I’m old—old enough to remember G. Gordon Liddy testifying before Congress during the Watergate hearings. He said something I never forgot: he was deathly afraid of rats. To conquer that fear, he caught one, cooked it over a campfire—and ate it.

That analogy works for me and UNASB.

Subscribe now

Before UNASB, I was intimidated by the dark-money machine—the opaque forces flowing from what I think of as the Epstein class through a right-wing media ecosystem that manufactures disinformation before there’s even demand for the truth. It doesn’t just respond to reality; it scripts it. It tells people how to think, what to think, and reinforces it until it becomes a wall.

For a long time, I didn’t want to look under that hood. It felt impenetrable—and frankly, I didn’t have the time. I chose to ignore the grotesque elements: the performative outrage, the coded racism, the bad-faith narratives fueled by money and power. I knew it was there. I just didn’t engage.

Then I found UNASB.

Within this community I was able to lower my resistance and actually listen to what the far-right is saying and doing. UNASB helped me do the uncomfortable thing: to examine it closely, understand it, and yes—if I extend the metaphor—catch, cook, and eat the rat.

We’re not just studying figures like Tucker Carlson or tracing the history of right-wing media. We’re also learning how to communicate more effectively ourselves—how to reach people, how to use the tools that successful influencers use, and how to recognize the coded language embedded in messaging.

Because that language works. It persuades people—often against their own best interests.

Take Alex Clark, who talks about wanting healthy food for her family. It’s clear that achieving that requires government support and regulation. Will she get that from this administration? Probably not.

But her brand is tied more closely to her MAHA affiliation than to the outcomes she’s advocating for—clean food, clean water, education, and infrastructure, which the non-MAHA side is pushing for in legislation.

That’s where the contradiction lives. And within those contradictions, we have opportunities—to build bridges, to connect, and to create moments of real understanding.

UNASB has given me clarity. It’s helped me understand the language, the structure, and the intent behind what we’re up against—and how to push back effectively.

Before this, I never would have spent time watching people like Benny Johnson or Ben Shapiro—paid influencers crafting narratives built on provocation and distortion. Now I can engage with that content without being overwhelmed by it.

I feel more aware. More grounded. More prepared.

And that power?

Yeah—I ate the rat. I’m not afraid of it anymore.

There’s still a lot of work to do. But UNASB has helped me see what’s out there—and what’s coming.

Bring it on.

Share

For years now, there have been calls for the left to “invest more in digital.” But as someone who’s spent a decade describing my own job as vaguely “doing digital politics things,” let me be the first person to say: we have to be much more specific about what we mean if we’re going to see real change in the space.

Hey y’all, this is Max Levy, your former recapper, author of The Short Answer newsletter (where this piece is also running!), and freelance digital and political strategist. I joined the Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath crew at the beginning of this year, where the discussions about the right’s cultural infrastructure and how the left can counter it have made it even more clear how urgent it is for people on our side to start doing things differently.

One place we can start is by moving from generic calls to “do better” to actually naming the changes we want to see.

Subscribe now

Think about it. When you say “digital,” do you just mean social media? Organic social media from a candidate’s page? Running paid ads or getting other creators and influencers to post? Do you want better graphics, professional videography, smarter captions, or just higher volume? Maybe you aren’t talking social at all, and you want to see better use of email. Are you using email to fundraise? Recruit volunteers? Persuade in-state voters? Or maybe you’re thinking about something else entirely when you say “digital.” As long as you don’t mean the guy who knows how to make the projector work, you’re probably right to think of it as “digital” work. And that’s a problem for digital teams that keep getting asked to do more and more, with the same staffing and budgets.

Using “digital” as an umbrella term may have once been helpful to describe campaign (often communications) work happening online. Now though, there are so many tools, tactics, and strategies under this umbrella that just using the term leaves decision-makers with enough ambiguity to get away with not doing anything.

So, let’s run down some specific ways to “do digital better” in the political space:

Devoting budget, staffing, and time to organic social media strategy

Organic social posts (what a “typical” account creates and posts, not paid ads that bypass the algorithm entirely) are a key way that regular people engage with political accounts, but they’re often an afterthought in budgets and strategies for reaching voters or supporters. An open letter from digital strategists to party leaders details more of what it would look like to take organic social more seriously, including increased budget, dedicated capacity for content creation, and a voice in strategic decisions. For campaigns specifically, we should also ask candidates and senior-level staff to carve out more dedicated time for digital content creation and training to hone the skills and frameworks that work for organic social.

Shifting ad budgets towards digital platforms

According to Tech for Campaign’s analysis of 2024 ad spend, “commercial advertisers allocated 78% of their media budgets to digital. Political advertisers? Just 36%.”

Do we really think campaigns know something that brands don’t about modern advertising best practices? Too many campaigns are still stuck in the past, and it’s time to shift to the places where people are actually paying attention. That means more budget to create digital ads, more spend to get those ads out into the world, and more latitude to test bold ideas or emerging platforms.

Building a stronger creator infrastructure — with both political and non-political creators

Races like Abigail Spanberger’s in Virginia and Mike Sherrill’s in New Jersey saw important investments in staffing, candidate time, and budget to engage social media creators in 2025, which marks an encouraging shift. But we’re still woefully behind the right in building our creator economy, and there’s a lot more time and funding that needs to be invested to get progressive ideas spreading through a self-sustaining, culturally-relevant infrastructure. (Lots more to say on this piece — stay tuned!)

Communicating better with “owned” audiences like email and text lists

Inboxes are one of the most intimate ways we communicate with voters and supporters, but too many organizations treat them as places to ask for donations and nothing else. And for smaller campaigns, they might not even have the staffing or budget to utilize or grow their opt-in email list at all. We need to train more people on low-lift best practices, make tools more accessible, and ensure leadership actually sees channels like email or text as tools that can be used to achieve organizing, messaging, and other campaign goals beyond fundraising.

Improving online organizing

Speaking of organizing — a group of practitioners recently produced a 60-page report on how Democrats could improve modern organizing, and many of their recommendations would be implemented with digital tools. They want campaigns to prioritize relational organizing (where volunteers talk to people they know, not strangers they cold call), finally merge offline and online organizing, and encourage teams to adapt and experiment. They make a number of specific, actionable asks, and the full report (or at least the executive summary) is worth reading in full!

These are far from the only things we can be doing to better reach, organize, persuade, and mobilize people online, and not every organization has the budget or capacity to implement all of them. But we have to start getting specific — naming actual goals, tools, and what’s needed to implement them — if we’re going to stop gesturing into the void and start actually “doing digital” well enough to win.

Subscribe now

Share

P.S. If you found this piece insightful, you should of course subscribe to UNASB, but I hope you’ll consider subscribing to The Short Answer, too! Each week’s newsletter discusses a topic across politics, media, tech, or culture, plus articles worth your time, good posts from people across the progressive ecosystem, and a tool to make it easier to do impactful work.

I live in likely the strongest liberal bubble in the country – San Francisco. As a result, it is very rare that I encounter someone in my daily life with political views that are in direct opposition to mine. The political debates around me are between the liberal, really liberal and really really liberal – who still all agree on the vast majority of issues. As someone who is exceptionally conflict averse, I recognize that the absence of what I see as uncomfortable confrontations is both an incredible privilege and not the experience of much of America. In an effort to continually learn about our country and work toward a sane future, I’m diving into the deep end and learning how to have these conversations productively – even if they aren’t ever comfortable.

Subscribe now

How am I doing this?

I joined the most recent cohort of Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath – a listening club that’s been getting a lot of attention lately, including a recent feature in The New York Times. Here’s the premise: we listen to right-wing media not to criticize or slam it, but to actually understand the communication tactics being used – and then apply those lessons to how we communicate on the left.

And, let me tell you. It is hard. I have to listen to the assignments on 1.5x speed to be able to get through them without going into a full on panic attack. I get the majority of my news from NPR (subscriber to two stations), The New York Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Why would I willingly subject myself to content that makes my blood pressure spike? Because understanding how the other side talks, what resonates with their audiences, and how they frame issues isn’t about agreeing with them. It’s about getting smarter about how we show up in conversations – especially the hard ones with people we care about who see things differently.

It turns out there’s actual science backing this up. This recent piece in the Times breaks down what research tells us about productive disagreement – and spoiler alert: most of us are doing it wrong. The key isn’t winning the argument, it’s creating opportunity for actual understanding.

I’m also drawing inspiration from this piece about talking to friends who “aren’t paying attention” to politics right now. It’s a reminder that productive conversations aren’t about winning arguments – they’re about staying connected to people and helping them see why any of this matters in the first place.

I’ve already learned a lot. For instance, the right is not a monolith – there are real differences of opinion, just like on the left. America First and Trump First coalitions have genuinely different views on Iran, which means there’s actually room for productive conversation about foreign policy. Who knew?

I’m also realizing that not every conversation needs to be explicitly about politics to influence politics. If the right can use a review of the new Wuthering Heights movie to reinforce tenets of Christian Nationalism (yes, really), then we can absolutely use cultural touchpoints to reinforce our values too.

And here’s the thing I keep coming back to: I can easily understand why the right has been so successful at messaging. They package tough ideas in bite-sized, repeatable nuggets – sometimes in the most unexpected places. Meanwhile, we’re over here writing monologues and policy theses. What if we just said things simply and said them again? And again?

So here’s my commitment

I’m going to keep showing up for these uncomfortable conversations. I’m going to listen more than I want to. And I’m going to keep reporting back on what I’m learning – because if we’re going to do something about democracy, we need to be able to talk to people beyond our bubble, even when (especially when) it’s hard.

Who’s with me?

If you’re interested in joining UNASB, currently accepting new members into our 5th (!!) cohort starting in April. Sign up here!

Share

Subscribe now

____

Follow Sheila at: https://dosomethinganything.substack.com/

A Visceral Beginning

Listening to The Benny Show, the first episode in my Unfortunately Not A Sound Bath journey, felt like I had jumped into the deep end. It left me deeply unsettled by what I heard. I wasn’t prepared for my own visceral reaction. My body reacted before my mind could organize an argument. I felt a tightening. A sense of contraction.

I had hoped that listening would humanize and broaden my perspective. Instead, I found myself wondering whether this was a fool’s errand. This rhetoric is not meant to build understanding but rather to invoke fear and exclusion.

For a moment, I considered stepping back. I could handle well-reasoned arguments from either side, but I didn’t know if I wanted to listen to such an inflammatory narrative.

And yet, I stayed.

What’s shifted for me over the past couple of months hasn’t been softening toward the content (which remains painful to hear). What’s shifted is how I’ve begun to listen and what I’ve been able to acknowledge about myself.

Subscribe now

The Moral Understory

Jonathan Haidt argues in The Righteous Mind that our political divisions are rooted less in facts than in moral intuitions. He describes six core moral foundations:

1. Care and harm

2. Fairness and cheating

3. Loyalty and betrayal

4. Authority and subversion

5. Sanctity and degradation

6. Liberty and oppression

He doesn’t argue that the foundations are good or bad, but simply describes them as a product of how humans have evolved in systems that promote survival, reproduction, and cooperation.

Haidt’s research suggests that people on the political Left tend to emphasize care, fairness, and liberty. People on the Right tend to draw from all six foundations, especially loyalty, authority, and sanctity. The difference is not simply about policy preferences. It is about which moral instincts are activated. To be sure, a moral instinct may later be overridden by logic, but the instinct appears first.

Conflict Entrepreneurs Exploit Moral Instincts

Moral instincts are easily exploited in today’s media landscape, where anyone can host a podcast and say just about anything they want. Stories circulate quickly. They do not need to persuade everyone. They do not need to be true. They need only resonate with the moral instincts of a particular audience. And often they are peddled by “conflict entrepreneurs” like Benny Johnson who exploit division and conflict for their own benefit.

When listening to UNASB’s podcast assignments through the lens of Haidt’s research, we get a glimpse of something more layered that conflict entrepreneurs are using to stir up outrage, hate, and fear among their audiences.

Hearing the Instinct Beneath the Rhetoric

When I heard Benny Johnson describe immigrants as eroding the “fabric” of the country, and Muslim prayer framed as allegiance to a foreign land, I heard loyalty and sanctity being activated together. A moral boundary around who truly belongs, and an implicit concern about cultural purity.

When I heard Benny Johnson’s insistence that America must be rooted purely in Christendom, that “orderly, clean, safe societies” flow from adherence to a singular Christian doctrine, I heard authority and sanctity intertwined. A vision of hierarchy presented as sacred order.

When I heard him dismiss global suffering with “I don’t care” because it was not “my country,” I heard in-group protection elevated above universal care.

Politics, in the Haidt’s moral foundations framework, is not primarily persuasion through evidence. It is moral storytelling that taps into a listener’s instinct about what is sacred or who belongs. To listen in this way, we also must name our own instincts.

Naming My Own Instincts

Only after mapping it this way did I fully acknowledge something about myself. My moral compass leans strongly towards care and fairness. Rhetoric that is dismissive of suffering or that draws unfair lines around who is welcome in our country activates something in me almost immediately and makes it difficult to stay with what I’m hearing. My fight-or-flight instinct is activated. My reaction is not just intellectual disagreement. It is a moral instinct.

Moving from Reaction to Real Conversation

Hearing the moral instincts shifted something in me. Instead of asking only, “How could someone listening believe this?” I began asking, “What instinct is being activated here?”

That question does not erase disagreement. It does not excuse harmful rhetoric. It does not change the fact that podcasters like Benny Johnson are demonizing other human beings and intentionally sowing the seeds of divisiveness for their own gain. But it complicates the narrative. It invites curiosity about what meaning people are interpreting from this content rather than assuming that all people of a certain political party are simply misinformed or ill-willed.

This is an important distinction as we move from media and online spaces to real, human interactions with people (who are not conflict entrepreneurs), where “it’s hard to hate up close” rings more true.

