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Theo Von attends a Vanderbilt football match against the Alabama Crimson Tide at FirstBank Stadium on October 5, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee. | Vanderbilt Athletics/University Images via Getty Images In 2015, when Barack Obama appeared on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, it was a big event precisely because it was a one-off — an exception rather than a rule. Almost a decade later, the media landscape has changed so completely that independent podcasters with little if any journalism experience seem to have an easier time getting a sit-down with presidential candidates than major news outlets do. Rumors have swirled of a Kamala Harris interview with Joe Rogan, the godfather of politicized “apolitical” podcasters. While that rumor is still unconfirmed, this week a Rogan sit-down with Donald Trump was confirmed, quickly followed by a new report that Harris will appear on football icon Shannon Sharpe’s podcast Club Shay Shay — all moves signaling that the role of these independent agents in the media ecosystem has become more significant than ever.  The blitz of Joe Everyman podcasts that Trump has done on the campaign trail has turned heads, from Impaulsive to Bussin’ With the Boys, as has Harris’s recent appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast and Tim Walz’s appearance on the SmartLess podcast. What these podcasters have in common — besides scoring conversations with the people vying for the White House — is that they’re nonchalantly normie. As much as a “middle” still exists in America, you can find it among this lot, a good chunk of whom claim to avoid politics, even if they can’t help stumbling into political topics.  Many of them are comedians and entertainers by profession, and few of them have worked in traditional newsrooms. They don’t all claim to be particularly well-informed about any topic on offer, and many are, at best, just casually invested in learning: Witness Theo Von’s August interview with Trump, in which he brought up serious topics, mainly the opioid epidemic, but without anything substantive to say about them. The former Road Rules star wasn’t exactly equipped to push back against any of Trump’s positions.  Call Her Daddy’s host Alex Cooper did stick mainly to substantive issues during Harris’s interview, but she was apologetic about it, reminding her audiences that she typically avoids politics “because I want Call Her Daddy to be a place where everyone feels comfortable tuning in.” The apolitical stance extends to booking as well; though no podcast has yet hosted both candidates, multiple podcasters, including Cooper and Von, have stated that they have invited both candidates to come on their shows. What, then, explains the politicians’ efforts to reach these podcast audiences? Their listener numbers, typically in the low millions, may seem small, but they’re not as small as you think. They not only rival a traditional audience of, say, 60 Minutes’ 6 million viewers, but also represent loyal listeners likely to be influenced by the podcast appearance. Still, there’s even more at work here. Let’s look at the podcasters themselves. The podcasters Adin Ross, streamer How many people are tuning in? 1.5 million Kick subscribers; 2.6 million YouTube views Who is he? Adin Ross is a notorious video game streamer. Earlier this year, out of what he indicated to Theo Von was a wish to please his sons, Trump sat down with a ring of podcasters known for covering UFC fandom. Trump has also done appearances with a range of nontraditional right-wing pundits including YouTubers and radio hosts, as has JD Vance, but the UFC circuit clearly gained him the most attention — despite very little discussion of wrestling. While all of these UFC hosts have some degree of controversy, the dubious prize for amplifying Trump most directly to the “manosphere” arguably goes to Adin Ross.  Last year, reportedly after years of flirting with being canceled, Ross was finally permanently banned from Twitch for homophobic slurs and other offensive comments. Known for hobnobbing with Andrew Tate and promoting toxic masculinity and white supremacists, Ross retreated to rival platform Kick, of which he now owns 30 percent. Though Kick is relatively niche — with 1.5 million subscribers, Ross is the platform’s biggest account — his sit-down with Trump was also cross-posted to Ross’s YouTube channel, where it’s picked up another 2.6 million views in the two months since it aired. (Ross, who’s also a fan of Elon Musk, thanked Trump for his drop-in by … gifting him a Cybertruck.) Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, also streaming on YouTube How many people are tuning in? Lots of podcast listeners; 4.7 million YouTube subscribers; 6.6 million views Who is he? A former YouTube prankster and vlogger alongside his brother Jake, Logan Paul is best known for blowing up his enormously successful career with one 2018 video in which he notoriously filmed a dead body in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. He subsequently embarked on an impressively successful redemption arc; Impaulsive, a conversational weekly podcast and YouTube stream with Paul, his co-hosts, and guests, has arguably played the biggest role in rehabilitating his former immature image into something approaching respectability. It’s currently reportedly ranked in the top 50 podcasts across all platforms. His chat with Trump was conversational, if not particularly enlightening; the