New Analysis: Sports and Comedy Podcasts And Youtube Shows Aimed At Young Men Have Been Full Of Debate Commentary Critical of Biden
Many of us view young people, and young men in particular, as the epitome of low information voters. After all, only about a quarter of young people say they have used broadcast TV, local TV, newspapers or any of their websites for news in the last week. Of the 51 million people who watched the recent debate between President Biden and former President Trump only 3.9 million were between the ages of 18 and 34.
However, they are consuming quite a lot of media. 82 percent of young men “regularly access” Youtube, although only 31 percent regularly access it “for news and current events,” meaning about half are using it but without the intention of learning about news. Similarly, 36 percent of young men say they regularly listen to podcasts, but only 10 percent say they listen to them for news. Overall about ⅔ of young people say they have listened to podcasts in the last year. (It is worth noting that only half of podcast consumers solely listen to podcasts–the other half watch or listen and watch, presumably on Youtube). This content is wildly overlooked in our political discourse as a driver of opinion, but especially for young populations that are not consuming much traditional news.
The debate has created a valuable opportunity to understand how political information filters into non-political media, but analyzing that content is difficult: there are thousands of podcasts. And because the content is primarily not political, what political discussion there is is a small percent of a one- to three-hour episode. These shows are also often raunchy, rude, chaotic and incoherent. However, a new AI-powered transcription tool for audio and video content called Listening Post has allowed us to quickly sift through a large quantity of podcasts and Youtube shows to learn what these audiences are hearing.
While rankings of the most popular podcasts in the United States are public, they don’t provide demographic data of their audience, so we have to guess (although one survey found that 32 percent of young men listen to Joe Rogan). We identified 40 of the most popular non-news shows that seem to appeal primarily to men (as opposed to true crime or personal finance, etc), generally centered on comedy or sports, and looked for discussion of the debate in the period from June 27th to July 6th (due to the holiday not every show produced content during this period). Of those, there was conversation about the debate on The Joe Rogan Experience (#3 Overall), All-In Podcast (#37 Overall), the Joe Budden Podcast (#87 Overall), Bill Simmons (#2 Sports), Stephen A. Smith (#34 Sports), the Dan Patrick Show (#53 Sports), Matt And Shane’s Secret Podcast (#6 Comedy), the Tim Dillon Show (#37 Comedy), Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast/Bill Burr (#45 Comedy), and Drinkin‘ Bros Podcast (#178 Comedy). Even Andrew Tate did a live commentary on the debate.
What we find is that discussion of the debate, and President Biden’s performance in particular, infused this content. While some was sympathetic, it was overwhelmingly negative towards the President. Comedians and sports commentators sometimes had in-depth conversations, and sometimes made passing references. Some commentary was earnest, and some merely a punchline.
This is how young audiences are consuming information, developing political awareness and understanding, and forming opinions of our political leaders. Trump has appeared as a guest on both All-In and Impaulsive with Logan Paul (#158 Comedy) and apparently sent gold sneakers to Drinkin’ Bros, while Robert Kennedy Jr. has appeared on many other male-focused podcasts.
Political practitioners whose goal is to inform and persuade voters need to invest in not only regularly monitoring the content on ostensibly non-political podcasts and Youtube channels but also feeding them information and left-leaning, but entertaining, guests. Tools like Listening Post remove some of the technical challenges to monitoring this vast trove of content, so now we need to do the harder part: injecting these shows with favorable content and actually changing opinion. We ignore this powerful media at our peril.
Watch some of the clips below.
The Democrats are going to have some serious questions to answer. They do already. As I articulated the other day, you have an abundance of publications, including the New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Chicago Tribune, along with various others calling for the president to step out of the race. I've been on the record months ago saying that that should have happened. Anybody that wants to come on now, including my buddy Areva Martin, who came on the other day, you know, breathing fire and brimstone towards anybody that would think such a thing, get over it. Respectfully, love you, get over it. Uh-uh. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not about age discrimination. Yes, he's 81 years of age. This is about making sure that Joe Biden doesn't become Joe Biden Ginsburg or Ruth Bader Biden. That's what this is about. Somebody gotta say it, so I'm gonna say it. We cannot, if you are a Democrat, if you are somebody who doesn't want Donald Trump in the presidency, back in the White House, if you are somebody that leans left or whatever, you do not want Joe Biden to be called Ruth Bader Biden. Remember her, former Supreme Court Justice, who refused to step away when the Obama administration wanted her to, swearing that Hillary Rodham Clinton was gonna beat Trump, and she wanted her, instead of Obama, to select her successor on the Supreme Court. See how that turned out?
THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE with Jimmy Dore, 7/4/24
The biggest shocker to me was is like it The bubble that people live in right and it's like don't you it's just like with the debate Like do you think that the lies that the media has been telling from I've been saying Joe Biden's been a demented walking death rattle since 2019 and it's because it's been obvious that he's suffering from something and
Well, there's a decline, right?
If you just saw him in 2019, it wouldn't be as obvious.
But if you saw him from like when he was running for president in 1988, which I did, did I ever tell you about Joe Biden night that we used to have at Stitches?
No.
Stitches Comedy Club in 1988, we had Joe Biden night.
And what is that?
That would mean I would go on stage and do your act and you go on stage and do my act.
Because he's a plagiarist.
Exactly.
So we would call it Joe Biden night and all the comics would go up and do each other's acts.
Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast (Bill Burr), 7/4/24
I still read the newspaper. So the other day on the cover of the New York Post, You know, they were talking about how the New York Times finally was admitting that Biden had some sort of cognitive issues. And they were just like, now you get it.
Right?
Because it's just, it's all part of their political slam.
And meanwhile, they're completely ignoring the guy that they're behind.
And that's the number one thing that's wrong with this fucking country right now.
If we could just like, we should all be getting together, man.
And just being like, this is unacceptable that these two old senile and fucking lunatic coots are our only fucking choice.
It's not good for national security.
I'm saying that right now.
What's happening right now? Biden shows up on a debate stage after months and months and months of scrutiny about his cognitive decline and what have you. Agreeing to a presidential debate that has never really been this early. We usually see that after the Democratic or the Republican national conventions. He goes and he engages in a debate prior to all of that, clearly to prove a point, and ended up putting forth an absolute disastrous performance to the point where the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the New Yorker Magazine, along with various other folks within the Democratic Party and what have you, calling for him to step down and step aside so a Kamala Harris, a Westmore, a Gavin Newsom, or somebody can step in and go for the Democratic nomination to win the presidency of the United States of America. That is what is happening. How do we not see the correlation?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg refuses to step aside. President Biden refuses to step aside. The Democrats go for it. It costs them a Supreme Court justice seat. The Democrats are going for this now. It may cost them the presidency.
MATT AND SHANE SECRET PODCAST, 7/3/24
I guess let's just get into that that was that was heartbreaking.
It was sad.
I didn't I didn't enjoy it I didn't lie there was no part of me that reveled in Joe Biden's cognitive slippage.
Yeah, it was very sad.
It was it was I like watching Trump's face Dude when he would get accused.
He was like you son of the porn star when your wife was pregnant Yeah, right
I noticed that a lot of his facial expressions are just gay guy.
Like, what as if?
Yeah, right.
Yeah, he's like his default like countenance the whole time was crazy.
Just the wise old Al.
He had a Biden Biden was Biden talk to him and he was like skis.
Yeah.
Biden looked like he was on ketamine the entire time.
Trump looked like someone carved his face in wood the entire time.
[...]
I thought, I thought if Trump was an asshole, like if he went at him hard.
He only let him have it once.
He gave him one, like.
He gave him a couple noogies, but he didn't beat his ass.
No, he really did.
It was actually kind of, I was watching, I'm like, damn.
He also seems like he's like low in B12 or something.
Trump does?
Trump seems like, yeah, I feel like a little bit.
He's 78.
I know.
Isn't he 78?
He's old, yeah, he's up there.
But he did, you know.
Trump dogs, he's out on his feet too.
They're both stumble bums.
What are you, Joe Biden?
You falling asleep?
[...]
If you're a little tired, uh, that's calling, uh, you call that a Joe Biden.
Did you see, he said he almost fell asleep at the debate.
[...]
Again, not to get political, people hate that.
Sounds a little political to me.
No, because he said, Biden said, hey, man, I almost fell asleep on stage at the debate.
He said he just had traveled a lot internationally that week.
He didn't listen to his team who said, Joe, rest up for the debate.
And he said they were right because he almost fell asleep.
And he had a cold and he's 188 years old.
I've been to weddings where people wore Texas A&M jerseys to the rehearsal dinner, and I'm like, what are we doing here?
Put on a freaking dress shirt.
What's doing?
Listen, we're talking to a predominantly diehard sports audience.
You're going to get people saying, Covino, you're right.
