November 14, 2024

"Trump’s Win Leaves Democrats Asking: Where Are Our Bro Whisperers?"

That's a headline at the NYT. Subhead: "Democrats have widely acknowledged that they have no answer for the online ecosystem of conservative influencers popular with Gen Z men. Some have argued for a rethink of media strategy."
Celebrity appearances and paid endorsements from influencers come across as transactional and inauthentic, [some younger Democrats] said.
“It’s last-second, ‘Let’s get Beyoncé onstage to say we support women,’ but that doesn’t move anyone who wasn’t already going to vote Democrat,” said Ayem Kpenkaan, a liberal content creator.... He suggested that Democrats needed liberal versions of media platforms that are culturally right-leaning but not inherently political — like Barstool Sports....

“We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

So... make something authentic, then pepper in the political propaganda. How distasteful. 

Re "Let’s get Beyoncé onstage to say we support women": 

@toomuch2handle90 Had to jump on the trend... #immarkeyz #trump #beyonce ♬ Immarkeyz - Bizzy Balboa

140 comments:

rehajm said...

Not to interrupt while they trip over their own cloacas but there they go again with the ‘It’s not the policies it’s the messaging’ conclusions. Bless their hearts.

Danno said...

Add in progressive propaganda? It would be like adding a turd in the punchbowl. Not even a tiny amount of contamination would be able to be hidden.

Oh Yea said...

Democrats - "We must manufacture some authenticity!"

Tom T. said...

Kind of a marvel that they control the entire media and all of the creative industries, but they can't reach enough people.

Michael said...

Screaming for a decade about toxic masculinity and they wonder why men left. Clueless.

Joe said...

Air America.

michaele said...

Didn't the Dems create a radio network called Air America to try to compete with Rush Limbaugh and the other on air conservative voices in the early 2000's? It had to be supported by big outside money and ended up dying from lack of listeners?

rehajm said...

…what I was going to write. The answer to Rush. Controlled flight into terrain the FAA called on that one I believe…

Big Mike said...

You’d think they’d learn from the Air America debacle. Will it ever cross the mind of anyone left of center that “just like Rogan, but Progressive” I’ll surely meet the same fate as “just like Limbaugh, but Progressive”?

People, especially males, like Rogan because he’s authentic, and he generally gets to the authentic core of the person he’s interviewing. Does Kamala Harris even have an authentic core? One wonders.

Big Mike said...

@Michael +1. But note that masculinity is not so toxic when a woman is trapped in a burning building and needs some strong men to risk their lives for her. Just sayin’

Shouting Thomas said...

The two podcasts in this category that I listen to with some frequency are Joe Rogan and Scott Adams. They didn’t start their podcast to promote one of the political parties. They started them to be entertaining and because they enjoyed the work. The Democrat’s preference for corporate decision making and building propaganda machines won’t work.

Vonnegan said...

"Why can't we brainwash these young men as easily as we do these young women" is an interesting question, I guess.

rehajm said...

…and it is inaccurate to claim Democrats have no answer. Their answer was to try and destroy Dave Portnoy with MeToo. It was the wrong answer is the problem…

gilbar said...

all men are PIGS!
all white men MUST Die!
i WONDER Why hardly Any white boys want to vote for us???

Butkus51 said...

They need more dancing. And make it Gayer. It sells.

gilbar said...

if you can fake sincerity..

gilbar said...

if Tampon Tim Walz couldn't reach white men.. It MUST BE the men's fault!

Christopher B said...

This is where the tactical advantage of the Democrats as a transactional coalition turns into an operational/strategic liability. If I recall some of the early exit polls correctly, and assuming they are at least directionally correct, Trump gained with every demographic except people aged 65+ and single women. They will not regain vote share with targeted modifications to policies or messaging.

D.D. Driver said...

They had a version of "Barstool Sports." It was really popular. It was called Deadspin. Google what happened. Every leftwing version of Barstool Sport becomes another Stephen Colbert one-sided, scolding, snarkfest.

But what the Dems can't see is that Barstool, Rogan, Theo Vonn: these are NOT "right wing" venues. They are just tolerant of right wing speakers. This was the only platform remaining for the right because they were they only ones that would let them speak.

Cogitor said...

The democratic consultant class doesn't seem to grasp that young men sought out alternative entertainment and commentary in an explicit effort to get away from them. Men are repelled by the ethos of the left that holds men out as a lesser class of people, in need of re-education and hectoring. Now the left believes that if they can just entice them in with some bro-style programming and then bait-and-switch to re-education and hectoring, their problems will be solved. It's amazing how obtuse they are.

Temujin said...

They still don't get it. It's their ideas, their progressive views that are the poison turning people off. It's not the presenter- that's an easy fix. You an always find someone more engaging to present some information or a product.
But if the product is just flat-out bad, if it doesn't appeal to them, you're not going to sell it. And if you don't get that, you're not going to win anything.

Sometimes the greatest talent is the art of listening. If you listen to your market, it will tell you exactly what it wants. But it seems that people on the left never consider the fact that they might just be wrong. That everything they are presenting is being seen as not working, or worse- as ridiculous.

