After the 2024 election was deemed the “podcast election,” many people inside and outside of the podcasting world were left wondering how to capitalize on the medium as a way to promote democracy and civic engagement to audiences who are either burned out by or distrustful of traditional or mainstream news sources.
The Democracy Group podcast network has been working through this question since its founding in 2020—long before presidential candidates appeared on some of the most popular podcasts to appeal to specific demographics. Our members recently met in Washington, D.C., for our first convening to learn from each other and from high-profile podcasters like Jessica Tarlov, host of Raging Moderates, and Ben Rhodes, host of Pod Save the World.
Rhodes was part of a public conversation with Democracy Group members Kamy Akhavan of the USC Center for the Political Future and Stephanie Gerber Wilson of Freedom Over Fascism. He’s hosted Pod Save the World since 2019 and is also a contributor to MSNBC.
Rhodes spoke about the difference between the two mediums in reaching and building trust with audiences—where podcasts provide the intimacy that younger people often expect from their media, traditional evening news might be broader and less curated.
“My ability to have a conversation about what's happening in a two-minute interjection on MSNBC is so minimal compared to being able to unpack issues, draw connections, and make light of something, while also being very serious on the podcast,” he said.
From 2009-2017, Rhodes served as a speechwriter and deputy national security advisor to former President Obama. In that role, he led the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.
Much of the conversation focused on how the world order has changed since President Donald Trump took office in 2016 and how it will continue to change throughout the rest of his term. Rhodes acknowledged that Trump has been an agent for chaos but also said there’s an opportunity for realignment amid changes in technology.
“We have to reimagine an economy with AI poised to do massive job displacement, and we have to reimagine a social safety net that can exist in a world in which people can’t expect to work one job their whole lives,” Rhodes said, emphasizing a “degree of risk” global citizens are tolerating from political conflicts across the world. “The question is not whether that will happen, it's whether that will only happen after it gets much, much worse, or whether we can kind of be on a plane that's going through a bunch of turbulence until we kind of hit like some clear air.”
As a writer, speaker, and consultant, Rhodes travels around the world and talks with people who are frustrated with the political status quo. He said the next generation of political leaders will need to understand this frustration and address it to be successful.
“If you think about every election since George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, somebody running and saying the whole system was totally broken and we need change. That was Obama in 2008 and 2012 and it was Trump in 2016,” Rhodes said. “One consistent message American voters delivered was that they don’t like this system. I don’t think Trump is the answer to that, but it is a hopeful point in terms of the system.”
The full recording with Rhodes is available on The Democracy Group’s network-wide podcast. The convening, including the live recording with Rhodes, was supported by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State and the Louie Rankin Foundation.
Jenna Spinelle is the founder of The Democracy Group and Jessie Nguyen is the network’s content specialist.
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