Speaker 1: Politics is where some people are some of the time,
Speaker 1: but culture is where everyone is all of the time.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and ungoss Creative, I'm Bridge Tad and this
Speaker 2: is there are no girls on the Internet. Lately, I've
Speaker 2: been spending a lot of time thinking about the power
Speaker 2: of culture, how it shapes what we believe, how we vote,
Speaker 2: and even who we grieve. So when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody who had AIDS, or at least
Speaker 2: I didn't think I did. But I do remember crying
Speaker 2: when Pedro Zamora, the openly gay HIV positive cast member
Speaker 2: from MTVS The Real World, died in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: History was powerful enough to move millions, including then President
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton, who released a statement honoring Pedro for humanizing
Speaker 2: the HIV crisis, especially for Latino communities, all from being
Speaker 2: on our MTV reality show. Culture has always had the
Speaker 2: power to move people, to shift narratives and shape politics,
Speaker 2: which is why when one of Trump's first moves after
Speaker 2: taking office, with the takeover the Kennedy Center right here
Speaker 2: in my backyard in Washington, d C. I had questions,
Speaker 2: why would Trump even care about a cultural institution best
Speaker 2: known for music, theater, and the arts. If you ask
Speaker 2: Carrie Twigg, co founder of Culture House Media, co host
Speaker 2: of the podcast Pigan Jenkins, and a former member of
Speaker 2: President Biden's Advisory Committee on the Arts, the answer is
Speaker 2: a lot. In her Rolling Stone piece Trump's cultural power
Speaker 2: grab why his Kennedy Center takeover matters, Carrie breaks down
Speaker 2: just how influential culture is not just in politics, but
Speaker 2: in shaping hearts, minds, and futures. So I asked Carrie
Speaker 2: what her first thoughts were when she heard that Trump
Speaker 2: was moving in on the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 1: I've felt like, oh, no, they have it together, way
Speaker 1: more than I even thought that they did. I felt
Speaker 1: like foreboding, which may be be more of the thing
Speaker 1: that I felt because in twenty sixteen he largely ignored culture.
Speaker 1: And culture is important for so many reasons that it
Speaker 1: is how we determine what we consider normal, acceptable, and right.
Speaker 1: It has also long been the sort of domain and
Speaker 1: main tool in the toolbox, or the main weapon and
Speaker 1: fighting back of the left. And so if Trump captures
Speaker 1: American culture, you will It's a lot easier to convince
Speaker 1: people if the culture is on your side. That what
Speaker 1: is happening is normal and right and should be happening. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if we have a culture in this country that healthcare
Speaker 1: is an individual concern and not a government concern, whereas
Speaker 1: so much of the rest of the industrialized world, Yeah,
Speaker 1: considers providing healthcare a government a core government function. And
Speaker 1: so if he goes through with this budget and we
Speaker 1: see these massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and the
Speaker 1: ACA is further stripped out of Americans' lives, but he
Speaker 1: is able to propose and promote a culture that says
Speaker 1: that that's both right and fair and just, and people
Speaker 1: believe that, then they don't really know to push back.
Speaker 1: They don't know that things could be better or different.
Speaker 1: Like culture sets our boundaries in this really profound way.
Speaker 1: And then also, so that's really problematic. And then also
Speaker 1: like the left, whether that means democrats, so that means
Speaker 1: something more revolutionary than democrats. Have always used culture, have
Speaker 1: always used visual language, cultural language. I've always used protest
Speaker 1: songs and protests, anthems, cinema, television, whether it's Mormon Lear
Speaker 1: or Bob Dyllon. Use culture to to change America, to
Speaker 1: push America, to make America more progressive, to more fair,
Speaker 1: more equitable. The civil rights movement had a massive cultural
Speaker 1: component to it. The gay rights movement has had a
Speaker 1: massive cultural component to it. It is how we understand
Speaker 1: and start to socialize ourselves around change. And so him
Speaker 1: using those levers and using those tools and tactics is
Speaker 1: really quite concerning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was easy for me to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just the Kennedy Center, like with everything going on,
Speaker 2: that's so trivial. But in your piece for the Rolling Stone,
Speaker 2: Trump's cultural power grab, why his Kennedy Center takeover matters,
Speaker 2: you actually argue that this is not disconnected from this larger,
Speaker 2: you know, power grab of democracy, and in fact those
Speaker 2: things are like ultimately connected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, culture provides really powerful headwinds. And you
Speaker 1: look if you you know, if you look at fascist Italy,
Speaker 1: if you look at fascist Germany, you know, like arts
Speaker 1: and culture and propaganda is a cornerstone, is like the
Speaker 1: go to, Like fascism relies on spectacle because it actually
Speaker 1: is quite hollow from an ideological perspective, and it's actually
Speaker 1: quite hollow from a policy perspective, right, It's not truly
Speaker 1: about making government work better for individuals, It is about
Speaker 1: changing an individual's belief so that they are convinced that
Speaker 1: government should just be wanton and do whatever it wants
Speaker 1: and really only serve a tiny, tiny, select portion of
Speaker 1: a population. And they are able to accomplish that through spectacle.