pair discussed everything from aliens (Trump thinks they might exist) to AI; the deepest issue was arguably a debate about whether Mike Tyson is too old to box. Theo Von How many people are tuning in? A whole lot of podcast listeners; 3.2 million YouTube subscribers; 14 million views Who is he? The most prominent of the UFC trio, Theo Von’s This Past Weekend is reportedly in the Spotify top 20, as well as among the top 10 podcasts across all platforms nationally. Von, a former MTV reality regular turned stand-up comic turned podcaster, has only gotten bigger since his interview with Trump. The event generated a massively viral clip of Trump speculating about drug use and has since racked up a non-paltry 14 million views. Von reportedly reached out to Kamala Harris for an interview as well; he’s also since interviewed Trump’s running mate JD Vance, including an extensive conversation about Vance’s family’s struggles with addiction. He also interviewed Bernie Sanders in August. Andrew Schulz, Flagrant How many people are tuning in? 1.77 million YouTube subscribers; 4.5 million views Who is he? One of many standup comics-turned-podcasters on the list, Schulz is another comedian who, like fellow Trump interviewer Von, purports to be apolitical but nurses contrarian anti-woke takes. Another MTV alum, he co-hosts the Flagrant podcast with fellow comedian Akaash Singh; he also co-hosts the Brilliant Idiots podcast with Charlamagne tha God, who recently interviewed Harris.  It’s Trump’s erratic interview on Flagrant, which has garnered 4.5 million views in a week, that’s gotten much of the recent attention. Trump discussed the two recent assassination attempts made against him, implying at one point that both shooters may have been working with other people, including nefarious foreign entities like Iran. The rest of the interview mainly served as fodder for Schulz to make jokes and contributed little else substantive to the conversation.  That didn’t stop Schulz from facing backlash; the Brooklyn Academy of Music promptly canceled an appearance by Schulz in response to the platforming of Donald Trump. Charlamagne tha God and The Breakfast Club How many people are tuning in? More than 4 million morning radio listeners in over 80 markets; IHeartRadio has over 860 livestream stations nationwide Who is he? Among the podcasters on this list, Charlamagne tha God is arguably the one who represents traditional media, albeit of the pop culture variety. The longtime comedian first gained his following through his association with Wendy Williams and VH1. He and Schulz were regulars on MTV’s Guy Code before they joined forces on The Brilliant Idiots. Charlamagne’s real claim to fame, however, is his longtime gig as host for the syndicated New York-based morning radio show The Breakfast Club, a staple of 2010s radio that has branched into a podcast network and a YouTube channel.  The Breakfast Club, like many of the entrants on this list, clearly muddies the waters between radio show, YouTube stream, and podcast, but the show’s expanding mediums seem crucial to its longevity. The show, which was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2020, is known for featuring high-profile celebrity interviews, and Kamala Harris was no exception: She recently did a special “Audio Town Hall” with The Breakfast Club, streamed out of Detroit on the IHeart radio network and hosted by Charlamagne. Charlamagne and Harris candidly agreed that Donald Trump is a fascist — a statement you’re unlikely to hear coming from a more traditional interview platform. Alex Cooper, Call Her Daddy podcast How many people are tuning in? A megaton; it’s the No. 4 podcast in the US Who is she? Per NPR, woman-centered podcast Call Her Daddy boasts an even split between Democrats and Republicans, mostly white. The rare host that’s on the cusp of Gen Z, creator Alex Cooper created her podcast with her roommate just a year after she graduated from college, whereupon it was promptly acquired by Barstool Sports and catapulted to popularity. (Cooper exited Barstool in 2021.) Though Cooper currently has all the attention for the recent Harris interview, which focused mainly on reproductive freedom and health care for women, she’s already onto a bigger catch: interviewing Taylor Swift. Bussin’ With the Boys How many people are tuning in? Plenty; it’s one of the most popular sports podcasts in the US with 545k subscribers and 391k views on YouTube Who are they? Former Tennessee Titans turned besties turned podcasters, hosts Will Compton and Taylor Lewan have made a name for themselves among sports audiences with this conversational Barstool Sports podcast. Though it wasn’t about sports, they scored Donald Trump’s longest interview yet; he nattered for over two hours last week, chatting about everything from politics to Elon Musk and social media. He even discussed doing all these podcasts, telling Compton and Lewan that the new crop of podcasters are “young guys and they’re very different in some cases.”  “It may have to do with all of my sons. They’re young … This is a young world … I’ve done a few of them and they’ve done well.”  Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience How many people are tuning in: Legions; Rogan has been the most-listened-to podcast in the country for nearly a decade and currently has over 30 million subscribers between YouTube and Spotify. Who is he? Yet another standup comic slash reality TV star turned podcaster, Rogan made it big in the podcast industry by embracing the medium early and being incredibly prolific, churning out hours of content weekly. His fans praise what they view as his down-to-earth, moderate style, but he balances that out with plenty of controversy. Shannon Sharpe, Club Shay Shay How many people are tuning in? 3.6 million YouTube subscribers and lots of podcast listeners; as of 2024, it’s the No. 11 podcast in the country. Who is he? Former Denver Bronco, NFL Hall of Famer, and veteran sports broadcaster Shannon Sharpe started Club Shay Shay in 2020 when he was still perhaps best known as a morning show host on Fox. Last year, however, he transitioned his podcast to a new network and got a new gig with ESPN, which may have helped catapult Club Shay Shay into the upper echelon of the podcast industry. Despite inadvertently recently livestreaming a sexual encounter to shocked followers, Sharpe hasn’t lost his appeal: Kamala Harris will reportedly tape an interview with him to be broadcast on October 28.   Podcasts are where the people are In a post-pandemic culture where parasocial relationships have grown more frequent and intense, podcasts have become more important than ever. They’re right in people’s ears, offering a uniquely intimate form of connection, not only to the hosts but to the events and ideas they’re platforming. They’re transforming the way audiences learn about issues of the day, keeping them engaged and (sort of) aware; the public’s love of podcasting just keeps growing, with audiences expanding, getting younger, and listening longer and more frequently. The medium, once relegated to extremely online audiences with niche interests, has gradually become more mainstream and wide-reaching; 42 percent of Americans over age 12 listened to a podcast in the last month, and that number is only going up.  Conversely, the public’s trust in media keeps plunging lower across the ideological spectrum: Less than a third of Americans say they have confidence in the accuracy of traditional news mediums, and the number of adults getting their news from actual news sources keeps declining year over year. Podcasts are able to reach audiences that have given up on traditional media, even as the line between podcasters and journalists gets blurry and the boundaries between mediums get fuzzier. The convergence of digital media with the creator economy and vice versa has created whole new submodes of influencers, from the kind that siphon and recycle other sorts of content to the kind that exist entirely as hot takes on TikTok.  Increasingly, journalists with a proper newsroom background, like internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz and Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias, have traded their former jobs for autonomy, independence, and loyal fan followings. Traditional reporters are also Substack influencers, while podcasts are also livestreams on Twitch and/or videos on YouTube and TikTok. All of this is causing seismic rifts and ever more unreliable journalism in a media environment in which the public already distrusts the media. As the popularity of podcasts keeps growing, these interviews with major public figures arguably add a patina of unearned prestige and importance, even as professional media outlets take hit after hit. In this messier media landscape, it’s easy to see why so many of these podcasters have so much sway with their audiences — and why politicians might want to tap into that. That accessibility is a double-edged sword, however, since most of these podcasters lack editorial oversight. Without a journalism background, podcasters often aren’t the best people to critique or fact-check their guests, especially high-profile ones. Creators of all kinds prioritize personality and charm over journalistic rigor and information; as with the medium itself, the delineation between what matters for what reason has broken down. Still, audiences don’t often care; the bar for podcast media is lower, and audience expectations for podcasters to be “journalists” in the traditional sense are largely nonexistent. Podcasters like Von often benefit from a rough-and-ready style that allows them to contrast themselves with stodgy traditional media. It’s not that the candidates are completely eschewing traditional media; Harris’s press parade has included a wide range of other outlets and interviewers, including legacy media, like her recent NBC News interview, as well as several that aren’t particularly politically focused, like veteran “shock jock” Sirius host Howard Stern, who endorsed her. Trump also recently did an interview with Bloomberg’s business podcast, while Tim Walz sat down for an interview with The Ezra Klein Show for the New York Times; Trump running mate JD Vance has likewise been hitting both traditional and non-traditional media hard.  