Dems, young guys, and the podcast manosphere

The following piece was published October 29 in the Palm Beach Post at the following web link and spread on the Gannett/USA Today wire. In the final pre-election din, it is posted here on Nov. 2, and is now of historical interest, for the record. (I do wish she and Walz would have gone on Joe Rogan, even if his podcasts go on for nearly three hours... If Harris-Walz win, as I fervently wish, I hope they pivot quickly to the conservative immigration bill, knocking off a MAGA issue. AND PLEASE DO NOT OVERLOOK YOUNG DUDES YOU ARE NOT ADEQUATELY REACHING! I changed a few phrases toward the bottom to add a little punch. So here you are.)

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/opinion/columns/2024/10/29/opinion-take-running-out-for-kamala-harris-to-snare-young-male-voters/75901510007/

Dems, listen up – especially if your name is Kamala Harris or Tim Walz, because we’re in the last minute of the fourth quarter.

Go for broke with a Hail Mary play for young dudes in the podcast manosphere – like, yesterday. They are drifting Trumpward and it’s past time to pay attention. Your Democratic National Committee targets 16 groups covering 75% of the population. You are leaving out the other quarter: young men. If you are a young guy reading this, stick around.

So Harris didn’t get on Joe Rogan’s podcast. OK, do a fast scrimmage for Tim Walz. On Sunday, Walz played Madden NFL 25 and Crazy Taxi on Twitch with the underestimated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and talked politics. Great gimmick, but not enough.

If we – meaning the pro-democratic coalition of lefties, moderates, and righties – want to leave this on the field, let’s be podcast counterintuitive.

Sure, you must play for those micro audiences in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin swing counties. You need to swing into the best position while Trump’s lawyer army and stormtrooper legions get ready to sow post-election chaos once Jan. 6 riot cheerleader Steve Bannon gets out of the pokey November 1, ready to help Trumpamaniacs run wild.

Don’t forget that the Joe Rogan Experience has 14.5 million Spotify followers and 17.5 million YouTube subscribers. It was great that Harris bagged Alexandra Cooper’s No.4 podcast Call Her Daddy and Houston psychologist Dr.Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us. Still, those smartly-chosen female audiences are in the bag. Now go where Trump’s ahead and not make this a battle of the sexes.

Want stats? Age of the average MSNBC viewer: 70. Fox: 69. CNN: 67. More? CBS: 67.8. ABC: 65.8; NBC: 64.9. Pretty soon, they’ll be my age, barring cremation or burial. That might be where the money is, but go for the missing people -- younger guys.

The average Joe Rogan listener is a 24-year-old guy. Seventy percent of Call Me Daddy listers are women, 76% of them under 35. They and Joe Rogan listeners should want each other, especially if the guys know or want to learn how to court.

This is the podcast election. At my gym, those dudes pressing 200 pounds are listening to Rogan, while I’m on the elliptical or dumbbells listening to Raging Moderates with Jessica Tarlov from Fox News’s The Five and entrepreneur, NYU marketing professor, and omnipresent nerd podcaster Scott Galloway, who turns 60 Nov. 3, and has made young men his cause.

.

Suppose you’re a young guy. You are neither dumb nor ignorant and hate the patronizing. You hear all this good economic news – wages up 4%, lowest unemployment since 1968, inflation edging down to 2%, in the West’s fastest-growing major economy. You’ve got to use the credit card for groceries and diapers. Your Black and Latino buddies are working hard, feeling the same pinch and also turning to Trump in exasperation. He’s a successful billionaire businessman, right, with all those Trump buildings and The Apprentice? Never mind that so much of his former cabinet and top generals are warning us against him.

Galloway puts it like this. Our government takes in $5 trillion a year in taxes and spends $7 trillion. Suppose your household takes in $50,000 a year and spends $70,000, with new credit offers coming in. Your debt is already $358,100.

At some point, the party stops. The US national debt is at 122% of GDP at $35.81 trillion, down as a percentage from the March 2021 COVID high of 130% just after President Biden took office, with the annual deficit down a third, but that’s just the start.

Both candidates are offering voters bags of Halloween goodies. Don’t believe them. Trump’s bag of tariffs and tax cuts is filled with booby traps. . It bears repeating that the nonpartisan federal Center for a Responsible Federal Budget says Trump’s agenda will add an average of $7.5 trillion to the deficit and Harris’s will add $3.5 trillion.

Who of the two is better positioned to form a collaboration like adults?

And who has the attention span to get serious about the climate emergency? This is about your money and your future.

I'll leave the last word to my two-year-old granddaughter: Go! Go! Go!