Speaker 1: And so the Kennedy Center, the Nations are the iconic
Speaker 1: beautiful building on the river in DC that we've seen
Speaker 1: lit up in beautiful ways, that has the best view
Speaker 1: of the fireworks in DC. Like that building being turned
Speaker 1: into sort of a Maga parade ground is really will
Speaker 1: be very potent, will be very powerful.
Speaker 2: Something that you point out in your piece that I
Speaker 2: love is that Trump has not really had any real
Speaker 2: connection to the Kennedy Center. You're right, despite not having
Speaker 2: attended any of the Kennedy Center's marquis events or any
Speaker 2: event at all. In his first term or sense, Trump
Speaker 2: installed himself as chairman of the board of the Kennedy Center,
Speaker 2: promising to usher in quote the golden age of arts
Speaker 2: and culture. And I guess part of me wonders, like,
Speaker 2: why does it matter that he is taking over this
Speaker 2: thing that he doesn't really have any kind of like
Speaker 2: real connection to. He really, as you said, ignored it
Speaker 2: in his first term, like do you think it's just
Speaker 2: what you were saying? That He sees the incredible power
Speaker 2: that culture has and sees what the Kennedy Center represents
Speaker 2: to culture, so he's like, I gotta control.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, I mean basically, and I have to stop
Speaker 1: it from supporting a culture that is opposed to me,
Speaker 1: and I have to move it into supporting a culture
Speaker 1: that reinforces my value, my power, my centrality. I think
Speaker 1: he has targeted the Kennedy Center because it's so successful,
Speaker 1: because it's so powerful, because it is such an important
Speaker 1: part of our national fabric, not because he doesn't think
Speaker 1: it's important.
Speaker 2: Culture is important, and it can be used to reinforce
Speaker 2: or challenge power as part of culture health media. Carrie
Speaker 2: produces television and film projects that connect pop culture to
Speaker 2: political change, like Hairtails on Hulu and Ladies First, Netflix's
Speaker 2: docuseries about women and hip hop, but her work goes
Speaker 2: beyond producing. Carrie also collaborates with entertainment companies to help
Speaker 2: infuse their content with a more authentic and nuanced cultural lens.
Speaker 2: She got her start as a political organizer, and even
Speaker 2: now working in Hollywood, that foundation is still central for
Speaker 2: Carrie storytelling is just another form of organizing.
Speaker 1: I'm someone who, as he poorn out, like, started working
Speaker 1: in politics really young. I've always been a big reader
Speaker 1: still to this day, and I don't watch a ton
Speaker 1: of stuff. But I, yeah, I know it's really dirty.
Speaker 1: It's my dirty secret, as a very surprising to hear
Speaker 1: as a film and television producer, to my dirty, dirty
Speaker 1: secret that I don't love to watch things. I would
Speaker 1: much rather read a script than like watch a show.
Speaker 1: But I grew up on novels like so I would
Speaker 1: read hundreds. I'm a total nerd and would just read
Speaker 1: hundreds of books a year and just mostly all novels.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's what made me good at politics.
Speaker 1: I think my ability and the novel as a form
Speaker 1: that ability to transport you into someone else's lived experience
Speaker 1: and someone else's life in point of view, and their
Speaker 1: struggles and their things that you would never have got,
Speaker 1: like I will never have lived through the dustbel right,
Speaker 1: but I can read John Steinbeck and have a visceral
Speaker 1: experience about how terrifying that would have been, that hardship.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And so then you go into an a line of
Speaker 1: work by government and politics and policymaking and having all this,
Speaker 1: having that ability to stretch yourself and your empathetic ability
Speaker 1: and imagination to think about lives that are different from
Speaker 1: your own but equally valid and equally valuable, makes you
Speaker 1: a better policy maker. And so I think that is
Speaker 1: something that directly influenced me. But then I also think
Speaker 1: that being black and growing up in suburban Ohio and
Speaker 1: not seeing myself reflected in broader pop culture, and then
Speaker 1: the ways that you would really cling to the representations
Speaker 1: that were occasionally offered to you, and the way that
Speaker 1: that started to change over the course of the nineties
Speaker 1: and the two thousands.
Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, Cheerios released an ad featuring a young
Speaker 2: girl who adorably misunderstands when her white mother explains that
Speaker 2: cheerios are good for the heart. Wanting to help, she
Speaker 2: pours a box of cheerios over her sleeping who was black.
Speaker 2: It was a sweet, funny moment that unintentionally sparked a
Speaker 2: national dialogue about mixed race families and identity in America.
