Inside The Shrill Half-Wits Of The Podcast Class

The promise of the independent podcasting class was that they would be able to operate free of the constraints – groupthink, partisanship, corporate overlords, and obligations to decorum at the expense of unvarnished truth – enforced by traditional political media.

The reality is that it’s largely composed of naive, click-chasing ignoramuses whose pollution of public discourse far outweighs their contributions. Take Theo Von, the mulletted, near half-century-old comedian whom Vice President JD Vance has recommended to the public as “the funniest person imaginable” with a “good heart” to boot.

Von was among the influencers who sat down with Vance’s running mate during the 2024 election cycle, and their conversation went mega-viral in no small part because of Donald Trump’s interest in his interlocutor’s substance abuse issues. Common wisdom now demands that Von and his peers be credited with helping propel Trump to victory, but doing so fundamentally misunderstands this motley crew of celebrity pundits. They’re not thought leaders forging a new consensus; they’re opportunistic weathervanes hopping from hot hand to hot hand.

What everyone seems to forget about the state of affairs two years ago – because it contrasts so severely with that with which we’re saddled now – is that Trump was the favorite to take back the presidency and a resurgent cultural phenomenon. His unique, energetic personality put an exclamation point on the shortcomings of the rapidly declining Joe Biden and chronically inauthentic Kamala Harris, and the dancing, the one-liners, and his reaction to the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, all only added to his legend.

Von and his ilk jumped on the bandwagon for the same reason half the middle school population became Miami Heat fans in 2010; they saw a winner and wanted to be a part of the victory parade to come.

But now with Trump approaching the back half of his second term and his popularity arguably at its nadir, the grifters are looking for a new horse to back.

Enter New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the political wunderkind whose easy smile, mirthful laugh and flashy social media strategy have masked his destructive, explicitly anti-American worldview.

Von recently hosted Mamdani for a sit-down during which the former deemed socialism a “buzzword” and asked the latter to define it. Mamdani obliged with the sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, and candy version – “You will have whatever you need to live a dignified life… the things that allow you to take a breath” – much to Von’s delight.

“You explained socialism like I kind of thought it was,” Von marveled before lamenting that the United States’ capitalist system is more like “privatized communism,” where big business calls the shots.

If you’re lost, don’t worry — so was he.

The lovefest extended to foreign policy, too, where the pair bashed the United States’ greatest, most willingly self-sacrificial ally not just in the Middle East, but the world. While the Trump administration has partnered with Israel to secure relative peace in Gaza and cripple a rogue Iranian regime with the unofficial motto of “Death to America,” Von and Mamdani picked up brushes to paint an alternative reality together.

“Facts,” chimed in Von after Mamdani decried the “complicity” of American taxpayers in a faux genocide.

“F*ck yeah,” exclaimed the beaming comedian after the mayor affirmed that if he “had his say,” Benjamin Netanyahu would have been arrested upon arriving in his city.

And as for his old muse, Von believes that “he’s just been compromised by Israel, by this dark government over there.”

How to explain going from boosting Donald Trump, the flag-waving, “Proud to Be an American” billionaire president who moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, to doing the same for a Hamasnik Marxist with nothing but contempt for his country in the space of just two years? How else except to admit that you’re an empty vessel? One in a fleet full of them.

Tim Dillon is another influencer-comedian who’s been credited with helping Trump get across the finish line in 2024, but has since transformed into a shrill pinko who has accused Trump of committing “the biggest betrayal of a political movement I’ve ever seen.” Just last month he upped the ante, declaring that Trump is “obviously here to destroy Earth.”

More – at least in theory – informed, professional mic-jockeys like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson have undergone similar transformations, from headlining rallies on behalf of the president to opportunistically expressing outrage over his treatment of women and even suggesting he might be the Antichrist.

To some extent, these reversals might be attributable to the president’s policy choices, but the answers to these questions loom over such a generous reading: if he had made all of the same choices and his approval rating stood at 55%, would they still be positioning themselves as they are?

And if the traditional media sources they were supposedly destined to replace hadn’t succeeded in maligning the world’s only Jewish state, would it still be the boogeyman they blamed for his fall from grace?

It was said that the podcasters would destroy America’s left-wing establishment, not join them at the first sign of trouble. But as it turns out, their only allegiance is not to the truth, but to themselves.

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Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite and a 2023–2024 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies.

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