When Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White made a speech at Trump’s victory party this week, he closed on a note of gratitude: “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ with the Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”
White was right to thank this coterie of content creators. Trump had recently appeared alongside all of them, delivering an unfiltered dose of his worldview to their massive, largely male audiences. The message appears to have landed. While it will take much more time and data to truly understand how the U.S. arrived at this electoral outcome, what seems undeniable already is that podcasts played a substantial role in bringing it about.
Over the past decade, right-wing influencers have come to dominate the podcasting space—and now those podcasts have helped determine a presidential election.
That version of history explains everything.
It explains the housing crisis. It explains the energy restrictions. It explains the immigration pressure. It explains the economic stagnation. It explains why a sitting Deputy Prime Minister stood in front of graduates at an American university and asked, out loud, whether capitalist democracy still works.
None of what is happening to Canada is an accident.
The Present Is the Evidence
To understand how Canada arrived at this moment, you first have to look honestly at what is happening right now.
Across Canadian media and social media, a coordinated narrative has been building around what is being called the problem of empty bedrooms. On the surface it sounds like a housing conversation. Look closer and it is something else entirely. The pressure being applied, particularly on elderly Canadians and grandparents who have lived in their homes for decades, is to downsize. To give up their multi-bedroom homes. To turn their large homes into apartment blocks. ...