That's like going to a liberal weenie party and being like, Joe Biden still has his faculties, right?
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey: At what point is this elder abuse that his family is allowing him to trot him out there, falling upstairs, doesn't know where he is, meandering off?
It looks like it's getting worse by the day.
The White House has to cover for him and say it's all AI deepfakes, but we can see it with our own eyes and there's witnesses in the room that can corroborate what we're being shown on film.
I mean, this is honestly this is really sad for him and shame on his family for committing this kind of elder abuse.
Now, yes, sad for him, happy for Republicans.
I mean, I raged that night after the debates.
I hope he stays in.
I don't want anything else other than Joe Biden to keep continuing to talk and get out there so selfishly as a big Trump guy.
I want him to stay in this race.
BILL SIMMONS with Van Lathan, 7/2/24
So if people are wondering what anchors Joe Biden to the race right now, it's the same thing that anchors everything in American politics.
It's money.
Now, I mean, we might be past the points and polls dropped today that show him El Strugglesville.
So that might scare the piss out of people enough to make them change and move on from him.
Because let's face it, we were texting during that debate performance.
It took three minutes for us to know it wasn't his night.
It wasn't.
And so now they're... Wasn't his night is an understatement.
Yeah, now they're in trouble.
But here's the thing, though.
This is where hubris gets you.
Hubris gets you to this point.
Anyone with eyes saw that this was going to be a long race for president Biden months and months ago.
If he was able to run on his record and effectively message it.
It would be easy.
Where we were, crime is coming down, the economy is strong, people are still paying too much at the gas pump and in the grocery store, but everything's trending in the right direction.
He has the perfect case to say, hey, four more years and I can do an even better job, but he can't say it.
And so because of that, it looks bad and the party is eating itself right now.
I'm glad I'm not a Democrat.
Well, the thing, the move would have been like nine months ago to be like, you know what?
I righted the ship.
Now it's time for me to help somebody else get elected and turn this over.
And obviously, as you said, hubris.
Yeah.
Hubris, man.
Dangerous animal.
But the Dems top story want Biden gone.
One in three Democrats think U.S.
President Joe Biden should end his reelection bid following last week's debate against Republican Donald Trump.
But no prominent elected Democrats
does any better than Biden in hypothetical match-ups against Trump.
According to a Reuters poll that closed on Tuesday, the two-day poll found that both Trump 78 and Biden 81 maintain the support of 40% of registered voters, suggesting that Biden has not lost ground since the debates.
Election day is November 5th.
Now that's wrong.
It is wrong.
By a pretty wide margin.
If you have been following all of the polls, he's down bad right now.
Now, it's early.
Things can change.
It's July.
It is.
Many months before the fucking election.
But go to Drudge Report here.
Holy shit.
It's her party now, and they've got Kamala Harris on the front.
I don't think that.
I clicked on the article here.
It is breaking news if it is.
It's a New York Times article.
Biden told ally that he is weighing whether to continue in the race.
So let's discuss this because this is what I got deep into this last night.
This is what I've read.
One, he's got to step down on his own.
So he's got to be the one that says I'm out.
Uh, and then two behind the scenes when they ran these hypothetical polls, uh, and again, take them with a grain of salt.
One, I actually believe with Michelle Obama, Michelle Obama was the only candidate left on the democratic side who could potentially beat Trump in one of these hypothetical polls.
I believe that it's not Kamala Harris.
No, Kamala Kamala Harris has less voter enthusiasm than the
Biden and that's pretty obvious.
I mean, plus I don't, I don't, she can't get the risk.
She gets through a sentence worse than he does, dude.
Yeah.
Dimension is not her excuse.
Uh, the interesting part though, uh, about this, what I read, because if I'm a, let's say I'm a, I'm a Democrat and I'm looking for the best candidate to actually win.
Like right now, probably Michelle Obama, just based on the love of Barack and the family and all that other shit, they're still the top stars in the Democratic Party.
But with her, the issue that they were saying last night that everybody's having a problem with behind the lines is because the left
is so woke about race and color and everything else, how do you skip over a black woman who's already VP to go to another black woman who's not in politics?
There's an equally problematic scenario.
So the campaign committee of Biden-Harris 24 has been raising millions, hundreds of millions of dollars.
They have to give that money back. (possibly repeated)
So if, if comma goes to the top of the ticket to president, they keep the money.
She makes somebody else, her VP pick and they carry on.
It's a quarter billion dollars.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
That that's just what they raised in the last quarter.
