{"id":35120,"date":"2024-10-07T19:13:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/2024\/10\/07\/why-kamala-harris-went-on-call-her-daddy\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T19:13:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T19:13:17","slug":"why-kamala-harris-went-on-call-her-daddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/2024\/10\/07\/why-kamala-harris-went-on-call-her-daddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Kamala Harris Went on Call Her Daddy<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very few podcasters would apologize to their fans for clogging up their feeds by interviewing a presidential candidate. But Alex Cooper\u2014the host of a podcast variously described as \u201craunchy, \u201csex-positive,\u201d \u201cmega-popular,\u201d and \u201cthe most-listened-to podcast by women\u201d\u2014is an exception. \u201cDaddy Gang,\u201d she began her latest episode<\/a>, \u201cas you know, I do not usually discuss politics, or have politicians on this show, because I want Call Her Daddy<\/em> to be a place where everyone feels comfortable tuning in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her guest was Kamala Harris, and Cooper had decided to speak with the Democratic nominee because \u201coverall, my focus is women and the day-to-day issues that we face.\u201d Their 40-minute conversation covered Harris\u2019s upbringing, the rollback of abortion rights, the high cost of housing, and Republican attacks on \u201cchildless cat ladies.\u201d This wasn\u2019t a hard-hitting accountability interview, but it did contain a substantive policy discussion\u2014not that you would guess from some of the more overheated<\/a> right-wing attacks, which seemed to think the pair were braiding each other\u2019s hair. After a summer of largely avoiding interviews with mainstream news outlets, the Harris campaign\u2014like Donald Trump\u2019s\u2014is seeking out friendly podcasters that are popular with normie audiences. As a journalist, I wish both campaigns were doing more tough interviews. But as a pragmatist, I realize that hard-news shows do not command the audiences they once did. Also, most Americans who consume a lot of news already know how they\u2019re going to vote. Nailing down undecided<\/a> voters\u2014including those who don\u2019t currently plan to cast a ballot\u2014is vital. And if that means going on podcasts hosted by YouTube pranksters turned wrestlers (as Trump did) or ones with past episodes like \u201cThreesomes, Toxic Men and OnlyFans\u201d (as Harris did), so be it.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard of Call Her Daddy<\/em>, please accept my condolences for being old, or male, or otherwise uncool. (I was in the first group until I binge-listened in preparation for the Harris interview.) The show had the second-biggest audience<\/a> among podcasts on Spotify last year, after The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em>. Recent guests include Miley Cyrus, Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry, and Simone Biles. Young women love<\/em> \u201cFather Cooper\u201d and listen to what she says.<\/p>\n

[Read: Kamala Harris\u2019s biggest advantage<\/a>]<\/p>\n

That Cooper chose to begin with an apology is interesting\u2014not least because it suggests that Team Harris courted her<\/em>, rather than the other way around. In February, Cooper told <\/a>The New York Times<\/em><\/a> that she had resisted overtures from the White House to have Joe Biden as a guest. \u201cGo on CNN, go on Fox,\u201d she said. \u201cYou want to talk about your sex life, Joe?\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Harris didn\u2019t talk about hers, she did<\/em> talk about tampons, agreeing with Cooper that many of the male politicians who make abortion laws seem to have only the sketchiest understanding of female biology. In fact, this campaign has featured 100 percent more tampons than I expected, because the online right has been trying to make the nickname \u201cTampon Tim\u201d happen for Harris\u2019s running mate, Tim Walz. (As governor of Minnesota, he signed a law<\/a> that would provide free menstrual products in both boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 school bathrooms.)<\/p>\n

Harris also spoke about how she was the first vice president to visit a reproductive-health clinic, allowing her to argue that Republican abortion restrictions, by forcing those clinics to shut down, also limit women\u2019s access to pap smears, contraception, and breast-cancer screenings. She discussed the death of Amber Thurman<\/a>, who developed blood poisoning after having to leave Georgia to seek an abortion shortly after a state law tightly restricting the procedure took effect. Republican proponents of that law had claimed that terminations could be permitted to save the life of the mother, Harris said, anger creeping into her voice: \u201cYou know what that means, in practical terms? She\u2019s almost dead before you decide to give her care.\u201d Whoever coached Harris out of being the word-salad-monger of the 2019 Democratic primary, or the snippy flubber of her disastrous<\/a> 2021 interview with Lester Holt, deserves a raise.<\/p>\n

