Today, Explained - The “Joe Rogan of the left”

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Data on who didn’t vote for the Dems is finally coming in and it’s clear that they have a problem. Can Hasan Piker be the solution? This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Travis Larchuk, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Hasan Piker at a 2018 event in Washington, DC. Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images for The Young Turks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today explained here with Eric Levitt, senior correspondent at Vox.com, to talk about the 2024 election. That can't be right. Eric, I thought we were done with that. I feel like I'm Pacino in 3. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Why are we talking about the 2024 election again? The reason why we're still looking back is that it takes a while after an election to get all of the most high quality data on what exactly happened. So the full picture is starting to just come into view now. And you wrote a piece about the full picture for Vox recently, and it did bonkers business

on the internet. What did it say? What struck a chord? Yeah. So this was my interview with David Shor of Blue Rose Research. He's one of the biggest sort of democratic data gurus in the party. And basically, the big picture headline takeaways are Coming up on today explained

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. 2020, 2020. 20. Four. The big picture headline takeaways are that voters who say they don't care much about politics,

who don't follow the news closely, who don't always vote in elections, that group moved really strongly towards Donald Trump. Mm. This was a group that was split about evenly between Biden and Trump in 2020. And this time it was overwhelmingly for Donald Trump. I think that what is most striking perhaps in his data is the movements among younger voters. Aha. For the entire time that I've been covering politics, there was a basic narrative where the Republican Party was essentially

facing a ticking time bomb where they were going to have to fundamentally make more peace with social liberalism and with the welfare state because the rising generations in the United States, millennials and zoomers, just weren't buying what they were selling. And yeah, they can cobble together these electoral college majorities for a little while, but this is just a matter of time before we get to the progressive majority. Between December 2015 and March 2017, among Republicans aged 18 to 29, 23% left the party. This is an existential crisis for the Republican Party and we have to have a brutal discussion about it.

We alienate young voters because of gay marriage. We have a policy problem. We alienate Latinos, the fastest growing voter group in the country. There is a demographic time bomb. What happened in 2024 completely upends that sense of demographic destiny. Voters under 30 were narrowly pro-Trump. Even after going for Biden by huge margins in 2020. Every demographic group under the age of 25 is more

Republican than the millennial generation was. The youth vote traditionally goes to the Democrats, not so much in this one. And while Harris underperformed with voters under 30, Trump gained compared to 2020. The biggest driver for Gen Z, the economy. Young people have gone from being the most progressive generation since the baby boomers to becoming potentially the most conservative. What did we learn about why Youngs went for Trump?

Yeah, so I think that the data we have is better at telling us what happened than why, but we do have some informed guesses. I think that one factor here is that it's part of this broader phenomenon of politically disengaged voters moving to the right, that younger people are often a bit less tuned into the news. They've got their own sort of coming of age and lives and romantic lives and college and whatever else occupying a lot of their attention. But there's also just the fact that politically disengaged voters tend to have weaker partisan identities, ideological identities. And it's also true of younger voters who also often have not fully formed their political identities.

Another factor that might explain this divergence between young voters today and the millennial generation are that the two just had different formative experiences. And so the millennial generation, a lot of us, came of age under the second term of the George W. Bush administration, when you saw the Iraq War coming apart. Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. Hurricane Katrina destroying New Orleans and the response really being pretty incompetent.

Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency. And then of course above all the financial crisis and the Great Recession. The market is not functioning properly. And this is followed by a two-term presidency from a really exceptionally charismatic figure Barack Obama. Yes we can! And so this arguably cements the millennial generations lean towards the Democrats, whereas Zoomers, maybe a lot of these younger ones,

came of age with a Democratic president presiding over COVID. We need everyone to keep washing their hands. And then rising inflation. That I'm taking inflation very seriously, and it's my top domestic priority. And an Afghanistan withdrawal that was really messy. 13 brave Americans lost their lives,

along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bomb. And get this sense that it's an 80-year-old with negative charisma. Come on, man. Who doesn't really speak to them, doesn't really know their references. Jason Kelsey or Travis Kelsey? Mama Kelsey.