The podcast format (alongside its increasingly indistinguishable twin, the livestream) seems to matter more and more. Vulture noted that Trump’s combined appearances on Schulz’s and Von’s podcasts have dwarfed the paltry views Harris received for her appearance on Call Her Daddy, despite the latter show reportedly being the most popular podcast among women on Spotify. (Her appearance on The View seems to have done better, an indication that older audiences still matter.) Still, Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy proved controversial among her constituents, while Trump’s appearances on a broad litany of dudebro podcasts have gone relatively unremarked upon — even though the latter are arguably demonstrably influencing a generation of voters. That lack of pushback against Trump’s interview choices may also reflect the increasingly decentralized media landscape, where “influence” is more nebulous and subjective than ever while simultaneously becoming more microtargeted and intense. A podcaster like Cooper or Von may reach a fraction of the audience of 60 Minutes, but the kinds of viewers they reach aren’t likely to be found watching the news. As Vulture’s Nick Quah observes, “We’ve long arrived at a place where Americans, now polarized beyond recognition, prefer news sources that align with their ideology, if they even consume much news at all … In those arenas, hosts don’t care about executing ‘good’ or challenging interviews in the classic journalistic sense. The interview just has to make sense to their audience.” That also means that interviews no longer push candidates to reckon with serious, even unpleasant or difficult topics. The kinds of questions that identify a strong leader, as opposed to one who’s merely affable and interviews well, aren’t very likely to arise on a UFC podcast. But that’s also something candidates may prefer; after all, who wants to deal with hard-hitting questions from journalists when they could field softballs from everyday citizens who aren’t backed by a team of editors and fact-checkers? These interviews are easy, fun, and personable, which also might be a welcome alternative to moderated, issue-focused debates — even if they’re a disservice to voters. That’s the unfortunate downside to all of this: No matter how you spin it, these interviews are a poor substitute for journalistic rigor, accountability, and editorial oversight. They may arguably even be a hindrance to democracy in an age where it faces multiple existential threats. We typically expect our leaders and experts to be better than the public at understanding and dealing with such enormous problems and dire realities. Yet increasingly, our leaders and experts are being replaced by self-appointed influencers with no actual expertise. The result is a bleak, livestreamed morass: Even if we’re fond of the voices reaching us through the void, we’re still all fumbling in the dark.

The prevalence of positive illusions is one of the most well-established findings in psychology. Most people have an exaggerated view of their own abilities and expect that more good things—and fewer bad things—will happen to them than is likely.Despite being unrealistic, such beliefs have benefits: Overly positive people are happier, cope better with adversity, and think they have more control over their life. Believing that things are a little better than they actually are may be necessary for robust mental health.In a similar way, many citizens hold overly positive, but possibly necessary, beliefs about their country. A sense of national pride can foster community and bring people together, and it’s often a sign of a thriving democracy. In the United States, one source of patriotism is American exceptionalism—the idea that the U.S. is a unique, and uniquely superior, nation. With its origin as a democracy in a world of kingdoms and its emphasis on freedom and opportunity, this narrative goes, the American system is out of the ordinary.Among the young, that belief is rapidly dying. Since 1976, a large nationally representative survey has asked U.S. high-school seniors, 17 and 18 years old, whether they agree that “Despite its many faults, our system of doing things is still the best in the world”: a fairly succinct summary of American exceptionalism. In the early 1980s, 67 percent of high-school seniors agreed that the U.S. system was the best. By 2022, only 27 percent did. Thus, only one out of four American teens now agrees that their country is exceptional.[Read: 20-somethings are in trouble]The decline appears to be mostly untethered to national events. Belief in American exceptionalism went down during the Great Recession of the late 2000s, and also during the economically prosperous years of the 2010s. It declined when the U.S. was at war and also when it was at peace. It declined as income inequality grew rapidly, from 1980 to 2000, and also as inequality moderated after 2000.Support for the idea is now particularly unpopular among liberal teens. As recently as the late 1990s, a majority had agreed that the U.S. system was the best. By 2021–22, that had shrunk to 14 percent—only one out of seven. (Belief in American exceptionalism has declined among conservative teens as well, but much less so: 47 percent of conservative teens believed in the idea in 2021–22.)Even the belief that the founding of the United States was a positive development seems to be on the way out: A recent poll conducted by the Democracy Fund asked Americans if the Founders are “better described as villains” or “as heroes.” Four out of 10 Gen Zers chose “villains,” compared with only one in 10 Boomers. If your country’s Founders are the bad guys instead of the good guys, it becomes much harder to believe that its system is the best in the world—or even worth defending. (Ideas about America are hardly the only beliefs that have bent toward pessimism among American youth in the past two decades. In early 2002, for instance, 23 percent of high-school seniors agreed with the statement “When I think about all the terrible things that have been happening, it is hard for me to hold out much hope for the world.” In early 2019, 40 percent agreed.)Dour views of the nation’s status and possibilities may shape its future. Gen Z may be disillusioned, but it