MSNBC Analyst Says Dems Losing at Winning Over ‘Lost and Lonely’ Men: ‘We Don’t Have the Equivalent of Joe Rogan’
Anand Giridharadas argued Democrats need to build a “media ecosystem” similar to that of Republicans following Vice President Kamala Harris’s election loss to President-elect Donald Trump.
Giridharadas, publisher of The Ink, joined Morning Joe on Friday and while discussing the presidential election, he lamented that liberals do not have the “equivalent” of popular podcasters like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson. Trump and his running mate JD Vance both appeared on Rogan’s podcast shortly before the election. Rogan could not make a sit-down happen with Harris and her team.
According to Giridharadas, Republicans have a media ecosystem that acts as a “radicalization funnel.”
He said:
“What they have done in the online media ecosystem is build a radicalization engine, the way militant groups do around the world, that takes people from relatively low level annoyances with the world — why are eggs so expensive? why is my kid learning this new thing in American history in school that I didn’t learn? — and then moves through YouTube videos, through podcasts, moves them from the annoyance all the way, slowly, slowly, slowly, to a full blown fascist politics. It’s an elaborate multibillion dollar infrastructure, and there is nothing like it on the pro-democracy side. We don’t have an — when a man is just lost and lonely and not yet radicalized, we don’t have the equivalent of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson to move that man in a feminist direction.”
“Donald Trump didn’t do any of that. He played on the resentment of those that did, and that’s got to be dealt with,” Al Shaprton added.
Giridharadas argued the next chair of the Democratic National Committee should be an influential person who understands this need to speak to “lost and lonely men.”
“I think the Democratic National Committee chair has always been a kind of low level sideshow job. Maybe in this era of Democrats in the wilderness, maybe that should be a really important job,” he said. “Maybe it should go to a really dynamic, extraordinary person that can actually read these reckonings and facilitate these conversations and be trusted by progressives and moderates and actually have this conversation. Think about the media infrastructure we need to build. This is a generational project.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
