Initial disclaimer: I’m very much a progressive person.
Recently listening to podcasts like Heavyweight, Reply All, Invisibilia, Underunderstood etc, I noticed that while the episode - or podcast overall - is investigative journalism lite, something incidental but progressive might happen (using the correct pronouns for a trans person, for example.) I also recently rewatched the Some More News episode on why conservative comedy is so awful, which sparked my pondering.
So… while I’m not interested in veering to the right, this did get me wondering what content might be out there that I’ve not been exposed to at all. Are there (relatively) apolitical podcasts out there that mirror those lite journalism examples above?
How could it be both right-leaning and apolitical?
Sounds like OP means right-leaning, topic-wise, but not getting into the politics of it. If I had a good example, I’d have replied with it. lol
As a left-leaning example, NPR is pretty apolitical, but the stories they cover and the words/phrasing they choose to use are designed to appeal to those who lean left. While they’re not a podcast, they do have radio shows.
I’m not a podcast person, so I can’t really offer any of either bias.
Uh… NPR absolutely gets into the politics of things. Maybe not a deep dive, but 90% of what I hear that isn’t music I’d describe 100% as politics.
Sounds like too may only be listening to news shows.
Fresh Air, This American Life, Car Talk, Something Wild are all largely non-political, but many cover liberal topics, but not from a political standpoint.
They also tend to cover factual stories about science and the environment, which— unfortunately for the right—tends to involve topics that the right wing have made political.
How would one ever discover that a given podcaster is right wing if they are apolitical?
Dog whistles? Jokes that punch down?
Wouldn’t that count as political?
Not explicitly. The whole point of dog whistles is that they’re not supposed to sound political so someone can hide their intentions from people who don’t know and signal their beliefs to the in-group.
What’s an example of an apolitical dog whistle that cannot be identified as right or left wing?
Dog whistles are political, but they don’t sound political. They could be used in apolitical podcasts to signal the host’s political affiliation without explicitly stating it.
It can’t…
Okay, that’s a good question. Tbh I wasn’t sure anyone would respond so I tried to keep the post succinct.
I just meant that I’d been listening to podcasts about a neutral topic and then the host would say something to show their leaning. And my only exposure to the right was mostly via the alt right. So I was wondering if there was interesting content out there where the focus is mostly neutral also
I’ll try to actually give some answers.
I’d say efap qualifies along with most the individuals. More long form film criticism than journalism outright though.
Dave Ramsey is worth a listen to his radio show, but they other personalities in his group are pretty trash imo. He’s financial advice.
If you listen to local radio, in my experience most the people involved are moderate to slightly right leaning. It’s uncommon to really come up though.
Hunting and fishing podcasts tend to be more right leaning, maybe give some of them a try.
You won’t get newsy/journalism content without going pretty far right to things like project veritas or patriot radio levels.
Thank you so much! EFAP might be closest to what I’m looking for so I’ll check it out. I’m in Ireland so my local radio might be of a different flavour, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to get a better idea of what’s going on in the community.
Thanks again
https://www.somethingyoushouldknow.net/
Something you should know is just about learning new things. But the host conservativ bias show sometimes during interview
What kind of podcast? Last Podcast on the Left is pretty apolitical in its topics but has some conservative undertones. I think one of the hosts used to work for Fox News? It’s been a few years since I listened to them though.
I mean there is always talk radio, but you are in some ways conflating sociallity and politics (and perhaps rightly so?). They may not be different in the way you are seeming to think they are. The only suggestions I could maybe offer are for pretty niche topics.
Here is a crotchety conservative mine engineer from Canada doing tool breakdowns and reviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVwc4DZbcoE
Here is a some-what anti-vax gardener from Austrailia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhz9FGHirrI
Here is a young mason teaching you how to make block foundations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySfTC_PT_2w
None of these are as produced as what you mention, but I don’t like things very produced. However, each of these pod casters has some things they definitely lean to the right on.
Following.
If you’re into pro wrestling, a lot of older wrestlers have podcasts and they’re generally pretty conservative.