Speaker 2: Not all of that conversation was positive. Within days, General
Speaker 2: Mills had to disable the comment on the AD's YouTube
Speaker 2: because of a wave of racist backlash. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: General Mills also said that comments supporting the ad outnumbered
Speaker 2: the hateful ones ten to one. Still, the victorial that
Speaker 2: surfaced reflected a deeper racial tension and a country that
Speaker 2: had just re elected its first black president, who notably
Speaker 2: was himself by racial carrier remembers it well.
Speaker 1: Like I even remember seeing the Cheerios commercial the little
Speaker 1: biracial girl like pouring the cereal on her dad's heart
Speaker 1: and just being like, oh my god, you know, like
Speaker 1: I've never seen it, right, and it was so memorable
Speaker 1: because you've never seen anything like that. I'd never seen
Speaker 1: anything like that before, and so that those types of
Speaker 1: moments are really really emotionally for me. And then finally
Speaker 1: I think that there's just we've seen it. We've seen
Speaker 1: the proof is in the pudding. We've seen it over
Speaker 1: and over again. It's not a coincidence that the number
Speaker 1: one show in television in the years preceding Barack Obama's
Speaker 1: election was twenty four, where the president was a black
Speaker 1: former senator basketball star with a with like a high
Speaker 1: moral compass, and then years later, like you know, seventy
Speaker 1: million people watch the show every week, week after week
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, and then Barack Obama
Speaker 1: shows up and people are like, oh, he actually seems
Speaker 1: familiar to me. That doesn't feel like this massive departure
Speaker 1: from something that exists in my life and in my world.
Speaker 1: Will and Grace Rosie O'Donnell Ellen DeGeneres. When we started
Speaker 1: trying to advocate for gay rights and for LGBTQ equality
Speaker 1: and for all marriage equality, all of these things, there
Speaker 1: was this cultural precedent that let people know what was
Speaker 1: on the other sid side of the change that we
Speaker 1: were asking them to make. And these the people who
Speaker 1: loved these characters, were like, I want the best for them,
Speaker 1: and therefore I would I refuse to deny the rights
Speaker 1: any longer. And so culture shows up and allows us
Speaker 1: to imagine what is possible and why should what our
Speaker 1: values that truly are or could be, and then we
Speaker 1: can legislate and policy make around them. So I think,
Speaker 1: both from my own personal experience, but also what I've
Speaker 1: seen in governors, like from serving governors, off if we've
Speaker 1: been in the White House, if there is a cultural
Speaker 1: precedent to something, it is a lot easier to create
Speaker 1: laws and legislation around it than it is if you're
Speaker 1: asking people to embrace a change that they don't know
Speaker 1: what's on the other side of. Right, there was all
Speaker 1: this sort of white space and the cultural imagination around
Speaker 1: what the ACA could be, what Obamacare could be, what
Speaker 1: national health care could be. And so the right filled
Speaker 1: that white space up with like, say, we are pale
Speaker 1: and talking about death panels. And that was so easy
Speaker 1: to do because people didn't know what it was. There
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't like er was do. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, what, we should have nationalized healthcare. All of
Speaker 1: these problems would be solved that Da Datta Dug Gray's
Speaker 1: anatomy isn't about that, like if but if they had been,
Speaker 1: maybe that would have been a little bit easier and
Speaker 1: less contentious of a policy to implement.
Speaker 2: Well, I've never really thought about that before, but that
Speaker 2: makes so much sense that really the job of culture
Speaker 2: can be to help people imagine a future that it's
Speaker 2: better than the future that we have now, and what
Speaker 2: it might look like, what it might look like to
Speaker 2: have marriage equality, affordable healthcare, like all of these things
Speaker 2: that we want, but maybe it's a little hard to
Speaker 2: imagine what it would actually look like or be like
Speaker 2: or feel like if we had these things, it's about
Speaker 2: future like world building and future looking.
Speaker 1: Or the opposite. Right, Like, one of the most popular
Speaker 1: shows in the country right now is Yellowstone, and that's
Speaker 1: been true for years and years, And what does that
Speaker 1: show about? That shows about a patriarch who runs for governor,
Speaker 1: who operates outside the law, murders people, does whatever he wants,
Speaker 1: but still gets to be the hero, right, And like
Speaker 1: that's a hell of the show. I love Yellowstone, I've
Speaker 1: seen every episode. But is it good for society? Probably not.
Speaker 1: I mean it makes figure Donald Trump and figures like
Speaker 1: him seem familiar, seem reasonable, seem like the hero when
Speaker 1: they are not it's all fun and games on a
Speaker 1: cattle ranch in Montana. But like we're talking about real
Speaker 1: people's lives, and yet we are allowing the John Dutton
Speaker 1: and not even a good as good of one to
Speaker 1: be the president. Like what are we doing? But again,
Speaker 1: like that culture allows us, like normalizes and kind of
Speaker 1: really passively sets the parameters for the political outcomes that
Speaker 1: we see in the country.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: A few years ago.
