Michelle Obama launches podcast with her brother Craig Robinson

So this is all just a coincidence and not part of the broader efforts to expand the dem's appeal to a wider audience via podcasts? I get that it's not an overtly political podcast like the crooked media podcasts, but thats kind of the point? The Joe Rogan Experience and Theo Von's podcast aren't exactly political podcasts and neither are the hundreds of other lifestyle podcasts that played a role in pushing the country to the right. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I have a hard time believing it's not a strategic political move since the whole podcast thing has been brought up a lot in the wake of the election and now we're seeing Democrats all over the country doing podcasts and going on sports radio.

In any case, it can't be worse than Gavin Newsom's podcast.

I thought about it a bit more and looking into Michelle Obama's history and media company, people are probably right about her lack of presidential aspirations. She's a great host and conversationalist and she'd probably have had a popular weekly radio show back in the day. But the US is currently a place where opinions on basic biological facts is the single issue for some voters and the president is shilling cars people don't want; so the barometer for what is political is pretty messed up. And after the election there were pundits rabid about the fact that Harris did not do the podcast rounds and that the Democrats didn't have their own Rogan to platform them. With the proximity to that Gavin Newsom podcast and the statements made on it, it starts hinting at a stupid trend. And I was cynical about the whole thing because I don't think establishment Democrats really get new media. Especially after the overpriced, milk-toast Call Her Daddy/Harris interview and some of the strategies leading up to the election.

Based on how I've seen corporate marketing go, I was assuming a campaign that has a strong white guy work to make inroads with the "traditional white-guy crowd" and Newsom seemed primed after the LA fires. Then you have Michelle tasked to win over woman and every minority group. And a few Limousine Liberal influencers use leftist rhetoric to nudge younger people to the democrats, appeasing them with bare minimum socialist policies that doesn't step on too many donors toes.

But looking at the Obama's media company, I don't think that's the case. While not everything there is strictly "political", its clear that they care about social issues and communicate that in the works they produce. And in spite of the many flaws of the Obama administration, they do seem to have the best interests of Americans in mind and would prefer to conduct themselves in a respectable way. The company is literally called Higher Ground Productions. You can really see this philosophy it in their last big movie, Leave the World Behind. Its overtly political about how the country is set to blow and very evocative in presenting an assault on US infrastructure. They're even open about valid reasons people have to doubt the government. But they can't stand to actually call any specific thing out.

Regardless, there's still a ton of weirdness happening around this production. Makes me sure that this is a play around Joe Rogan's podcast dominance. Rogan is practically the unofficial Press Secretary at this point with a direct line to the president and driving of a lot of extremist, conspiratorial and scam misinformation. No one even remotely tied to politics is "just starting a podcast" right now.
There's also the fact that this is Spotify exclusive which is interesting given that platform exclusivity seemed to be dead in the last few years. Almost all the old exclusives are back to full spectrum broadcasting and focusing on production/financing agreements for added revenue, so it's strange to see a deal like this. With the way the administration is going it's clear Trump and his circle are radioactive, Rogan especially. Maybe Spotify is trying to distract from the fact that they gave him a big bag of money and biggest platform on earth to do his thing. And a respectable, wholesome and non-problematic voice could come across as balancing the scales.

I have a slightly different take. It felt like Harris was thrust upon us. It wasn't Biden, we didn't select her, we should have had a primary. To all the folks who say we would have lost the incumbency boost, we lost anyway. And in many ways Harris also had more conservative beliefs than Biden. Her brother in law/head of legal for her campaign was head of Uber's legal department - which is decidedly anti-labor. Her stance on crypto was similar to Trump's. She was a "tough on crime" prosecutor in SF known for throwing the book at folks. She was a part of the Biden presidency, and while I think it would have been mostly a continuation, I think highlights for the average person, like Lina Khan, would have seen the axe. She didn't appeal to me as a progressive lefty and couldn't stir the racist/sexist folks. She wasn't well liked, she was just there.

I think Michele has done a pretty good job at being broadly likable. She tackled popular objectives during her time as first lady - health and nutrition - and is just super charismatic. I would love to see Michele in office. My older, more conservative family members love Michele and would love to see her in office. Outside of the true bigots, I think she is well regarded. I also think Warren would have been an amazing candidate. One that would have appealed to the fringy folks like me and also the more centrists with her extensive background in financial policy and oversight. We have awesome candidates. But the DNC consistently rolls out conservative party players and absolutely guts folks with more progressive politics. Maybe with Michele it could be different.

I absolutely think we can get a woman president, but we need the ones championed to be chosen by us in a primary (Harris) and not one that is universally disliked, even by her own party (Clinton).