And essentially, great chocolate chip cookies. And so maybe this creates kind of an alienation from the Democratic Party and more of an openness to the GOP. So that's one factor. Another explanation is that maybe this cohort of young people was just always going to be a bit more conservative because of who their parents were. Who were their parents? Well, so in some survey data, the baby boom generation is more left-wing than Gen X was. And the baby boomers were Millennials parents and Gen Xers are the parents of these young zoomers and

So in some surveys these young zoomers are more likely to say that their parents were Republican than Millennials were And it's possible that these people had more conservative parents and so they're a bit more conservative So if you're looking for someone to blame for the current political situation this country Find someone from Gen X. Yeah, I think so. Trying to find the reality bites joke here, but I'm not sure I'm going to get it. All you do around here, Troy, is eat and couch and fondle the remote control. I am not under any orders to make the world a better place. This is a story about younger voters. As I said, even women under 25 were more Republican

than millennial women under 25 were in earlier elections. But this is kind of primarily a story about young men. So the gender gap among 18 year olds in 2024 was well over 20 points. That's more than double the gender gap among senior voters. It's the largest we've ever seen in American politics. I mean, so that just raises the question of why, why are young men moving to the right? And I think it's a difficult question to fully answer. There is some evidence though that this is not a US specific phenomenon that we're seeing this same trend in several other countries. In Norway, there's a running poll of high school students where in recent years the fraction of young men who agree with the statement, gender equality has gone too far, has spiked. And so, you know, what's common

between all these different countries, it's tempting to say social media and that there's some dynamic going on in social media where content that is critical of liberal assumptions on gender has a bigger platform than it did maybe in previous eras. You know, on the other hand, there is this global trend where a lot of young men have been given the impression that fundamentally left-of-center

politics and parties cares less about men than about women. And then there's also this sense that there are dysfunctions in the dating market for young people that are breeding resentments that are then politicized by influencers in the manosphere, that it's because of progressive political culture that you can't find a girlfriend. There's this new progressive thing and this new generation of women who seem to believe that if we completely fuck it all up, it's gonna end up better.

I think that feminism has brainwashed a lot of women to think that they need to play the male role. There's a reason why you take his last name and not the other way around. These cultural trends are concerning and they could be persistent, but there is also this opportunity to reach this constituency.

Different young male voters are responding to different things. And bottom line is not presiding over large price increases, increasing the salience of issues like healthcare, where Democrats have a bit more credibility. These things should help with all voters, including young male voters. Whether after that, there's still a persistent problem because of cultural trends remains to be seen. What are Democrats to do about the young male voters?

Should we ask some young males? Should we ask some podcasters? No, I think we'll ask the New Yorker, the well-dressed man in the monocle, when we're back on Today Explained comes from Shopify. I think you might have to be a little bit crazy to start your own business, they say. Or maybe just delusional, because the amount of work required to start and grow your own company is so wild, no one in their right mind would take it on. Luckily there are supportive partners out there that can take some of that work off your place. Guess who's one of them? If you want to add an essential member to your team, a platform you and your customers can rely on. You might wanna check out Shopify.

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Andrew Marantz is a boy who's been hanging out with the boys for the New Yorker. Why you ask? There's kind of this folk theory of politics, which I think actually has some truth to it, that like every election has its own dominant medium. And you know, 1960 was the TV election and good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for 2016 was the Twitter election Times listed all the people in the places and things that Donald Trump has insulted

I mean just on Twitter said this is 282 people since the start of this campaign It is so there was kind of this Monday morning quarterback Consensus that 2024 was the live stream election or the long form podcast election. And there was kind of this easy narrative, which was if only there were a Rogan of the left, the Democrats would have pulled it out. And so I sort of wanted to examine how true that was. And as we've covered on the show before, Trump has spent a lot of time in 2024, going on podcasts that, you know, most people in America have never heard of. Totally. But were probably helpful to his campaign.

Definitely. I mean, especially because these were pretty easy interviews, right? I mean, he wasn't really being grilled. So you're way up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of. Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie. I have two segments I want to do with you. The first one is use one word that comes to mind to describe that person. Okay? It's a fun game.

Let's start. All right, who is the first picture? And we got the Nolk Boys, one word. Great. What they did for those audiences is just expose them to a kind of humanized version of Trump. You've heard about the supervillain, you know, glowering from the Fulton County jail or whatever. Well, here's the version of Trump that just seems like

kind of a chill, approachable dude. And you know, maybe he's not as bad as all that. How about, and we like the Beach Boys. We always liked the Beach Boys. We do like the Beach Boys. Who doesn't like the Beach Boys? And notably here, on these shows that Trump was hitting, you did not see representation from the other side,

from the left. Which kind of brings us back to the piece you recently wrote for The New Yorker called, You Mad, Bro, although it's also known as The Battle for the Bros, because you spent some time with a leftist bro. Yeah. Uh, so Hassan Piker is really the only major prominent leftist on Twitch, at least the only one who talks about politics all day.

What's going on everybody? I hope everyone's having a fantastic evening, afternoon, pre-noon, no matter where you are in the world. I'm Hassan Piker and this is the Hassan Abrakis. So a lot of the sort of, you know, speculation about could there be a Rogan of the left, you know, a lot of that was focused on him. He's have to have to just say it outright.