And so, if you don't listen, and you cannot conceive of yourself being wrong, you will never learn. And all the Beyonces and Bruce Springsteens and Call Her Daddys of the world won't make an ounce of difference.

The product stinks.

Dixcus said...

"How do we fake support?"

"Get Beyonce to show up for 10 minutes. Pay her $1 million for her time. Get the money from the TIDES Foundation. We can leak to TMZ that she's going to do a concert. That will fill up the seats. When she doesn't, people will blame TMZ ... not us."

"That way, we can fill a small gymnasium and people will think we are popular."

"Is it me who is out of touch with the common man," asks Principal Skinner.

"No, it's our fans."

Dixcus said...

Get everybody excited about Bernie Sanders so that Hillary can appear like she's beating someone for the fake nomination BS.

Then, to keep him from winning, start denigrating them as misogynistic "Bernie Bros."

tim maguire said...

Typical. They always think the problem is the messaging. Never the message.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

... said Ayem Kpenkaan, a liberal content creator..

A guy whose work history, per Linkedin, goes all the way back to March, 2021. You can take what he's saying to the bank!

Dixcus said...

Influencers pay a LOT of money to poll their own followers about what they like/dislike and do tons of A/B testing to make sure. They will trend whichever way the numbers tell them to. Make no doubt about that.

Joe Rogan was SOLID Democrat initially because he was too dumb to realize that Bernie Sanders was a paid plant, and paid loser for Hillary (who bought him a third million-dollar mansion for serving as her punching bag.)

Then once that cat escaped the bag, he got disillusioned and noticed his fan base was trending Trump.

Cherry on top was a Democrat candidate who doesn't have the IQ to put 3 sentences together to make a valid point and who sucked dick to get to the top.

But never forget Rogan would go back to the Democrats if his audience does.

Dixcus said...

Sure she does. It's accessible through her vagina.

narciso said...

Thats the msnbc craxy train including maddoe

Todd said...

Sorry, not sorry. The current Democrat angst over what went wrong, how do we get our message out better, how do we reframe this, why are we not resonating with voters, etc. is all a focus in the wrong direction. It is like making a liver flavored Jolley Rancher and blaming lack of sales on poor marketing. Hint, it is not the marketing, it is the product. When anyone right of AOC is "far-right" you have lost the game. When anyone who thinks men should NOT be in bathrooms with girls is a Nazi, you have wondered into crazy town. When you are trying to force people to call men still with their "frank n beans" women, you are the one "not normal".

It. Is. Not. Your. Messaging.

It is your product. Improve your product. You don't need better messengers or gimmicks, or influencers, or celebrities or spokes people. You just need to be more normal and have a more normal product.

I REALLY, REALLY want the Democrats to back away from crazy and return to more normal policies and positions and [just] be more sane. We NEED a reasonable counterweight to Republican positions. As much as I approve of the majority of Republican positions, without reasonable opposition, we don't get the best policies we can. We get not-crazy. I would rather we have better all around but for that to work we need "reasonable" all around. We don't have that today and based on early Democrat reactions to last week, we may not get that for a while yet.

wendybar said...

Leave the white guys out. That just leaves whomever is left that they didn't scare away with their #HATEALLMEN disease which doesn't bode well for them.

Breezy said...

They’re trying to replace common sense policies with a scolding ideology. That’s a complete turnoff to most Americans. Doesn’t matter how they try to do it.

Jonathan said...

They have some of this. Bill Burr and Scott Galloway are pretty hard left.

Saint Croix said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dixcus said...

This dude is essentially saying "How can we TRICK people into accepting our propaganda." And then talking about a strategy to do that out loud, where everybody can hear.

This is how smart Democrats are.

Saint Croix said...

Joe Rogan is a pro-choice Bernie bro.

The fact that Harris avoided speaking with him, out of fear, says volumes about how bad her campaign was.

It's not a platform problem. "Our ecosystem sucks!" It's a people problem. Abandon the woke and your world will transform.

Breezy said...

Have they seen all the videos of NFL players and random people emulating the Trump shimmy dance? There’s a lot of joy in those things. People love being free to love Trump and his agenda. IOW, it’s not just the podcasts they would need to counteract.

Saint Croix said...

Also, "bro whisperer" is sexist as hell, NYT. If you think men are dumb as horses, maybe that's your problem. Fix that.

Leland said...

“We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

This formula has been tried over and over. It happened with ESPN, and it turned off viewers. NFL and NBA supported BLM, and the NFL, which never fined people taking a knee for the anthem, fined a player for wearing a MAGA hat. NASCAR played politics and it can’t attract viewers now. Fox Sports let Joe Buck and Troy Aikman crap all over a military fly-over. They now work for ESPN. It simply turns off viewers, just like Bud Light.

I guess if it never worked before, maybe it was never really tried. It is just like socialism.

Jamie said...

these are NOT "right wing" venues. They are just tolerant of right wing speakers.

Say it early and often!

Take the Triggernometry guys: they wanted to have, what is it they say, "interesting conversations with fascinating people," and they'd been drummed out of British comedy by the PC cops, so they created their podcast where they could talk with anyone they found fascinating.

And as time has gone on, both have moved toward the right because - we can infer - as they've listened to both sides in significant depth, they've found the ideas and policies of the right to hold more water.