Much of my professional work centers on helping people navigate conflict and talk across differences. I have sought out cross-partisan spaces and joined conversations designed to bring people with opposing views into the same room. I have come to believe that understanding across differences is possible, though not easy, a believer in Mary Lou Kownacki’s words that “there isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you heard their story.” I have yet to have a one-on-one conversation with someone whom I have been unable to find any common ground.

Which Instincts Do We Elevate?

Using the lens of moral instincts also raises a harder question. Which moral foundations are emphasized or neglected in my own community? If moral instincts shape perception and belief, then how we frame the issues matters.

On the political left, the moral language often centers on care and fairness. We tell stories about protecting the vulnerable, correcting injustice, and expanding who is included within the circle of belonging. Those instincts can be powerful, but they can also make it harder to recognize the moral concerns that resonate more strongly for others, such as loyalty, tradition, or social order. Understanding which instincts resonate for different audiences is just as important as the facts we present.

Staying in the Room

Staying allowed me to move from reacting solely at the level of outrage to listening for the deeper instinct underneath the argument.

We can be shocked.

We can be angered.

We can be offended.

And we can still ask what fear is being tapped, what value is being defended, what feels sacred to the listener, and whether the messenger is seeking to divide or to understand.

In a polarized culture, that shift will not change everyone’s mind. But it changes the quality of attention we bring to the conversation. And perhaps that is where true persuasion begins.

Share

Subscribe now

On a frigid Chicago January evening, I make my way through a bustling multiplex, to a near-empty theater occupied by just one other couple. I’m realizing we’re getting our own private screening for the documentary Melania on opening weekend.

This is not a normal movie review, since I’m here on assignment for Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath—it’s a messaging autopsy. UNASB’s goal is to get out of our bubble, study the content millions of people are consuming, notice the patterns, and translate those patterns into better real-world conversations.

Amazon reportedly spent around $75 million for the story and distribution rights. The price tag had critics calling it a “propaganda piece” and “open bribe” under the label of a biopic. The film centers around Melania Trump’s experience as First Lady-elect during the 20 days leading up to the 2024 Presidential Inauguration. To be fair, this may have been an interesting story in other hands instead of the Epstein connected director, Brett Ratner.

Subscribe now

When Vibes Replace Substance

As Monica Hesse observed in The Washington Post, there’s nothing to see here—and hiding Melania’s true personality “is, in fact, her personality.” This isn’t a flaw in the documentary, it’s working exactly as intended. The absence is the point, emptiness is the brand. The film’s vibes just require production value to persuade viewers with atmosphere and aesthetics.

The film sells us the image of Melania Trump following a formula of three repeating pillars —Family, Business, and Philanthropy. In many positive promotions for the film, these themes were incanted constantly. Say it enough times with the right music and lighting, and maybe no one will notice a lack of evidence of these things.

The Family That Never Connects

Let’s start with Family. The film mentions it constantly. We see Melania Trump lighting a candle for her deceased mother, a brief shot of Barron Trump, references to Donald Trump. But watch closely—there’s no actual connection shown. No conversations, no warmth, no moments that reveal relationships. Melania is surrounded by staff in every scene, moving through palatial spaces alone. In her gilded palaces, I’d almost feel sorry for her. The out-of-touch comparisons to Marie Antoinette are not new, but at least Marie had her cosplay Hameau de la Reine to pretend she connected with the working class.

This is a film about a family that rarely appears in the same frame with anything resembling intimacy. It’s the aesthetic of family—the word invoked, the symbolic gesture—without the substance. Even the moments that should feel intimate are staged for maximum emotional manipulation. The private moments in a cleared out church for Melania’s candle-lighting scene, or the “unifier” line from Trump’s inauguration speech, highlighted in the trailer and edited to appear as if he nods acknowledgment to Melania’s earlier scene contribution. (Rewatching the speech, the acknowledgement never happened.)

Some critics have tried to paint Melania as a trapped Rapunzel, a victim waiting to be saved. Maureen Dowd got it right in The New York Times: she’s not imprisoned in the tower, she’s “comfortable in the frosty vertical solitude,” swaddled in luxury. The isolation isn’t inflicted on her—it’s cultivated.

The Business Empire That Isn’t

Then there’s Business, the second pillar. Her empire, as promoted in the film and press materials, consists of: a cryptocurrency venture (launched shortly before the crypto market crashed), NFTs (that barely sold), some jewelry, and holiday ornaments. There’s also a publishing company with one product—her own coffee table memoir and this film deal. That’s it. That’s the business portfolio of someone positioning herself as a serious executive.

As critics at The Atlantic have suggested, the film is really a “hard launch of a new lifestyle brand.“ They’re right. This is an extended infomercial for Melania the brand—the memoir, the jewelry, the crypto ventures, the aesthetic. The film itself IS the business, which explains why the actual business empire feels so hollow. She’s not building businesses; she’s licensing her image. The product is the mystique.

Compare that to the hours of footage devoted to showing us luxury, wealth, and designer consultations. We’re meant to absorb “successful businesswoman” through atmosphere, not evidence. The film lingers on a video call with France’s First Lady, Brigitte Macron, featuring an impossibly long shot of a MacBook—ever so naturally perched on Melania’s memoir. Everything is product placement, including Melania herself. We’re watching a commercial disguised as access, branding disguised as intimacy.

In promotional interviews, her agent, Marc Beckman, described the film as a “fashion explosion” showing “how she gets dressed, how she selects her styles.” In promoting a documentary about a First Lady’s work, the selling point is wardrobe selection? My mistake, Marc, I thought this was about a successful immigrant executive businesswoman rising to the top.

The Philanthropy Platform

And then there’s Philanthropy, the third pillar. The film leans heavily on “Be Best,” her anti-cyberbullying platform. What it doesn’t mention: the platform has been functionally dormant for years, with minimal activity on her website or social media about it since the end of her first term. The irony—that her husband remains one of the most prolifically vitriolic social media users in history—goes entirely unaddressed.

In promotional interviews, her agent lists examples of the First Lady’s accomplishments: the Take It Down Act, foster care executive orders, AI initiatives for children. But notice what’s missing: implementation details, measurable outcomes, follow-through.

The “Fostering the Future Together” program is announced with universities “involved,” but where are the students? How many have been helped? The one anecdotal letter he mentions—from a teacher who benefited years ago—is telling. If this were an active, robust program, there would be hundreds of stories, not one carefully-curated testimonial.

There was also a “Unity” purse partnership with Gucci, where 20% of proceeds would supposedly go to charity. You’ll just need to drop $2,800 on your next shopping trip to Beverly Hills. Which raises the question, who’s benefiting? The film wants you to absorb “philanthropist” the way you might absorb “glamorous” or “poised”—through repetition and aesthetics, not through demonstration.

Her agent claims she works “seven days a week from 6am to past midnight. Every day. There’s never a vacation day.” If true, where’s the output? What are the receipts for all those hours? The film itself—covering 20 days—shows us designer consultations and party planning. That’s what “working around the clock” looks like in this universe: curating the appearance of work, not the work itself.

Who This Film Is Really For?

Who watches this and comes away satisfied?

Sitting in that near-empty theater (that seats 300), I desperately wanted to ask the only two other people why they were there. Were they Melania fans? Hate-watchers? Critics? Unfortunately, when the lights came up, I must have blacked out since the next thing I knew I was standing outside, brought back to reality by the frigid Chicago evening. My numb brain needed a strong drink.

Later, as I decompressed and pored over my notes, I went looking for any authentic positive response without direct ties to Jeff Bezos or the Trumps. Just like in the film itself, it took a lot of searching to find anyone praising her who wasn’t getting paid, one way or another.

To better understand the target audience, I attempted to break down who was buying tickets to see the film.

The Trump loyalists tended to be older women in sold-out theaters in wealthy conservative strongholds like Florida and Texas. They describe Melania as “beautiful, classy, poised” and most importantly, “an influence to Trump.” For them, the three pillars don’t need evidence—they’re articles of faith. The film confirms what they already believe about proximity to power equaling virtue. These are fans of the Trump brand regardless of what shape it comes in, and Melania has always been the most palatable package.

The apolitical parasocial viewers who might be the ones that secretly peek in their party host’s medicine cabinet. Their investment is to happily watch the drama unfold like a reality show, ambivalent to the real-world consequences. They don’t care if the business is real or the philanthropy is active—they’re here for the aesthetic of wealth. The three pillars are just set dressing for voyeurism.

The Alchemy of Propaganda

This is the danger of the modern influencer class: making billionaire excess feel not just acceptable, but deserved and achievable. Melania Trump floats from scene to scene, moving between private jets, designer clothes fittings, glitzy residences, and golden eggs, with language about “hard work.” It’s telling non-political viewers that this level of wealth isn’t about inheritance or corruption—it’s about work ethic.

That is if they just worked “seven days a week,” they too could have designers consulting on their wardrobe choices. It’s the American Dream repackaged as the American Royal Family, and you’re invited to watch but can never actually touch.

The Protection Racket

Here’s what keeps me up at night: the film works even when it doesn’t.

Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic put it bluntly: “Melania the movie isn’t a documentary; it’s a protection racket.” Amazon—which has extensive federal contracts through AWS and whose CEO Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and Blue Origin—paid $40 million for this film with $28 million going directly to the Trump family coffers, far above any competing bid, adding $35 million for marketing. Amazon reps insisted they invested so heavily because they “think customers are going to love it.”

The film made $7 million in its opening weekend—technically “the strongest opening for a documentary in a decade.” But as Sam Adams noted in Slate, there’s an old Hollywood term for a $75 million movie that opens with $7 million: a flop.

But that was never really the point, was it? Bezos dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago just weeks before this deal was announced. Days after the film’s release, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Bezos’s facilities. The film premiered at the Kennedy Center—not with celebrities, not with Hollywood, but with government officials. Government officials attending a film about a First Lady, distributed by a company that needs those officials’ approval for federal contracts.

This isn’t just a bad movie. It’s a transaction dressed up as art. And while Amazon spent $75 million on this vanity project, they laid off one-third of Washington Post staff, including investigative reporters who might have covered the transactional nature of that very deal.

If you’re wondering what a “protection racket” looks like in practice, that’s it. The corruption isn’t hidden—it’s performed as culture, with a red carpet.

The New Blueprint

It’s what critic Sonny Bunch in The Bulwark calls “a pure and naked instrument of grift and propaganda deployed to great effect on an audience happy to lap it up.” Theaters in Florida and Texas sold out with people paying to bask in the golden glow of Trump Tower, even as my Chicago theater sat empty.

Trump supporters bought validation and millions more will stream it, absorbing the message that wealth equals virtue, that emptiness equals mystery, that a life of fittings and place settings is something to aspire to rather than mourn.

This is the blueprint now. Not to convince people with arguments, but to train them to accept branding as reality. To consume power as entertainment. To mistake production value for substance. To scroll through life absorbing vibes.

So, I’ll ask anyone with the misfortune of seeing this film (and the couple in my screening), is this what legitimacy looks like? Does wealth equal virtue? Does access equal truth?

But we’re not helpless. We can refuse to stream it. We can spend fewer dollars with Amazon, the company run by a billionaire that gifted $28 million to another billionaire while laying off a third of their Washington Post journalists. We can patronize actual documentaries that investigate power instead of performing it.

More urgently, we need to recognize propaganda when we see it. Not for us to become paranoid, but to become literate. To notice when editing fabricates truth. To question when we are told to stare at golden shiny things and ignore reality.

Because if we can’t tell the difference between what is and what was, we’ll already have lost more than we know.

Subscribe now

Share

At UNASB, we don’t listen to MAGA voices to mock them. We listen to understand them — to study how they package power, masculinity, nostalgia and grievance into something aspirational. We try to decode the vibe.

Last Monday, we spent three hours inside one of the most influential vibe machines in America: The Joe Rogan Experience. His guest was Palmer Luckey.

If you only know Luckey as a young billionaire with political opinions, you’re missing the engineering part of the story. He’s not a nepo baby. He built something real.

As a teenager, Luckey began developing what would become the prototype for modern virtual reality headsets. He founded Oculus Rift. In 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion. By his early twenties, he was one of Silicon Valley’s wunderkinds — proof that technical brilliance plus timing equals astronomical wealth.

He is now 33 years old and has spent over half his life building advanced electronic systems. After leaving Facebook, he founded Anduril, a defense technology company with billions in U.S. government contracts focused on autonomous weapons systems, surveillance and AI-enabled military tools.

Subscribe now

He is now a big boy with very big toys.

He is, by any definition, accomplished. Smart. A true engineer.

And he is also a MAGA supporter, moving comfortably within the ecosystem that Rogan both shapes and reflects.

That is where the metaphor becomes unavoidable.

In the biblical book of Isaiah, there is a vision of peace: They shall beat their swords into ploughshares. Weapons transformed into tools of cultivation. Instruments of death reshaped into instruments of nourishment.

For centuries, that phrase has represented moral progress — the idea that technology and power can be redirected toward human flourishing.

Luckey represents a cultural inversion.

The engineer who once built a device designed to expand human experience — to immerse us in new worlds — now builds machines designed to dominate and, if necessary, eliminate perceived enemies. The ploughshare has become a sword.

And we are funding the forge.

Anduril’s contracts are not speculative venture capital experiments. They are taxpayer dollars. Public money flowing into increasingly autonomous and increasingly anonymous systems of force.

Luckey frames this as innovation.

He does not present himself as a warmonger. He presents as an engineer solving problems. He sees inefficiency and wants to optimize it. He sees risk and wants to automate it. He sees global competition and wants to win.

In that framing, morality becomes secondary to capability.That’s the cultural shift.

