Title: Politics in the Manosphere

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. This election, the Trump-Vance campaign has been making a full-court press for the male vote. They are doing so in part by appearances within the so-called manosphere. That's a term used to refer to a loose collection of websites, podcasts, and influencers who are male and whose fan base is largely composed of young men. NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben has been following this and she joins me recently to discuss. I started our conversation by asking her to describe their strategy.

Danielle Kurtzleben: It's pretty much what you said in the introduction there. It is a way to try to reach young men. Now, if you ask the Trump camp, it's just about reaching any voter. They are not putting that label on it, but de facto, that's who they're getting. I recently reported on how during this election cycle, both Donald Trump and JD Vance have done this series of appearances on podcasts and also with online influencers and people who are famous on places like YouTube or maybe Twitch, a generally game streaming website. They've done these appearances.

Of the ones for which we have numbers, that is many of these podcasts, many of these podcasts have overwhelmingly male audiences. Just to list off some of these podcasts, there's one called Full Send. There's the Lex Fridman podcast, Shawn Ryan, Impaulsive, which is hosted by influencer Logan Paul. There's This Past Weekend with Theo Von. That's just to name a few of them. Now, a lot of listeners to us right now may not have heard of these.

To be honest, I had not heard of all of them before I started reporting on this, but in an increasingly fragmented media environment, it is possible to have a very popular media outlet that a lot of people really have not heard of.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about a couple of those podcasts. Just a few adjectives to describe Theo Von's podcast. What do we hear? Why would we want to listen to it?

Danielle Kurtzleben: It's freewheeling, it's pretty casual. Theo Von has been on reality competitions, including competitions for standup comedians. He's a funny and loose guy. He's got a mullet. There's a business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back, I think, feel to his podcast as well. He can get quite serious, but also the conversations can be quite fun.

Alison Stewart: Someone like Logan Paul. I've heard the name before, seen it, not quite sure what he does.

Danielle Kurtzleben: Logan Paul and his brother have been influencers for a while. His brother is Jake Paul.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Danielle Kurtzleben: They've been around the Internet for quite a while, at least in Internet years. Logan Paul has had a few lives. He has tried his hand at singing, and currently, he is boxing. When Donald Trump appeared on his show earlier this year, they talked a lot about fighting, because Donald Trump loves going to fights. I've heard him talk to a couple of these influencers and podcasters about fighting. It's just one of his interests and it's an area where he and a lot of these young men are quite conversant.

Alison Stewart: The one I hear the most is Joe Rogan.

Danielle Kurtzleben: Yes. Joe Rogan, this campaign cycle, he has not had a Trump or Vance appearance that I am aware of, and the campaign didn't tell me about that. You can't talk about podcasting, especially dude podcasters, and not talk about Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's podcast is really interesting because first of all, it's the one that probably the most people have heard of, just by virtue of its popularity. It is very mainstream.

I was just flipping through today a rundown of recent people who have been on it, and you have actors like Russell Crowe, Adam Sandler, a lot of people who are household names. Also, he will have political or political adjacent figures. For example, he recently interviewed Matt Walsh, who is a conservative commentator who recently made a movie called Am I Racist? Which pokes fun at what he perceives to be liberal sacred cows around trying to stop racism.

Alison Stewart: Danielle, as a candidate, what's the advantage of going on a podcast versus a more traditional interview?

Danielle Kurtzleben: There are a few, but I think one big way to think about it is the parasocial relationship, which is a phrase that has grown more popular on the Internet. Basically, it's that feeling of friendship you have with a podcaster who's sitting in your ears, especially on one of those longer podcasts, the hour-long or longer chatty podcasts there are. Joe Rogan is very much among them, as are a lot of these other guys that I've been talking about.

A lot of these appearances that Trump and Vance have done are 45 minutes to an hour-long sit-down interviews. Now, a lot of mainstream journalists, myself included, would kill for that kind of an interview with these two, but these conversations they're having, besides being chatty and loose and conversational, first of all, a lot of these hosts, like Adin Ross, for example, also Shawn Ryan, some of these guys are outright Trump-Vance supporters.

You hear them talk and they are very much on the Trump train. They're willing to even slam Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as politicians, that sort of thing. Tucker Carlson is another one that JD Vance has appeared on, and we can certainly talk more about him and some of his ties to the white nationalist community later. That's one advantage is the amount of time they're getting with a friendly host. Besides that, it's not just a friendly host. That parasocial relationship I mentioned is important because if I'm, say, watching Jake Tapper on CNN, I don't have particular feelings about who's giving me the news.