But they are NOT right-wing. Francis, at least, still considers himself to be of the left, and Konstantin is heterodox.

(Importantly, they're both repelled by the loudest parts of the left's continuing tendency to try to shut down any interesting conversation by calling its opponents bigots. Somehow I've gotten myself into what we used to call a flame war with one of the "Harris/Walz - Obviously" crowd by making a pretty anodyne comment on a podcast I listen to about why swing state voters were so moved by Harris's position on taxpayer funded transing of prison inmates, saying that I wondered whether it really was that specific issue or whether instead it might be that people correctly saw that issue as a proxy for the left's unwillingness to permit questions and their penchant for substituting speech policing for persuasion. My interlocutor is using exactly these tactics, and is either blind to that fact, giddy with the prospect of "owning" me by saying that HE, at least, isn't "in a cult," or just trolling - I can't tell. But it's a perfect illustration of the very point I was making with my initial comment.)

Anita said...

My middle son was a huge sports fanatic growing up. In addition to playing several sports, he loved watching ESPN Sports Center every morning. Then about seven years ago, he noticed the show was becoming less about sports and more about lecturing viewers on what political ideas they should hold. He stopped watching but became curious about political news, which never interested him before. Now he regularly listens to Daily Wire podcasts and is a proud conservative. Thanks, ESPN!

Wince said...

“Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

Ah, the old recipe for boiled frog.

Leland said...

I should point out that Clay Travis used to be a proud liberal Democrat, before the Every Sports Person Network became less sports and all politics. He then began highlighting their political activity along side reviews of their viewership decline. This attracted attention to Clay Travis rather small early morning radio show and website. He became so popular that he created his own website for sports and syndicated his own sports show. When Rush Limbaugh died, Clay Travis became one of his replacement. That’s the story of how the Democrats turned a potential “bro” into a right wing influencer.

Jamie said...

I REALLY, REALLY want the Democrats to back away from crazy and return to more normal policies and positions and [just] be more sane. We NEED a reasonable counterweight to Republican positions. As much as I approve of the majority of Republican positions, without reasonable opposition, we don't get the best policies we can.

Heartily seconded.

Sebastian said...

"make something authentic, then pepper in the political propaganda" Authenticity! If you can fake that ... But can the "propaganda" itself change?

Dems are overreacting. Yes, the country shifted red. But the shifts were small, driven by events that will be different next time, and Trump had few coattails. Latino men are swing voters.

rrsafety said...

David Portnoy of Barstool Sports is a liberal, Massachusetts Jew who is a life-long Democrat. He has broken from his past when he was run out of town on a rail because Barstool likes pretty girls and because the Dems hate successful business people. The Dems had the bro-est of the bros in the fold and drove him out.

wild chicken said...

Can't watch the video at volume without it skipping to the next one. Why isn't there a replay button?

Wince said...

TikTok wants to leverage you into installing their spy wear app on your phone.

Iman said...

“It’s gold, Jerry. Gold!!!”

Aggie said...

It might seem reasonable to conclude that the messaging is all wrong, and the material is toxic. But a couple of weeks ago, those ideas were competing for the Presidency and the House, and partly, the Senate. It's easy to dismiss them from the comfortable chair of victory, but I'm not doing that.

I'm just busy reminding myself that the past 5 or 6 years has been a steady assault on human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, political persecution, and personal cancellation, and it's not just bad material that got them there - it was a determined, organized, cooperative effort to gain control of society in the worst, most tyrannical ways - ways designed to stamp out those freedoms once and for all, and establish an authoritarian society on a globalized basis. Ways that used the levers of government with bloody-minded, cynical and ruthless methodology. There is no pass for that, no merciful 'reaching out', no helping 're-shape the message'. Don't pet the komodo dragons while you're still bleeding - they came within an election of succeeding. Make sure that thinking can never prosper again. Because Leftist Progressivism has come to mean tyranny in its worst form.

Iman said...

“Democrats ask, “Where are our asses? We just had them in our hands!”

Saint Croix said...

Ezra Klein does a pretty good job explaining why people are mad at the Democrats.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

I remember Larry Mullen, drummer for U2, asked about Bono's speeches on poverty during a show. "The most boring part of a U2 show."

Howard (not that Howard) said...

As long as they keep letting themselves be dragged to the left by their horrible screeching urban women core, they will continue to lose the bros, and most suburbanites too.

RCOCEAN II said...

We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

Hollywood and TV have been doing this for 80 years. I was forced due to circumstance to watch a lot of TV for 4 weeks this fall. Not just TV, but over- the-air TV with 'basic' cable. Not only was every news/talk show (except fox) far left and anti-trump, but the Entertainment shows and sports shows were "peppered" with the same anti-white, socially liberal, progressive views.

I pretty much stuck to sports, westerns, and cop/action shows. I was shocked at how leftist "Walker Texas Ranger" was. Basically, every show made after the early 90s is coded left. And people forget how "Liberal" Star Trek was back in the day. I'm used to it, because I grew up with that old stuff, but its never been liberal. Even Dragnet, with Jack Webb God bless 'em, has Nazi villians and crummy white racists who Jack has to give "the speech" to.

RCOCEAN II said...

