“Conservatives, liberals and celebrities praise Michelle Obama’s speech,” reported CNN in 2016. “Michelle Obama Stole The Show,” declared NPR in 2020. In 2024, the New York Times praised her for having “enthralled a packed arena” by delivering an “emphatic” takedown of Trump.
It would be no wonder if a party starved for talent, coming off two losses to Trump in three election cycles, would take heart in her new creative outlet.
After all, her announcement comes just days after California Governor Gavin Newsom launched his own podcast ahead of his likely bid for the presidency come 2028. And although the ostensible purpose of Obama’s show is apolitical, connecting with her audience on other topics of discussion could conceivably be a savvy political move.
Of course, it’s more likely that IMO is just another moneymaker for the power couple’s entertainment company, Higher Ground Productions.
But Democrats should welcome both her and Newsom’s forays into the world of alternative media anyway. Many ingredients combined to create the conditions that led to Trump’s return to the presidency, but few would deny that his domination of this segment of media was a key one.
Trump charmed and weaved his way through a series of humanising interviews with the likes of Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Andrew Schulz that exposed him to new audiences in a deeper way than an interview on any of the traditional television networks could have done.
Though it might be impossible to create a left-wing version of the ecosystem in which Trump prospered, Democrats need to reach outside the friendly yet stultifying confines of the mainstream media. Fawning questions and safe spaces have done their arguments no good.
In any case, there is little doubt that it was their policies – and the poor arguments they made for them – that cost them the election last year. While some Democrats have deluded themselves into imagining their struggles to be the consequence of some unfair, structural disadvantage, their extreme, unpopular agenda was at the root of them.
And when Michelle Obama once again disappoints the Democrats and opts not to save them in 2028, they will not only need an alternative. They will need to have taken a long hard look in the mirror, and understand precisely why they lost America.
Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite and a Robert Novak fellow.
The Telegraph, London
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