If you want to be the President of the United States of America, you’ve got to show up to a lot of events.
You’ve got to visit multiple city's economic clubs, go to the Iowa State Fair, crack a few jokes at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, win those televised debates, inspire folks at the town halls, kiss some babies, and, most important of all, book an appearance on…
Joe Rogan, Call Her Daddy, and Impaulsive with Logan Paul.
Wait…
What?
You’re not dreaming: Podcasts are now a legitimate form of media that might end up determining the winner of this and future presidential elections. Even more traditional media outlets, such as the New York Times, have recognized this phenomenon.
But why did this happen?
Podcasting is less of a modern invention and more of a continuation of a time-old American tradition: radio talk shows. The term “podcast” was coined in 2004 by a BBC journalist and the medium has skyrocketed in popularity since.That makes sense, given Americans' affinity for radio and its long-form, harder-to-fake content, whether it was FDR’s “fireside chats” or Ronald Reagan’s commentary that laid the groundwork for his 1980 presidential run. In some sense, we’ve had “podcasters in chiefs” for decades now.
Of course, America is in a unique position right now. Trust in traditional media outlets has tanked and political polarization is sky-high. For candidates, it’s not very likely that a Trump voter watching “Rachel Maddow” or a Harris voter watching “Fox and Friends” is going to change their minds on almost anything. However, if candidates instead go for inactive and undecided voters, who are more easily reached through podcasts such as Theo Von, Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, or, most famously, the Joe Rogan podcast, then that could begin to change their luck.
Of course, at this point in the race, it will be hard to massively sway voter opinion without a massive scandal or other incident, but elections can be won or lost by tens of thousands of votes in key states. One data point that does not bode well for the Harris-Walz Campaign is Trump’s three-hour long appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, the number one podcast on Spotify, this past Friday.
It’s unclear how much of a boost Rogan would provide Trump, but if he wins, it will likely be seen in retrospect as a losing move for Harris-Walz, as Democratic pundits like Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher have stated going on Rogan could positively expose Harris to an audience which isn’t her normal voting base.
Of course, the same argument could have been made for Trump, who did not appear on the Call Her Daddy podcast despite an invitation. The narrative around “not taking interviews”, however, is more directed at Harris-Walz than Trump-Vance at the moment, so I expect that it wouldn’t have moved the needle substantially for Trump.
However, the ability to do longer form interviews is going to only become more necessary in the coming years. Americans are growing tired of soundbites, clickbaits, and “debates” which spend time discussing candidates' golf handicaps rather than their real, often contradictory beliefs. Perhaps podcasts, as ridiculous as they may sound to some, could be an answer to our problems. After all, if you want to be the leader of the free world, then a two hour interview should be the least of your worries.