Rogan’s platform amplifies this because it rewards confidence, competence, and masculine spectacle. It prizes strength, innovation, and the thrill of competition. The allure of dominance. In that ecosystem, robots fighting robots isn’t horrifying. It’s fascinating.

Palmer Luckey doesn’t appear cruel. He seems excited, proud, almost boyish in his enthusiasm. And that is what makes it complicated.

Because what he builds is not neutral.

Autonomous weapons are not simply cooler versions of existing tools. They alter the moral distance between decision and consequence. They abstract human cost. They make force scalable and, potentially, easier to deploy.

Three hours of conversation, and very little sustained reflection on what happens when lethal capability becomes software-driven and self-directed.

Three hours of futurism and nostalgia — and almost no pause to consider what kind of world emerges when cultivation loses cultural prestige and combat gains it.

I found myself strangely conflicted.

Luckey is charismatic, brilliant, and in some ways admirable. The self-made engineer archetype still holds enormous power in the American imagination. We are drawn to competence. We root for builders.

But admiration without scrutiny is how cultural currents quietly reverse direction.

We once imagined technology as something that would free humans — from labor, from scarcity, from limitation. Increasingly, it is being sold as something that will outfight us.

Turning ploughshares into swords is not simply a defense policy decision. It is a cultural one. It reflects what we celebrate. What we fund. What keeps life going.

And while we argue over groceries and healthcare, billions of public dollars are moving from cultivation to combat — from tools that feed to tools that fight.

This isn’t inevitable.

It is a choice.

The most unsettling part of the interview was not aggression. It was what was missing. An absence of moral wrestling. An absence of hesitation about where this road leads. The engineer sees a system to improve.

The question is whether we, as a culture, still see the difference between building a world and dominating one.

In many ways, 2026 feels like a Mars moment — whether you believe in astrology or not. The cultural current favors fire, assertion, boldness. Competence is prized. Strength is aestheticized. Winning is a virtue.

Palmer Luckey embodies a version of masculinity ascendant in this moment: technically brilliant, fascinated by capability, comfortable with scale and force. It is not an angry masculinity. It is an optimized one.

But masculinity is at a crossroads. Real strength is not measured in how powerful the tool is, but in what the tool is for. The divine masculine — if we still believe in such a thing — is not defined by domination. It is defined by stewardship. It asks not only “Can we build it?” But…“What are we responsible for once we do?”

A warrior without guardianship is a spectacle. Power without compassion is performance.

It isn’t how big or good-looking your muscle is. It’s what you use it for.

If we do not remember the difference, we may wake up one day to discover its long-term cost: we didn’t shift resources to infrastructure, or that which helps people.

We simply built better swords — and called it progress.

Subscribe now

Share

This past week, at 38 weeks pregnant with my first child, I went to the hospital with high blood pressure. They were checking for preeclampsia - a condition that can quickly become life-threatening for both mother and baby - despite my otherwise normal and healthy pregnancy. I sat in a triage room, hooked up to monitors, watching numbers on a screen, waiting and nervous.

Thankfully, the tests came back negative, but this is what new motherhood is, before it even formally begins: It is a cascade of fears from rational to irrational, and everything in between. For many of us, they begin before we even get pregnant and don’t seem to let up. Fear that something is wrong with your baby. Fear that you’re not feeding them right. Fear that you can’t trust the information you’re getting. Fear that you’re not enough. Fear that the world your child is entering is not safe. According to one survey, new moms spend more than 1,400 hours worrying about their baby’s health in the first year alone. That’s eight straight weeks of nothing but worry.

These fears are universal and, in many cases, healthy! They’re the instinct that keeps us vigilant, the power that we could lift a car, the engine behind every late-night Google search and every call to the doctors. But in 2026, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and the Trump administration have turned those fears into a grift. They are not easing the anxieties of new mothers. Instead, they are identifying them, inflaming them, and converting them into supplement sales, podcast downloads, and ultimately, votes.

MAHA is taking our concerns and turning them into cons.

Subscribe now

The Concern: “Is something wrong with my baby?”

Every new mom worries that something is wrong with her baby. It is biological. It is constant. It is the reason we lie awake listening for breathing.

The Con: Tylenol causes autism and the vaccine schedule is a hoax.

The same week I started getting pregnancy headaches - the kind where you’re already anxious because you know high blood pressure runs in your family, and you’re not quite out of the first trimester weeds - the White House went on Truth Social to tell parents not to give their children Tylenol “for virtually any reason,” linking acetaminophen to autism despite no causal evidence. A major JAMA study of 2.5 million children had already directly rebutted this claim. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the White House announcement “filled with dangerous claims and misleading information.” But the damage was already done. Personally, I had to spend an entire appointment navigating how to treat my headaches and worse, parents started showing up to ERs with infants running 103-degree fevers, too afraid to give them medicine.

Last week, I had to call my hospital with a question I didn’t think I’d need to ask: would they still be administering the hepatitis B vaccine after birth, given recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommendations? And when RFK Jr.’s HHS removed the COVID vaccine from the recommended schedule for healthy children and pregnant women - a move that also affects insurance coverage - the question of what else might quietly disappear stopped being paranoid and started being practical.

They are taking the most primal fear a mother has - is my baby okay? - and exploiting it to sell distrust.

The Concern: “Am I feeding my baby right?”

Twenty-eight percent of new parents list “is my baby getting enough to eat?” as their number one fear. Before my baby has even arrived, I’ve already fielded unsolicited opinions about breastfeeding versus formula, about what I should and shouldn’t be eating while pregnant, about whether my prenatal vitamins are the right brand. The anxiety around feeding is relentless and for many mothers, it’s tied directly to the question of whether they’re doing enough.

The Con: Shame moms no matter what they do but tell them you have all the answers.

In said recent interview on Alex Clark’s TPUSA podcast, Calley Means, a former food and pharmaceutical industry lobbyist turned White House special government employee who by his own admission helped kill sugar taxes on behalf of Coca-Cola, lamented about “processed food as the first food a child eats.” That’s formula. He is talking about formula. The thing that keeps millions of newborns alive and healthy when breastfeeding isn’t possible or isn’t chosen. The MAHA movement claims to be the voice of American mothers and then shames them for how they feed their babies from day one - and the guy doing it used to lobby for soda companies. Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s HHS has pushed to restrict what SNAP recipients can buy, because apparently the administration that can’t get its own dietary guidelines straight wants to police what low-income mothers put in their grocery carts.

The Concern: “Can I trust what I’m being told?”

At our hospital tour, another expectant parent asked about the vitamin K shot, not because they had a medical concern, but because they’d seen something on Instagram. The nurse paused. You could feel the room recalibrate. This is what happens when federal health policy gets filtered through wellness influencers: every routine question becomes a landmine, and healthcare providers are left doing cleanup for misinformation they didn’t create.

I’ve had to think carefully about how I talk about our decision to use a doula and midwives, because those choices now carry political coding they didn’t used to. The vaccine schedule conversation, which should be a routine part of prenatal care, has become loaded with suspicion from every direction. I chose these things based on the guidance of trusted medical experts not because some wellness influencer told me the answers to America’s health crisis are in the Bible, like Means does in the interview.

The Con: The people asking you to distrust the medical establishment? Consider who they are.

Casey Means, Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General, dropped out of her surgical residency, profits from wellness supplements and sponsored social media posts, runs a metabolic testing company that a Public Citizen report says has already benefited from RFK Jr.’s promotion of wearable health devices, and invested in tobacco giants Philip Morris and Altria while selling you supplements for metabolic health.

Her brother Calley helped kill sugar taxes (or so he claims) for the soda industry before rebranding as a health crusader. As Public Citizen put it: MAHA influencers “accurately identify that much of the US healthcare system is beholden to corporate interests,” then “sell consumers their own version of the grift.” They didn’t fix the corruption. They just swapped which industry gets to profit off your anxiety.

The Concern: “Is my child safe?”

This is the fear that haunts every parent and the one this administration has the least credibility to address. The Harvard Center on the Developing Child has documented how childhood adversity such as abuse, family separation, and witnessing violence triggers toxic stress that disrupts developing brain architecture, weakens immune function, and drives chronic inflammation. The research on childhood sexual abuse (CSA) specifically is devastating: a Lancet Psychiatry umbrella review covering 559 studies and over four million participants found that CSA is associated with virtually every adult health outcome studied: elevated rates of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, and a 39% increase in type 2 diabetes. At the cellular level, childhood sexual abuse accelerates telomere erosion - literally aging survivors from the inside out.

This is the actual childhood health crisis. Not sugary cereal. Not Red Dye 40. Not the measles vaccine, whose most common side effects are a mild fever and a sore arm, and which prevents a disease that hospitalizes one in five and kills one to three per thousand who catch it.

The Con: They are actively endangering children.

In the same interview, Calley Means repeatedly says that President Trump is going to be “the voice of American children and the voice of American mothers.” I listened to this episode just days after the latest Epstein files dropped. Let’s sit with what “the voice of American children” actually looks like.

The 3 million pages of Epstein files released by the DOJ include an FBI report detailing an allegation that Trump raped a 13-year-old girl. They include a victim’s account of Ghislaine Maxwell “presenting” her to Trump at a party, telling her he “liked” her and suggesting she was “available.” They include a description of a 14-year-old being brought to Mar-a-Lago, where Epstein elbowed Trump, gestured at the child, and asked, “This is a good one, right?” Trump smiled and nodded.

And MAHA isn’t clean from the files either: Dr. Peter Attia - the longevity guru whose *Outlive* was a bestseller, whose podcast is gospel in the “optimize your health” world - appears over 1,700 times in the Epstein files. Three years of correspondence after Epstein had spent time in prison for soliciting minors. Medical advice for a convicted sex trafficker. CBS pulled his 60 Minutes segment after finding that one of the wellness industry’s most trusted doctors was pen pals with a pedophile.

And just a reminder: TPUSA is the same Turning Point that hosted the Super Bowl Halftime Show alternative - billed as a celebration of “American faith, family, and freedom” - headlined by Kid Rock. Whose song “Cool, Daddy Cool” includes the lyric “young ladies, I like ‘em underage / see some say that’s statutory / but I say it’s mandatory.”

The Concern: “Am I enough?”

Underneath all the specific fears - the feeding, the vaccines, the safety - is the one that runs deepest: Am I a good enough mother? Researchers have found that this question haunts parents across demographics. One qualitative study found that expectant mothers’ anxieties distilled down to a single devastating question, “Can one of my small choices ruin the entire life of my child?”

The Con: The MAHA movement has built its entire appeal on the answer being you’re not enough.

Yes, the wrong food will poison your child. Yes, the wrong medication will give them autism. Yes, formula will set them up for failure. Yes, the vaccine schedule is the thing that’s making kids sick. And the only way to be a good mother is to reject the establishment entirely, do your own research, buy the supplements, follow the right influencers, and achieve a kind of maternal purity that, conveniently, requires a subscription and discount code. This is how they actively work to erode public trust in medical professionals, making mothers feel like they can’t rely on doctors and instead must turn to MAHA for guidance.

This is the funnel. And at the bottom of it are not healthier kids. It’s a voter base.

Calley Means says the quiet part out loud in that same Alex Clark conversation when he shares that Charlie Kirk told him behind the scenes that he was excited about the MAHA movement because of “the electoral implications of MAHA and how new voters could be brought into the fold.” Not changing vaccine regulations. Not finding root causes of disease. Not healthier kids. Power. And Means says this in the same breath as he says that the answers to our health crisis are in the Bible.

So what do we do?

Well, the rugged individualism baked into new parenthood cuts across political lines. It makes sense, we all want agency. From the ingredients in our food to what kind of education our kids receive, it is part of our responsibility to navigate the world on behalf of our children. These fears? They’re not weaknesses. They’re what make us pay attention.

But the Alex Clarks, the Calley Means, the Trump advisors, and the MAHA influencer class are not respecting those fears. They are mapping them, monetizing them, and weaponizing them all while Mar-a-Lago membership hits $1 million and the man they call “the voice of American children” smiles at fourteen-year-olds in his own club, and while a former soda lobbyist tells you the real problem is your baby’s formula.

More and more people are waking up to the fact that the Trump administration thinks Americans, specifically moms, are absolute idiots. From the brazen lies out of DHS after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street, a nurse and a U.S. citizen, whom Kristi Noem immediately labeled a “domestic terrorist” despite video evidence showing otherwise, to the abduction of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos from his home in a Minneapolis suburb where federal agents using the boy as bait to get his mother to open the door. And we can’t forget the constant denial of the president’s well-documented social calendar with the most prolific child sex trafficker in modern history, even as 3 million pages of Epstein files now sit on a DOJ server with Trump’s name appearing thousands of times throughout.

It is abundantly clear: they think we’ll keep eating the bullshit they’re serving.

But they’re wrong. And here’s one simple thing we can do: talk to each other. Share our stories, our fears, our questions. Build communities of trust and support that don’t depend on influencers or politicians, but on our communities. When we hear a friend repeating MAHA talking points, engage with empathy and facts because they are likely coming from the simple desire to be a good parent. The antidote to their grift is our solidarity. They can’t exploit our fears if we face them together.

Subscribe now

Share

“We have everything we could ever want. It’s about power.”

What sounds like a war cry, or a leaked text from a GOP Signal group, is actually pulled from Netflix’s Members Only: Palm Beach trailer. This quote neatly summarizes the motivation behind the protagonist of the show, millionaire Ro-Mina Ustayev, who upends her life to move from Philadelphia to Palm Beach in pursuit of power, in the form of a Mar-a-Lago membership.

Politics are never openly discussed on the show, but proximity to power is lusted for openly and often. In this show lies a case study about how eagerly the most well-resourced on the Right will bend to power in order to get in the same room as President Trump or Elon Musk, and the uniform of the Right reinforces the ideology. What can the Left learn from watching wealthy women radically transform themselves for access to Trump?

