The most popular podcaster right now is Joe Rogan, who does 2-3 hour interviews. Doesn't the popularity of his content suggest that Americans are very interested in higher level discourse, but have long been denied it?
Also, it's debatable that his podcast promotes higher-level discourse even if it's long in duration.
This is probably true to degree, although Rogan specifically is a pretty polarizing example due to his proclivity for hosting guests that aren't always welcome elsewhere. It's hard to say how much of his popularity is due to his interview style versus his politics. I also expect that the demographic breakdown of podcast listeners aren't reflective of the country as a whole, it probably skews a bit younger.
Long-form interviews with political leaders aren't a new genre, I suspect they just don't get as much attention as the more soundbite-y forms of news, but I could be wrong.
This nuance is enough for certain trans activists to damn him completely, but that is hardly a universal judgment.
For me it shows that the tribalism has completely overtaken US politics. If everyone was making up their mind independently or even semi-independently the odds of everyone in the same bucket having the same beliefs would be close to 0.
I'm not accusing you of that, btw. Just saying it for me.
Another example, on that spectrum this time : Trump's anti-immigration stance is a very typical leftist position. If this sounds preposterous, see this :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen%27s_A...
But then he got elected, and essentially governed as a standard trickle-down Republican, with a side order of conspiracy theories and showmanship.
Like, it's important to remember that Bernie Sanders was anti-immigration without stronger labour standards, and that many Trump/Sanders voters (in 2016) liked the other candidate more than those in their respective primaries.
The US just needs one set of people who'll actually do good things for the lower half of the populace, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
I'd flip this; Rogan isn't polarizing, so much as a section of society is intolerant of "the marketplace of ideas".
It's not Rogan who has to change, it's his critics.
Put simply, they don't trust fellow Americans to form their own opinions, so feel entitled to control their influences.
Ok, there are also some guests that might make false claims, or misrepresentations. Exposure and open discussion is the prescribed cure for this too.
It definitely kicks the cynical view that people are only interested in bites that satiate a short attention span.