\n<\/p>\n
A representative for Harris referred V.F.<\/em> to her comments on the Rogan dust-up in her recent book 107 Days<\/em>. \u201cEven though most of my team thought doing the interview at all was a gamble, and others bluntly argued it was a bad idea, I really wanted to do it,\u201d Harris wrote, adding that it \u201ccame as a surprise\u201d when her campaign found out that Rogan was interviewing Trump on a day that his team had described to hers as a personal day. Addressing the claim on his podcast, Rogan has said, \u201cwe just didn\u2019t tell you that Trump was coming on\u201d and that Harris \u201cnever agreed to do the show.\u201d Representatives for the podcaster didn\u2019t immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n Flaherty, like so many Democrats in the aftermath of the election, has been reflecting on the nature of the modern attention economy, and what they could do to better harness it in the future. \u201cSuccessful content on the internet is a reflection of an audience that already exists,\u201d he says, \u201cJoe Rogan is Joe Rogan because he speaks to a collection of people who are interested in what he has to say or the people that he brings on and his general tone and tenor and affect. If it weren\u2019t Joe Rogan, it would be somebody else.\u201d Democrats have been looking, as the now-cliched fantasy goes, for the Rogan of the left. As Flaherty sees it, though, the challenge for liberals is less to mimic the celebrated Trump podcasting tour than to build its own \u201cloud and profitable and effective\u201d niches on the internet in the way that Republicans did with the worlds of young men, fitness, and wellness.<\/p>\n Still, the standard, he says, for any campaign remains that \u201cyou just got to go talk to a lot of people and do a lot of stuff.\u201d Since Harris\u2019s loss, Democrats like Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, and Ro Khanna have been undertaking their own Trumpian tours of the extended Roganverse\u2014Manhattan congressional candidate Jack Schlossberg<\/a> recently told V.F.<\/em> that his party\u2019s recent woes have to do with its traditional views of polite behavior, while the other side uses \u201cvulgarity\u2026and insanity as a political weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesse Lehrich, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 campaign who hosts a TBPN<\/em><\/a>-style livestreaming show with Flaherty, has been monitoring such appearances in a public spreadsheet titled the \u201cBig, Beautiful 2028 Tracker.\u201d<\/a> \u201cSometimes it feels like, Oh, the takeaway is just, Oh, podcast is the new medium,\u201d Lehrich told V.F.<\/em> \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, No, I think people hate us because we don\u2019t have relatable candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople\u2019s expectations of rawness and authenticity have scaled,\u201d Flaherty says, \u201cand so what you need to be able to do and say as an elected official has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Flaherty is not holding out for Rogan\u2019s response to his account of the Harris episode, but he says he wouldn\u2019t mind an opportunity to discuss further.<\/p>\n \u201cJust lift my thing even farther, Joe,\u201d he says. \u201cCome on my podcast, Joe Rogan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n