Bulwark Takes - Adam22: The Adult Filmmaker/Bro Podcaster Trying To Save Dems

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Will Sommer is joined by Adam22, host of No Jumper, to talk about why Democrats are failing to connect with young men online. From the rise of right-wing influencers to the left’s reluctance to engage with new media, Adam22 shares why the Democratic brand feels toxic—and what needs to change. Read Will Sommer's False Flag, "The Hip-Hop Loving, Adult-Filmmaking Podcaster Whom Dems Keep Spurning"

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Selection varies by location. Hi, welcome back to The Bulwark. I'm Will Summer. I'm a reporter here at The Bulwark. And I'm joined today by YouTuber Adam22, a.k.a. Adam Grandmason. One topic that has been very hot after the election is whether Democrats can find the quote-unquote liberal Joe Rogan or some kind of other YouTube influencer or YouTube star who can connect with young people. So I wanted to check in with Adam. Adam, welcome to The Bulwark.

Happy to be here. Thank you, Will. So I had heard that you were, as we face this topic of right-wing influence in the manosphere or shows like Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, I had heard you were kind of coming at it from a different tack. How would you describe your politics? So I grew up in a whole family of Democrats. I got all these memories of being a young kid going to, you know, honking wave type political rallies.

My dad was like an unpaid volunteer on Clinton's first presidential bid because I grew up in New Hampshire where everything was going down with the primaries at that time. So yeah, always grew up around democratic politics slash completely like that's the side of the aisle that I've always found myself on. But as time goes by, yeah, it's kind of, you know, the realm of hip-hop has kind of been commandeered by the right, just like most of, you know, the Manosphere-adjacent podcasts. We all seen that infographic a couple months ago with Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and all these other podcasts that are heavily right-leaning. And at this point in time, it definitely feels like the left is so not appetizing to my audience that it's like I'm usually better left, just kind of not even discussing it at all.

And I've had this conversation with a lot of people who are on the left where they kind of just feel like at this point, there's so little for the average fan of podcasts to relate to on the left that it's almost like the Democratic brand is just completely toxic. And for me, it's like, you know, I don't really feel like there's a clear cut home for me on the right either. It just feels like it's everything is just such bullshit coming out of that side that it's like I can't really imagine myself switching teams. But I also just feel kind of lost at sea and just don't really feel like I have a home politically at this point. So you have this really mega popular YouTube channel, No Jumper on hip hop culture and other topics. As Democrats sort of look for this sort of YouTube counterweight to the right. I mean, you've been willing to come on the show, which I realize is a problem for a lot of podcasts that are probably even safer homes for, you know, leftist candidates and influencers to go on. Like I just recently heard David Pakman talking about how he can't even get anybody to really come on his show.

Even his platform is considered kind of too out there, I guess, for a lot of these sort of mainstream politician types. And I think, you know, that's obviously a huge part of the problem when somebody like Trump or J.D. Vance can go on Joe Rogan and get 50 million views. And meanwhile, on the left, it's like hard to even think of who would fill that sort of role. And on top of that, they seem pretty unwilling to take part in conversations. It's like the Kamala Joe Rogan thing, but at scale, where it feels like that's kind of the attitude of the majority of people in these positions. With that in mind, I mean, it seems like, why do you think, I mean, you've tried to get senators, you've tried to get members of

Congress on your show. And as far as I know, there's been very little interest. At the same time, I mean, you look at Republicans, as you said, who are willing to go on all sorts of YouTube shows and reach new audiences. Why do you think Democrats are so reluctant to sort of expand what it looks like to the kind of interview show they would go on? I mean, for sure, my personal brand and No Jumper's brand are a little problematic for certain people. You know, a large percentage of the people that we interview and host that we have on the platform are, like, past or current gang members. I do porn. We have a lot of porn stars on the podcast.

We're, like, famously one of our hosts is currently wrapped up in a federal RICO charge that was released a couple weeks ago. So there's a lot of like more obvious branding things that could definitely hold people back from wanting to be involved. But you would think that it would actually be a pretty palatable spot for them to show up on just because it's like, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not some like political troll that's going to be trying to get a crazy reaction out of these people. You know, I'm more just interested in even putting forth any kind of face in terms of the left that might make sense to my audience. And it just feels like that's just impossible.