The bargain is clear. In exchange for access to President Trump and Elon Musk, Ro-Mina must accept isolation, xenophobia, and relentless scrutiny under Palm Beach’s strenuous social code. It’s not about wealth. It’s about what you have to do and how you have to look to amass power.

Members Only: Palm Beach follows Ro-Mina’s attempts to gain acceptance into a society of modest blondes with a preference for florals and pastels despite her own penchant for leather and yelling. Three Palm Beach veterans guide her metamorphosis: Rosalyn Yellin (a prominent philanthropist and former Zumba instructor), Gale Brophy (a socialite of the past with mysterious wealth), and Hilary Musser (a property developer celebrating wedding number five). Ro-Mina herself is a former healthcare executive, Uzbekistani immigrant, and aspiring singer/fashion designer. Each woman has embarked on a tremendous transformation to fit into Palm Beach society.

And now it’s Ro-Mina’s turn.

Ro-Mina’s wealth, which is enough to cover the $1 million cost of membership at Mar-a-Lago, does not make her social life any more bearable. Acceptance requires submission to “the Palm Beach way”. Ro-Mina is willing to learn and implement these standards, of which the most important is never showing your chest and legs at the same time, but finds true acceptance still out of reach. It seems new rules are created just for her - when she asks for cash instead of presents on her birthday, she’s chastised by each of her mentors. She shows off her new wardrobe often, but it’s the wrong material. Meanwhile, Ro-Mina’s mentors routinely violate the very rules they claimed were set in stone.

These contradictions are on purpose. The rules aren’t about looking or acting a certain way. They’re about deference to leadership in exchange for more invitations to ever-more enticing rooms

Ro-Mina Ustayev on IMDb

Throughout the season, Ro-Mina repeatedly and proudly shares her immigration story and attempts to merge her Uzbekistani heritage and culture with the customs of Palm Beach society. Instead, she is referred to as Pakistani and eventually, the tension reaches an all-time high when Ro-Mina is told to “go back to her own country” at an etiquette class by one of her mentors. But instead of backing down, she recommits to climbing the social hierarchy. While commenting that immigrants often take better advantage of American opportunity, she even imagines herself at the top of the ladder, leading the entire Palm Beach social scene in her own way. But that seems all but impossible while the old guard of Palm Beach continues to criticize and undermine Ro-Mina’s every move. It becomes clear that it just isn’t about the look, it’s the public display of reverence to the powerful that truly leads to acceptance and praise.

What Members Only Says about the Right – and Left — in this current moment

At Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath, we analyze and brainstorm on right-wing messaging and themes and convert them into actionable ideas to strengthen the Democratic approach. Members Only: Palm Beach showcases how the Right’s promise of power and personal celebrity is enticing enough to convince the wealthiest across America to upend their lives and relocate to Trump’s front door.

The political Right reinforces its power in a way that intensifies the loyalty of its aspirational believers. Conform and defer, and you’ll be rewarded with access, wealth, and validation.

The left mirrors these demands of conformance in less clear-cut ways. The left encourages diversity in image and slogan, but the rules of acceptable behavior are even more strict and numerous. Take the recent attempt to cancel Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers of the Las Culturistas podcast after they discouraged fans from donating to Jasmine Crockett’s campaign to flip Texas’ U.S. Senate seat. Backlash against this expression of diversity of thought as to where Democrat voters’ limited dollars should go quickly ensued.

Those of the left must display humility, tolerance, smarts, confidence, and charm in perfect form, across all demographics, at all times, to be considered marketable. Even then, the payoff still may not cover your ever-increasing rent.

If your goal is to tap the nearly endless resources of influence and cash of the right-wing elite, the decision to conform is easy. At least, it seems worth it to Ro-Mina. The later episodes justify her outer work by featuring a picture of her, floral-clad, next to the President and her mentor, with perfect smiles all around.

Those on the left gain status through a combination of virtue signals—empathy, compassion, collectivism. As evidenced in Members Only, the Right gains ground through a seemingly easy to follow guide to power. Follow the rules, you’ll be rewarded. The clarity is seductive.

If politics is downstream of culture, and culture is composed of group identity, then Members Only shows how the enforced styling of the Right sustains its worldview and prestige. They understand that power is something to be protected, not shared. Being easy to identify shows your dominance. They make the path to power legible, with clear messaging and visuals meant to go viral. Meanwhile, the left demands perfection and makes no promises for success.

The Right is selling access and the left is selling approval. We shouldn’t be surprised that one is much more persuasive. If Democrats want loyalty, they have to offer real, clear, and joyful incentives, not just moral righteousness. Otherwise, they will keep losing to people in pastels who know exactly what they’re dressing for.

Subscribe now

Share

There are many things that have stayed with me from a career in social impact: relationships, fundraising strategies, and an understanding of what “social enterprise” actually means. But the learning I refer to most came from a mentor steeped in equity-centered practices, who distilled years of social movement work into one deceptively simple framework:

“We all have work to do: Alone. In Affinity. Across Differences.”

I lived this methodology first hand. I am an Ashkenazi Jew who walked the Silent March from Auschwitz-Birkenau to honor my people. I studied Arabic to understand a part of the Middle East I’d never been taught. I joined Progressive Jewish spaces and attended Breaking the Silence events on campus. And then I lived and walked across Jordan so I could understand history from a Palestinian perspective. All while traveling to my Israeli “friends-turned-family” home for Passover that same Spring.

I landed somewhere powerful: meaningful relationships, conversations, and moments with Palestinians, Israelis, passionate Americans, and seemingly indifferent folks until news hit the front page. Every time there’s a crisis in the Levant, I take calls from each category of person, each relationship built on the foundation of trust, mutual understanding, and honesty. I have never sacrificed my convictions for palatability; I have remained open to persuasion or new approaches to peace when presented with new information.

UNASB exists because its members refuse to stay in our bubble. We meet biweekly to dissect conservative-leaning podcasts, not to mock them, but to understand the messaging patterns that resonate with millions. We’re studying their techniques so we can have more effective, long-term conversations with people we disagree with.

Rather than defending UNASB’s approach, I’m inviting those who criticize our group to consider their own strategy. Whether people agree with us or not, the difficult truth is: what we’ve been doing for the last decade hasn’t worked, and isn’t working now.

How are you advancing the causes you care most about?

Though this framework was originally developed for equity-focused work in schools, specifically to support educator collaboration in multiracial contexts, I’ve repurposed it for democratic deliberation in an increasingly politically fractured nation.

• Alone: We need to understand our individual identity and personal growth areas, but we can’t move the needle operating only from our personal convictions.

• Affinity: We must explore our convictions in safe containers alongside those with shared or similar beliefs, but can’t change anything by staying in our echo chambers forever, surrounded only by people who already agree with us.

• Across Difference: We have to build unlikely coalitions that lead to sustainable solutions. But we can’t move the needle by abandoning our convictions just to fit in with people who are different from us.

The framework of working Alone, in Affinity, and Across Differences isn’t about choosing one approach over another: it’s about committing to all three.

Because that’s what it takes to make lasting progress.

This framework isn’t theoretical for me; it’s the architecture underlying my time with UNASB and The Magnet Collective. The skills for healthy democracies, workplaces, and communities are the same: constructive conflict, productive conversations, and collaborative deliberation to create solutions better than the ones we have today. Not perfect -- Better. Progress. Whether in policy reform, workplace deliverables, or finally filling that pothole you’ve skirted around the last three years.

We can’t build better policies, systems, or structures without aligning the majority of people to a shared solution. Collaboration can’t happen without Good Conflict and communication. And productive conflict and communication can’t happen in just one lane. They must be practiced, reflected upon, and practiced again across all three: Alone, in Affinity, and Across Differences.

Alone

This is personal work: the unglamorous process of learning and unlearning. What will it take to interrupt hatred, bias, and fear, not just in society, but in yourself?

Without this work, activism becomes performative instead of transformative.

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably started this work already.

This is what allows me to listen to a two-hour Benny Johnson episode without rage-quitting or red-pilling. When I first started UNASB, I couldn’t make it through 20 minutes of content without calling a friend to rant or eating my feelings.

But the “Alone” work forced me to ask myself: Why does this messaging land with millions of people? Where am I dismissing valid concerns because of who’s expressing them?

This self-interrogation doesn’t mean abandoning my values; it means examining why I hold them and whether communication of my convictions actually resonates with the realities of most Americans. And exploring how my beliefs remain true to myself while expanding my suggested solutions to reach more Americans, not less.

In Affinity

This Circle is with others “like us.”

People who broadly share our identities, our commitments, or our lived experiences. Affinity spaces are a natural way for people to connect around something we have in common, whether that’s race, religion, political orientation, or simply a shared workplace.

UNASB is fundamentally an affinity space. We are left-leaning people who gather to study right-wing content together. A shared political starting point lets us do the hard work of genuinely understanding, not just criticizing, conservative messaging. We can say: “I kind of understood that argument,” or “That messaging technique actually makes sense” without being accused of betraying our values.

These spaces serve a critical function. They offer safety, affirmation, healing, and the ability to speak freely without constantly explaining or defending your lived reality. They’re where we can be vulnerable about our mistakes, ask questions we’re afraid to ask in mixed company, and hold each other accountable without the performance pressure of being watched by those we’re trying to reach and engage.

In UNASB meetings, we workshop how to respond to family members. We practice reframing progressive values using communication patterns that work in conservative spaces. We process frustration together so we don’t bring emotional reactivity into politically divergent conversations.

But affinity spaces become echo chambers if we never leave them. That’s why the framework requires movement between all three Circles. UNASB isn’t the end goal.

It’s preparation for Circle 3.

Across Differences

This is the hardest, and often most necessary, work: engaging with people who have different experiences, perspectives, and yes, different political beliefs. It requires curiosity instead of quick condemnation. Listening instead of rehearsing rebuttals. Maintaining our values while remaining open to understanding how others arrived at theirs.

This is why UNASB exists. Not so we can listen to conservative podcast strategy forever, but so we can have better, longer-term, more productive conversations with real people in our lives. So we can collectively build policies that better represent Americans’ pain points, some of which Democrats have clearly overlooked for decades.

This doesn’t mean debating bad-faith actors. It means building coalitions with people who feel differently but share common objectives. It means hard conversations with family instead of cutting them off. It means organizing in spaces where consensus is earned through deliberation, not granted because everyone in the room already agrees.

The goal isn’t to compromise our values. The goal is to build the kind of broad-based power that actually shifts systems. And systems don’t change because everyone agrees with each other. Things change because we build unlikely alliances, find common ground across differences, and create movements too large to ignore.

But you can’t do any of that without Circles 1 and 2. You can’t facilitate across difference if you haven’t examined your own triggers. You can’t persuade someone or learn from them if you haven’t practiced explaining your perspective with people who share your convictions first.

This isn’t about excusing harm or compromising on justice. It’s about recognizing that sustainable change has always required coalitions built on shared concerns, not forced rhetoric or same realities. These coalitions require compromise and strong, trusted relationships.

Movements don’t win by preaching solely to the choir. They win by expanding it.

In the past, I’ve ended friendships over social disagreements and yelled quip remarks rather than listen to another’s perspective. But these strategies: the call-outs, the purity tests, the assumption that if we just yell our values loud enough everyone will come around, they’re not working.

I’m so uninterested in being liked. Or even in being right. What I am most interested in now is winning for my people. For my friends with a different skin color than me. For my neighbors on food stamps. For my family of teachers, unsure if going to work means enduring “Know Your Rights” trainings, preparing for a school shooting, or actually teaching.

I don’t have all the answers. But as a dear friend & mentor recently reminded me, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

What might we gain by trying something new?

Progress has never come from a single approach.

So before dismissing UNASB as naive for studying conservative podcasts, I invite you to map your own strategy onto this framework.

• Are you doing your internal, personal work?

• Are you building accountability with people who share your commitments?

• Are you engaging, really engaging, across lines of difference?

We do the work alone to ground ourselves.

We do the work in affinity to sustain ourselves.

And we do the work across differences to actually change the systems we’re currently stuck in.

If we abandon any one of those Circles, we fail.

The stakes are too high. Our communities are fracturing. Our workplaces are fleeing. Our democracy is fraying. And the only way forward I’ve found that actually works is the hardest one: doing the internal work, building confidence in affinity, and then meaningfully and productively engaging across differences.

In fact, I would argue that UNASB and strategies like it might be the most promising move we have in our repertoire.

If you’re on the fence, how would you change our strategy to make progress?

I’d like to deliberate.

Subscribe now

Share

The New York Times profiled UNASB last week, and the online left had a field day calling us secret fascist right wing agents. Specifically, this post on Bluesky got traction (over 4k likes—we are FAMOUS!), with political commentator Jamelle Bouie1 writing,

“very classic case of unserious people who do not take anything seriously and see politics as a little game, and they are almost certainly listening for the vicarious thrill of hearing people voice and affirm their personal prejudices. they’ll be openly fash in a few years”

Several other users, across multiple platforms, expressed concern that we are inadvertently red-pilling ourselves. One user on Instagram wrote,

“Sounds tedious and an awful use of time. Why would you intentionally [expose] yourself to media designed to radicalize people and distort reality? Do you think [you’re] immune to the effects?”

I’m going to take this comment at face value and address this fear head on for myself. After 12 years of closely studying American history with a focus on the intersections between racism, social justice movements, and mass media, not to mention myriad radicalizing personal experiences; am I worried that a few hours of listening to Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes is going to suddenly flip my entire value system, worldview, and deep convictions around right and wrong? No.

If anything, my year in UNASB has helped me to be more grounded in my leftist beliefs and community, and therefore take my activism offline. I’m even making new friends in my thirties(!!!!)— one drove me to my first DSA meeting on Saturday, another that committed to canvassing with me for a progressive council member2 running in our neighborhood.