Speaker 2: It was kind of a given that people who made
Speaker 2: and cared about culture the kind of culture that anybody
Speaker 2: was really paying attention to anyway, were not people on
Speaker 2: the right. But today things have really changed. They may
Speaker 2: not have Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but from podcasts to streaming,
Speaker 2: a lot of the most powerful voices at the forefront
Speaker 2: of culture are right wing internet personalities that you might
Speaker 2: not have ever heard of. Tell us about this new
Speaker 2: cultural celebrity ecosystem, because I feel it, I see it.
Speaker 2: It's hard to it's hard to verbalize, but like, you
Speaker 2: know it when you see it, and you feel it
Speaker 2: when it's there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so like Trump is actually not even
Speaker 1: particularly individually responsible for this. But ages ago, not ages ago,
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, the best and brightest
Speaker 1: sort of thinkers in the conservative movement understood that the
Speaker 1: things that made Democrats powerful and meant that they would
Speaker 1: win elections was culture and the cultural narrative of the
Speaker 1: country and people and so storytelling and unions basically, and
Speaker 1: they systematically have tried to either dismantle or take over both.
Speaker 1: So unions have never been less potent in American life
Speaker 1: than they are right now. And then two they started
Speaker 1: making these massive investments in culture that they understood that
Speaker 1: culture reinforced progressive values that leaned more towards democrats, and
Speaker 1: so they started creating their own distribution platforms. They started
Speaker 1: creating their own stars and farming talent and investing in
Speaker 1: people like Ben Shapiro in The Daily Wire, who then
Speaker 1: built these massive audiences for and shifted consumer demand. We
Speaker 1: know that the average American spends four to six hours
Speaker 1: watching video content today, and so the right started meeting
Speaker 1: that demand and giving them content that would bring them further,
Speaker 1: bring your generalized audience further and further and further to
Speaker 1: the right. And we've seen it work extraordinarily while as
Speaker 1: young men, but we're also seeing it in things like
Speaker 1: tradwives and like very kind of conservative takes on how
Speaker 1: women should be and how we should dress and makeup
Speaker 1: desorrows and all of this stuff. And so they did
Speaker 1: it over digital, and then it really sort of created
Speaker 1: the self fulfilling, the self feeding machine, where Hollywood, which
Speaker 1: is a commercial enterprise, Hollywood is not a social good,
Speaker 1: like none of these television studios care about social good.
Speaker 1: They care about making money. And they saw that there
Speaker 1: was this demand for these more kind of conservative esque
Speaker 1: worldview types of shows, programs make talent, and so they
Speaker 1: started getting into the game as well, and we started
Speaker 1: seeing it show up in TV and movies. And so
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, because he's such an entertainer, say what
Speaker 1: you want. I have a lot of critiques and criticisms
Speaker 1: of this man, but like, he is entertaining, and he
Speaker 1: seems fun, and he seems like he's having a good time.
Speaker 1: And so he understood very quickly and very intuitively the
Speaker 1: power of these entertainers. And he always has. He was
Speaker 1: always on WWF or WWE. He was always He's on
Speaker 1: the Apprentice, right, the massive, massive television star. He was
Speaker 1: doing the cameos in Home Alone. Like, he understands the
Speaker 1: power popularity and the power of sort of mass media
Speaker 1: and pop culture to ensure a particular outcome or at
Speaker 1: least vastly increase the likelihood of a particular outcome. And
Speaker 1: so he really doubled down, and his campaign really doubled down.
Speaker 1: They recognize that his celebrity and his ability to be
Speaker 1: like Johnny good Times on a four hour lives was
Speaker 1: this massive strength of his and so they had him
Speaker 1: out there, they had him showing up, they had him
Speaker 1: really participating in the rules of the game, of the
Speaker 1: digital sphere and sort of broader culture and entertainment, and
Speaker 1: they just understood it a lot better than we did. Right.
Speaker 1: Andrew Breitbart, who's again like this like kind of founding
Speaker 1: father of the modern conservative movement, understood culture in a
Speaker 1: really potent way. And they have very quietly, over the
Speaker 1: course of the last fifteen years been taking over culture
Speaker 1: in a way that we have not. We have on
Speaker 1: the left been really passive about right for so long,
Speaker 1: culture was just inadvertently on our side without there having
Speaker 1: to be much interaction or intervention on our part, and
Speaker 1: so we just sort of allowed it to happen. And
Speaker 1: so now you see these guys with these massive platforms,
Speaker 1: the Logan Paul, the Joe Rogan's, the Neelk Boys, all
Speaker 1: of these guys, THEO Vaughn, right, and they're all like,
Speaker 1: they're all really really good at what they do, the
Speaker 1: aiden rosses of the world. It might not be your taste,
Speaker 1: but they are incredibly good at what they do, and
Speaker 1: they operate incredibly so incredibly sophisticated ways they platform each other,
Speaker 1: they interact with one another. They seem like they're having
Speaker 1: a great time. And President Trump is just like, I
Speaker 1: will give you all the time and attention you want.