The most bizzare thing was watching commercials, which I've avoided for 30 years. For some odd reason, the advertisers love to pair white women with black men. Or show middle class black people. From just watching commercials you'd think the USA was made up of 40 percent white women, 50 percent blacks, and 10 percent white men. LOL!

jae said...

It's worse than that: they are trying to replace COMMON SENSE with IDEOLOGY

Bob Boyd said...

He suggested that Democrats needed liberal versions of media platforms

Brilliant! It'll be just like Air America!

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

Over the years I worked in four national campaigns, two of 'em as a regional VP in which my main job was to go around, dressed as a farmer -- which was easy, because I **was** a farmer [320 ac, including cattle, which added a fragrance factor] -- and visit all kinds of rural, small town, and small city places where the non-'intellectual' folks hung out: bars, machine shops, diners, coffee shops, feed mills, tire shops, middle-class restaurants, local stores, and so on.

I would listen, and chat with folks to learn what most ordinary people were actually concerned about. This was pre-Rush Limbaugh, and people really had no outlet for their frustrations except each other. I learned a lot and fed it to the higher ups who shaped a message, in which they already believed, according to details that I and others had gathered from around the country.

Framing and presenting core party beliefs using up-to-date anecdotal info from the field led to two consecutive electoral blow-outs of historical proportions. Because the messaging was spot-on and reality-based.

In 2024 the Democrats got shellacked for several reasons:

a) Their current core party beliefs now reflect those of isolated coastal, academic, and bureaucratic elitists, who truly think they know better than anyone else how everyone "should" live.

b) They pushed extremist excrescences of those beliefs as if they were "mainstream" and called most of us bad names for disagreeing. After a years-long track record of attempting to suppress and crush those "toxic" attitudes. That doesn't work when your opponents are smarter and far more adaptable that you are.

c) I have never seen an electoral campaign more "post-seasonal" or anachronistic than this one. It reminded me of WWI cavalry charges against machine guns.

d) They had no idea of how things have changed. In marketing terms their "ground game" was all "supply push", whilst dismissing "demand pull".

e) Total dedication to old-line media, but OLM are irrelevant. CNN's Prime Time -- 5 nights of 3 hours (7 to 10) -- has a weekly TOTAL of 83,000 viewers. Joe Rogan's single 3-hr podcast with Trump pulled 50 *million*. If anything, his podcast with Vance was even better, but I don't have the numbers. Meanwhile, Harris won't even go to Austin, insists on no more than an hour, and demands full editorial control.

What I saw from the Harris campaign, speaking as an experienced-but-middling political operative, was that they were totally outflanked by modernity ... and did not know it. Wrong issues, horrible candidate, utter disconnect with most Americans other than their habitual groupies.

I said pretty much the same thing about McCain in '08. And Romney? Shit, the Tea Party dealt him a winning hand, and he discarded it all for a pair of 4s.

Heartless Aztec said...

The damage is done. No refit with help refloat the sunken ship that is the Dem Party. They need more Fettermans and they needed them yesterday. It will a generation until they recover.

Kirk Parker said...

Todd,

"We NEED a reasonable counterweight to Republican positions. "

We definitely do, but I don't see any possibility of that coming from the Democratic direction.

Instead, any *reasonable* counterweight will be coming from the nationalists, Christian or otherwise, and the small-L libertarians. These both have their issues, but they are indeed in touch with some real concerns also.

Shouting Thomas said...

I confess. I’ve been paid to write music and perform for candidates for local office. It’s a job. It wasn’t never an endorsement, although I appeared at their events and performed.

A major part of my work in multimedia was writing text and music to advance a corporate or CEO’s message. I performed in video for these employers. I got paid… very well.

Spiros said...

The FTC has very rigorous rules that are meant to protect consumers from deceptive ads. So celebrity endorsers, online influencers and so on must notify consumers when a brand paid for an endorsement because it affects the weight and credibility that consumers give to that endorsement. Why don't similar rules apply to celebrity endorsements of politicians? I think, when the dust settles, we're going to find out that a couple dozen celebrities received several hundred million dollars from the Harris campaign for their endorsements. This is shocking and, I hope, illegal. It should be illegal. Seriously, I think Megan Thee Stallion should go to jail for taking $ 5 million from Kamala Harris.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Not only that, the cluelessness of these people who chased Joe Rogan away, a fellow Bernie Bro who was already a huge voice in podcasting. He was on your side you braindead fuckwads! Then you tried to cancel his ass with lame post-celebrity figures like Neil Young (who I love and respect) flouncing off of Spotify in a huff. They were ALL on your side in the beginning. Theo Vaughan. Comedians in general. But y'all had to go all 1984 on everyone who failed to curb their opinions on the fake COVID vaccines and general hysteria over common well-known drugs that could easily treat the flu-like virus.

Where are they? With the people who respect their opinion and right to say whatever the fuck they want.

rehajm said...

heh

Jimmy said...

