For months, pundits have decried the absence of a “Joe Rogan of the left” — an online media figure who can galvanize young men to support Democrats in the way that popular right-wing creators like Rogan, Adin Ross, and the NELK Boys have done for President Donald Trump. Now, it appears that Democratic operatives have a $20 million plan to build such a figure.

The proposal, titled “Speaking With American Men: A Strategic Plan,” from Ilyse Hogue, the former president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, and John Della Volpe, polling director for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, is one of several pitches floating around in Democratic policy spaces aimed at making up ground with demographics the party lost in 2024. The plan was immediately panned online by critics who argued that young men would view this type of approach as inauthentic.

In the last election, young white men swung aggressively in the direction of Trump, voting for him by a 28-point margin, after supporting Joe Biden in the last election.

Online media has largely been credited with the shift, particularly among young white men.

In an analysis of 320 of the most popular online shows across platforms such as Youtube, Rumble, and TikTok, Media Matters found that right-leaning shows were significantly more popular, accounting for roughly 82% percent of the total following of online shows analyzed. It also found that 9 out of 10 of the most followed online shows were right-leaning. Evidence suggests that young men are absorbing what these far-right streamers are sharing. A survey ahead of the election from the Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice found that more than 40 percent of young men trust one or more misogynistic voices online.

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