Speaker 1: You can come to the inauguration, you can come to
Speaker 1: these parties, you can fly around on the plane. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be great and it works.
Speaker 2: Right. I am in the middle of a research fellowship
Speaker 2: at Harvard's Brookman Klein Center studying exactly this phenomena, right,
Speaker 2: Like I'm a podcaster. You're a podcaster. When you go
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts, the top fifty podcasts are all the
Speaker 2: shows that you've just mentioned. And the thing that gets
Speaker 2: me is, and I could tuckle day about this is
Speaker 2: I do think that, specifically in podcasting, we let these
Speaker 2: voices and these platforms grow to be astronomical in size,
Speaker 2: in reach, and influence while simultaneously being like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: what happens in these spaces doesn't really matter. It's just
Speaker 2: two guys in a garage talking.
Speaker 1: Who cares.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, I would argue that some of those some of
Speaker 2: those guys with microphones and their garages are in their
Speaker 2: dorms or whatever. Are the reasons why being out another
Speaker 2: Trump presidency. Right during the inauguration, That's who Trump's team
Speaker 2: exupplicitly shouted out. It was people like THEO Vonn want to.
Speaker 1: Bet the note Boys, Aiden Ross Uh, THEO Vaughn Bottle
Speaker 1: with the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty
Speaker 1: and powerful Joe Rogan.
Speaker 3: What do we do with that?
Speaker 2: Like, there are still people who don't recognize the massive
Speaker 2: power that these platforms hold while they continue to build
Speaker 2: that power and influence.
Speaker 1: Wait, if you're not recognizing the power of these guys
Speaker 1: and like, you're just not a serious person, Like I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's going on. You're out of touch,
Speaker 1: or you're naive, or you're you're just in a closed
Speaker 1: loop of information. Because it's incredibly obvious and very serious people,
Speaker 1: and there's all the data to support it. Like it's
Speaker 1: not my intuition, this, it's it is fact. And so
Speaker 1: if people aren't taking that seriously, then like because they're
Speaker 1: not serious. Oh, I mean I don't know what to say. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you can send me an email, we can talk about it.
Speaker 1: And so, but you're right, I think that for too long,
Speaker 1: and I'm guilty of this too. A couple of years
Speaker 1: ago I would have been like, who cares about any
Speaker 1: of this? But about a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, it's a disaster, you know.
Speaker 1: But that's but we all want to you know, liberals
Speaker 1: want to read the New York Times, in the Washington
Speaker 1: Post or whatever semaphore and overly rely on journalism and
Speaker 1: really poop poo culture and really poopoo entertained. And that's
Speaker 1: just where that's where everyone is like, I don't. It's
Speaker 1: been a massive judge, it's been a massive wrong choice
Speaker 1: that we have made around how we how we think
Speaker 1: about how information moves through the country and interacts with individuals' lives,
Speaker 1: and to be perfectly honest, even when we do quote
Speaker 1: unquote get it, we don't, we still don't.
Speaker 2: As a podcaster, I was deeply fascinated watching the role
Speaker 2: that podcasting played in the last presidential election. People even
Speaker 2: called it the podcast election, and I kind of agree.
Speaker 2: Trump recognized the power of podcasts early on, from Joe
Speaker 2: Rogan tot Theovonn's This Past Weekend to the Nelk Boys's
Speaker 2: Full Send podcast Say what you Will about Trump, and
Speaker 2: lord knows I do. He used the podcast ecosystem effectively
Speaker 2: to get himself out there. Vice President Harrimis got points
Speaker 2: for an appearance on Alex Cooper's super popular Sex and
Speaker 2: Relationships podcast Call her Daddy a smart move for sure,
Speaker 2: but call her Daddy's listeners who call themselves the Daddy
Speaker 2: Gang have come to expect certain things of the guests
Speaker 2: of the podcast. For instance, guests usually share an emotional
Speaker 2: story about their romantic lives. Host Alex Cooper usually wear
Speaker 2: sweatpants and now did the shows let's call it relaxed style.
Speaker 2: So how did Harris show up to this platform?
