Flux Podcasts (Formerly Theory of Change)

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  • Flux is a progressive podcast platform, with daily content from shows like Theory of Change, Doomscroll, and The Electorette.
    Flux Community Media and its partners
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Economics Management Political Science
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Episodes
  • One of the biggest reasons there is no left-wing Joe Rogan: Democrats lost interest in debate and persuasion

    One of the biggest reasons there is no left-wing Joe Rogan: Democrats lost interest in debate and persuasion
    Dec 19 2024
    Episode Summary Following her recent electoral defeat, many people have questioned why Kamala Harris didn't go on to the podcast of Joe Rogan, the standup comedian and sports commentator who has the number-one podcast in the world.For the record, Harris’s former advisers have said that they tried to coordinate a time with Rogan, but they very obviously did not make it a priority.The more interesting related question that other people have been asking post election is why is there no left-wing Joe Rogan?The immediate answer is that there is not a full-service Democratic ecosystem that includes media, legal, and local components. There are also some larger reasons why Rogan and other libertarian-oriented people have signed up with the Republican Party, after having hated it in the 1990s and 2000s when party was less radical.But there are some more specific reasons for why Rogan and people like him have become de facto Republicans that are especially relevant since Rogan himself once supported the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders—and they involve how the Democratic Party communicates, or rather, doesn’t, to the public. In recent decades, Democrats and the American left as a whole have moved to a communication strategy which focuses more on controlling the message in every possible way rather than trying to forcefully advocate and explain its ideas to people who have never heard them. On issues of science, economics, race, climate, gender, and regulation, Democrats have, by and large, resorted to blindly pointing to expert consensus rather than making the case to the uninformed.Joining me to discuss on this episode is Lisa Corrigan, she’s a professor of communications and gender studies at the University of Arkansas. She’s also the author of several different books, including Prison Power: How Prison Influenced the Movement for Black Liberation.The video of our December 9, 2024 discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.Related Content—How podcasts became a key source of news and entertainment for millions of Americans—Right-wing comedy isn’t particularly funny, but it’s extremely effective at persuading low-information voters—Joe Rogan and the epidemic of pseudo-expertise—Former establishment Republican have made the Democratic party more conservative, and less electorally successful—As libertarianism has radicalized, some of Silicon Valley's biggest names are turning toward fascism—Why Christian authoritarians and atheistic libertarians decided to meet in the middle—The ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ and the long history of right-wing rebranding—How the Donald Trump fandom completely reshaped the Republican media ecosystemAudio Chapters00:00 — Introduction03:24 — Democratic leaders' excessive desire to control all media encounters08:42 — Howard Stern, Joe Rogan, and the rise to dominance of casual infotainment14:05 — Democrats have lost the urge and the ability to debate23:11 — Democrats' post-graduate economic bubble27:06 — Republicans overthrew their obsolete party establishment, can Democrats?31:38 — How "The West Wing" encouraged Democrats to adopt a fictional communications strategy35:08 — Kamala Harris's initial media interview strategy and Democrats' total risk aversion39:56 — Trump targeted disengaged Americans with media appearances, Harris with advertisements42:39 — Why did Democrats lose ground with women despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade?46:49 — The Democratic Party doesn't want to talk to low-information voters54:40 — As Democrats have won more prosperous voters, they've become less interested in economic populism59:20 — The ALEC behemoth outside the Beltway01:03:19 — ConclusionAudio TranscriptThe following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Lisa Corrigan. Welcome to Theory of Change, Lisa.LISA CORRIGAN: Thanks for having me.SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So I think one of the questions that is almost inescapable in the 2024 election post mortems is, is why is there no left wing Joe Rogan?But it's a very strange and weird question to ask because Joe Rogan was a Bernie Sanders.CORRIGAN: He certainly was. Yeah.I think there's no tolerance in the Democratic Party for class analysis, and I think that there is. a class [00:03:00] politics that really chafes at someone like Rogan's style,And also that he's not controllable. So they prefer to control, highly control their own media, such as it is. And so I think we can read that as a sort of intolerance and lack of curiosity, not just about Rogan, but also his audience.SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm. Well, okay.Democratic leaders' excessive desire to control all media encountersSHEFFIELD: So, but when you say, I think, I agree with you when you say that the, ...
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Local political ecosystems are vital to protecting democracy nationally

