What Democrats Keep Missing About the “Manosphere”

Charlie Goldensohn on Joe Rogan and reaching communities of young men

A year and a half since Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory sent political operatives scrambling to understand Joe Rogan, everyone is still talking about the “manosphere.” There are now entire documentaries about it, and debates about which male creators are acceptable for politicians to associate with are still ricocheting through the political press. But for all the hand-wringing about the political impact of male-oriented podcasters and YouTubers, that lane of content remains badly misunderstood by coastal political operatives, and it shows.

For this week’s episode of Gloves Off, I spoke with Charlie Goldensohn, a political strategist and fast-rising content creator (@chez.chuck) who thinks Democrats are approaching their young men problem all wrong.

“These conversations are still decades behind where they need to be,” Goldensohn told me. Too many Democrats still talk about Joe Rogan as if he were simply a Republican pundit, when in reality, Rogan built his audience the same way many of these creators did: through hours of casual, unfiltered conversation that made listeners feel like they knew him. He built trust first, then influence, then political relevance. His lack of filter isn’t a liability, it’s his entire appeal.

The continued “manosphere” panic on the Left is flattening different figures into the same category, as if figures like Nick Fuentes, Rogan, the Nelk Boys, and Andrew Schulz, are all doing the same thing for the same reasons. Some of them, like Fuentes, are ideological, some are opportunistic, and some are simply following their audience wherever it goes. Goldensohn’s point from our conversation is that Democrats keep confusing these categories because they are looking at the landscape through an old political lens instead of one focused on culture and building community.

Maybe that’s why some of the same Democratic operatives who have bemoaned their Party’s problem with young men are now suddenly up in arms when candidates have campaigned alongside liberal streamer Hasan Piker. They still expect allied media personalities to tow their lines, repeat their talking points, and preach their politics—despite creators like Piker growing their reach by speaking to their communities in an unfiltered, authentic way. This posture is harming their ability to take advantage of a key opportunity: recent polling found that young male voters are starting to move away from Republicans by significant margins.

At the end of the day, most successful social media creators and podcasters are not created in a lab for the purposes of a political agenda. A lot of these podcasters and YouTubers are growing because they offer young men emotional or cultural connection before hard politics, and until Democrats are open to engaging with creators who compete on those terms, they’ll keep losing the audience to the Right.

You can listen to our full conversation on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts, and make sure to subscribe to COURIER’s YouTube channel for fresh content every week.