Dan Koh: There's a lot of debate as to why the Democrats lost in 2024. But there's one thing that nearly everyone agrees on: Democrats need to innovate, especially in the online media space. Brian Tyler Cohen is at the forefront of this field. He started making YouTube videos himself in 2018 and has grown his following to 4.3 million YouTube subscribers and over 3.5 billion video views. Brian joins us to talk about how he did it, how the right is outpacing the left, and what winning advice he has for Democrats in the elections to come. Let's swing into the people's cabinet, Brian Tyler Cohen.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Brian Tyler Cohen, welcome to the People's Cabinet. Thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.

Dan Koh: So, as one person, you went from no platform to building a platform of 4.3 million subscribers, 3.5 billion video views. You have that number current, by the way?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think so, yeah.

Dan Koh: So, tell us how you did it.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Well, you know, I first started creating video content maybe in 2019. I first did it on Facebook, and I did it because there was no liberal content being served to me on Facebook when I was just a news consumer. And so, I just decided to start shooting video. I mean, I had no background in this stuff, I didn't know what I was doing, but figured out a way to just get video content up there. But really, it was owed to the fact there was just such a massive dearth in liberal content. And I mean, that's a recurring theme that we're seeing all the way up to today, right? Like, how right-wingers, conservatives, Republicans dominate these spaces, and there's just nobody on the left. But I think my rise in this space is owed to probably two things. One, the fact that I just did it, and there was just a hunger for it because no one was speaking to folks on the left. And two, just kind of, in a more in-depth look at this, it's being consistent. It's, you know, getting content out there on a daily basis, making sure to cover all these different news topics as they broke. Because then it showed people that, okay, if I want to get, if I want to allow something to be part of my news diet, this is consistent enough and trustworthy enough that I feel it can fill that void.

Dan Koh: And why do you think there was a gap? I mean, I had spent time at the Huffington Post in 2012, 2013, as Arianna's chief of staff. You know, in many ways, kind of a similar dynamic in the sense that we were, you know, gaming SEO and doing a bunch of things that the legacy outlets were not doing, as a result, getting more traffic oftentimes than CNN and New York Times combined. But this gap that you identified, we didn't see, and certainly many others didn't. So, why do you think there was that gap, and in particular, why do you think there was such a gap on the left?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think, more broadly, the reason that there was a gap then is likely the reason that there continues to be a gap now. And it's that Democrats largely rely on legacy media as our message distribution system. And so, there never really felt to be some urgent need for progressive independent media because we've got CNN and New York Times and The Washington Post and MSNBC and ABC and NBC and CBS. And there are a lot of them. And so, even if one of them irked somebody for some reason, well, okay, you know, even if The New York Times pissed me off, I still got nine other outlets that I can choose from. And those always felt adequate. And, by the way, those always felt like the real news. What Republicans identified a long time ago is that they weren't getting what they needed from these legacy media outlets. And so, they needed to create their own if they wanted their narrative to be able to shine through. And so, Democrats inherently didn't see that need because we generally got what we needed fulfilled from legacy media. And so, that's where that asymmetry began, and that's where it started to really take hold and grow. And so, you know, more than ten years ago, they started building up. I mean, Fox, Roger Ailes launched Fox in the late nineties as an antidote to what we now know as the liberal media. And, for that exact same reason, we started seeing these other outlets pop up. The difference is that a lot of the Republicans in office were perfectly content to validate those outlets because they saw the inherent importance in them well before we would start to recognize it on the progressive side.

Dan Koh: It's interesting, though, just to push you a little bit on that, because obviously, the kind of format of traditional media, and especially legacy cable news, for example, is very kind of quick-hit, you know, we're going to do an interview for 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and if you don't understand it, too bad, because we have to go to a commercial kind of thing. I mean, you've kind of identified a sweet spot, and maybe you could tell our people, the few people who don't look at your YouTube channel, kind of the format that you've identified and perfected. But I do think it's interesting that it certainly has proven a need that maybe people didn't realize fully, and that now is seen as kind of something that people can't live without, judging by just how many subscribers you have.