Faculty lounge Gramsci marxism, doesn't translate well . who knew. The best part of the coming Trump revolution, for me, will be the destruction of higher education. Even some talk about going after 'elite' universities endowments. good times.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Yikes. Talk about about cutting to the heart of the matter. I just saw a graph (maybe I can find it later) labeled "They successfully radicalized female voters. Males, not so much." As you would expect there are two wildly diverging graph lines in blue and red, originating around 2000 as I recall.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

What's good for Disney is good for the Democrat Party.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Which is also the Wired story, which was interesting and widely quoted when it was doing tech news. Then it went woke. And its "voice" is indistinguishable from NPR/Colbert/NYT/Beyonce/WaPo/MTV/Kimmel...

Saw a tweet today from Pauly Shore begging late night shows to get back to doing "random shit" instead of all Daily Show all of the time. Check that. Pauly Shore is now the sane voice of reason for Hollywood.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Well the LA Times is getting the message on messaging. The owner just fired the entire editorial board. He's adopted "Fair and balanced" as their new motto. And no, I'm not joking in the tiniest bit. 100% true. Change.

Levi Starks said...

It’s not the messaging, it’s the message.
The question is how badly do they want to be in power vs. how much do they believe in their ideology.
Sort of a chicken / egg thing.
Do they want power to push their ideology,
Or do they hope their ideology will result in increased power.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

As rabbi Dennis Prager is fond of saying, "Leftism destroy everything it controls," and he updated it this week with, "It's latest victim is the Democratic Party. If Liberals were in charge of the party this wouldn't be happening."

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

That’s the story of how the Democrats turned a potential “bro” into a right wing influencer.

And Dave Rubin, Dana White, Greg Gutfeld, Jake Paul, Tyrus and even Trump himself.

Bob Boyd said...

Rogan wasn't pushing anything. He didn't take the side of either party or candidate until the very last minute. He was just doing long form interviews in which facts and opinions never covered by the narrative media were coming to light. And he was, perhaps unwittingly, modeling a way of learning about and thinking about politics and media. A lot of very popular new media personalities are doing the same thing.
Facts and a variety of opinions coming to light is not the friend of anyone who is trying to tightly control the narrative, not the friend of anyone who is trying to hide the truth and pedal falsehoods, not the friend of anyone who can't honestly defend their policies or their record.
What should we call it this new media? The Off-narrative Media? The Free Media?
Whatever it's called, the Dems want to censor it. The GOPe wants to censor it. The old media wants to censor it. The state wants to censor it.
Ayem Kpenkaan wants to figure out a way to use it to control the narrative and thereby the people, just like the old media is used. What a champ.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

It’s not the messaging, it’s the message.

Neither. It's the product they are selling. Like EVs, there is literally a small and insignificant market for Woke. And Kamala was a used Tesla, for which absolutely no market exists. People would rather buy a 1980 Bronco than a used Tesla.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

"destroys" I meant.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

True. Substitute "shit" for "pepper" in his analogy and you have Kamala's campaign in a nutshell.

Jaq said...

Remember when he supported Bernie Sanders and the Democrats smeared them as "Bernie bros."

Cappy said...

Their bro influencers are all girls now.

Cappy said...

Their male influencers have transitioned.

typingtalker said...

Perhaps a little market research ...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

They have a very long way to go straighten out their thinking. Take a look at the tweet below and listen to what Ezra Klein is saying. He starts by asserting that the Left should have listened to average New Yorkers and taken heed of how unhappy they were with the problems caused by the illegals that Greg Abbott bussed to NYC. But notice how he goes off on what an evil bastard Abbott is for bussing illegals to NYC. It's obviously never crossed his tiny little mind that those illegals might have caused the same problems in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. In fact, he'd probably tell you that those dirt people in Texas deserve all the problems they get. Until they purge that "us and them" thinking from their minds they're doomed to failure.

https://x.com/PodSaveAmerica/status/1856874316798803971

tolkein said...

I think Harris has an authentic core. I believed her when she said her values hadn't changed. Trouble is, her authentic values are very, very left. Probably why her team weren't prepared to let her do freewheeling interviews. Because they didn't want to risk her being honest.

doctrev said...

It isn't rocket science to appeal to young men. Jimmy Kimmel was managing it in his Man Show era, no matter how subversive he was claiming to be. The problem is that the Kimmels and Sterns are now weepy soy men who are all-in for the first women president(s). It's hard to do that while still retaining any kind of masculinity.

It might feel good to degrade your audience by having vaccine dancers on stage, yes I mean you Colbert, but the problem is your audience will lose all respect for you.

RCOCEAN II said...

Great analysis. McCain and Romney didn't really dislike Obama or care whether they lost. Both perferred Obama to Trump and his voters.

doctrev said...

Do you know what the left-wing version of Barstool Sports could be? Every single soyhomo sports channel on television, including and especially ESPN.

RCOCEAN II said...

Joe Rogan, who refused to have trump platform for years, and is a social liberal, is now "Rightwing" and labeled as a Trump supporter. LOL. He asked Kamala on his show. She refused. So, the D's don't need "their own JRE show", they just need to go on Joe Rogan and talk..

Bob Boyd said...

Dem narrative: Kamala lost because Americans got fooled by Trump instead of us. We need to fool them harder next time.

Aggie said...

We should call it 'media', since what Rogan is doing, is what he ought to be doing: Not beginning with a biased pretext, not taking a position, but using his skill to draw out the interviewees so that we can understand their positions.

planetgeo said...

Thirded here.

