Should We Be Listening to Conservative Podcasts?
From Dave Rubin to Steven Crowder, we have tons of examples of conservative podcast hosts who don't really exemplify conservative values. So I have to ask -- should we stop listening to them?
I enjoy listening to podcasts. It was something I really got into around the start of the pandemic because it helped me feel less alone. It also made me feel like maybe I wasn’t going crazy after all. And, of course, I trusted what independent journalists and thought leaders were talking about over the lies spread by the MSM and our political overlords.
The only problem I ran into was that I was listening to lots of political podcasts. The Rubin Report. Louder with Crowder. The Dan Bongino Show. Stuff like that.
It’s so easy to be wooed by conservative talking heads. They each have such unique personalities and they’re so confident in what they speak about. Plus, you add the right touch of humor or anger to it and it becomes addictive to listen to.
There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as the host is coming from a truthful place — especially when it comes to values and integrity.
The Problem with Conservative Podcasts
Sadly, I’ve had to unsubscribe from most of the podcasts I was listening to. So many of these conservative podcasters have proven to be nothing more than narcissistic and/or hypocritical jerks looking to snag a big piece of the conservative podcast audience’s attention and money.
It’s easy to point the finger at someone like Steven Crowder because of what recently went down with his wife.
But it was very clear from the beginning that he was deeply insecure. It was also no secret that he was a controlling jerk. You could tell from the way he talked to his co-hosts. (And Dave Landau’s recent interviews back that up.) So it’s no surprise he’d be emotionally abusive to his wife.
But I don’t even know if he’s the worst offender.
There was Jesse Kelly who suggested that women lose the right to vote because they predominantly vote Democrat. There was Matt Walsh wanting to use the federal government to enforce a total ban of abortion (it was wrong when liberals did it and it would be wrong if conservatives did, too).
And then you have Dave Rubin.
I used to be a big fan of The Rubin Report. I had some doubts about Dave Rubin along the way, mainly because he spent so much time name-dropping people. It felt like he needed to use men like Jordan Peterson and Ron DeSantis to earn brownie points with the conservative base. As if he couldn’t do it on his own merit.
Then all that stuff came to light about his surrogacy. I remember when he first started talking about it and I got this icky feeling that something wasn’t right. He talked about his surrogate the way he talked about how he’d never fly anything but first class again. It stank of elitism.
After his first surrogate failed to produce offspring for him twice, he threw her away and got two replacement surrogates.
The idea of surrogacy leaves a bad taste in my mouth in general. It might not be full-blown eugenics, but it’s normalizing the pathway we’re taking to get there.
It also ties into what’s been going on with men in women’s sports. It sends this message that women are nothing more than pawns to be moved around and used when men can’t compete on their own stage.
In sports, you see men who have failed spectacularly as male athletes move over to the women’s division and dominate. In relationships, you see men who are unable to breed with their choice of partner and so they take over a woman’s body in order to have kids of their own (it doesn’t matter if she gets paid or not).
When all this came to light, and when many conservative talking heads went to bat for Rubin (like Glenn Beck), I dropped a lot of the podcasts I was listening to.
It felt like everyone had shown their true colors. They were spineless and didn’t dare call into question the immorality or hypocrisy of what was going on. They kept us focused and distracted by the most popular headlines of the day — the same headlines that each of them covered.
It left me wondering what they weren’t sharing with us. Because if they were sticking to a set narrative and afraid to call out one of their own when they did something wrong or did something that went against their deeply held values, then they really were no better than the left-leaning mainstream media.
The Rubin surrogacy story is just one example of this. We can look at how they still swarm around Trump (despite what he ushered in during the start of the pandemic) and they sweep aside any dirt that comes up on fellow conservative talking heads. It’s a major problem. And I worry that listening to these podcasts is keeping the Republican base just as complacent and complicit as the Democrats.
Final Thoughts
I no longer listen to traditional conservative podcasts, though many of the hosts that I do tune into are right-leaning. (Or right-ish leaning.)
In case you’re interested, here’s what I’m listening to:
Bret Weinstein’s DarkHorse Podcast
The Corbett Report Podcast (I also listen to his episodes on Substack)
The vast majority of these podcasters took a stand during the C19 insanity. I’m not really sure I could listen to anyone that didn’t. But that’s not really what draws me to them.
At this point, I believe that there’s no fixing anything if we just sit around listening to podcasters rant about the same shit and whine about how unfair the liberal-run media is to them. While I like to stay up to date on what’s happening with the world, I need to do something. We all do.
These podcasts strike a good balance between philosophical ramblings and practical advice. For instance, I recently listened to this episode with Miri Finch on Here for the Truth.
In it, she mentions the TV show Friends and how it was clearly written to make mediocrity desirable. And if you can raise an entire generation to accept unfulfilling jobs, shitty bosses, unhealthy relationships, and the supposed happiness that comes with it, they won’t have any desire to speak up, to think for themselves, to create something original, or to revolt against what’s wrong.
It’s stuff like that that inspires me, that lights a fire under my ass to do something.
Am I alone in this? Has anyone else felt as if conservative podcasts or talk shows aren’t doing any good for us? And that the better way to spend our time is to fill our ears with stuff that helps us become the best version of ourselves?
May I recommend Daniel Horowitz. He was on fire through all of covid, bringing the doctors on to his show to share the data and research. He doesn’t care for the Republican Party because he sees how they don’t serve the people either, in fact he frequently rails against his fellow conservative commentators. He tries to act, not just talk. https://www.theblaze.com/u/danielhorowitz
I’m with you on Rubin. There’s smarm factor there, or too much of a desire to be liked. He wants to reach the conservative market without actually being a conservative. Crowder I could tell was a jerk from the start. Matt Walsh habitually takes extreme positions that would never fly in the real world, but he comes from a real place and is damn entertaining! I don’t have to agree with every view a podcaster has. For me, though, Andrew Klavan is very good. He’s thoughtful and he has original ideas on how to navigate the culture. Also very often damn entertaining. I wouldn’t call Bret Weinstein anywhere close to on the right, but he and Heather Heying are great. Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions. Some new names for me.