Chris Jericho keeps politics typically separate but has donated to the Republican party in the past, Matt Cardona is at least center right depending on where you sit, Undertaker has one too, Busted Open has a variety of hosts and some are definitely right wing.
All of these are first and foremost about other topics though, so the political leaning of the hosts rarely gets involved.
I’m not interested in veering to the right
I wasn’t interested in smoking, until I lit up the first one with my friends
I think it’s a bad idea to frame conservatism as something so attractive that you will inevitably become addicted to it if you’re exposed. Like, I grew up in a stupidly red county and heard and saw shit that would make your hair curl. All it did was run my ass out of there to California and give me a heightened sense of when dog whistling is happening.
If you’re capable of critical thinking and it’s not eating into your mental health, finding out what your enemies are saying isn’t bad. It allows for more effective messaging and makes you seem less out of touch.
I too believe in false comparisons and slippery slope arguments.
But isn’t that exactly what right wingers do?
I especially enjoy generalization fallacies. They’re one of the good ones.
I would argue there is a difference between getting addicted to a drug, and trying to educate one’s self to other political views.
yeah, and I was educating myself on how people can get addicted to bad-smelling shit… and here we are.
Sounds like you believe right wingers are better at persuading people than left wingers 🤔
In my experience–and I’m definitely on the far left–they are.
Right wing people are often more than happy to sit down and explain–with charts and (bullshit) references why their beliefs are the only morally and ethically correct ones. People on the left tend to say things like, “I don’t have to do your emotional labor”, or “you need to educate yourself”, or reply with image macros of pigs shitting on their own balls. Yes, I know that these are broad generalizations, but this is how I’ve more often than not observed things. People on the right tend to be evangelical about their beliefs. People on the left tend to treat socially/fiscally conservative ideas as though they are contagions that need to be quarantined or removed.
This isn’t always the case; I’ve definitely seen circular firing squads in alt-right circles (see also: Moms For Liberty melting down over their leaders’ sex lives and sex harassment), but I’ve seen it far more often in leftist spaces, and far more purity tests with leftist groups.
Oh I am well aware, I just wanted to call out this bullshit behaviour because it’s frankly the major reason why the right keeps gaining support.
The left looks weak, disharmonious, and more preoccupied with adventist “after the revolution” bullshit than with actually explaining their ideas and more importantly their policy positions.
The average rightoid has very quick and snappy numbers and policies they can rattle off at a moment’s notice, with (often simplistic or even incorrect) explanations as to how and why they will work.
Meanwhile I have seen so much fucking economic illiteracy about UBI and the labor theory of value and their relationship to scarcity and actual economics on this site it makes me want to jump out of a window.
Right wingers are at least able to explain a leftist point of view. Their explanation will probably be unflattering, but it will be more or less accurate. I have not seen a single leftist (and this is why I decided to poke here) being able to do the same. When faced with an unaligned or questioning person their only recourses are shaming/cautioning (like in this case) or condemning as already an enemy anyway.
I am a liberal, so depending on how far left you are, I am either already a fascist, or I’m a fascist in potentia. Believe it or not, I am neither, and would much rather the left do its part in contrasting the rise of fascism rather than enabling it by being a terrible at opposing it, which includes winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, which y’all are doing really poorly at right now.
Look at the implications of what yourself is saying and then you’ll notice that your two comments promote right-wing discourses, through your irrationality. What you’re saying effectively is the same as saying one of those two things:
- Right wing discourses are highly convincing for rational people, unlike left wing ones. OR
- People are a bunch of irrationals who can’t “sieve” discourses based on rationality.
This shit is not a taboo dammit. You can - and should - sieve through the statements of any political discourse, between what’s true vs. false or moral vs. immoral. And when you do this with most right-wing discourses, you find so much babble that it’s easy to discard; or at least irreconcilable moral premises. It’s safer than you’re pretending that it is.
(NB: this is coming from a heavy smoker and a communist.)
Removed by mod
Yes, I do. However, please focus on what is being said, not how - I’m saying that treating right-wing discourses as taboo is harmful for the left, it’s shooting our own feet.
It tends to help more with trying to communicate with someone who is slow by spoon feeding them info. It doesn’t always help, case in point, but sometimes.