They're just not interested. They only want to go with the safest possible alternatives. And I mean, even, you know, I'm watching Gavin Newsom try to launch his podcasting career. And it feels like it's kind of, you understand why this is so problematic because, you know, he sits down with somebody like Charlie Kirk and like, it feels like his audience uses this as an opportunity to just laugh at him. And then his, his audience, Gavin Newsom's audience, feels like this is just a complete and total waste of time for him to even sit down with a lot of these people. So yeah, it just kind of like furthers my personal belief that the left is just completely lost and

might not win an election for a couple decades at this point. I mean, it might be short-sighted for me to think that this is such a sealed thing, but I really feel like the left just needs to figure something out in terms of how they're going to put themselves forward. Because at this point, in terms of my demographic of young men from their teenage years up through their mid-30s, just identifying yourself as a Democrat just seems like a pretty much guaranteed way for people to, you know, really kind of discount you automatically. Yeah.

I mean, if you could expand on that, I mean, what is it about Democrats do you think that has turned off young men? Oh, I just feel like two young men, the Democrats are the party of social justice-ism, you know, trans rights beyond the pale of, like, you know, reasonable conversation and people who just sort of, like, mindlessly will repeat that, you know, trans women are biological women or whatever, it feels like the worst things that the most extreme leftist, you know, commentators and influencers have put out there, the most extreme things get wrapped up as if those are sort of required, you know, default positions of anybody on the left. And, you know, you're sort of forced to, like, defend Joe Biden running for president into his 80s or, you know, Kamala Harris, who's like one of the most detestable politicians in recent memory, in the opinion of a lot of my audience.

And, you know, I still remember in 2016 being so shocked and appalled at Kanye being willing to support Trump. But now we're at the point where and that really like was the beginning in a lot of ways of him being sort of exiled out of the mainstream in terms of hip hop's conversation. But I mean, these days, it's almost impossible to even find a rapper who would publicly want to identify as being on the left. And meanwhile, like, you know, rappers are eager to tell you about how they support Trump. And a lot of times they don't even have like a policy that they can land on that they are in support of. And if I were to get into a lot of Trump's more extreme positions, they would probably be confused. to honor and really like a sign that you haven't been co-opted for for people to identify as Trump supporters within hip hop, which is not something I ever thought I would see 10 years ago.

What do you think of the current content being put out by Democrats? I mean, I think you had mentioned seeing Hakeem Jeffries on Jon Stewart. And, you know, just thinking like my audience can't relate to this at all. Oh, yeah. I mean, I just watched that. And, you know, I went to the comments like within 10, 15 minutes and was just like, oh, OK, everybody sees this the way I see it, which is basically, you know, just like an AI designed to sort of reiterate all the most basic, boring, boilerplate Democratic talking points. And it just felt like the absolute opposite of, you know, as far removed from the working man as Trump may be.

I mean, he just sounds like way more of a normal person in comparison to somebody like Hakeem Jeffries, who goes on podcasts and just feels like he's just incapable of having a reasonable conversation and sounding like a human being. And I feel like that that's a huge part of the problem is it just feels like there's just so little room for the Democrats to have conversations in which they can relate to people. So, Adam, if you were in charge of the DNC or the Democrats' media strategy, what's one thing you would do to reach young men that Democrats fear they're losing? Oh, man. And then I also feel like they just need to exile some fringe elements from the party, which in and of itself feels like a suicide mission. Because as soon as you say anything that may, you know, I saw the reaction to Gavin Newsom saying that he doesn't think that trans girls should be playing in biological female sports. And I mean, I saw the reaction where it's like, you know, this this horrifies a huge percentage of the left.

And so as a result, I just I have no idea what they could possibly do. But I think that the start of it for sure would be being willing to go out and have these conversations with people on the right. You know, that's one of the things that turned me into a big Destiny fan a couple of years ago when I first started having him on the podcast was just the fact that he was willing to go on Fresh and Fit or Tim Pool, which at the time was shocking to me. And I mean, you do see more people on the left sort of running that game of being willing to go on all these podcasts and do the best job that they can at putting the right foot

forward and putting forth a message that young men could be on board with. But it definitely feels like a lot of these like smaller streamer type characters can only do so much as opposed to actually having politicians who represent some of the same ideas. Who's your dream guest from the world of politics? Yeah, I think I need AOC on No Jumper. That would, that would be the one for me. Great. Well, again, we've been joined here by Adam 22,

AKA Adam Grand Mason of the no jumper podcast and YouTube channel. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Well, I appreciate it.