Speaker 1: One of my sort of pet peeves from the of
Speaker 1: which I have several, but one of my pet peeves
Speaker 1: from the Harris campaign in twenty twenty four was the
Speaker 1: was not even just that I'm happy that they did
Speaker 1: call her daddy, but like the manner in which they
Speaker 1: did it right. And so if you compare and you
Speaker 1: can trash, I think I think Kamala Harris did an
Speaker 1: extraordinary job. She was given a totally raw deal. She
Speaker 1: was not served well by that campaign, and we can
Speaker 1: have that conversation in a different way. But even when
Speaker 1: they would do thing I call her daddy right, they
Speaker 1: make Alex come to her. She doesn't wear a hoodie,
Speaker 1: she doesn't talk about sex or doug or it's not
Speaker 1: a particularly like intimate or warm conversation, there was no
Speaker 1: airing of an insecurity, and she broke the format of
Speaker 1: the show. Alex Cooper has built something extraordinary and she's
Speaker 1: done it on purpose, like call her Daddy? Is that
Speaker 1: way on purpose? Because it works because that's what the
Speaker 1: audience wants, because that's what Alex wants. And so Kama
Speaker 1: came on and she broke the form. She made the
Speaker 1: show conformed to her. She went on Charlemagne and didn't
Speaker 1: obey the rules of the show. She made the show
Speaker 1: fit her rules. She went she talked about talking points
Speaker 1: and Charlemagne tried to get hers Like you called her
Speaker 1: out for it, and like she gave a peppy, sassy answer,
Speaker 1: I get it, Like that's called this discipline. I get it.
Speaker 1: You're right, and you are not actually doing yourself any
Speaker 1: favors by going on a show that viewers have an
Speaker 1: anticipated operates in a certain way, that has rules about
Speaker 1: how it is governed, that has a structure about how
Speaker 1: it works, and then breaking that form. It actually makes
Speaker 1: it much more difficult for people to hear what you're
Speaker 1: trying to say, and they're not turning into sharpes tuning
Speaker 1: into Charlemagne for a policy lesson like people know where
Speaker 1: to go if they want a sermon, they know where
Speaker 1: to go if they want a lecture, and it's not
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the Gods Show, and it's not called her Daddy.
Speaker 1: And so that was really, i think, really poorly executed
Speaker 1: on behalf of the campaign. She got bad strategic advice
Speaker 1: about how to appear on those shows, and it did
Speaker 1: her a real disservice because we know she's that girl.
Speaker 1: We know she loves talking about dud we know she
Speaker 1: can ki key, we know she can sit with the
Speaker 1: girls and do the thing. We know she can sit
Speaker 1: with the brothers and do the thing. And they didn't.
Speaker 1: She didn't. She did not give the advice to do that.
Speaker 1: You can trast out with how Donald Trump showed up
Speaker 1: and he would show up. I've listened to him on
Speaker 1: the Nolf Boys, I've listened to him on Aiden Ross. Right,
Speaker 1: he shows up, He's like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 1: You tell me how we're gonna do this? Am I
Speaker 1: here for three hours? Okay? I do?
Speaker 4: Like what are And he's just like kiking and having
Speaker 4: great time, and he's showing up with some respect and
Speaker 4: consideration for these massive things and these massive entertainment properties
Speaker 4: that these individual talents have built, and is like, I
Speaker 4: will do what your audience has said that they want
Speaker 4: by tuning in every week, and I will, I will
Speaker 4: conform to the to the boundaries.
Speaker 3: Of the form.
Speaker 1: And it works. And that's why his appearances on these
Speaker 1: things are so much more successful. Not only did he
Speaker 1: do volume, he did way more than she did, but
Speaker 1: he also did it in the right way. And we
Speaker 1: have got to be training our candidates and our leaders
Speaker 1: and our people to do a better job of this.
Speaker 1: AOC spectacular that she gets it. She's intuitive, She's like,
Speaker 1: is she gonna show up on something? She shows up appropriately,
Speaker 1: show she knows what the audience wan, she gives, she
Speaker 1: understands the assignment, and she aces it right, but that
Speaker 1: she can't do it by herself, Like she can't put
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party on her back and climb us up
Speaker 1: the hill. Same with Jasmincrockett, same with Senator Chris Murphy.
Speaker 1: So the small number of people who get how this works,
Speaker 1: like needs needs some more help. And I know that
Speaker 1: people are trying. I know that you see a bunch
Speaker 1: of influencers going to the hill and trying to get
Speaker 1: these Congress people to get it together, which is great,
Speaker 1: but yeah, at least for this round, it's too little,
Speaker 1: too late.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think you're really onto something about how
Speaker 2: it shows a further devaluing of or misunderstanding of the
Speaker 2: power of this of culture and the power of these
Speaker 2: spaces because call her daddy for instance, the platform that
Speaker 2: she has built has so much power. What do you
Speaker 2: get from going on the show and leaning away from
Speaker 2: the power of that platform being like, oh the little thing,
Speaker 2: Like like, what do you get from that?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, as if anyone like
Speaker 1: because I think there's this this this obsession that Democrats
Speaker 1: have that is really I mean, I remember this in
Speaker 1: the Obama era.
Speaker 5: It was just like this this continued path, a logical
Speaker 5: belief that if only people understood the policy better, they
Speaker 5: would know that we were the right pick.
Speaker 1: And it's like if anyone get cared, if the American
Speaker 1: voter cared about policy, or enough American voters cared about policy,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren would be president. Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: So why are you putting her on these shows to
Speaker 1: deliver policy talking points? Like that the political reporters at
Speaker 1: Politico or The New York times might care about that,
Speaker 1: but like voters don't. Obviously they care about having a
Speaker 1: president that seems like they're like them. And that's not
Speaker 1: what we were doing.
