off every masculine guy they had. Now they’re throwing tens of millions at tiny content creators and begging donors to bankroll programs with names like “Channel Zero” and “Double Tap Democracy.” The New York Times piece goes on:
One of the top aides on former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign, Rob Flaherty, and a digital media executive, Mike Vainisi, have been in conversations with donors in recent weeks ahead of what is expected to be a multimillion-dollar fund-raising round for a new for-profit company called Channel Zero. The group is meant to provide back-office services to content creators who already have large followings.
Mr. Flaherty is also advising Project Echo, a new four-year $52 million influencer program from People for the American Way, a progressive nonprofit group. The group is spending about $10 million of its own money and pitching donors for the rest, according to its president, Svante Myrick.
A program called Double Tap Democracy, meanwhile, is working with 2,000 mostly apolitical creators who generally have smaller followings.
The project was started by Rachel Irwin, who led a $30 million influencer program last cycle for Future Forward, the biggest Democratic super PAC. But there was tension during the campaign over the size of the influencer program, which some donors wanted to be even bigger, according to a person briefed on the conversations.
Ms. Irwin incorporated Double Tap late last year. She received an initial grant of about $250,000 from Future Forward and has raised money from some Silicon Valley donors. She has argued to others that the party did not invest early or enough in cultural talent in the last election, and that she is trying to learn from her experience at Future Forward.
“We can’t keep running these programs late in the cycle, only to break down after or treat these relationships as transactional and expect success,” Ms. Irwin wrote to allies in a March email seen by The Times. “Every day we don’t engage online is a missed opportunity — and we can’t afford to wait.”
To some Democratic operatives, the repeated gatherings of donors to mull such ideas has felt like a ceaseless calendar of cattle calls.
The left still hasn’t figured it out. Lucky for us, they probably never will.
Meanwhile, the Right didn’t pay for Rogan. We didn’t build him in a donor lab. The guy got red-pilled by accident—and the rest unfolded naturally. And that’s the operative word here: naturally.
HighStrung:
Joe Rogan was accidentally red pilled during the Plandemic when the MSM went apeshit over ivermectin. Since then, Rogan realized the MSM was narrative crafting using scripted, repetitious propaganda against soft minded Americans. Rogan likes Trump Now. Here’s Joe Rogan adeptly describing why Trump is such a force!
This is what actually moves the needle, not DNC spreadsheets or influencer grooming farms, but real voices with massive reach who finally said what millions were already feeling.
Joe Rogan and Theo Von weren’t part of some right-wing media machine. They’re independent thinkers with huge platforms, and in 2024, they came around to Trump, not because someone handed them talking points, but because Trump’s message finally broke through the noise. It resonated with them at the core of their political hearts.
That authenticity helped deliver a 29-point swing in young men toward Trump. That’s huge. But this wasn’t politics as usual. It was a very real cultural shift.
Watch this clip of Rogan and Theo explaining, in their own words, exactly why they endorsed Trump and why it mattered.
Back in 2024, strong men with powerful voices were lining up—on their own—to endorse President Trump.
George Behizy:
BREAKING: The Nelk Boys just formally endorsed Trump at the Las Vegas rally. Today’s lineup of endorsers have over 200 MILLION followers between them across their socials, and many of the followers are voters between 18-30 years old
So far, we’ve seen Rick Harrison, Annuel AA, Henry Cejudo, Bryce Hall, Nelk Boys, etc. It’s beautiful to see This is YUUUGGE!
Even before the 2024 election, the Left knew they were bleeding male voters, but they didn’t know how to fix it. This Politico piece from July 2023 basically waved the white flag. It admitted the obvious: the Dem Party has a full-blown masculinity problem.
Of course they do. They’ve been demonizing men and so-called “toxic masculinity” for eons now. What did they expect?
While the GOP was tapping into strength, purpose, and traditional values, Dems were too busy obsessing over pronouns and crying about toxic masculinity. The result was black and Latino men holding up the peace sign and walking away. Meanwhile, white working-class guys were already long gone.
Here’s how they laid it out back then…
Politico:
It’s hard to deny that Democrats have a masculinity problem. Attitudes toward masculinity have been an important predictor of votes for Donald Trump. And while Black and Latino voters still overwhelmingly lean Democratic, men in those communities are turning to Republicans at higher rates than women. Republicans seem all too happy to capitalize on the gun-toting, fist-pumping tropes of stereotypical manhood. GOP presidential candidates are bragging about their athletic prowess. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s recent book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, joins a body of let-men-be-real-men work that includes the preachings of Jordan Peterson, the postings of Andrew Tate and the writings of a popular online guru who goes by “Bronze Age Pervert” — all of whom cast liberals and progressives as the enemy of masculinity.
As they approach elections with razor-thin margins, what are Democrats to do? Recruit candidates who fit traditional stereotypes of manhood? Confront Republican arguments head-on with alternative takes on crime, guns, transgender rights and a vision of masculinity that intersects with all of these issues? Or just do nothing and hope voters are turned off by GOP rhetoric that they see as toxic or discriminatory?
The funniest part of this whole “man problem” saga is how the Dems decided to fix it. Their big solution was trotting out doughy, effeminate Tim Walz as the new face of Democrat masculinity.
Wesley Hunt:
Breaking: Tim Walz says Kamala picked him because he can “code talk to white guys” who watch football and fix trucks.
Because nothing screams blue-collar masculinity like Tim Walz—who looks like he calls AAA when the check engine light comes on.
Highlights of him and Gavin Newsom showing us how it’s really done!
Does this look like a masculine straight man to you?
Tim Walz looks like he just stepped off the set of a Target Pride Month commercial.
Look:
At the end of the day, you can’t mass-produce masculinity in a pitch deck. Sorry, Dems. The left spent decades demonizing men, shaming strength, and propping up feminists who hate anything even remotely masculine. Now they want to drop tens of millions to try to win those same men back? Good luck. No influencer factory or podcast bootcamp is going to undo that damage.
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They tried and failed for years to counter Rush Limbaugh. This seems like the same foolish task.
The leftist scum already have “their version” of Joe Rogan... David Hogg.
This is going to work out as well as 30 years ago when they declared that were going to find the liberal Rush Limbaugh.
Just make “The View” 3 hours instead of 1 & put it on the radio, too. ;-)
It’s not the messenger. It’s the message.
Joe Rogan was on their team. He thinks universal Healthcare is a great thing. He voted for Bernie Sanders.
Was thinking the same thing. Remember air America? Neither does anyone else.
Well Joe Rogan was left wing and they drove him off. Despite what many think, he still isn’t even remotely conservative...
He’s just not insane like most liberals today...
Their candidates are going to have to run against the Democrat Establishment and cannot be from DC. They'll try Slotkin.
Rubio with Van Hollen
JD
They sent him kicking and screaming over to our side. This is laughable. Same with Elon. They kicked them out of the circus and we took them in.
Their manliest man is David Hogg!
Well since he did such a great job with Air America wouldn’t alec baldwin be the obvious choice. 🤣
And their most feminine woman is Dylan Mulvaney............
I SWEAR IDID NOT SEE YOUR POST FIRST!
Their search for a counter to Rush Limbaugh went so well, this should be a breeze./sarc It’s not the messenger, it’s the message that bites liberals in the a$$.
If Bill Clinton was in charge, Rogan would have remained a Democrat.
Plus RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, etc.
You don't say!
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