It's just like, "Ah, Jake Tapper's telling me what happened today," but someone who's in my ears for that long, I might start to see them as someone I trust more as a friend, as a person that I know personally. When you hear someone like Theo Von have a long, friendly conversation with Donald Trump, you might start to feel like, "Oh, I know Donald Trump a little more as well. If Theo Von can be nice to him, then maybe I can like him."

Alison Stewart: Let's play a little bit of tape to your point. This is from Theo Von's podcast. Former President Donald Trump went on and Von's a comedian, he's open about his own struggles with drugs and alcohol, and the two of them talked about Trump's late brother Fred. Let's listen.

Donald Trump: I admired so much about him. He had so much going. He had the look, he had an unbelievable personality, an incredible personality.

Theo Von: What was his name, Donald?

Donald Trump: His name was Fred Trump. He had a problem with alcohol. He got addicted to it because it's-- They say alcohol is tougher than drugs to get off of. I don't know if you've ever heard that. I was surprised.

Theo Von: I'm in recovery, actually. I've been in recovery most of the last 10 years.

Donald Trump: From alcohol?

Theo Von: From drugs and alcohol.

Donald Trump: Which is worse?

Theo Von: For me, drugs is the problem, but if I have a drink, then it's tougher for me to prevent myself from getting--

Donald Trump: It sets off a chain.

Theo Von: Yes.

Donald Trump: Which is harder to quit? I've Heard alcohol is harder to quit than drugs, if that makes sense. I don't know.

Theo Von: Oh, yes. I can only imagine because it's probably more readily available.

Donald Trump: More readily when it's social and you're sitting and everyone's drinking and all. [crosstalk]

Theo Von: Rarely do you go to a dinner and everybody's eating Xanaxes or something for appetizers. Usually people are having a mint julep or something a little fancier. Negroni I just learned about.

Donald Trump: You have a problem with that, then?

Theo Von: Yes.

Donald Trump: Oh, wow.

Alison Stewart: That's a really interesting exchange. What is interesting to you about that exchange?

Danielle Kurtzleben: I am so glad you played that because that's exactly what I was thinking about when I was thinking about these friendly, conversational conversations. What an odd phrase, but these very loose and personal and freewheeling conversations that they have on these podcasts. In that particular podcast, there is so much going on in terms of they're talking about how Donald Trump himself is a teetotaler. He doesn't drink, he doesn't do drugs. Theo Von talks about his own addiction struggles.

Donald Trump talks quite candidly about his late brother Fred, and he doesn't talk about Fred Trump that often. There's another part of the interview later where Theo Von says something to the effect of, "I can relate to that, and a lot of people in my audience can relate to that. We have a lot of people in the audience who also have addiction struggles," quite directly linking Donald Trump, his experience with his brother to Theo Von, to the audience.

That is a way that you can imagine that a listener might say, "Oh, Donald Trump might get this challenging aspect of my life."

Alison Stewart: This is an interesting text. It says, "Would Harris or Walz be welcome on these podcasts?" What do you think?

Danielle Kurtzleben: I think on some of them, sure. Look, first of all, I think a lot of these hosts, you get Kamala Harris or Tim Walz on your podcast, you're going to get a bajillion ears. I imagine a lot of the podcasters would be happy to hear from them, but if you're talking about welcome like, would they get a friendly welcome? It depends on the podcast. For example, listen to and watch JD Vance on the Full Send podcast. Its audience is 91% men, by the way, which is what I got from Edison Podcast Metrics. That's huge. They were pretty overtly friendly to him. I don't believe that a Kamala Harris visit is going to sway those hosts, or at least some of those hosts over to her side.

You do have some of these guys. Theo Von had Bernie Sanders on his show not terribly long before Donald Trump. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean Theo Von considers himself a socialist, but it does mean that he's open to having those conversations. I would bet that quite a few of his listeners were happy to hear from Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is a populist voice with very different politics from Donald Trump, but similar in having those populist impulses, which is to say some of these guys are willing to overlook politics in favor of just getting a broad spectrum of guests.

Alison Stewart: Danielle, I want to talk a little bit about Senator JD Vance. He is very online. He's a very online candidate, probably the most, but he's had some previous podcasts come back and bite him, to be honest. His whole thing about postmenopausal women to helping raise grandkids to cat ladies, et cetera, et cetera. We've heard this before. Are there downsides of these conversations? Do they tend to live forever?

