Again in 2001, few politicians gave a lot thought to Joe Rogan — and even knew his title. They may have heard one thing about “Fear Factor,” the crass present on NBC the place folks ate sheep eyeballs and submerged themselves in containers teeming with rats in hopes of profitable $50,000.
However the concept that the present’s blandly macho host would grow to be one of the vital influential figures in American life would have appeared as ridiculous as, properly, Donald Trump getting elected president. Twice.
Almost a quarter-century later, Rogan hosts one of the vital fashionable podcasts on the planet, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” In the course of the 2024 election, it grew to become one of the vital sought-after bookings for politicians searching for to court docket youthful male voters, regardless of — or maybe due to — Rogan’s historical past of spouting misinformation on vaccines, COVID-19, trans folks and different matters.
Though it’s too quickly to know precisely what went improper for Democrats in 2024, Rogan’s prolonged interview with and subsequent endorsement of Trump within the remaining weeks of the marketing campaign already appears like a watershed second. Many liberals imagine they should discover a progressive model of Joe Rogan as a way to fight Trump 2.0. They may begin wanting outdoors the standard get together construction and turning to a medium that has grow to be a breeding floor for influencers on the appropriate: actuality TV.
Rogan is one among many influential figures within the conservative media ecosystem and the so-called manosphere who rose to prominence in actuality TV, daytime speak reveals and different types of various leisure. And as Trump gears up for a second time period in workplace, he’s casting his new administration like a reboot of “The Surreal Life.”
Shortly after his win in November, Trump nominated former Congressman Sean Duffy, who starred in Season 6 of “The Real World” and went on to win a number of seasons of the spinoff present now often called “The Challenge,” for secretary of Transportation.
“Maybe he’ll pick one of the ‘Teen Moms’ to be secretary of Labor!” joked Jimmy Kimmel, who described Duffy as “one of his least embarrassing picks.”
Trump additionally tapped Mark Burnett, the TV producer whose fateful determination to solid the serially bankrupt Trump as a profitable businessman in “The Apprentice” paved the best way for his first White Home run, as particular envoy to the UK.
Tv producer Mark Burnett, left, with President Trump in 2017.
(Evan Vucci / Related Press)
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the cardiothoracic surgeon identified for touting doubtful cures comparable to inexperienced espresso beans and colloidal silver on his daytime speak present, is in line to run the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers, an company that gives healthcare protection to greater than 160 million Individuals. Longtime Trump supporter and failed senatorial candidate Linda McMahon, former chief govt of World Wrestling Leisure, might quickly be working the Division of Training, an company that Trump has pledged to eradicate.
Neither is the attain of actuality TV restricted to formal administration appointments. Dr. Drew Pinsky, identified for showing on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab,” is now a conservative speaking head who repeatedly sits down with the likes of Laura Ingraham and Alex Jones. Podcast bro Theo Von, who previously starred on “Road Rules,” “The Challenge” and “Last Comic Standing,” additionally interviewed Trump final 12 months on his present, “This Past Weekend,” which isn’t overtly political however attracts a younger, male demographic that more and more skews proper.
“People will vote for someone like Donald Trump because they just think he’s real and authentic” regardless of his lengthy historical past of dishonesty, says Nelini Stamp, director of technique for the Working Households Celebration and creator of the Actual Housewives of Politics, an Instagram account that makes use of Bravo memes to unfold a progressive message. To them, being actual “means you say what you want, usually the first thing that comes out of your head.” In different phrases: appearing like somebody on actuality TV.
In fact, Trump is a creature of actuality TV himself, somebody who not solely rebuilt his picture and his fortune via “The Apprentice” but additionally borrowed the medium’s blunt imagery and tendency to control the reality to stage two profitable presidential campaigns.
However he has additionally remade the Republican Celebration and its accompanying media ecosystem in his picture, reworking a bunch of neoconservatives and deficit hawks into faux-populist, conspiracy-addled tradition warriors whose get together slogan might simply be the oldest of actuality TV cliches: “I’m not here to make friends.”
There’s additionally a well-established historical past of largely conservative politicians and pundits embracing actuality TV, relationship again to 2010, when Sarah Palin signed as much as do a Burnett-produced collection for TLC shortly after stepping down from her job as governor of Alaska in the course of her time period. Palin and former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani have each appeared on “The Masked Singer,” whereas former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former White Home Press Secretary Sean Spicer turned up on “Dancing With the Stars.”
However this pattern additionally suggests a extra profound connection between the truth TV mindset — the sorts of personalities and viewpoints that thrive within the unscripted house — and the Trumpian worldview. It’s the truth TV-to-MAGA pipeline, and currently it’s overflowing.
“Reality shows tend to traffic in simple stories. There’s a hero, there’s a villain, there’s someone you love, there’s someone you hate. People are shown as one-dimensional on reality TV, and there’s always a person to blame if something goes wrong, and we see that in MAGA politics too,” says Danielle Lindemann, professor of sociology at Lehigh College and writer of the ebook “True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us.”
Sean Duffy, proven in 2018, was a “Real World” solid member and congressman earlier than President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to be Transportation secretary.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Related Press)
“Most of us know that reality TV is not a pure mirror of reality, but we’re still connecting with it at the level of emotion, even if we don’t necessarily see it as 100% truthful,” she says. “Even people who support Trump don’t necessarily always believe what he’s saying.”