    Local political ecosystems are vital to protecting democracy nationally
    Dec 9 2024
    Episode Summary Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump came as a huge surprise to many Democratic Party loyalists, especially since Republicans had a number of serious defeats in elections in 2018 and in 2022, and abortion rights ballot initiatives prevailed in every state where the public had voted on them since the Republican Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. So what happened? We've talked on this program at length in several episodes about how Democrats have failed enormously to invest in advocacy media to the degree that Republicans have. But a political ecosystem isn’t just about national media, it’s also about how things work at the local level as well. And in that regard, the Republican Party is also very superior to Democrats. Working together and individually in cities and towns across America, fundamentalist religious organizations and local talk radio hosts are constantly explaining Republican viewpoints to the public, taking the message to Americans who don’t follow politics closely.While they may not understand all the particulars, these citizens believe that there are people in their communities who are looking out for them. They can see and talk to people who explain the world and tell them what they can do about it.Within the Democratic Party, however, these types of local political institutions are sometimes regarded as antiquated or absurd. This was not always so. In the past, labor union halls and liberal religious communities were places where people were able to learn that progress isn’t something that happens, it’s something that’s made.The right’s huge advantage at the local level has been in place for a long time, as sociologist Theda Skocpol documented in 1995:“The Democratic party no longer has a national, locally rooted infrastructure of loyal local organizations and allied groups (such as labor unions) through which concerted grass-roots political campaigns can be run. The conservatives right now have such an infrastructure, in the form of grass-roots Christian fundamentalist groups and Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio. But Democrats depend on pollsters, media consultants, and television to get messages out to the citizenry. Yet pollsters and political consultants tend to think in terms of appealing labels (‘Health Security’) and advertising slogans (‘security that can never be taken away’) rather than in terms of explanatory discussions.”One person who understands how all of this worked in days of yore is our guest on today’s episode. His name is Eric Loomis, and he's a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island. He’s written several different books, including A History of America in Ten Strikes. And he’s also a writer at the blog Lawyers, Guns, & Money. The video of this discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.Theory of Change and Flux are entirely community-supported. We need your help to keep doing this. Please subscribe to stay in touch.Related ContentHow the decline of the Black church is helping Republicans make inroads with young peopleThe middle class is being destroyed, Democrats need to stop saying everything is greatThe 2024 election was decided by people who disliked both Harris and TrumpDemocrats must do more than attack Donald Trump to winRepublicans took over the judiciary while liberals were pretending that jurisprudence was a scienceAmericans want progressive change, but to be able to deliver it, progressives will need to change firstThe science behind why Donald Trump loves the ‘poorly educated’Audio Chapters00:00 — Introduction05:58 — Democrats only talk to their voters for three months every two years10:28 — How local organizations preserve collective memory and protect democracy13:50 — The decline of unions and liberal religion has significantly hurt the Democratic party29:02 — Why reproductive freedom didn't save Democrats in 202432:38 — The rise of AOC-Trump voters36:15 — Biden's communication failures made it so no one knew about his policies41:59 — Operationally, Democrats are more conservative than Republicans45:36 — Economic and social justice need each other to succeed52:13 — Campaigns need coherent and simple narratives to win01:02:06 — Conclusion Audio TranscriptThe following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Eric Loomis. Welcome to the show, Eric.ERIK LOOMIS: Very happy to be here. Thank you for having me.SHEFFIELD: So you and your co-bloggers have been tackling this idea of there's something wrong with Democrats, even before the election, you guys were kind of been edging around this point for a while, it seems [00:04:00] like.LOOMIS: Well, yeah, I mean, if you look at the election, right? In a lot of ways, and I should say...
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Democrats can’t keep telling voters that everything is fine