Dixcus said...

The problem isn't on their Editorial page. It's in their newsroom. Now they will fake out readers with fake Editorials, while using the news side to support Democrats.

Jaq said...

The real problem for them is that the culture is fundamentally right wing; all western culture is. They criticized "The Lion King" for being right wing and racist, and they gave us "Ants," which pushes a socialist worldview. When will they make the Broadway version of "Ants"?

The worst Star Trek movie of them all was the one they made in support of Hillary in 2016, the one where the plot was "stronger together," and they made the Federation subtly fascist. Liberalism just doesn't work as art. No anti-free speech ideology ever will.

doctrev said...

When you start noticing the patterns in Law and Order, you can't unsee them, or even respect women who still watch the show. By contrast, look at real life. The actual trafficker in the Gaetz case wasn't a Christian- let's just say he belongs to a different tribe.

RCOCEAN II said...

And we don't need a "Counterweight to Trump". We already have a counterweight. Its called the MSM. In case people haven't noticed, the entire MSM, except for Fox and a couple others, is hard left and in the tank for the Democrats. Further, the liberal/left dominates the law, the Entertainment industry, academia, book publishing and the NGOs. Probably 1/2 to 2/3 of Billionaries are Democrats.

Honestly, Trump just squeeked by. We're still living in a liberal/left world. Trump and his voters are the resistance - not the power elite. We don't need to worry about "balance".

Peachy said...

The Soviet left did and still do - attempt any means to smother and stifle free speech - that doesn't fit their loyal Soviet narrative.

Bob Boyd said...

they just need to go on Joe Rogan and talk..

But they can't. Rogan said he just wanted to get to know Kamala as a human being. Apparently, that would have been political suicide.

planetgeo said...

The Democrats' biggest problem is that this election totally re-branded the two parties. Democrats are now officially the Crazy Party, and the Republicans have become the Common Sense Party. Simple. Easy to understand. Very tough to re-message for the Democrats.

Peachy said...

The Democrat party is corrupt and dishonest. Perhaps in their soul searching - they could start with - ditching those 2 things.

Jaq said...

Trump was happy to take on all comers, whereas with Democrats, disagreement on any hot-button topic (say, COVID school closures or Biden’s age) will have you cast out as a heretic. That’s not a good way to build a majority, and now Democrats no longer have one. - Nate Silver

Whose model actually did produce the actual result as the most likely in terms of Electoral Votes, even as he misread it as 50-50, probably due to pressure from his side.

Ampersand said...

Those who relish being propagandized have really enjoyed the last decade.

Peachy said...

"It's the messaging" = How perfect. The democrats don't care about the American people at all. They feign caring and concentrate on fooling the American people... with their messaging. Don't correct your lies and corruption, oh corruptocrats - just smother us with more and BETTER lies.
Like at MSNBC.

Democrat messaging:
-You are transphobic! wait - only .01%, or something.
-You are Hitler! Trump is Hitler! Trump is a fascist!
-Trump is going to ban black people, ban interracial marriage, ban abortion, kill all the gays... (leftwing mothers are terrified their little girls wont be able to grow up and abort their children at will!)
-You are a Climate Denier (ignoring the real science)
-Any and all info that makes D's look bad = dis-information! You will be silenced.
The Border is Secure!
-Chuck Schumer- We are going to give those 10+ million illegals amnesty as fast as possible.
-You will be forced to pay for Illegals - and we are not going to ask your permission.
-Jussie Smollete and Russia gate were real!
I could go on.

Lazarus said...

Bernie-ism will be back, with or without Bernie Sanders. If "girl power" is your theme, don't expect to win back male voters. Have a female candidate whose campaign isn't based on being a woman and on women taking over, and men will come back.

Lazarus said...

I guess so, but when I listen to the show I kind of wish they just kept Clay.

Peachy said...

That D-MSNBC is still on the air - proof the left are insane.

Koot Katmandu said...

LOL. Most new movies or video games are awful now because they do this stuff.

Bob Boyd said...

Point taken, but I like The Free Media for now. I hope we'll get to a place where we don't have to differentiate proper media from propaganda media because the latter will die of neglect.

Wince said...

As I recall Biden did a lot of whispering.

Peachy said...

We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive [Soviet] views.”

"Distasteful", indeed.

Exactly Koot -- the left already do this. This is why so many people have turned away from Hollywood and mainstream television.

Bob Boyd said...

Ayem what Ayem and that's all that Ayem. - Popeye the Sailor Man

Darkisland said...

I wondered about Rogan's demographics so went to look. He seems to regularly draw 10mm+.

Fox, OTOH, on their best program, on a good day draws 3mm

Twittter cost Musk $45bn or so. WaPo cost Bezos about $250mm @1/180th the cost of Twitter.

President emeritus/elect Trump started Truth Social from nothing 3 years ago and it is now worth about $8bn ISTR.

CNN may be spiraling to bankruptcy, it could probably be bought cheap. Maybe make it a podcast network? Internet only, no cable unless the cable companies want to pay for it.

NYT continues to exist because it is propped up by Mexican Carlos Slim and selling ad space on their empty building in Times Square. Plus Wordle.

OTOH, a fair number of people seem to be making a pretty good living from independant podcasts, Substack and similar and Rumble/YouTube.