Duffy’s rise from “Real World” solid member to cupboard appointee is instructive. In 1997, the lumberjack and aspiring lawyer with a thick Wisconsin accent appeared within the Boston-set season of the groundbreaking MTV actuality collection. He repeatedly clashed with co-star Kameelah Phillips, calling her a “b—” and at one level likening her to Hitler as a result of she expressed pleasure in her Black identification.
However Duffy, typical of “The Real World” on this period, which regularly solid sheltered conservatives alongside others who challenged their beliefs, didn’t undergo any penalties for the dustups. The next 12 months, he participated within the spinoff “Road Rules: All Stars,” an early incarnation of the present that got here to be often called “The Challenge.” There, he met and fell for his future spouse, Rachel Campos-Duffy, who performed the same position in Season 3 of “The Real World,” set within the liberal bastion of San Francisco. She wasn’t shy about her politics, dragging her housemates to an occasion with Republican politician Jack Kemp, however she additionally stored an open thoughts, bonding with co-star Pedro Zamora, a homosexual AIDS activist who died of issues from the illness hours after the collection finale aired. The Duffys married in 1999 and shortly began a household that now contains 9 youngsters.
In interviews, Duffy has mentioned that “The Real World” taught him about discovering widespread floor with folks from totally different backgrounds and perception methods. “You see the same thing here [in the House of Representatives],” he mentioned in 2019. “If you give people a chance, and you build a friendship and a trust, it’s amazing the kind of legislation you can work on together and how many points of agreement you actually have.”
However actuality TV modified in 2000 with the premiere of “Survivor” on CBS. The present, imported to the U.S. by Burnett, took the voyeurism of “The Real World” and added a component of Darwinian competitors that different reveals, together with “The Challenge,” instantly tried to duplicate. It’s notable that Duffy received $50,000 in “The Challenge: The Battle of the Seasons,” which aired in early 2002 and was the primary season through which rivals had been eradicated “Survivor”-style.
Actuality reveals like “Survivor” and “The Challenge” “really started to incentivize bad behavior,” says Susie Meister, co-host of “The Brain Candy Podcast,” who witnessed this shift firsthand as a solid member on “Road Rules” in 1998 and a competitor on a number of seasons of “The Challenge.” Forged members are acutely conscious that they should begin drama to get known as again for a number of seasons — and maintain making a living.
“It makes sense to me that we’ve seen mostly conservative politicians embrace that approach of uncensored speech and rejection of civility and politically correct language,” she says. “The public conflates that with the truth: ‘They’re telling it like it is.’ Instead of seeing it as shocking and crude, it’s seen as, ‘Finally, somebody’s being honest and being authentic,’ whether or not they are.”
Regardless of the worth positioned on “authenticity,” many actuality TV stars undertake exaggerated personas to face out. Meister is cognizant of the roles she performed herself: She says she was solid as a result of she was a virginal blond, however that happening “Road Rules” helped her evolve politically. Later, whereas pursuing a profession in media, she confronted refined strain to embrace a conservative, Megyn Kelly-style persona. “My agent said, ‘It’s a shame that you’re not conservative, because if you were, there are many more opportunities for women that look like you,” she says — i.e., white, fair-haired and conventionally enticing.
“Fox & Friends’” Steve Doocy, left, Ainsley Earhardt and Pete Hegseth interview Military 1st Lt. Clint Lorance in 2019. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Hegseth to be Protection secretary in his second administration.
(Mark Lennihan / Related Press)
American politics, notably conservative politics, are more and more dominated by brash figures who’re capable of command consideration in a fractured media panorama — not talk about the nuances of coverage. “Both the MAGA-sphere and reality TV tend to be populated by very charismatic, often flashy and bombastic people who capture our attention,” says Lindemann.
Trump, after all, performed a fictionalized model of himself on “The Apprentice,” starting in 2004. “Modern-day Trump was created out of ‘The Apprentice,’ which sold that [image] to Main Street America as the gold standard of success,” says Kwame Jackson, who was runner-up on Season 1 of the present and is now president of Kwame Inc., a consulting agency. “It was false, but America bought it hook, line and sinker. Unfortunately, it unlocked a lot of the most extreme demons of capitalism.”
Actuality TV can be rooted within the anti-elitist thought that you just don’t have to be gifted, a minimum of not within the conventional sense, to grow to be well-known. The conservative motion is, more and more, pushed by disdain for experience and expertise in science, medication, authorities and extra. “As long as you’re charismatic enough and believe the right thing, that is the only credential you need,” says Lindemann.
As 48.4 % of the nation braces for an additional season of “The Trump Show” they had been desperately hoping to keep away from, many are questioning simply how he managed one other comeback — particularly after 34 felony convictions, two impeachments and one violent rebel.
Once more, the reply lies within the collective mindset of actuality TV, whose followers are extremely tolerant of aberrant habits and fast to forgive missteps. Stamp factors to Teresa Giudice, the long-running “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star (and Trump supporter) who served 11 months in jail for monetary fraud, then promptly returned to Bravo, and Erika Girardi, who stays a fan favourite regardless of questions on her estranged husband’s monetary crimes.
“People can be a villain one season, and then you can like them another season,” Stamp says. Trump has had a number of “villain seasons,” she provides, however he’s additionally skilled a number of redemption arcs, most notably following the assassination try final summer season, when the media framed him in a heroic gentle.
“People are like, ‘But Trump did Jan. 6! I can’t believe we have moved on!’” Stamp says. “That was four years ago. Have you ever seen reality television?”