Danielle Kurtzleben: Oh, sure. We've seen that very much, yes. To advance what you're talking about, what's interesting about JD Vance with comments like the childless cat ladies, which has just exploded in terms of becoming a rallying cry among many women on the left, is that JD Vance has very much taken on a Donald Trump response to that, which is, "No, not apologizing," that "I said what I said." If you are a Donald Trump or a JD Vance, if you are willing to take that tack and really stick to it, and they very much do, perhaps you have to worry less about that because your whole identity is, "I never apologize. I'm just me."

Their faithful seem to love it. Of course, the question is, can they get enough people on their side to win the election?

Alison Stewart: This is an interesting question, and I'm not sure you have the answer, but I'll pose it anyway. The text says, "Are there any podcasts that promote healthy masculinity and not this dangerous fringe stuff?"

Danielle Kurtzleben: Oh, interesting. I'll be honest, I don't know of any that have that as their driving goal. There are plenty of male podcasters out there who I'm sure exhibit the-- I don't want to say symptoms. Exhibit the qualities of healthy masculinity. Those guys, sure, they're everywhere, but I don't know of any podcasts that have that as their driving aim. I would love to hear about them, so tweet at me if you know of any.

Alison Stewart: Yes, please do. I don't want to say that Harris has given up on the male vote. She's got America's dad as her vice presidential pick.

Danielle Kurtzleben: Right.

Alison Stewart: Doug Emhoff went on Pod Save America, another very friendly podcast to him, discussing fantasy football. Where is the Harris-Walz team trying to get out the male vote?

Danielle Kurtzleben: They're trying, especially with Tim Walz, I think. Kamala Harris has the staunch Democratic men. She ain't going to lose them. Tim Walz has very much been leaning into his dudeness, for lack of a better word. He has that TikTok video that your listeners may have seen of him changing a car air filter and using that to talk about Project 2025. This last weekend, he went to a Michigan, Minnesota college football game.

He leans into the fact that he's a coach, that he's a veteran, that he hunts. There's the whole camo hat thing on the Harris-Walz side. Now, we have not seen any major swings in male voters that we think we can attribute to Tim Walz. The numbers have been pretty static, but what Tim Walz, I think, is attempting to do, and some of these groups that you may have heard of, like White Dudes for Harris, Black Men for Harris, there's several groups like that that are about men, in particular. Dads for Harris.

Those groups and Tim Walz, I think, are trying to give men who are on the fence or who might feel leery of electing a woman of color, they give them a permission structure to say, "Hey, you know what? A guy who looks like you is supporting her, is getting in line behind her, You can, too." I don't know if it's going to work, but the goal is not just to persuade people, because a lot of people's minds are made up, but to get people out the door and vote.

What I'm curious about is can Tim Walz use his guy persona that has excited so many people to excite enough undecided voters to get out or go request their ballot and send in that vote.

Alison Stewart: Speaking of Tim Walz, what are you going to watch for in tonight's vice presidential debate?

Danielle Kurtzleben: Oh, man. I think tonight both he and JD Vance have very particular lines to walk. First of all, it's really easy to turn these debates into let's talk about their masculine style. That's important, and voters will get vibes from the debate, but as far as substance, I am very curious how Tim Walz takes swings at JD Vance on abortion, because that is very much at the center of the Harris campaign.

Tim Walz has been very vocal about reproductive rights, using that phrase "Mind your own damn business" as a way of saying that reproductive rights should be protected, using his Midwestern straight-talk vibes to do that. JD Vance, meanwhile, will definitely try to attack Walz and by association, Harris on the economy. I'm very curious how well Vance is able to do that as well. All of that aside, I'm curious about the likability line that both of these guys are walking.

JD Vance has high unfavorables, no doubt driven by comments like the childless cat ladies one. He is going to be an aggressive debater. We know he is. I'm curious if he can do that and how much he tries to be relatable, approachable, likable. Meanwhile, Tim Walz, he is very well known as relatable, approachable, likable. How is he able to be aggressive while still selling the Kamala Harris brand?

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben about the manosphere.

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Alison Stewart: From the male vote to the Latino vote, we examine why one demographic seems to be turning more and more to the right. Author and journalist Paola Ramos joins us to discuss her book Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.

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