John Henry

Peachy said...

Polymarket Predicted Trump’s Victory, and Now the FBI Has Raided Its CEO’s Home.

The same FBI who faked the Whiter Kidnapping BS, Openly Used Ray Epps to incite violence at the Jan 6th capitol- and the same FBI who hired a patsy to kill Trump in Butler PA.

The FBI must be completely gutted.

Bob Boyd said...

Listen, listen! I got an idea. Okay, you make a thick, delicious vanilla shake then, over time, you pepper in more dog poop. Eventually, men will come to love dog poop so much they'll be ordering dog poop straight up. They won't even want a scoop of ice cream on top.
If you want to sell dog poop, this is the way, I'm telling you...it can't miss. - Ayem Kpoopenson

walter said...

The Coach Walz Show!

Iman said...

Well, I think it's fine
To have a Charlamagne
But dat’s no way to exercise your brain
Switch on Madcow from the lie machine
Yes, hear what you want when you want
'Cuz you’ll believe anything
I know we've come a long way
From caring what Cronkite say
But tell me, where are our bro whisperers today?

h/t Cat Stevens

Bruce Hayden said...

“ Latino men are swing voters.”

Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better about yourself. My bet is that it is more like an Overton Window. But in order to get Hispanics, and esp Hispanic men back, they are probably going to have to:
- Quit calling them LatinX. Hispanic culture is highly sexed, and machismo is key to a young Hispanic male’s identity.
- Similarly, cut the transsexual crap. Left to themselves, they would beat the crap out of biological males in women’s restrooms, locker rooms, and prisons. And guys wearing dresses wouldn’t fare much better.
- Quit attacking Christianity, and esp the Roman Catholic Church. This is esp where they lost Hispanic women.
- Deport the illegals, and build the Wall. The southern border flipped from fairly Blue to right red this election, because they felt the brunt of the influx of illegals. It wasn’t a couple dozen shipped to Martha’s Vineyard, but thousands, some very well armed, crossing their ancestral land (some going back to Spanish land grants), every night with impunity.

Then you will have a chance getting them back.

Peachy said...

"pretty good" Ezra blames the Gov of Texas for illegal immigrants in NY. The Democrats imported 98% of them. The gov of Texas only gave NY a small few in comparison.
The left just cannot manage to be honest.

Drago said...

But it mustn't be Gaetz....and later on it mustn't Kash Patel...and later on it can't really be anyone who tips over the applecarts. The GOPe squishes will demand another Jeff "I can't wait to arrive there and recuse myself within 24 hours and just hand the whole thing over to the next Christopher Wray!" Sessions type.

You know, so there won't be uncomfortable questions about the Orange Man at the next neighborhood cocktail party.

Drago said...

True, but for clarity I would say the Republicans, under Trump and Trump alone thus far as the rest will have to fight to make these changes permanent and the GOPe-ers do NOT want to do it, have become the Common Sense Working Class America First Party.

ronetc said...

Yes, Jim Hightower trying to duplicate Rush. Problem is, nobody on the left is as smart or as funny as Rush. Or most of the other conservative talk hosts.

Mikey NTH said...

The crash of so many like Dustborn and Concord has sent them into a tizzy.

Christopher B said...

Even if he doesn't admit it, maybe even to himself, Silver's business model is selling cope to nervous Democrats. His model depends on polls and he went practically ballistic over the polls he most likes to use obviously were not giving straight answers (or maybe the answers he wanted to see, like some reasonable but still high-ish levels of support for Harris). The quote there points out how he got scorched every time he deviated from the line that Harris was going to win, obviously. I think he wanted his model to toe the party line that Harris was the favorite but still hold out that Trump had a 'chance' to win, just like 2016.

Drago said...

They are mentally incapable of NOT chasing away a Joe Rogan. Its now hard-wired into the woke leftist/liberal/democratical mindset. Its perfectly, absolutely perfectly mob-mentality-Mau-Mauing-Maoism.

We see it here on this very blog. It would take about zero effort to push a number of these New Soviet Democraticals into Wave The Little Red Book Mode while shouting down opponents tied up and wearing cone-caps before marching them off to the gulag.

This is a close call condition we are facing with them and they just about achieved the political critical mass they needed to wipe it all away.

Just look what they are doing in PA. They are literally test driving a massive post-election fraud exercise to see just how far they can push it to steal an election right in front of you while saying "what are you gonna do about it"?

This is why Trump is fighting in the manner he is fighting, along with Musk, a good chunk of wizened up Silicon Valley-ers, a good chunk of legacy democrat Jewish funders of Ivey League Universities, larger and larger groups of working class/lower class/working poor Americans. All coming together because they are clear-eyed enough to see and accept and begin to address what is happening all around them.

Who is trying to hold them back? You already know the answer: democraticals and their GOPe allies. The UniParty, the left, the dumb liberals and the dumb establishment types.

We also see that on these very boards, don't we?

Mary Beth said...

Those "conservative influencers" are liberals. The question should be: Here are these men who believe in traditional liberal values. Why did we lose them?

O'Beezy said...