Every accusation is a confession. If you are concerned that you may accidentally become a fascist due to living in fascist times…I fear your politics may be merely reactionary to this moment, and not rooted in deeply held beliefs. There is deep spiritual work for you to do before wading into Nick Fuentes’s Youtube comments.

Once you do that, I encourage you to face your fears and look the enemy in the face directly, so you can counter it more effectively. (That’s what we’re doing in the club…duh!)

A few of our haters actually did a great job spelling out what UNASB does: seriously study right wing creators such that we can have more effective conversations with people we disagree with.

One of the main purposes of the club is a commitment to deep canvassing3 and relational organizing. Rather than knocking on strangers’ doors every four years and demanding their vote (the traditional model of political canvassing), start having real conversations, today. Lengthy, two-way conversations sans judgement, where you ask lots of questions and get vulnerable yourself.

When you do, you are going to hear echoes of talking points peddled on these podcasts: MAHA moms’ concerns about chemicals in foods, conspiratorial suspicion of big government institutions, fears about loneliness and a decline in community bonds, and a lot of (mis)interpretations of Christian doctrine. Your conversations will yield better results when you come armed with the knowledge of what ideas your fellow Americans are swimming in, and if you have developed an action plan of how to combat that messaging with your friends (aka UNASB).

Every month, our co-founders remind us of the “evergreen homework assignment”: talk to someone right-leaning or apolitical about what’s going on. And every time, someone shares that an idea, a tactic, or messaging strategy they learned in the club changed the way they spoke to a loved one and achieved a positive outcome. They got their in-law to call their senator about ICE funding, they were able to share a factual news source with an acquaintance drowning in disinformation, they had a productive conversation with a stranger on a train.

We’re not asking you to build bridges with fascists or try to rationalize their beliefs. We’re asking you to get serious about how Americans are getting their information and the deep parasocial bonds they form with podcasters. Out of the top 10 podcasts Spotify users listened to in 2025, 7 are right-wing or right-adjacent. 7/10!!!!!

You can keep your head in the sand and shit on what we do in the comment section, or you can face reality.

For a closing action item, a few commenters suggested we may be funded by malevolent right-wing forces…

If anyone has any Thiel bucks to share, pls DM.

In all seriousness we are looking for donations and would love if a larger media org wanted to work with us… .. … :)

FWIW: A Few Short Caveats Before We Begin

1. Over the last seven months, I’ve been surprised (horrified) to find that many of the most popular right-wing creators/podcasters, as extreme as they are in the short clips circulated in my feed, can be compelling and even charming when given an hour to speak on their various podcasts. The commentary they offer, harmful as it is, is deceptively simple and easy to understand.

2. I don’t work in politics but I care deeply about our political future. I’ve watched as the right has monopolized the conversation online, and I think it’s critical that left-of-center people take a serious look at these creators and try to learn what makes them effective.

3. It’s worth noting that our digital news ecosystem is not a fair marketplace for ideas. A lot of powerful interests are working behind the scenes to socially engineer the information we see, keeping us ill-informed, angry and divided.

4. I disagree with the entire belief system, rhetoric, peddling of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and harmful conspiracy theories that right-wing content creators like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and countless others have made their careers normalizing.

With all these items in mind, our political process still relies on understanding and engaging different perspectives. Ignoring the loudest and most popular voices on the right isn’t just bad politics; it makes it impossible to understand the information people are consuming on a daily basis. The cues that these creators have perfected to reach millions of partisan and politically ambivalent listeners are not captured in the short clips amplified on TikTok and reels. We ignore these cues at our own risk. ​

The Podcast Election

In 2025, over 210 million Americans listened to podcasts. 55% of listeners identified themselves as weekly listeners. There is no longer any doubt that podcasts are a primary source of news for the vast majority of Americans.

One of the reasons I value UNASB is because I’m interested in how the Right has cultivated and expanded an online ecosystem of podcasts and creators.

As part of the 2024 campaign, President Trump and Vice President Harris appeared on dozens of podcasts in the four months leading up to the November election. “20% of likely voters… [said] they have watched one of the Trump podcast episodes… More than half of [listeners] said Trump’s podcast interviews made them “more likely” or made “no difference” on their decision. In contrast, about 27% of voters said they have watched one of Harris’ appearances on podcasts. But for those who… watched, about 50%… said it made them less likely to vote for her.”

Not only did President Trump make more appearances, but the appearances he made persuaded more voters to support him.

While Harris did make campaign stops on Call Her Daddy, The Breakfast Club, and The Howard Stern Show, her appearances focused primarily on the election and her candidacy. Meanwhile, Trump talked about professional wrestling with Mark Calway, spent three hours on a live show with Joe Rogan and joked with Theo Von on This Past Weekend. Overall, President Trump visited more non-political shows and took more risks to build his audience.

What I want to stress here is that the right-wing’s dominance of podcasts and emerging platforms didn’t happen in a vacuum. The right-wing has systematically developed an ecosystem of commentators and creators over the last decade. Media Matters identified nine of the top ten of the nation’s largest podcasts as “right-leaning.” Of the 320 shows the organization analyzed, approximately 60 percent met the same “right-leaning criteria.”

This piece is my attempt to outline some of the things I’ve learned as part of UNASB, reconcile with this reality, consider ways the left could break through to new audiences, and take on this right wing media ecosystem.

Case Study: Will The Real Tucker Carlson Please Stand Up?

The first thing I noticed when listening to and watching Tucker Carlson’s podcast, The Tucker Carlson Show, was his tone shift compared to his evening show on Fox News.

On TV, he could be found most weeknights sporting a bow tie and floating conspiracy theories like whether President Obama had wiretapped President Trump. The Fox News version of Tucker Carlson was combative, hyper-partisan and a lot more aligned with the GOP establishment.

Podcast Tucker is different. He’s more laid back. He wears flannels, makes jokes and presents himself as a reformed zealot seeking common ground. Whether this is true or not, this is the way podcast Tucker presents himself.

During Tucker’s conversation with Ana Kasparian, host of The Young Turks, the two talked like old friends. They laughed together and found common ground on a range of issues, like Israel, the homelessness crisis—while still allowing for deep differences. This conversation employed one tactic that I’ve seen across many right-wing podcasts: the “agree to disagree” maneuvering. There are many issues on which Tucker Carlson and Ana Kasparian disagree: whether the 2020 election was stolen, whether women should have a right to choose, etc. There were moments where each person came close to discussing these topics, but, frustratingly for me as a liberal listener, they completely dodged them. By maintaining this agree-to-disagree compromise throughout, the conversation was cordial and created room for them to find issues they could agree on: like the genocide in Gaza, the need for better services for people experiencing homelessness and ways that big companies push agendas on the mainstream news channels.

This is no small feat in today’s political climate and it’s a deliberate strategy to maintain civility and conceal the real differences between the left and the right. It’s replicated across new episodes every week. By actively avoiding the most bombastic disagreements, welcoming guests with radically different political views and maintaining a friendly banter, Tucker Carlson has strategically reinvented himself, enabling him to reach new audiences and mainstream the views of some of the country’s most radical right-wingers.

​Case Study: Nick Fuentes Can (And Will) Say Anything

Growing up, Nick Fuentes listened to the popular right-wing radio host Mark Levin every day. Levin is a radio personality best known for accusing President Obama of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and peddling the great replacement theory. The right-wing radio show host has an innate ability to boil every issue, no matter how complex, down to a simple left versus right and right versus wrong framework. As a high schooler, Levin’s simple, pro-America rhetoric resonated with Fuentes.

Fuentes’ early podcast episodes reflect a more boilerplate version of traditional conservative rhetoric; over the last decade his tone and content have grown much more fringe.

After listening to a few of his episodes, I would characterize his approach to podcasting as a sort of stream of consciousness, angry screed attacking any and everyone. His episodes feel organically disorganized, jumping from topic to topic and shifting back and forth from blatant racism to attacks on his perceived allies to the political right. He frequently reminds the audience, “you may disagree with me, but I’m telling you the truth.”

To reiterate, I’m disgusted and appalled by almost every argument he makes and every position he supports. But… They’re not complicated and I understand them.

In the same way that Donald Trump’s early 2015 political rallies wrapped the national media for their outlandish and unpredictable quality, Fuentes has grabbed the national media with his penchant for a bizarre sound bite, his shameless embrace of racist conspiracy theories and his ability to attack both political parties. Whether you’re watching Fuentes for the first time or you’re an active weekly listener, you never know what he’s going to say—and that may be a part of the appeal.

In the episode UNASB listened to, Fuentes rambled about President Trump’s military parade. He called the parade “lame,” accused President Trump of being a “grifter,” urged conservatives to move further right and declared MAGA dead. He simplified the president’s lackluster parade to a simple and effective attack on MAGA as a whole.

Over eight years, Fuentes has recorded hundreds of hours of content and grown his following to millions of listeners. Even those of us who don’t listen to him religiously know who he is because his ideas have entered the mainstream dialogue of conservative politics.

If you need any more proof that his strategy is working, consider that the Republican Party has devolved into a full-scale revolt over whether MAGA should embrace or reject the podcaster.

Where We (Could) Go From Here

The Democratic party will never succeed if they can’t meet the moment. We are living in an era that requires a different, never-before-seen, playbook. Here are some basic and cursory things that we could do:

1. Identify and elevate new content creators who are platform savvy, quick on their feet and broadly likable and persuasive. One item to stress, these individuals don’t need to be expressly political. Most of the creators drawing the largest audiences are not political, but rather comedians, gamers, athletes or everyday people sharing stories about their lives.

2. Most people are not following politics day to day. When we talk about politics, we must focus on emotional appeals and storytelling.​ Specifically, we need to be better at framing the policy issues we care about in ways that resonate with people who may be learning about our positions for the first time.

3. Learn something from the creators on the right. Love them or hate them, they’ve quickly adapted to a new medium and simplified complex political issues for a sizable, and growing, community.

4. It’s not enough to call out disinformation if we’re not challenging the ecosystem that enables it to flow freely. The left must take lessons in simplistic and compelling communication from the right, to counter the content that has mainstreamed much of the MAGA agenda.

It is not enough to criticize creators we disagree with or respond to every controversial thing they say. We must make a broader pitch to their listeners, and make inroads to new audiences who are not following politics day-to-day.

Rather than disagreeing without engaging, try engaging but disagreeing.

Subscribe now

Share

The semi-charmed reality of hyper-normalization that many creators and influencers were living in may finally be coming to an end.

Polling has made this clear: approval for ICE and Trump are slipping fast. While political insiders and mainstream media may be moved more by data, society as a whole is moved by culture.

Polls don’t give permission to speak out, but people with influence do

After the killing of Alex Pretti in Minnesota, and the protests that followed, people have stopped treating this like another bad news cycle and started speaking out like something fundamental had finally been exposed.

The moment where the distance between “what we’re told is happening” and “what we see is actually happening” is truly collapsing.

This time, it isn’t just the political creators, independent journalists, or your friend who just “always post about this stuff.” This horrible act by the administration is causing everyone from the mid-sized Midwest mommy bloggers to influential powerhouses like Alix Earle and creators from across the spectrum of the entire internet to all agree that this is the red line for the culture.

This really matters because the veil between the dual states, the one where life seems normal for some, and the other where the power of the government feels limitless, has finally been lifted for all to see.

The post deemed safe enough to share

What’s happening in Minnesota is the final straw for those who have stayed silent this past year or more likely, this past decade, and this post gave them the chance to finally say “I can’t stay quiet anymore, even if it hurts my bottom line”. It was deemed by the creator economy (or their managers) that this was THE ONE to post to appease your audiences, or safe enough to dip your toe into political content. It’s a good post; it shares resources about how to help folks in Minnesota. It gives tangible action steps to take, so it feels better than just talking about feelings.

As with all things online, this inherently has layers. Creators started and stopped by sharing that post in their story. Alix Earle is a great example – she shared this right in the middle of posting photos of herself at Paris Couture Week. But others took it further.

Some are posting that their family members are immigrants, some are talking about how this went against their faith, and some are even going as far as saying Fuck ICE, or Fuck Trump.

And still others pushed further, beyond outrage or resources, and said, “if you supported Trump or ICE, unfollow me” or “you’re a shit person if you voted for this”

That reaction makes sense when you’re getting hit from all sides at once. Creators are being told to speak up faster and louder, while also being scolded with “I liked you better when you weren’t political” or “why are you still posting shopping links?” Creators are expected to be blank vessels for our entertainment, not fully actualized humans, and this is where parasocial relationships start to break down on both sides.

But telling one another to stop having feelings—just unfollow me— isn’t helpful. Calling people bad or telling them to fuck off from the conversation entirely doesn’t actually build understanding; it just puts up walls where we need bridges.

Propaganda is a hell of a psychological tool, and a lot of people are just trying to find some off-ramp out of the confusion and fear that a lot of media feeds them. The backlash to Pretti’s killing isn’t just political — it was emotional, moral, and human. And for some, demanding purity online was a way to express that intensity.

Being part of Unfortunately Not a Soundbath has taught that people can change their minds. A lot of people have strong convictions, but loosely held, and the right uses this to help hold favor when culture shifts. Perspectives aren’t monoliths. And above all, connection is greater than division, and something the left should do better is opening our big tent when people want to come in. It’s much more helpful to say “glad you could make it” instead of “what took you so long?”

This is what community actually looks like

This moment isn’t just about Minnesota.

It is about a lot of people realizing, all at once, that the gap between the story we’re being told about power and the reality of how it operates has gotten too wide to ignore. And once you really, truly see that, you start reaching for something else; each other.

When the veil lifts, the instinct isn’t just outrage, but also connection. The feeling of not being alone in our thoughts, feelings, or difficult questions.

