A look at how the rise of conservative podcasts shaped young men’s political identities, fueled Trump’s reelection—and what it means for the future of gender, media and democracy.
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s reelection victory, in America’s first “podcast election,” commentators and political strategists agreed that his unexpected success with 18- to 29-year-old male voters owed a lot to his campaign’s media strategy. The Trump team’s decision to have the candidate appear on numerous “brocasts” with popular hosts who have large, predominantly young male audiences had paid off handsomely. And the days of candidates carefully curating their images through speeches and selective interviews, and with legacy media outlets controlling political narratives, were clearly coming to an end.
The brocast universe played an outsize role in the 2024 election, even though many of its key figures don’t see themselves as especially political. Many of the podcasts that had Trump on as a guest focus less on politics and policy than on guys just “hanging out” and shooting the breeze about things like comedy and sports. The Trump campaign intuited, in ways the Democrats are only now beginning to understand, that in this new media environment, if politicians want to win young men’s votes, they need to enter those spaces and appear authentic and relatable.
Both Trump and Kamala Harris went on podcasts, but the Trump campaign made it a priority. Forbes reported that Trump appeared on at least 13 podcasts, which included three of the top five on Spotify: The Joe Rogan Experience, the Shawn Ryan Show and This Past Weekend With Theo Von. Rogan’s interview alone garnered more than 59 million views on YouTube.
Trump’s inner circle certainly believed the brocast strategy was crucial to his win. Just after Trump’s victory speech on Nov. 6, he turned the microphone over to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) CEO Dana White, who passionately thanked several podcasters for the role they played.
“I want to thank the Nelk Boys,” he exclaimed, “Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With the Boys and, last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan!”
Most of those podcasts feature comics and others talking about relationships, sports, self-improvement, working out, eating healthy, financial success and other nonpolitical topics, all discussed in a spirit of jocular camaraderie. The Nelk Boys, for example, are known for their pranks, parties and crude humor. The opportunity these sorts of podcasts afford political candidates—especially if they happen to be conventionally masculine—is the chance to shoot the breeze and prove their masculine street cred.
It surely is not a coincidence that podcasts with largely male audiences—Rogan’s is 80 percent male, according to Edison Research—exploded in a period when young men face a “loneliness epidemic,” since they offer their followers a feeling of brotherhood and belonging.
All of this proved to be fertile terrain for Trump’s campaign. As Brian Barrett put it in Wired, “Trump sat with all of [the brocasters], often for hours, reaching millions of conservative or apolitical people, cementing his status as one of them, a sigma, a guy with clout, and the apex of a model of masculinity that prioritizes fame as a virtue unto itself. For many young voters who weren’t paying attention in 2016 and 2020, a generation that overwhelmingly gets their news from social media feeds rather than mainstream outlets, this was also their first real exposure to Trump.”
This article is part of “Ms. on Men: Rethinking Masculinity in the Wake of the 2025 Election,” a special Summer 2025 feature guest-edited by Jackson Katz. The excerpt below comes from Katz’s full-length article in the print issue, where he explores how conservative media figures like Joe Rogan have shaped modern masculinity—and what that means for the future of democracy. To read the full piece, join the Ms. community—you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox—or order a single copy of the Summer issue for just $5.
Great Job Jackson Katz & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
