Kamala Harris' digital manager admitted that the Harris campaign was shunned by sports broadcast personalities and ultimately blindsided by its inability to influence the new cultural media ecosystem online.
in a long sentence interview Rob Flaherty of the Harris campaign acknowledged on Semaphore that Donald Trump's campaign was much better at appealing to people who have been using traditional media. He also pointed out that despite the generally left-leaning sports media, sports have become the stronghold of Red America.
In fact, even left-wing sports media seems to be finally coming to terms with fans' desire to stay out of politics. Flaherty told Semaphore that a surprising number of sports television, radio and podcast hosts declined to interview Harris because they would have to sit through her appearance on their favorite show. He said this was because he felt people would be annoyed.
This alarming situation led Flaherty to believe that despite the sports media's best efforts, sports are now “associated with right-wing culture.”
“Sports and culture have kind of merged, and as sports and culture have become more publicly associated and natively associated with conservative values like President Trump, It just became more complicated to show support,” Flaherty said after the game. It turns out that some prominent sports commentators politely declined offers to have Harris appear on their shows.
“It's become more complicated for sports personalities to get us on their shows because they don't want to 'play politics,'” he added.
“That's not to say that Stephen Curry, Steve Kerr, LeBron and all of the things that they came out with weren't impactful and important,” Flaherty added. “It was more shocking because it became much more difficult. But certainly, the culture that has traditionally been associated with intense sports viewing has become more associated with right-wing culture, which has made it more difficult. [Democrats] To reach people. ”
Although Flaherty did not name names, it is notable that Harris did not appear on the Colin Cowherd show or with Bill Simmons or the Kelce Brothers. From this, Flaherty noticed that many left-wing commentators avoided Harris' campaign because they were “afraid of the audience.”
It was then that Flaherty realized even more that the Democratic Party was rapidly losing its decades-long cultural grip, and that Trump's landslide victory was proof of that. “You can't have a national eight-point shift to the right without losing your culture,” he added.
Speaking of Colin Cowherd, he made similar comments last week, noting that all the left-wing activity in the NBA seems to have resulted in a significant drop in TV ratings. He compared the loss to the decline of the Democratic Party, which also lost “ordinary people” in November's election.
So with Cowherd making such statements now that the election is over, it's not too surprising that he has little interest in having Kamala Harris as a guest on his show. It may seem like that. flock sports show.
Flaherty acknowledged that Democrats still don't know exactly how to resolve the issue. They had complete control not only of movies, television, and music, but also of the world of news. But with the slow demise of traditional media and the rise of personalized internet media, the culture is rapidly moving away from the forums where Democrats once pushed their message.
He went on to argue that the left needs to invent its own Joe Rogan and develop its own leftist ecosystem of shows and podcasts on the internet. But Flaherty doesn't seem to understand that “creating” this kind of platform has never worked in the past. And left-wing media figures are distrusted by many Americans who want a voice that doesn't represent the entrenched leftist establishment.
But Flaherty's final assessment is correct: Democrats have a steep mountain to climb to regain any semblance of control they once had over American culture.
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