is not, by and large, nihilistic: Today’s young adults are also more interested in taking action than previous generations. From 2014 to 2021–22, an increasing number of high-school seniors agreed that protesting and voting could have “a major impact on how things are run in this country.” Voter turnout among young adults has been higher among Gen Z than previous generations at the same age, and political protests appear to have become more frequent in the eight or so years since Gen Z arrived on college campuses.That, of course, could yield positive changes. One of the most important American ideals, arguably, is that the American project is unfinished, and that society can be made better, generation by generation. Throughout U.S. history, discontent and even righteous anger have often been important correctives to overly broad or unthinking sentiments about the country’s goodness, which, when unchallenged, can perpetuate injustices.But many of Gen Z’s members seem convinced that radical change is necessary—to the model of government, to the economy, to the culture. In a 2020 poll I analyzed for my book Generations, three out of four American Gen Zers—more than any other generation—agreed that “significant changes” were needed to the government’s “fundamental design and structure.” Nearly two-thirds believed that America was not “a fair society,” again a higher rate than older adults. In a 2018 Gallup poll, more 18-to-29-year-olds had a positive view of socialism (51 percent) than of capitalism (45 percent). Some of the ideals, and idealism, that were commonly accepted in previous generations seem to have a looser hold over young adults today.Why has Gen Z turned so definitively toward disillusionment and away from seeing their country as superior?One reason may be their mental health: Twice as many teens and young adults are depressed than in the early 2010s. This is a tragedy—and it’s likely to have wide-reaching effects. Depression isn’t just about emotions; it’s also about cognition. By definition, depressed people see the world in a more negative light. They are less likely to see the positive, including in their country. Increases in depression are larger among liberals, consistent with the larger decline in their belief in American exceptionalism.Changes in news consumption may also play a part. When newspapers were read on paper, all of the news—positive and negative—was printed together. Now negative news is king. Negative articles are almost twice as likely to be shared on social media as positive articles. Social-media algorithms push angry and divisive content. With Gen Z getting most of its information online, it is viewing the country through a negatively skewed funhouse mirror.A third reason may lie in the shifts in high-school American-history curricula. Some—typically liberal—states now spend more time than they once did on the more deplorable facts of the nation’s history, such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the massacre of Native Americans, and the Founders’ ownership of slaves. That coverage lays out facts students need to know, but, especially if these events are emphasized more than the country’s more noble endeavors, it may also undermine feelings of national pride.[Read: Are Gen Z men and women really drifting apart?]Finally, Gen Z’s facility with social media may itself be coloring the generation’s views. Gen Z has learned that making a problem look as big and awful as possible is a highly effective way of getting traction on social media. Many problems are often portrayed as profound and systemic, fixable only by fundamental rethinks and institutional purges. It makes everything seem worse than it is.My worry, as a social psychologist who has studied all of the living American generations, is that these various forces—and the pessimism they have generated —could move Gen Z to change systems that are not necessarily broken. That’s especially relevant as this generation comes of age and rises toward political power. Despite the common perception that the system is “rigged” and young people will never attain the wealth Boomers did, for instance, the Federal Reserve of St. Louis recently found that Millennial and Gen Z young adults actually have 25 percent more wealth than Boomers did at the same age. Inflation-adjusted median incomes for American young adults are at all-time highs, and poverty rates for children and younger adults are lower than they were in the early 2000s. The social-media-driven negativity machine may have prevented Gen Z—and all of us—from seeing the good news.Just as the positive views we have about our individual selves may be exaggerated, the idea that the United States is uniquely superior is also, at least in part, an overly optimistic illusion we tell ourselves as a country. But like our positive self-illusions, patriotism also has its benefits, including a more satisfied citizenry and more political stability. With Gen Z unconvinced of the country’s exceptionalism and willing to take action, the U.S. may, in the coming decades, witness an era of extraordinary political change.

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Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., campaign slammed his opponent John Mannion in the competitive House race of running on an "anti-cop, pro-Hamas" ballot.

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Hollywood actor Danny Trejo recounted his experience as a Mexican Dodgers fan growing up in Los Angeles and the impact of Fernando Valenzuela.