Speaker 2: And I get why it might be tempting to kind
Speaker 2: of dig in your heels and plug your ears and
Speaker 2: say lah la lah, that's not true, but it's not
Speaker 2: getting us anywhere.
Speaker 1: Like it or not true.
Speaker 2: But what you just said is the truth. And so
Speaker 2: like I do sometimes get frustrated that I feel like
Speaker 2: they are trying to serve something that does not align
Speaker 2: with the reality that you just articulated, which I agree with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like it doesn't come from a mess,
Speaker 1: it comes from the right place. I get it. People
Speaker 1: should care about this stuff. We want them to care
Speaker 1: about this stuff. The problem that they don't, And so like,
Speaker 1: play the game that's actually on the table, not the
Speaker 1: one that you wish was on the table.
Speaker 5: More.
Speaker 2: After a quick break, le's get right back into it.
Speaker 2: Everyone is talking about the role that culture can play
Speaker 2: in shaping politics for better or worse now, but Carrie's
Speaker 2: been talking about it for a really long time since
Speaker 2: she was in the Obama White House.
Speaker 1: And it's those.
Speaker 2: Conversations that seated her newest project, the podcast Twig and Jenkins,
Speaker 2: It really sits at this very interesting intersection of politics
Speaker 2: and culture. Are through the show, are you trying to
Speaker 2: sort of shape both?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess honestly, Brad Jenkins and I shared
Speaker 1: an office at the White House for five years, and
Speaker 1: so he's the homie, you know, like that's the that's
Speaker 1: the that's my big dog. And so he and I
Speaker 1: just yap all the time anyway and terrorize each other
Speaker 1: with our opinions, and so we just sort of inflicted
Speaker 1: up decided to inflict it on the on the public.
Speaker 1: And I think in these times when there isn't there's
Speaker 1: so there's very very few binary right wrong answers in
Speaker 1: this moment, right There's a lot of analysis, a lot
Speaker 1: of data, a lot of ways of interpreting what's going
Speaker 1: on in a country this big and this complex often
Speaker 1: almost doesn't have a right answer. And so I think
Speaker 1: a huge part of what Brad and I are doing
Speaker 1: on the show is as much for us as for
Speaker 1: anyone else, which is just like teasing out what some
Speaker 1: of those different ways of interpreting what's going on are
Speaker 1: and then meaning making of them, like trying to make
Speaker 1: sense of what's actually happening, and then also sharing a
Speaker 1: perspective that doesn't get a ton of a ton of play, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty upset, or not upset, it's not the right word,
Speaker 1: but I feel pretty underwhelmed and unserved by political coverage.
Speaker 1: I feel incredibly poorly served by cultural coverage. And so
Speaker 1: the I think there are just obvious realities to both
Speaker 1: Brad and I because we both said we both were
Speaker 1: in politics, serve in the Obama administration, left and went
Speaker 1: into culture work. And so there are things about politics
Speaker 1: that feel really obvious to us but don't seem super
Speaker 1: obvious to people who don't come to it from a
Speaker 1: cultural lens. And then there's stuff about our culture that
Speaker 1: seems really obvious to us that isn't obvious to people
Speaker 1: in culture because they're not coming to it from a
Speaker 1: political lens. And so I think we just are trying
Speaker 1: to almost serve as a bridge between the two. It's
Speaker 1: like the people over here, like people in culture, you
Speaker 1: guys need to be paying attention to like this particular
Speaker 1: part of politics and this particular thing. We recognize that
Speaker 1: no one's paying attention to all of it, But like
Speaker 1: here's something we want to point and signal to something
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't miss or that you should be flagging.
Speaker 1: And then in politics we want to do the same right,
Speaker 1: so like serve as a bridge to culture. It's too
Speaker 1: much to try and follow all of it. You're not
Speaker 1: going to We all have a limited ability to think
Speaker 1: about every thing when you're trying to like live your
Speaker 1: life and drink your water and get your electrolytes or
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, plus do your career, plus you know,
Speaker 1: plan for fascism. So like, here're the handful of things
Speaker 1: that you should be paying attention to that are showing
Speaker 1: up in culture that you're going to have to interact
Speaker 1: with at some point down the road. So I think
Speaker 1: we very much think of ourselves as like a bridge
Speaker 1: between the two, just to bring them a little bit
Speaker 1: closer into dialogue and or be a cheat sheet if
Speaker 1: you're further on one end of the spectrum than the other,
Speaker 1: and just sort of like, here's a couple of things
Speaker 1: that you should be paying attention to.