    Democrats can’t keep telling voters that everything is fine
    Dec 2 2024
    Episode Summary Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election was a triumph of political ecosystems and how much better the right has been in the United States at creating a full-scale ecosystem to funnel people into their party, but it also took place within a larger political environment in which many Americans are unsatisfied with the way things are. For a decades, most Americans have felt that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that the economy is getting worse. But instead of realizing this and doing something about it, rhetorically and in terms of policy, many Democratic leaders have not responded to the discontent. As I’ve discussed repeatedly over the years, right-wing propaganda plays a huge role in gaslighting Americans for the benefit of Trump and his fellow Republicans, but the situation here is more than that. While Kamala Harris was able to motivate voters in the 7 main swing states through spending over a billion dollars, outside of those states, Democrats lost millions of voters compared to 2020. In many ways, the election was decided by people who stayed home. We’re going to talk about all of this and a lot more with our guest Maura Ugarte in this episode. She is a filmmaker and professor of film at George Mason University and is the co-director of a 2012 film called Divide, which told the story of a West Virginia Democrat who was campaigning for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.Theory of Change and Flux are entirely community-supported. We need your help to keep doing this. Please subscribe on Patreon or Substack.The video of this discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.Related Content— The 2024 election was decided by people who disliked both Harris and Trump— Americans want progressive change, but to be able to deliver it, progressives will need to change first— Harris’s loss has permanently discredited timid Democratic approaches to the MAGA threat— Religious fundamentalism’s intellectual collapse powers Trump’s politics of despair— Bureaucratic obsessions are ruining America’s educational system— The science behind why Donald Trump loves the ‘poorly educated’— Elon Musk and his fellow reactionary oligarchs are much more radical than people realizeAudio Chapters00:00 — Introduction04:55 — Divide, Maura’s film about building left solidarity07:54 — How left elites fell for JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” fraud13:21 — Biden’s failure to inform the public of his popular policies16:12 — Trump’s new voters strategy and the limits of a “protect democracy” message19:56 — How Democrats missed real suffering 23:26 — The decline of public trust and Trump’s con artist pitch29:55 — How Ross Perot foreshadowed Trump’s appeal31:08 — Fascism’s critique of capitalism must be countered36:51 — The power of solidarity to beat divide and conquer45:09 — Blaming voters never works to win elections49:22 — Hopeful messages for the futureAudio TranscriptThe following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So in this podcast and my writing at Flux, I've been trying to focus on the idea of ecosystems a lot in the response to the election outcome. But one thing I want to make clear. That it's easy to say, and it is absolutely true that right wing media was a huge part of why Donald Trump won.And also, some people's thoughts about the economy are a huge part as well. Now whether that was because of propaganda, that's another thing. But it's a mistake. It's overly simplistic to think that it was just. Only those two things or, her failure to, do this or that smaller thing, there were some other [00:04:00] bigger dynamics and well, and one of them is that besides the fact that Democrats don't talk to the public, they also don't listen to the public or know what to say, even if they were talking.MAURA UGARTE: It's, it's funny though, like, in some ways, I felt like Harris was responding to political consultants who were telling her to message in a particular kind of way, which wasn't actually listening either, but like, it was just sort of this This very sort of bulleted point, if I talk about this and that and the other thing, and not talk about this, that, and the other thing, it's a winning message.SHEFFIELD: And your, you've been kind of thinking about how Democrats could listen and speak better irrespective of platforms to the public for a while. So with the the film that you co-directed as well, let's talk about that just a little bit before we get further into this particular election.UGARTE: It's funny because the thing came out in like 2012, but it seems to, and it's short. It's like 21 minutes long, and it seems to unfortunately continually be politically relevant. It was...
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    55 mins

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