The people criticizing Harris\u2019s Call Her Daddy<\/em> appearance have claimed that it was demeaning and unserious\u2014or, at best, pointless. Young women are deemed to be in the tank for the Democrats already\u2014the gender gap<\/a> in this election is real. But Cooper reaches an audience that does not follow politics closely, and her own background is more small-c<\/em> conservative than you might imagine from the podcast\u2019s empowered-raunch vibe. She was raised Catholic, in Pennsylvania, and her story follows a familiar pattern for Gen Z and Millennials: After spending her 20s keeping \u201cdick appointments,\u201d as she has put it, she met<\/a> a film producer who later proposed by turning their house into a scavenger hunt full of moments from their relationship, and the couple had a big white wedding in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Call Her Daddy<\/em>, which began as part of the notoriously fratty Barstool Sports network, has mellowed along with Cooper. Its listeners are neither anarchist feminists nor aspiring tradwives, but the great middle of American Gen Z straight(ish) women, who think sex before marriage is fun but also dream of settling down with Mr. Right. This group definitely leans Democrat, but Cooper\u2019s Barstool connection means there will be conservatives listening too, as well as many women who might not vote at all. The Republicans are struggling with this group of voters, seeing them as more radical than they really are, while some evangelical leaders even hope the abortion bans will be a disincentive to premarital sex. But most young women intuitively understand that their sexual and economic freedom are linked: They make their own money, so they can date who they want.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s apology also intrigued me because she followed it up with some self-deprecating pablum about her unfitness to ask questions about fracking and border control. Trump has just completed his own podcast tour<\/a>, talking with influencers, such as Logan Paul, Lex Fridman, and Theo Von, who are popular with young men. Let me shock you: These guys did not seem worried about their knowledge of the Middle East or the finer points of drug policy. But women are not supposed to get above themselves, even though the entire interview-podcast circuit runs on feigned expertise and overly confident opinions. Cooper\u2019s self-deprecation is a reminder why Harris has tried to downplay the historic possibility of being the first female president\u2014because she knows that many voters still find female ambition unsettling.<\/p>\n

[Read: What the Kamala Harris doubters don\u2019t understand<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Still, this interview is the most barbed I\u2019ve seen Harris allow herself to be on the topic of her own ambition. Cooper asked her about Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders\u2019s comments<\/a> that \u201cKamala Harris doesn\u2019t have anything keeping her humble,\u201d because she doesn\u2019t have biological children. How did that make the vice president feel? \u201cI don\u2019t think [Sanders] understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,\u201d Harris replied. Also, she went on, \u201ca whole lot of women out here \u2026 have a lot of love in their life, family in their life, and children in their life, and I think it\u2019s really important for women to lift each other up.\u201d Pressed on J. D. Vance\u2019s claim that the Democrats were dominated by \u201cchildless cat ladies,\u201d Harris said: \u201cI just think it\u2019s mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s continued electoral success has inspired many pundits to claim that there are no longer any standards of decency in American public life\u2014and that politicians can therefore say what they like. In reality, parts of Harris\u2019s story are likely to resonate with voters. Harris\u2019s stepchildren came up in the interview Harris did last week on All the Smoke<\/em><\/a>, a sports podcast hosted by two former NBA players. \u201cI love those children\u2014they are my children,\u201d Harris said of her husband\u2019s kids, adding that she had worked hard not to undermine their mother. One of the hosts, Matt Barnes, sympathetically noted that he is a stepfather to three children. At a time when the GOP really wants to be talking about the economy and the border, the attack line about Harris\u2019s family life is what\u2019s coming through on podcasts for Gen Z women and (predominantly male) sports fans.<\/p>\n

My hunch is that lots of parents do secretly think it\u2019s weird not to want kids, but they also know people who have been devastated by infertility, and so find it graceless to imply that nonparents are hollow droids. And in any case, Harris has a ready answer to the implicit charge of being a heartless shrew\u2014on Call Her Daddy<\/em>, she once again talked about how her stepkids call her \u201cMomala.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the campaign enters its last month, Harris is taking on more interviews and public appearances. This week, she has a Univision town hall, and will be on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/em>, The View<\/em>, Howard Stern\u2019s radio program, and 60 Minutes<\/em>. In other words, after targeting Gen Z women, she\u2019s turning to the other key parts of the Democratic base: Hispanic voters, coastal liberals, suburban women, sexually liberated Boomers, and people who care about foreign policy. It\u2019s a smart tactic\u2014and the mirror image of the campaign choices that Trump made months ago.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very few podcasters would apologize to their fans for clogging up their feeds by interviewing a presidential candidate. But Alex Cooper\u2014the host of a podcast variously described as \u201craunchy, \u201csex-positive,\u201d \u201cmega-popular,\u201d and \u201cthe most-listened-to podcast by women\u201d\u2014is an exception. \u201cDaddy Gang,\u201d she began her latest episode, \u201cas you know, I do not usually discuss politics, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":35121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keepcalmnprofit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}