Yeah, that was last quarter.
That's just last quarter.
I don't know what their war chest total is, Bob.
Maybe you can look that up, but they would have to, they don't have to give all that money away, but they would have to at some point dissolve it and redistribute it elsewhere.
Right?
No shit.
So we're trying to re-raise it if it's not the ticket.
Yeah, so I mean that that is a big fucking problem 125 days out from the election trying to raise what it costs to run an election in the in the second late late second I'm sorry late third and fourth quarter of The year is going to be somewhere around two billion dollars.
Yep, right good fucking luck raising that kind of money
Good luck.
And I'll go ahead and read this report since it just broke.
President Joe Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job.
After a disastrous debate performance last week, the president who the ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for reelection, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend, are extremely important and they must go well.
What's so striking is how long mainstream media and leadership in the Democratic Party have tried to tell an alternative story that was so obviously revealed to be not true last night.
And that is the thing that I think makes me say America is losing because there are a few people that are in charge of controlling the narrative.
There are a few people
in charge who decide who gets to be the candidate.
And those few people are keeping democracy from working effectively because the raw data, the direct data, the media content that has come out of Biden over quite some period of time made it so obvious that he was not in full capacity.
You're saying the media and the Democratic Party leadership are lying to America.
Yeah, we've seen the videos.
We've seen the interviews.
And every time a video or an interview comes out, it has been excused away as, oh, well, he tripped or, oh, it wasn't well edited.
And then when it's fully exposed, the fact that they all flipped so quickly is what's so shocking, because this was there.
And if you're on Twitter, you can see these clips being talked about by millions of people.
But then media and Democratic leadership won't acknowledge them.
The problem is that Biden was too confused to lie.
That's why he's not gonna win.
Of course Biden didn't make any false claims, he was barely present.
Biden could have hit Trump with abortion.
The big vulnerability for the Republicans is abortion.
Americans by their nature are not fundamentalist religious psychopaths.
They don't want their four-year-old kid transitioning, but they also don't want an eight-week abortion ban.
And if the Democrats, Biden had hit Trump with that and said, and he tried, but he was so confused and so out of it, it didn't really land.
The strongest issue is abortion.
He started talking about the Lincoln Riley chick was killed by an illegal immigrant, which again is a vulnerability for the Democrats.
But the vulnerability for the Republicans is abortion.
Someone on that stage, and the only one was there was Biden, but whoever it was, let's say it was Gavin Newsom.
Let's say it was Gretchen Whitmer, the woman who faked her own kidnapping.
I'm just saying, I don't know who it's gonna be, which is kind of a fun archetype of person, to be honest.
A woman who faked her own kidnapping because she's so,
want so badly to be, you know, paid attention to.
So who watched the debate?
I was going to but then I saw the clips online I was like, I'm not watching this fucking show.
I saw one clip that made me cut it on Where my man?
Bro, this was comedy to me.
I'm sorry.
I love a very serious matter like the fate of the fucking country yeah, but
and potentially the world.
Yeah, it was hard to not watch this and laugh.
Oh no, all the clips I saw were hilarious.
We are the laughing stock of the world.
We're the project, I'm sure.
That's who we got?
That's who y'all got to pick from?
Listen, I knew we was lost when Biden and Trump was arguing about golf up there.
I swing better than you, I saw your swing.
You know what I mean?
Handicaps.
Yeah, I couldn't believe that they were arguing about golf on national television and
But not fly, though.
It would have been funny if it was fly.
It was a trash argument about golf.
I'll play you in golf if you carry your own bags.
What the fuck are we talking about here?
And then Biden called Trump an alley cat.
You had sex with a porn star.
You were an alley cat.
That's some old school shit right there, boy.
Yeah, it was.
I'm going to put that in my arsenal.
I'm going to start calling you a motherfucker alley cat.
Are you putting it in your arsenal for me?
Chief Clip, yo, that's funny, son.
You have the morals of Alley cat, he said that.
That is true.
Biden don't really know how to roast.
Not at all.
Biden don't talk.
I haven't talked with him.
Yeah, he don't look good.
Biden and Rocky have dementia.
Drinkin‘ Bros Podcast, 6/27/24
Welcome to this very special edition of the presidential debate between Donald John Trump, Joe Poopypants Biden.
God damn it.
Do we really win tonight?
Does any of us win tonight?
Not really sure, but let's face it.
We were all going to watch this anyways.
[...]
Joe Biden looks like a fucking hologram.
Look at that guy.