This past weekend showed us what community can look like in real time, both online and off. Not everyone agreed on language or tactics. Not everyone showed up in the same way. But they showed up together, as neighbors, followers, lurkers all alike.

That matters.

If we want to get through what’s coming, politically, culturally, emotionally, astrologically, we need to purposefully build community. We need spaces where people can ask questions without being shamed or canceled, and process what’s happening without being told they’re doing it all wrong. They need a safe space to change their mind and grow.

We talk all the time about wanting a village, but villages don’t just appear. They’re made of villagers. And villagers stay even when it’s uncomfortable, listen instead of unfollow, and choose curiosity.

And the mid-size Midwest mommy bloggers are right about that part: everyone does want a village. But in this moment, we all have to be villagers.

Subscribe now

Share

To win, movements need two things: a base and money.

That’s not a cute slogan. It’s a basic organizing truth, often attributed to Saul Alinsky and echoed across generations of organizers since. You can’t build power without people, and you can’t sustain it without resources. You need both.

Right now, much of the left is trying to solve both problems with the same tool: more webinars. Webinars are large, one-way virtual events - typically an hour - where a small number of speakers present slides or talk, attendees are muted, and participation is limited to a chat box or a short Q&A at the end.

People leave informed, but untouched. They know more, but they haven’t met anyone, been asked to do anything, or felt responsible for what happens next.

I understand why. Webinars allow a small number of staff to reach a large number of people quickly. But the way most webinars are designed today is actively undermining the very things we say we’re trying to build.

Subscribe now

When people are treated like consumers, they act like critics

Most webinars position people as an audience—they’re consumers, not active participants, and thus they begin to act like critics. We’ve trained people to observe and judge, not to co-create.

People don’t commit to things they feel like they can’t build on with others.

This isn’t about surface-level fixes like music while people log on or a quick feelings check-in before the slides. These gatherings aren’t failing simply because they lack warmth. They’re failing because they ask almost nothing of the people attending.

Follow-up isn’t admin—it’s organizing

As Fred Ross Sr. taught generations of organizers, 90% of organizing is follow-up.

When I was an organizer, I was taught that follow-up works best within 24 to 48 hours. Reach out while the energy is still warm, and people follow through. Wait too long, and the moment passes.

Our webinar follow-up rarely meets that window. Emails go out days or weeks later, if they go out at all. They don’t reliably distinguish who actually attended from who registered and didn’t show. They rarely offer a concrete next step someone can say yes to in real time.

Imagining a different setup to build our base

One-way communication doesn’t build belonging. Effectiveness in organizing terms looks different. It looks like designing for roles and relationships, not just reach.

What if instead of treating recruitment as something that happens automatically once a link is live, you have a volunteer recruitment team whose job is to actually get people to the meeting? They ask each existing member to invite three friends, neighbors, or coworkers. They post in relevant subreddits and listservs. They focus on bringing people in both relationally and attractionally.

Now imagine pairing that with a welcome team who focuses on personalized follow-up after the Zoom room closes. Instead of an automated survey, each attendee gets a short, individual follow-up call to debrief the experience and offer a clear next step. Not “stay tuned,” but something concrete they can say yes to. And instead of quietly writing off no-shows, someone reaches out to say they were missed and personally invites them to the next gathering.

None of this is “efficient” in the narrow sense. It requires people to do real relational organizing.

Addressing the root causes of funding gaps

Right now, much of the left offers emails to grassroots donors and one-way webinars to wealthy individuals and institutions, and then acts surprised when neither group feels deeply invested.

We expect serious commitment after inviting people into a purely consumer relationship: newsletters, slides, no role beyond reading and watching.

Research cited by Joshua Birkholz, CEO of BWF, shows that when donors are friends with other donors, their lifetime value can increase 4X-5X, and their giving is more resilient during periods of economic and political uncertainty.

Relationship building doesn’t happen because someone analyzed the most impressive data or monologued the most inspirational story. It happens because people feel part of something bigger than a transaction.

This kind of connection can happen virtually. Analyst Institute regularly convenes donors for four-hour Zoom gatherings and people are happy to attend. Not because they want to be talked at, but because the time is designed around participation: small-group conversations, one-on-one connections, and full-group reflection.

At the last one I attended, I met a program officer actively looking to fund the exact kind of project someone else I knew was building. I made the introduction soon after, and tens of thousands of dollars quickly went into reproductive justice work. What stayed with me wasn’t the slides, but the feeling of agency—and gratitude for a space designed to make real things happen.

Participation changes what’s possible: the UNASB model

I’ve seen how participatory design changes people over time through Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath.

The majority of people in UNASB don’t work in politics. They’re nurses, lawyers, designers, therapists, students, bankers, retirees—pretty much any background you can think of. What brings us together isn’t professional alignment, but a shared desire to make sense of the political moment and not feel alone in it.

When we gather twice a month, it’s explicitly participatory. Members are expected to listen to a 1-2 hour right-wing podcast episode or watch a YouTube video in advance and come prepared with reflections on juicy questions in small groups. People’s cameras are on, and if they don’t participate, breakout leaders directly ask you one of those juicy questions. People bring different life experiences, instincts, and reactions that we each learn from.

UNASB not only builds a base—it also builds resources. Fundraising pitches happen in meetings to support operating costs. We encourage our friends not in the club to become paid subscribers of this Substack to support sharing our learnings. Many of us provide introductions, ideas, and frameworks to build the club’s infrastructure.

Over time, something shifts for all of us. Each of us gets better at listening. Our worldview expands. We feel more grounded in how we talk about politics, not just in the comments section but with family, coworkers, and neighbors.

When I ask people what has mattered most, it’s rarely the content itself. It’s the relationships and infrastructure we’ve built together. I see it in the IRL happy hours that spin up on their own in cities across the country, and in the many Signal threads I’m now part of with different members. People talk about feeling less isolated, more hopeful, and clearer about what they can actually do next.

None of this is accidental. The way we design our gatherings trains people how to show up.

If we keep designing webinars for passive consumption, we’ll keep getting spectators. If we design for participation, we build a base—and the resources that follow.

Share

A couple weeks ago, ~ 20 LA-based Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath (UNASB) members made it outside the group chat and met up for the third time this year. ICYMI, we’ve spent the last year meeting biweekly via Zoom to discuss right-wing podcast episodes with hundreds of strangers from across the country in hopes to be able to start having long-term persuasive conversations with the apolitical or right-leaning people in our lives who are consuming this. Given our usual interactions are virtual, our UNASB in-person meet ups are a special touchpoint that don’t require hours of consuming Ben Shapiro or Candace Owens beforehand.

However, in true UNASB fashion, we couldn’t be totally chill and felt the need to collectively share “how has your thinking/perspective changed from Dec 2024--Dec 2025?” for each of us. You may think standing in the middle of a food hall in LA, answering a question that inevitably takes you all to a pretty real and candid place, sounds terrible, but alas, new year new us.

Subscribe now

The last year has been particularly brutal, and things are bad—potentially worse than any of us thought

As I was reflecting on my answer, I was struck by how I could barely pinpoint a single memory from last December. It was an amorphous black hole of sadness, anger, frustration, disbelief, and deep-seated fear for our country—which is basically how the rest of the year felt, too. While we went around the circle, many of us expressed feeling jaded, and in some ways, even more so after we dug into the right-wing media machine. Listening to hours of everyone from Candace Owens to Peter Thiel was eye-opening and terrifying, but the massive audiences consuming it are perhaps even more staggering. They are cruel and ignorant. The content is appalling. The hate is real. UNASB has allowed us the space to conceptualize the fact that a lot of people are moved by this content and shock-driven algorithms are fueling it at an alarming pace.

Despite all of this, many of us mentioned having more empathy towards the other side

A lot of people expressed having much more empathy and understanding for those who voted for, supported, or even passively stood by this evil regime. In 2016 and even 2024, many of our approaches looked like, “You all created this hellscape, and therefore you deserve every bad thing that happens,” which in practice looked like unfollowing/blocking people on Instagram and multiple bitch sessions to people who wholeheartedly agree with us about our dumb childhood friends or racist uncles. Exposing ourselves to this content has helped us all realize just how persuasive and compelling the right’s messaging is and it’s motivated us to be active participants instead of passive haters. Given how lonely, scared, and desperate people are, it makes sense they’ve found respite in these echo chambers that are feeding them everything from religious text to convenient scapegoats. Where we used to slam the door shut, this year, being a part of UNASB has forced us to reflect and ultimately come to the conclusion that nothing will change unless we open the door and invite people in.

Community is the point

We all feel the impacts of the loneliness epidemic, and I definitely don’t need to sit here and tell anyone how hard it is out here to create new, sustainable connections. What we all seemed to share while standing in that circle was that UNASB didn’t take away how jaded we were; it gave us a place to process, learn, and grow alongside non-judgey ass people who genuinely want the same thing - a more humane and cohesive country that works together to improve the lives of everyone in it. We all show up and engage every other Monday for no other reason than that we want to be there, for ourselves and for each other, building community bit by bit that we want to bring others into.

The grief is immense, and so are the joys

The biggest difference between today and 12 months ago is not that things are all that much better; it’s that for this extraordinary group of people, we are allowing the good and the bad to coexist. We shared our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual highs and lows of the last year, but we also enjoyed delicious soup flights, cheese pizza, and laughed about hangovers. We talked about struggles and triumphs with our families and jobs while watching Red Zone and discussing our fantasy football teams. People exchanged wine, candles, and hand-knitted socks, despite having met in person only a handful of times (or never at all). We feed each other’s motivation on the good days and serve as tangible reminders of hope on the bad ones. These connections have transcended our bi-weekly virtual meetups and have transformed into deeply valuable relationships that are rooted in shared respect, curiosity, and a deep desire to help make real improvements in the lives of all Americans.

There’s a beautiful saying in Spanish: “Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo,” which essentially means only the people can save the people. It’s going to take more than the members of UNASB to rechart the course our country is on, but I’m hopeful that when I’m writing this next year, we’ll be continuing to grow this incredible community that is trying to do just that in every food hall, dining room table, and computer screen across the U.S.

Share

Unfortunately Not A Sound Bath (UNASB) met for the first time in February 2025. Our first episode assignment featured Ben Shapiro joyously celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration and the aggressive first days of his second term. We were a bunch of sad liberals watching our worst nightmare become reality. Without a minute to spare, the administration violently dehumanized the people we care about, threatened our freedoms and hacked away at policies and agencies that allow us to live healthily and to pursue happiness.

We couldn’t help but wonder… “How the hell did we get here!?” We consider ourselves smart people, but at the time, I wouldn’t say we were curious. We didn’t actually care to understand why our neighbors would cast their vote for an aspiring authoritarian openly backed by billionaires and grifters, maybe because we couldn’t understand how anyone could vote for someone like that. In addition to considering ourselves “smart”, we would also say we are quite “online”. However, we just weren’t consuming the same content as those on the other side of the ‘aisle’. This was both intentional (our own avoidance) and unintentional (internet silos and algorithms).

So, with the help of UNASB, and for some of us–a curated cocktail of prescription meds—we braved uncharted waters, the right-wing media ecosystem.

We started having tough listening sessions and insightful community discussions. No longer would we bury our heads in the sand while right-leaning creators and commentators wove conspiracies, violent rhetoric, and lies into comedic, engaging, and oftentimes reasonable content. Content that tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of people consume everyday.

We meet them head-on, not in an attempt to prove them wrong or debate Matt Walsh directly, but to understand what their audiences are hearing. In our view, this is the only way we can have genuine, productive conversations with people we disagree with. It became clear that the motivating factor behind a lot of this content is a desire for a more transparent society where Americans have the ability to prosper. It’s clear people across the political spectrum generally want that.

We’ve tackled it all

• Your classic conservative commentators Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson.

• The extremists, Nick Fuentes, Matt Walsh, and Steve Bannon.

• The culture warriors, Candace Owens, Isabel Brown and Brett Cooper.

• We’ve covered the MAHA & wellness crusaders like Alex Clark, Jordan Peterson, Andrew Huberman.

• The tech right, from Peter Thiel to the All-In podcast.

• The Manosphere Bros™ like Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Theo Von, and Tim Dillon.

Based on hours of “hearts open, ears bleeding” listening and yapping, here are 10 practical ways to have better conversations with right-leaning—and even apolitical—people. Godspeed.

1. Feelings >>> Facts.

Lead with simple, personal stories — not data or macro policy concepts. Right-wing pundits often justify their positions by referencing a singular, personal story that paints a clear picture for the listener, usually held up with little to no facts. If you care about the scientific method, this will ruffle your feathers. But we’ve learned this approach is a powerful tool in bringing the audience along, making the host seem human, in touch, and just like you!

2. Simple, basic language is better than being overly precise.

In the same vein, people on the left are so insistent on backing up their claims with facts, but persuasion is about FEELINGS. Use clear language to express your position and save the specifics for later. You can’t bring people along if they have no idea what you’re talking about.

3. Make the issues about the individual, not the collective.

Voters care about how people in charge affect their personal lives. When trying to persuade, hone in on how policy decisions impact that person directly, versus emphasizing how society at-large stands to benefit (or suffer). As progressives who believe in collective solutions, this can be challenging—but it’s possible.

4. Acknowledge changes of heart and move on.

People change their minds, and we need to be more accepting of that. When your position has changed and evolved, explain the reasoning simply (see above!), and move on. Don’t belabor an apology or beg for forgiveness. Demonstrate that there won’t be consequences for people arriving at a new conclusion.

5. Use clear “villains” to describe a contrast (the more specific the better!)

Ultimately, we are storytelling in an effort to move people to our side. And storytelling boils down to a hero, a villain, a conflict, and a resolution. Don’t be vague when naming your villains. Who are the individuals who are responsible for our current conditions? To quote Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Sutton Stracke, “NAME ‘EM!”.