Very, very handsome, tall, drink of water. He's, you know, that's a big part of the brand. Can I say something? I'm, I'm feeling objectified. Oh yeah. He does sort of fitness influencer stuff. He's always going to the gym and, you know, sending around, you know, thirst trap photos.

This guy. This guy... This week has been a mess. You feed it. Don't act like you don't feed it. This week? Oh, I'm asking for it? What was I wearing? He, you know, plays video games. He does sort of, you know, traditionally guy-coded stuff. But then he also, like, will, like, wear a pearl necklace

and nail polish and, you know know hang out with his gay friends. So he's doing his own thing. But really when he sits down to start streaming, he's basically talking about politics from a very sort of progressive socialist perspective all day long. Universal Basic Income, in the way that I advocate for, is a drastic wealth redistribution program. I think that universal basic income. He has four monitors, like a bank of monitors, like he's like a day trader or something.

One is just for comments, one is just for his discord, one is his main screen. And when he's locked in, he's just locked in. Like he, you know, goes to the bathroom for 60 seconds and comes back and keeps going. He's like in a flow state for eight to 10 hours a day. When I showed up at his house, you know, we had arranged over text, like, I'll come to your house and I'll hang out with you.

This is on a Sunday where he's talking about Syria for hours and hours and hours. The morality of Assad is not complex. Assad is a brutal tyrant and also, you know, a dog statesman in general. Can't speak for his... And his audience, he had like 35,000 people live in his audience. That's like better than a lot of cable networks, especially for, you know, the coveted youth demographic. And then I come back the next day and that happens to be the day that they caught Luigi Mangione. So that was a banger of a stream. Normally, as you guys know, this is unlimited Italian phobia in the broadcast. This is the first day where there will be no Italian phobia on this broadcast. We will ban you.

Then I came back the next day and his guests were Lena Kahn, the FTC chair, followed by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the famous writer, followed by Stavros Halkeos, the famous comedian, back to back to back. This is like Gen Z tonight show kind of thing. Right. And like Lena Kahn, Ta-Nehisi Coates, you'd expect them on like the Ezra Klein show. But maybe saying favorable things about Luigi Mangione is where Hasan Piker sort of strikes a different chord.

Well, and this is the line he's constantly walking in politics of all kinds, right? He's saying, Trump is a monster, you can't vote for him. But he's not then saying, here's why Kamala Harris is so great and you really should vote for her. He's basically saying, she's the lesser of two evils, but she's really terrible on Gaza. She's really terrible on this other stuff. Bro, she's 60. I don't know any 60 year old American who doesn't prefer Israel to the scary Muslims.

Sometimes it's that simple. I mean, I was at the DNC in Chicago, and Hassan Piker was this sort of, you know, celebrated, invited guest. The DNC gave him this really prime real estate. And then he said a few too many really edgy things about Gaza. They're kicking us out. Unlucky. I don't know why. You think it's because you said something today they didn't like?

I did compare DNC to Israel. That might have been the final blow because we got the call shortly after I tweeted that. So he's constantly doing this dance, right? We got the call, like, shortly after I tweeted that. So he's constantly doing this dance, right? Trying to be a critical ally, but not too allied. Trying to be edgy on Twitch without getting kicked off Twitch. He was recently suspended for 24 hours because he talked about maybe killing Rick Scott, a senator.

So it's this constant tightrope act, which, I mean, honestly makes it more exciting to watch. And the audience responds to this because it strikes them as authentic. Totally. I mean, this is... His audience goes way back with him. This is where the parasocial thing really comes into play. I mean, you know, not to break the fourth wall too much, but people have a parasocial relationship with you,

they listen to you a lot. People have parasocial relationships with Sarah Koenig from listening to her host cereal for 12 hours. But like this guy is on audio and video all the time with comments floating up the side of his screen that he reads and responds to constantly. So however parasocial people feel about you or Ezra Klein or Sarah Koenig, it's like times a thousand on steroids all the time. This is part of the appeal, right? I went to a gym with him in Encino. You walk into the gym, there's Joe Rogan interviewing Elon Musk on the TV above you.

But because he's kind of doing this bro-coded thing, he's not like the kind of caricature of the pearl clutching, you know, progressive where he has to run away because he's like surrounded by Trumpy guys. He can hang. And the ability to hang is the currency of the realm. Like if you can hang, then you're in and people kind of develop a relationship with you.

And then eventually if you go, actually I think we should have universal health care and like treat trans people well and like not do mass deportations, then maybe they'll listen to you. And in terms of who they are, I mean, I think part of what's interesting about it, and this goes for Rogan and Theo Vaughn

and a bunch of guys on the right as well, is that the audience is constantly changing and moldable and impressionable. I mean, people, like one thing that this piece really reinforced for me is like Americans don't just sort of like have set politics. Nobody does. Like it's always shifting. People are always open to persuasion or just kind of shifting their mind on things. That's what Rogan did. That's what a lot of his audience did.