As that great political philosopher Groucho Marx said,in answer to the question "How do you get ahead in Hollywood?" Groucho said:
"Sincereity is everything ... If you can fake that, you've got it made."

n.n said...

Democratics let the cabrona out of the bag and women are looking over their back. #GirlsToo

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

Did you notice how, even until now, less than 20 months from America's 250th anniversary, there has not been a peep about it from the Democrats ?? Despite their rhetoric, they truly HATE this country as founded.

Were I advising Trump's people, I'd focus on an "Independence Agenda", to free Americans from our presently oppressive regulatory administrative bureaucracy. Cut regulations drastically, for sure, but also ferociously cut and consolidate the entire Cabinet-level structure, and move most of it outside Washington and across the country. We have the technical ability to do that easily, and such dispersal has profoundly positive security.

For example, as a farmer and agronomist, I'd immediately break up and eliminate the USDA, which is a 120,000 employee dog's-breakfast department which makes no sense ... because it was cobbled together for "I'll scratch your back" political purposes.

a) SNAP [food stamps] belongs under Health and Human Services, as does the entire food inspection system.
b) Forestry belongs under what is now Interior, but really should be a consolidated Natural Resources and Environment, folding in EPA, NOAA, the Geological Survey, and a bunch of other stuff, like USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.
c) Ag Marketing Service, Economic Research Service, and so on all belong in Commerce

I could go on, but you get the idea, and wholesale bureaucratic reorganization and regional relocation -- like Forestry to Boise -- provides a fantastic opportunity to eliminate absolute scads of dead-weight "swamp" positions.

Realistically, we could consolidate from 15 "Secretaries" and about a dozen "cabinet-level" positions, like EPA, down to just SEVEN -- Defense, Foreign Affairs [=State], Treasury, Justice, Natural Resources, Commerce, and Human Services --along with the VP, who's generally part of the Cabinet.

Have a standard Department -- Branch -- Agency -- Service across the system, and from Branch level and below spread out across appropriate parts of the country, unless there's a powerful justification for keeping them there. Even Defense. Having Army at West Point, Navy at Annapolis, and so on, is also good protection against a decapitation strike.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Yep.

"Some have argued for a rethink of media strategy."

No, you're going to have to actually change your policies.

And that's not going to happen until the Dems lose several more Presidential races

Greg The Class Traitor said...

“We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

Gosh, you mean like ESPN?

Oh wait, we don't watch that any more, because "progressive views" are repulsive racists and sexist crap

ALP said...

I would argue that they tried to "pepper" entertainment with progressive ideas in Star Trek: Discovery. Many Trek fans divided over that one.

Mike near Seattle said...

Anent the idea of mixing in more "progressive" content, Wince said: "Ah, the old recipe for boiled frog."

In the real world, that recipe doesn't work. If you put a frog in a pot of water and start heating it, as soon the frog gets uncomfortable, it hops out of the water. Kind of like the way normal people react to content that goes woke.

john mosby said...

Bart Hall: they arent into recognizing USA 250, just like they werent into observing Civil War 150 during Obama’s regime. You’d think they’d be into celebrating emancipation and the shooting of a half-million white boys. But it would have required either recognizing the white Unionists or rewriting history to say Douglass, Truth, and Tubman did it all themselves. 2010 was a little too early to get away with the latter.

JSM

Pianoman said...

They can't have anything to do with "bro whisperers" until they acknowledge there is such a thing as "bros". And that means removing "T" from the Alphabet Coalition. Which has absolutely zero chance of happening right now.

Maybe by next year, when Trump's policies start gaining traction, the Dems will be able to kick the Trans Cult to the curb, and begin the process of rebuilding their relationship with men. But that ain't happening any time soon.

JaimeRoberto said...

They could start by not being Bro Shouters.

JaimeRoberto said...

NorthOfTheOneOhOne, Klein seems to recognize that the illegals were causing problems in Texas. He just seems to think that Abbot should have let the problems stay in Texas. And it's not clear that he thinks it's best not to let the problems start in the first place.

PM said...

Chicks calling us bros. Go figure.

loudogblog said...

“We have to make entertaining, engaging content that men want to watch and care about,” Mr. Kpenkaan said. “Then, over time, you pepper in more progressive views.”

Isn't that exactly what happened with ESPN?

Real American said...

To the woke left everything is about politics and politics is about everything. They see no aspect of life that is off-limits to their politics. Every decision must be made on the basis of how it affects the politics or the "cause." This is why they're always looking to boycott someone or something. This is why we can't have plastic bags at the supermarket or why Spotify needed to get rid of Rogan or why need to wear masks when for no reason. It must be exhausting.

The Vault Dweller said...

So... make something authentic, then pepper in the political propaganda. How distasteful.

This is absolutely the biggest turn-off of the Left-Wing Media apparatus. Everything seems to be presented to manipulate, to meddle, to control people's beliefs.

Jim at said...

Yep. It's the messaging. Always the messaging. Never the policies.

You go, guys. Don't learn a damn thing.

JAORE said...

The left will not learn from the 2024 beat down. And in other good news.....

Craig Mc said...

If only they learnt to whisper instead of screech like rabid banshees.

"So... make something authentic, then pepper in the political propaganda."

Indeed. These people should be running record labels instead of governments. They ruin everything they touch.