6. Conspiracies are about getting people’s attention, so think of them like click-bait.

As people who value the scientific method and data – conspiracy theories are antithetical to our way of thinking. But in an age of distrust and disinformation, it’s not hard to imagine why a conspiracy theory is alluring. Candace Owens and Joe Rogan know this — and endlessly “just ask questions” to keep audiences interested (just look at their growing numbers). We should think about how to use this tactic to attract people to the left while remaining true to our values. Think about what makes a conspiracy theory appealing: an answer to a complex problem, a clear scapegoat, a feeling of having “insider knowledge.” Channel this in your framing during conversations … without resorting to wild speculation.

7. Acknowledging when you don’t agree with the party line can build credibility.

In the aforementioned age of distrust, people are angry with a system that doesn’t seem to care about them. As persuaders, it’s not just okay to say when you disagree with the conventional wisdom: It’s encouraged. (Case in point: MTG. IYKYK.)

8. Telling someone they’re stupid, wrong, or evil is not going to bring them to your side.

Duh. This is UNASB 101. Persuading people is about inviting them in, not shutting them out. It’s tempting (and understandable!) to reject people whose beliefs challenge your very existence. But if we want to get people on board with our vision for the future, we have to show that — not by hurling insults at the people whose minds we want to change, but rather by listening.

9. Don’t take yourself so seriously (The work is serious but we shouldn’t be self-serious).

Stop trying to deliver perfect answers for everything, or to act like everything is a five-alarm fire! Just be normal! Be human! You might be surprised to learn even the Tuckers, Candaces and Ben Shapiros of the world poke fun at themselves, which is disarming … and frankly … charming. We need to act like the person you’d want to grab a beer with (Sorry). Don’t make pop culture references that you don’t genuinely understand. Don’t hyperbolize or catastrophize. Just be yourself. “Dems” have a lot of unlearning to do from the years of overly-message-tested needle-threading-but-saying-nothing responses.

10. We’re all often circling the same desired outcome. Try having a discussion about how to get there—even if it doesn’t lead to a direct conversion. And PLEASE BE CURIOUS!

We’ve heard so many of these right-wing voices advocate for policy outcomes, which TBH, are things we want too:Good jobs for all! Healthier food! Accountability for big pharma! Cheaper healthcare! A pathway to rehabilitation for the homeless population! The ability to buy a house! No wars! We all generally want the same thing – we just disagree on how to get there. Having a conversation with someone we don’t align with can remind those willing to listen that we are neighbors co-habitating this Earth — and that we may have far more in common than it seems. Don’t be frustrated if this person doesn’t immediately agree with you and change their position. Ask questions with genuine curiosity (not to prove your own point). When they respond with an answer you don’t love, just keep asking with an open heart. Persuasion is a long game – and the only way to win is to stay committed to being the type of person you’d want to live next door to.

So, as we head into 2026—a new year, and a midterms year, remember that these conversations will be aplenty, and they take time.

Think of these interactions as an opportunity to have a meaningful dialogue. Join UNASB for a space to unpack what’s happening around us and how to talk about it in new ways. Apply to join the next cohort (it starts on January 5th!) here.

Everyone is talking about my school on social media. The political media slop machines are in full gear. Laura Loomer won’t stop spewing unfounded, racist, Islamophobic garbage. Hateful, attention-seeking narratives are everywhere. I am reluctant to add fuel to the online dumpster fire. Especially when everything online is such a stark contrast to the facts on the ground.

What’s actually happening

When a shooter opened fire on an economics exam review session on Saturday afternoon, I was luckily several blocks away. When news broke, I sheltered inside a nearby store. Friends and strangers crowded around a few phones to listen to news coverage. Elsewhere, grocery store employees opened their break room to students. Campus workers welcomed students into their homes. Family, friends, and distant acquaintances texted and called. These narratives are missing from the national conversation.

The Brown and Providence communities are coming together in an incredible way. Restaurants are giving out free food. Professors, neighbors, and students are coordinating rides to airports. Alumni are contributing tens of thousands of dollars to help kids purchase and move their flights to go home.

Watching news coverage and TikTok experts unpack the situation, I feel angry and worn out

In Unfortunately Not A Sound Bath (UNASB), we attempt to understand right-wing media and build strategies to reach MAGA-curious audiences. We are trying to disrupt the unreality of conservatives’ world, where everyone is out to get them and minoritized racial, ethnic, and religious groups are the dangerous “other.” We often brainstorm the right phrases to say, questions to ask, and narratives to push. Yet, as I see the right-wing political ecosystem whirling with the fodder of my school’s tragedy, I struggle to imagine that “the right words” could do much to dismantle the toxic shitstorm on my phone.

This community gives me hope for the path forward. The neighborhood I see and stories I hear are far removed from my social media feed. Effectively reaching people with opposing political views requires trust and community as a prerequisite. For instance, right-wing figures with ties to Brown are urging and exercising caution against spreading inaccurate talking points.

How do we prevent future attacks? How do we get more people on the side of gun safety policies? This problem feels insurmountable when Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and countless more mass shootings, alongside everyday community violence, have not been enough to disrupt the system.

The answer is not by sidestepping politics

We know the policy solutions. Our country doesn’t have to live this way. But, as we chart a path forward, I am committing myself to a new tool in my organizing toolbox—one that UNASB has honed. Lobbying, rallying, protesting, bird-dogging, and posting all have their place. But from what I’ve seen on the ground at school, and through third spaces like UNASB, the answer feels clearer than ever: community-building. Fostering relationships and having real, honest conversations—even nonpolitical ones—is such a deradicalizing force. Physically and emotionally existing with neighbors with other worldviews will change their worldviews, and yours.

Building power is an exercise in empathy

Ending gun violence means not only caring about the victims of senseless attacks and their families, but also about everyday Americans who equally care about not seeing kids shot but hold politically distant views. We must approach people who have reached different policy conclusions with compassion and curiosity, recognizing that they share the same concern about the gun violence epidemic. We cannot reserve our empathy for those to whom it’s easiest to give.

In a 2017 New York Times op-ed, political scientist Hahrie Han examined how gun-rights groups like the NRA engage people who do not necessarily agree on gun policy. People often join movements in search of community and responsibility. To feel seen and to be wanted. Half of frontline anti-abortion activists did not hold those beliefs when they first attended an anti-abortion event. Groups on the left can be terrible at this practice. When we draw the boundaries of our community associations and political projects across rigid ideological lines, we lose people.

Yes, this moment warrants moral outrage. But anger alone has not delivered the lasting change this country needs. I will continue promoting my views on essential gun violence prevention policies, but I also want people to be willing to listen—and that means being open to listening myself.

Much of what I’ve gained from my past six months of UNASB meetings is a lesson in empathy rather than rhetorical strategy. If everyone paid a little more attention to caring for their neighbors rather than social media, we’d be in a kinder and more just world. And if we treated one another with the generosity and care that my community has shown, we could build a more sane political arena, deliver policy solutions, and save lives.

Share

Taylor Swift’s fiancé makes more money from his podcast than from the NFL. The Vatican uses a podcast, The Pope’s Voice, to broadcast papal speeches around the world. Even Ted Cruz—who once liked an X-rated tweet on the anniversary of 9/11—drops new podcast episodes three times a week.

Why does Ted Cruz have a podcast? As he explained last year, “I do the podcast to equip and arm you, to give you the information you need.” But there’s a difference between the information you need and the information he wants you to have. That gap is where podwashing comes in.

Podwashing (verbal noun): the act of improving the public image, reputation, or perception of a controversial figure or idea through a podcast.

Podcasts increasingly function as rebrand machines—spaces where extremist views, discredited figures, and outright lies are glossed over as casual conversation and banter, rarely interrogated for more than a few seconds.

Subscribe now

Example 1

Ted Cruz
U.S. Senator from Texas; co-host of Verdict with Ted Cruz.

How was he podwashed?
Once widely regarded as the most hated man in the Senate, Cruz rebranded by growing a beard and launching a podcast, where he converts former enemies into friendly guests for clout.

Senator Lindsey Graham once famously said, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” Yet when Graham appeared on Cruz’s podcast, he opened with: “Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz, the number one podcast in the entire country.”

Whether that line was a joke hardly matters. Casual listeners may not realize it was one—and the influence of podcasts in today’s attention economy is hard to overstate. A September 2025 Pew Research Center study found that nearly four in ten U.S. adults under 50 (39%) say they get news from podcasts often or sometimes.

The downstream effects of podwashing are harder to measure than downloads, which is why pushback matters—and why its absence is so damaging. When hosts lack the skill, interest, or incentive to separate opinion from journalism, guests are free to reshape their public image unchallenged. A comedian flattered by access to a powerful politician may fail to ask tough questions, justifying it as “calling it like I see it.” But presenting ignorance as fact doesn’t just entertain—it misleads, as Adam Pally recently noted on Good One.

Hosts have agendas. So do their guests. Podcasts often become vehicles for advancing toxic brands and bad ideas under the cover of authenticity.

Example 2

Nick Fuentes
White nationalist streamer and increasingly influential right-wing figure.

How was he podwashed?
On Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Fuentes was given a massive, largely unchallenged platform to pitch his extremist worldview to a mainstream audience—including his admiration for mass murderer Joseph Stalin.

Fuentes: “That’s Joseph Stalin’s birthday. I’m a fan.”
Carlson: “Oh, you’re a fan?”
Fuentes: “Always an admirer.” [Chuckles]
Carlson: “We’ll circle back to that.”

They did not circle back.

Nick Fuentes was podwashed.

The backlash was swift. Carlson was condemned by figures across the right, including Ted Cruz himself. Even Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts publicly apologized for defending Carlson. (Editor’s note: Carlson has since been Pres-washed—a more powerful variant of podwashing, in which the President tells people to be nice to you after you platform an antisemite.)

Podwashing isn’t confined to the right or the “manosphere.” The intimacy of podcast settings—garages, attics, hikes—makes confrontation awkward. Even hosts who strongly disagree with their guests can unintentionally enable them. Whether out of politeness, a desire to seem fair, or sheer conversational overwhelm, even skilled interviewers struggle to counter bad-faith actors in real time.

Example 3

Steve Bannon
Political strategist, media executive, Trump advisor—and podcast host

How was he podwashed?
Last winter, Governor Gavin Newsom faced criticism from journalist Kara Swisher for being “too chummy” with Bannon during his appearance on This Is Gavin Newsom. Swisher’s concern wasn’t about platforming Bannon, but about failing to confront him forcefully.

As Swisher explained on The View:
“You should be talking to everybody, including Steve Bannon—he’s very powerful. But you have to push back and say, ‘That’s a lie. That’s a lie.’”

Instead, Bannon emerged cleaner than he arrived—purified in the waters of This Is Gavin Newsom.

Allowing figures like Cruz, Fuentes, and Bannon to reframe past scandals, elevate their profiles, and promote their visions of the future without real-time fact-checking makes podcast appearances enormously valuable. Newsom did challenge Bannon on the Big Lie—but many argue the damage was done regardless.

So where does that leave us?

Like social media, podcasts convert engagement into value. Hot takes drive clicks, clicks drive revenue, and as long as “line goes up,” accountability becomes optional. History may not repeat itself—but it rhymes, especially when monetized.

What can the left do?

Call it out.
If you hear podwashing, say something. Kara Swisher didn’t have Newsom’s audience, but she went to the source and publicly explained why pushback matters—even when it risks discomfort.

Stay engaged.
Podwashing won’t disappear, which means progressives must continue entering these spaces. Bernie Sanders went on The Tim Dillon Show. Zohran Mamdani appeared on Andrew Schulz’s podcast. James Talarico gained traction after Rogan. Ro Khanna sat with Patrick Bet-David.

In the battle for attention, sometimes you have to show up and throw down.

Starve the algorithm.
Use screenshots and transcripts instead of links. Call out the problem without feeding the machine that profits from your outrage.

Collect receipts.
You can’t listen to everything—but tools like Tapesearch and Listen Notes make it easier to track what’s being said, where, and by whom. You can search for key-terms like “reproductive rights” or, for Ted C., “Cancun.”

When it only takes a few friendly podcast appearances for people to forget who these figures really are, accountability becomes an uphill fight. Talk to people. Ask what they’re listening to. Learn where they’re coming from—and push back against podwashing.

If the podcaster won’t do it, you still can.

Share

I have a confession to make. I accidentally shared a Daily Wire writer’s content on my Instagram.

To be fair, it was about Vanderbilt Football, which is near and dear to my heart. However, this goes to show that even the most politically engaged people can fall victim to the Right’s marketing funnel. It also showcases a much more sinister reality: innocent sports content can be used to indoctrinate people with the Right’s politics.

This was objectively a funny video, and as an alumnus, I can confirm this is the most Vanderbilt thing ever. However, Lynden Blake is not even a Vanderbilt alumnus. She is a Daily Wire writer and former OutKick commentator, and she is capitalizing on the hype around Vanderbilt Football to build a sports audience that she microdoses with right-leaning politics.

Before I continue, my name is Katey Parham, and I am a Gen-Z political content creator based in Texas! [Subscribe to Katey For Change]. In Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath, we talk about how folks on the right use casual cultural topics to attract audiences into their world.

Subscribe now

A little backstory on Vanderbilt

To fully understand the ingenuity of this marketing strategy, we have to talk a bit about Vanderbilt Football and their newfound media hype— one of my favorite subjects. In the early 2020s, Vanderbilt Football was one of the worst teams in the SEC. My Freshman fall at Vanderbilt, we went 0-9. After that losing season, Coach Lea was hired in 2021 and has since turned the program around.