Speaker 2: I love that term a bridge, because I do think
Speaker 2: for a long time there was this attitude where culture
Speaker 2: was over here and like politics was over here, and
Speaker 2: the reality of how people live their lives is that
Speaker 2: it's it's like a then diagram or that then diagram
Speaker 2: is a circle where culture and politics are borrowing from
Speaker 2: each other and there in a lot of ways are
Speaker 2: like the same thing. And I think you're right that
Speaker 2: we don't have a lot of media that refer that
Speaker 2: in the way that I think that it needs to
Speaker 2: be reflected, like unserved. Something about that word really speaks
Speaker 2: to me because it's like a hole in my diet.
Speaker 1: That I didn't even kind of realize needed to be filled. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: totally and yoc Sergent, we had him on the podcast
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago and he said something really interesting,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, politics is where some people are
Speaker 1: some of the time, but culture is where everyone is
Speaker 1: all of the time. And I think we lose sight
Speaker 1: of that, especially those of us in politics full time.
Speaker 1: I think we really lose sight of how much anyone
Speaker 1: is paying attention anything related to politics. I remember I
Speaker 1: grew up in Ohio and I was working when I
Speaker 1: was in the White House at the time, and I
Speaker 1: was home for something, and you know, ran into somebody
Speaker 1: I knew, or was talking to one of my girl's boyfriends,
Speaker 1: or something, and they were like, so what do you do?
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I worked for the president
Speaker 1: and they're like, the president of what? And I was
Speaker 1: like right, like that doesn't mean any like and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, President Obama and they were like, oh cool.
Speaker 1: Like I usually get a different response, you know, I
Speaker 1: usually get a little bit more feedback, But that's because
Speaker 1: I'm usually telling people that in DC, right, right, and
Speaker 1: that means something, But it doesn't mean anything to people
Speaker 1: in Columbus, Ohio, like not really other than like, oh God,
Speaker 1: is she gonna talk to me about politics? So I
Speaker 1: think we underestimate how how little we're how little they're
Speaker 1: thinking about us when it comes to cultural impact.
Speaker 2: Is it over for us? Have we given up too
Speaker 2: much of the game when it comes to culture? Do
Speaker 2: you see us gaining any ground here?
Speaker 1: Well, there's nowhere to go but up from where we are,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean they are running the board. We
Speaker 1: don't live in a monoculture, right, and so there's no
Speaker 1: one there's no one winner at any given point in time.
Speaker 1: But I think that the trend lines are trending towards
Speaker 1: them and have been for a while, much longer than
Speaker 1: we've been comfortable or willing to admit. And I think
Speaker 1: they have a lot of momentum in trajectory on their side.
Speaker 1: That said, trends change really quickly, like I'm wearing baggy
Speaker 1: pants again, you know what I mean? And like side
Speaker 1: eye people and skinny jeans, so like check a picture
Speaker 1: of me from five years ago. It's like who knew
Speaker 1: that was? Trends can change really really quickly, but not
Speaker 1: on accident. Like we need to start investing way more
Speaker 1: cash into these cult into culture makers, into platforms beyond
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram. We need to be investing in podcasters
Speaker 1: like you, like Twig and Jenkins. We need to be
Speaker 1: making sure that we're all appearing on each other's shows,
Speaker 1: that we're all representing and digging each other up, that
Speaker 1: we're working on big projects together, that we're paying attention,
Speaker 1: like getting rid of the like hold my nose and
Speaker 1: be sanctimonious and uppity about other about what they've done
Speaker 1: on the right, like if any I don't care if
Speaker 1: a podcast has seven hundred subscribers, Every single elected official,
Speaker 1: every single person that cares about anything to do with
Speaker 1: making the world a better place should be doing two
Speaker 1: three hours of podcast time a week. Like, if you're
Speaker 1: a senator, there is someone in your state that has
Speaker 1: a podcast about what happens at the grocery store, I
Speaker 1: want you on it. Like, what are you doing, baby,
Speaker 1: You're in call time trying to raise all this cash?
Speaker 1: Do two to three hours of podcast time per week?
Speaker 1: Don't want to hear about it? TIK, don't pixt me,
Speaker 1: don't DM me in October asking for some shit. I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear it, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: none of that dig the well before you're thirsty. It's
Speaker 1: really basic, and so like all of that has to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know who's doing it. There should
Speaker 1: be a podcast studio in the DNC building. The whole
Speaker 1: thing should be turned into a content studio. You don't
Speaker 1: know what they're doing over there. It's like we're so
Speaker 1: far behind, but now it's just about our cat like
Speaker 1: it can change. We will, of course have trajectory. Again,
Speaker 1: these are fads, These are things that go in and
Speaker 1: out of fashion. But again, you have to build it.
Speaker 1: You have to take advantage of the opportunities that exist
Speaker 1: and invest in talent and invest in people who want
Speaker 1: to participate in this infrastructure.
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I
Speaker 2: just want to say hi. You can reach us that
Speaker 2: hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 2: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet was created by me, which It's had.
Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Stricklet
Speaker 2: as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our pretty and
Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
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