So what a lot of Hassan Piker's job is, think, is taking people who are impressionable and kind of molding them in his direction rather than letting them just sort of fall into the open internet where they might, you know, get red-pilled. And did you ask him what he thought of being called by some as a Joe Rogan of the left? Yeah, he doesn't like it. And his main objection to it is, well, partly he doesn't like it because, you know, it's not cool to be like, oh, please pick me. I would love to be the Joe Rogan of the left, you know?

But also his objection to it is the Democrats want to make this about messaging instead of policy. So, you know, the Democrats want to just say, oh, if we just, you know, have more podcasts and, you know, put more TikTok stars on our, you know, the Democrats want to just say, oh, if we just, you know, have more podcasts and, you know, put more tic tac stars on our, you know, campaign ads, you know, that'll solve it. And for someone like Piker, who is a really dedicated, like socialist, he wants them to do more universal programmings, you know, he wants them to go in a Bernie direction instead of a Kamala direction. And so he thinks it's kind of like a shortcut to just do the messaging and not change the policy.

It's interesting, because he exists in this space where he speaks to the same type of person who might listen to Joe Rogan. I'm sure there are people who listen to both shows. Do you agree? Oh, for sure. Yeah, there's people all over. And just like Joe Rogan used to be on the left,

Hassan Piker used to be a big Rogan fan. I mean, he told me about the time he met Joe Rogan, like, in this kind of rapturous way. And you know, he also, Theo Vaughn, I would say, has kind of reached the number two spot in the Rogan sphere. Hassan Piker was on Theo Vaughn's show, like, a week and a half ago or something. I, so there's a there's a huge amount of overlap when you get those crossovers when when Hassan piker talks to the Avon I don't think he's been on Joe Rogan show But maybe that's coming could we get like a rigorous debate on policy like those like those Gourvandale like William F Buckley joints from the 1960s Kind of yeah, hopefully without calling each other queer or whatever.

Now listen, you... Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi. Let's stop calling names. Or I'll fuck you in your goddamn face. Let's get... Let's stay plastered. I think there is some of that, but actually in a way it's less structured than that, right? The kind of classic Buckley-Vidal debate where you're brought in to do like a point-counterpoint on CBS News.

Yeah. That's kind of given way to more just kind of like organic relationships. So like the Jim bros that I was talking about, they were streamers also, and Hassan will go on their streams and talk about politics. But it's not in a structured like, okay, what do we think about entitlement reform? What do we think about charter schools? Like, it's not in a structured, like, okay, what do we think about entitlement reform? What do we think about charter schools? Like, it's much more like, I don't know, dude, like, don't you think this is bullshit? You really think they're going to do what they say?

You know, it's much more vibe based. Where do you think all of this is leading? Because it's so clear that Democrats are trying something right now. Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast where he's talking to Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. You write in your piece that Pete Buttigieg was making overtures to Hasan Piker. Tim Walz came on this show.

AOC and Bernie were talking to Hasan recently. The Democrats are doing something. Is it too early to say if any of it's working? Yeah, they are doing something. So I think the Gavin Newsom show is not the answer. Um. Ha. The thing that struck me about the Gavin Newsom show,

which he started, like, while I was reporting this, is not even, again, the content. It's the vibe. It's like he talks kind of like a McKinsey consultant, like not like a person. And whereas Tim Walz, I think kind of like a McKinsey consultant, like not not like a person and whereas Tim walls I think talks like a person so, you know you can talk about policy all day long and I think that we should talk about policy all day long and I and I Agree with the piker critique that policy maybe matters more than messaging in many cases

But I think when you have someone like Tim Walls Who doesn't always put words in the right order and doesn't always speak in complete paragraphs, that guy would do great on a three hour podcast. And so to me, the whole Monday morning quarterback question is not why didn't Kamala go on Rogan is why didn't Tim Walls go on to like, that's the whole point of having that guy on your campaign, it seems to me. So I do think they're going to keep trying stuff and I think they're going to see, kind of by market testing it, what's working. People are clearly trying to get in position and I don't think they will make the same exact mistakes again.

The question is, are they only fighting the last war or are they going to figure out whatever the parasocial media of 2028 is gonna be? Andrew Marantz, he writes for the New Yorker, newyorker.com. Hasan Piker, rumor has it, a listener to this show. Hasan, if you're listening, come hang out, come talk to us. Travis Larchuk and Amanda Llewellyn made the show today. Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christensdorter mixed the show today. Amina Alsati edited the show.

Laura Bullard fact checked the show. I'm Sean Rameshwaram. I hosted the show, it's called Today Explained. Thanks for watching!