Ramaswamy: 1. Who the fuck is he? 2. Where did he come from? 3. Who's funding him? . . . . .

[Hortensis]

34. Thank you. I hadn't picked up on this new, effective way to spread craziness.

Dangerously effective, bypassing "the press's" safety bumpers.

Time: The Podcast Campaigners

If you follow politics on social media, video clips of long-shot 2024 presidential candidates have likely been all over your feeds recently, sitting in studios or offices with podcast microphones pressed to their faces.

In recent months, Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy have embarked on a podcast blitz, using their campaigns as calling cards for any show that will have them on—from obscure history, wellness or crypto podcasts to Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces and Joe Rogan’s popular program. It’s an approach driven by necessity: television networks and media outlets tend to give long-shots little airtime or attention compared to the leading candidates. But as Kennedy and Ramaswamy have recognized, hundreds of podcasts and livestreams are happy to offer fringe contenders the opportunity to expound on their views for hours, usually without being challenged or fact-checked. Video clips of the exchanges are then widely disseminated across social platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, reaching bigger audiences than many traditional media outlets.

Read More: ​​Inside the Very Online Campaign of RFK Jr.

It’s a test run of a new kind of strategy for the social-media era: make yourself impossible to ignore by flooding the online ecosystem with appearances on alternate platforms. The resulting headlines often inflate the candidates’ importance or support, and could ultimately become a headache for President Joe Biden or the Republican frontrunners. These kinds of candidates have “figured out a style of weaponized contrarianism that garners a lot of engagement,” says Graham Brookie, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “It’s this ‘vibes only’ approach to mass media.”

For Kennedy, podcasts and alternative platforms offer a chance to speak to large audiences after more than 15 years of being relegated to the fringes for his anti-vaccine activism. Now, the views that once got him banned from social media for violating disinformation policies are being widely circulated on the same platforms through clips of his podcast appearances. ...

https://time.com/6289535/rfk-jr-vivek-ramaswamy-podcast-election/