Enter Lynden Blake, a micro-influencer on Instagram that has recently started posting sports reels and Vanderbilt Football sideline videos. Her first post at a Vanderbilt Football game was just over a year ago, which is when her husband was hired to be the Assistant Coach for Cross Country and Distance. The 2024 season was notable for Vanderbilt Football as the program started to get recognized as a legitimate competitor in the SEC. In other words, this was when Vanderbilt Football started getting significant media (new and traditional media) for their “underdog/comeback” story.

Although Vanderbilt Football’s fame is new, Lynden Blake is not new to the sports industry. According to her LinkedIn, she has worked for local news organizations and has done some freelance sideline reporting. However, things took a political turn when she started to work for OutKick in March of 2025. More on OutKick in a bit. She is using her access and proximity to Vanderbilt Football in one of their best seasons to build a following of football and sports lovers. Her audience is likely there for her Vanderbilt Football coverage, but they are also getting politics every now and then. That is the lesson we need to learn on the left.

Seemingly, starting in November, she started writing for the Daily Wire, a far-right “network” based in Nashville, TN, so stay tuned to see how that impacts her future content.

Now, about Outkick

I do want to take a moment to discuss OutKick because I found their strategy interesting. OutKick is owned by Fox Corporation, and according to the website, “OutKick is the antidote to the mainstream sports media that often serves an elite, left-leaning minority instead of the American sports fan.” They utilize a flood the zone strategy, meaning they put out lots of sports content. On November 21st, they posted 14 posts on Instagram. Of those 14 posts, 12 were focused solely on sports commentary. One was a paid partnership, and one was an explicitly political video. If you’re a percentage person, only 7% of their content on November 21st was political. Similar to Lynden Blake, people are coming for sports and, in the process, getting an occasional far-right political post. This is what I call “microdosing politics.” These accounts lead with culture and drop political content every now and then. This strategy exposes their audience, who are not necessarily politically engaged, to biased political content.

In terms of structure, only a couple of OutKick’s commentators have over 100k followers. By doing collab posts with those accounts, those larger accounts are likely helping grow the main OutKick channel. On the other hand, several of their commentators have under 10k followers, so I am curious to see if their accounts grow with time. I bring up the structure to highlight the larger ecosystem they have built through this platform. Not all of the content creators who are utilizing their platform are macro-creators or national figures. Instead, they have a diversity of size of the creators, and they are using their resources to build up smaller creators.

Lastly, I want to highlight how OutKick is using common styles of sports posts. For example, do you see the similarity of style between this post from SportsCenter and this post from OutKick? This is extremely smart because consumers recognize this style of content as sports. Use the branding that works to camouflage political content in a non-political niche.

So the big question: What can the left learn from Lynden Blake and OutKick?

1. Start investing in sports. Start investing in culture.
   It’s still early enough (in my opinion) to find talent to talk about sports and, every now and then, talk about liberal politics, but at the very least, we need to invest in a group of creators that primarily talk about culture. Whether it is talking about Reality TV, sports, or travel, we need to find a way to lead with culture and insert politics every now and then.
   

2. Every industry has a distinct style of post. Use it.
   Don’t reinvent the wheel, and instead use what works. For example, look at the similarity between OutKick and SportsCenter feeds. Consumers recognize the branding, so it is easy to disguise your slightly political account in that industry. There are already conversations about this in the political space, so let’s take them seriously! (Check out Keith Edward’s Substack post about it)
   

3. Build each other up.
   It’s important we amplify each other’s work. Invest in smaller creators to help grow their accounts. We are better when we work together. The Right has figured that out, so let’s do the same!

In 2025, Democrats have made huge strides online. However, there’s still more work that can and needs to be done. Let’s continue the momentum we have built in 2025 and continue to win online. The next two election cycles might be the most consequential in our lifetime (I know we say that about every election cycle, but I think we all know what’s at stake in 2026 and 2028), so we need to make quick investments to win online.

Share

What I experienced is not a glitch.

This is how engagement-optimized feeds are supposed to work. A growing pile of investigations shows TikTok’s recommender is unusually sensitive to small signals – watch time, a tap, even just not swiping away – and will lock onto a vein of content and keep drilling, often with steadily more extreme videos.

In The Guardian’s test, a blank account that lingered on a conservative pastor’s videos quickly turned into a conservative-Christian, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ feed – without a single follow or like. Media Matters found that an account interacting only with transphobic clips was soon flooded with misogyny, racism, antisemitic conspiracies, and coded calls to violence. Their blunt summary: a user could download the app at breakfast and be fed neo-Nazi content before lunch.

Share

A University College London experiment saw TikTok’s teen “archetype” accounts shift from self-improvement to misogyny within five days, while a BBC Panorama report described feeds of teenage boys packed with violence and hate that human moderators never saw until tens of thousands of views.

These same mechanics drive every major platform.

And it’s worth noting who profits from that engagement: most of these platforms are controlled by right-wing or libertarian billionaires whose politics align neatly with the outrage their products reward.

Why does my 24-hour descent matter beyond one feed? Because feeds are political infrastructure now. If the on-ramp into politics for millions of young people is a for-profit slot machine that learns “more extreme = more attention,” then “accidental” radicalization is a design choice. TikTok will say users can long-press “Not interested,” and YouTube will point to “Dislike” or “Don’t recommend this channel.” But Mozilla’s testing found those controls often barely dent the recommendation stream; the river keeps flowing. And as more and more reports keep showing, even passive behavior – simply lingering – can be enough to tip an account into a spiral.

So what can we do that actually works to end this algorithmic spiral?

Treat recommender systems like public-impact infrastructure. Require independent audits and real researcher access to measure ideological skew and escalation pathways in the same way we audit food safety or emissions. (Twitter’s 2021 study is the exception that proves the rule; most platforms still wall off the data.)

Create a real “circuit breaker” for escalation. If a fresh or teen account’s feed intensity spikes within hours – e.g., quickly clustering around guns, race, gender, or conspiracies – platforms should interrupt the loop: mix in counterspeech and reputable context by default, slow the cadence, and surface a reset feed option prominently (not buried in settings). TikTok already admits the FYP will show “more of what you engage with”; it can also learn to pace it.

Default minors to safer modes. For under-18s: no political recommendations by default; no off-platform funneling; stronger topic diversity; friction for accounts repeatedly recommending borderline content. Previous reporting makes clear that “not interested” alone isn’t enough protection.

Give users real brakes. Negative feedback should actually work. Mozilla found YouTube’s tools often don’t. Mandate usable controls: block by topic cluster, not just a single channel; show why something was recommended; one-tap to “turn off political recs” platform-wide.

Stop laundering hate through “soft” gateways. TikTok’s own rabbit-hole tests show how quickly transphobic “jokes” or “just asking questions” conspiracies lead to white-supremacist content. A platform that can detect a trending dance can detect dog-whistles – and down-rank them.

I’m a progressive strategist. I’ve knocked thousands of doors, cut hundreds of political ads, and watched rooms full of neighbors disagree without hating each other. Doing that work taught me something simple: most people don’t learn politics in town halls or cable news anymore – they learn it from their feeds. And the problem isn’t that politics moved online; it’s that an advertising machine took the place of civic life, and its only lesson plan is whatever keeps you scrolling.

I could MAGA-fy a clean TikTok in half a day and arrive at white-supremacist material by the next – because that’s how the product is designed to perform.

Clearly, this is an uphill battle. But if we don’t find ways to push back – through regulation, design reform, or plain public pressure – the pipeline only gets faster. So I’ll end with a question: what else can we do to break the cycle? I’d love to hear ideas, because that’s the conversation we need to start having.

Share

Examples of what I saw

“Plan your gathering only if you have a unique disputable purpose — otherwise make it a casual social gathering or give people their time back.”

— Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering

I’m the executive director of Donor Organizer Hub, an organization that trains volunteer fundraisers and staff organizers at movement conferences year-round. I’ve noticed a real uptick in gatherings this year. I get why — we’re living through an authoritarian crisis and a loneliness epidemic — but still, I keep coming back to the same question: we’re gathering more than ever, but for what?

I say this lovingly, as someone who genuinely enjoys these spaces. I schmooze. I see old friends. I learn a few things. But if I’m honest, most conferences in the progressive movement are indistinguishable from each other. They’re 90-100% panels and keynotes. The so-called “skills sessions” are generally webinars, but with chairs. There’s little real strategy development happening.

And look, the hallway magic is real. It’s where great conversations happen. But if we’re putting on political theater just for the excuse of hallway chatter, we could save a lot of money by booking a conference room for the same twenty people instead of renting out a convention center.

For one organization that recently held their annual conference considered a staple to their base building efforts, feedback from one attendee I spoke with was: “It was nice for me to hang out with the same 10 friends I guess, but no way in hell I’m inviting newbies here, so what are we doing?”

I call on event organizers and attendees to ask what these gatherings are meant to do. Are we developing strategy? Building skills? Actually converting the people on our email lists and at our rallies into a base that grows our power? Meeting new people? Or are we trying to feel less alone, keep ourselves plugged into the same professional-middle-class circuit of panels and happy hours, and comfort ourselves with the same dozen faces we see at every conference?

Subscribe now

The Reckoning Questions

These are the questions I’d start with before booking another ballroom:

• Why are we paying for staff to fly and stay in hotels for conferences that build no strategy and very few skills?

• What is the follow-through plan for afterward, both from event organizers and attendees?

• What is the purpose of this event? If it’s not for something additive (connecting new people, learning something that you couldn’t do elsewhere, brainstorming with people you don’t normally collaborate with), then what are you hoping to achieve?

And questions for staff mulling whether to attend an upcoming conference: not only what will you get out of attending, but what will you bring back? What will you train, share, or activate inside your base? If the answer is “mostly some photos and a few new friends,” we should think about whether the trip was worth the collective resources.

The Bougie + Homogeneous Problem

Most conferences in our ecosystem gather 100-200 people. Netroots Nation, the largest progressive conference in the world, hosts around 3,000. In comparison, Turning Point USA’s annual mega-conference brings in over 13,000. This comparison isn’t about envy; it’s about purpose. Are we designing gatherings to grow our base or to perform our belonging with familiar faces?

There’s also a quieter story underneath: the professional-middle-class mobility of movement staff. The hotels, airfare, and happy hours create a lifestyle loop that’s not even career development. It’s personal enrichment.

And I say that lovingly. I started my career as an investment banker on Wall Street (please, don’t cancel me) after growing up in rural America so humble that the Taco Bell opening generated a 5-hour line that I waited in. I fully remember the highs of steakhouse dinners and taking home the caviar my boss didn’t want. But we’re supposed to be building mass movements for the many, not upward class mobility for the few.

I also say this as a proud member of Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath, a community that exists precisely because so many of us are hungry for honesty about how our work can slide from collective power-building into self-soothing. There’s a difference between building power and building comfort.

Who Isn’t on the Invite List

Here’s a reality check from my own corner of the movement: of the hundreds of volunteer fundraising leaders we’ve trained at Donor Organizer Hub, zero have ever attended Netroots Nation in person. A few have joined the virtual option, but most tell me the same thing: they don’t think it’s for them. Many also couldn’t afford it or take off work. And these conferences are overwhelmingly during the week day, multi-day, and in expensive cities.

That gap says a lot about who these gatherings are designed for. If the conferences meant to build our movements aren’t drawing in the very volunteers organizers and community leaders who make these movements possible, then we’re mistaking internal circulation for expansion.

Until we build intentional on-ramps like travel stipends, first-timer scholarships, co-led sessions, and buddy pairings, we’ll keep holding spaces that feel like reunions instead of recruitment.

Glimpses of What Works

Netroots Nation has many bright spots, including its volunteer program. Will Easton, who runs it, builds an experience where everyone has a meaningful role, clear tasks, and genuine fun. It feels like purpose, not pageantry.

Another example: Stories + Money = Change, hosted by Innovative Fundraising. About 100 participants, all sessions skill-based, and one short networking happy hour. This year, they made the strategic decision to run it every other year to give people real training without putting annual strain on organizations’ budgets. Imagine that: an event intentionally designed to not be a yearly ritual.

Another bright spot is the Changemaker Skills Camp, co-hosted by The Movement Cooperative and State Voices, which merged their previously separate convenings into one immersive experience. It’s a weeklong deep dive into concrete skills and a model for how combining forces can create richer, more useful spaces for movement staff.

Although not a conference, Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath has a unique disputable purpose to each of its gatherings. We meet on Zoom twice monthly to discuss a right-wing podcast episode in small groups with full share-outs afterward. The norms for these discussions are clear: we’re focusing on what we can learn and adapt from the messaging and organizing behind each episode, not on how much we can’t stand X individual or Y viewpoint. Where there is a critical mass of members, there are regional in-person happy hours focused on social connection. The social connection feeds back into commitment to attending and volunteering at the Zoom meetings.

What We Could All Do Differently

Name your disputable purpose. As Priya Parker says, ask “why?” until you land on what’s truly needed. What can’t we do on Zoom? If it’s panels and slide decks, those belong on Zoom. If it’s strategizing across organizations, design for that.

Gather less often, with more intention. Annual doesn’t automatically mean effective. Every-other-year models give people time to apply what they learned before doing another round of conference karaoke.

Merge where missions overlap. If two conferences share 70% of the same purpose, pool them. Merge attendee lists, funding, and airtime. Deeper impact looks like cross-pollination that advances both shared strategy and caucus time, not duplicated panels.

Expect staff to share back. If someone attends, build in the expectation (and time) for them to debrief and train others. A movement conference should multiply skills, not hoard them in one suitcase.

Most importantly: create openings for volunteers and newcomers. If our gatherings only make sense to people who already have name badges, we’re doing it wrong. Build intentional on-ramps for volunteers, donors, and people outside of staff circles. Not as tokens or “community panels,” but as full participants. Reserve a percentage of spots for first-timers, offer travel support, and pair veteran attendees with newcomers. A movement conference should grow the movement, not just reconvene its middle management.

Share