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think it's less the format. Yes, most of my videos are between probably eight and 15 minutes. And this way, I can get a deeper dive into what I'm discussing, if it's legal issues, it's not just, like, what's happening in the courts, thanks so much for stopping by. Like, it really allows you to understand what's happening in the courts, what certainly, you know, what kind of legislation is being passed by Republicans that we have to dig into. But I think, more, the issue is the fact that I'm able to give my perspective from an unapologetically democratic or progressive or liberal point of view. And that's something that I think is missing because what we've seen from the liberal media for so long is this sense that we have to kind of show allegiance to a neutrality, even if neutrality, like, even if it betrays kind of allowing yourself to be gamed by the refs. It still has to focus on, you know, both sides and put us in the center, not what's right, not what's journalistically ethical, but just the center. And if the right keeps moving further right, and the left stays where it is, the center moves to the right. And that's the problem, I think, that most people encountered with their news, is that, you know, now we look at the asymmetry in the media, and Democrats are largely treated the same way that they were 30 years ago, where, you know, any small issue could be a scandal, in the same way that it was 30 years ago. We've got constitutional crises on the right, and it's kind of baked into the cake that Trump will Trump, and Republicans will traffic in overt corruption and criminality. But unless, I guess, it's big enough or sexy enough or shocking enough, it really doesn't get covered the same way.

Dan Koh: Do you think that the rise of Trump and the, for lack of a better term, bending of the ethics and the morals that we see befitting of a president allows the rise of independent media like yours? Do you think people, in the same way that Republicans felt like they weren't getting their needs met by legacy media, that there are Democrats or people in the center, or even just non-MAGA voters, who are looking at the way, you know, some of these legacy outlets are covering the president and saying, they're, in an attempt to be neutral from their editor's perspectives, they're just not even tapped into common sense, in reality, what we should have as a president or how we should see a leader behaving in the United States?

Brian Tyler Cohen: It's a good question. I think, on one hand, just the way that people consume news would probably lend itself to a point where independent media would start to grow anyway because people are getting their news on, you know, handheld devices. People are looking to TikTok and Instagram and YouTube just to consume content anyway. And, obviously, you know, folks are cutting the cord more and more. And so, it was going that way. But I think it's supercharged the transition from legacy media to independent media, the fact that we can all see what this corruption looks like. We can all see the ways in which legacy media was dropping the ball and not meeting the moment with the urgency that it deserved. And so, I think that an already clear transition just really got turbocharged. I mean, that just exacerbated our need to look to people who weren't going to be kind of mealy-mouthed about what we were seeing. And I think that, in large part, is why there's been such a move away because you can also consider, too, a lot of the folks who are on legacy media right now, they have been able to come to independent media and start their own outlets. Some folks who are experts from legacy media have started Substack and whatnot. And, of course, legacy media outlets are slowly transitioning onto websites like YouTube. But I still think, generally, the meteoric rise of independent media folks, as opposed to the slower rise of legacy media folks to be embraced in the independent space, kind of is a testament to the fact that there is an exhaustion by the both-sides-ism and the general lack of willingness to discard the neutrality and embrace just what's right.

Dan Koh: And you feel like, from the end consumer perspective, that this is a zero-sum game in terms of their attention? Do you feel like you have people who used to tune in to the legacy outlets now tune in to you, or do you think they're doing it in addition to you? How do you segment your audience, so to speak?

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that, look, I want to be a part of someone's news diet, I don't want to be the only person that folks get their news from. And I know that, oftentimes, my posture is going to be hostile to legacy media. And it's true. And I, look, as a legacy media consumer, I do feel sad about the way that they've failed us. So, I'm not here to, like, usher in the ruin or the end of legacy media. I think that they're a vital part of the ecosystem. My beef is with the fact that they fail to meet the moment with some urgency. But, look, I think that, in large part, folks should make sure to consume news from me, other folks in the independent space, and legacy media as well. I think that the more people in this space that are willing to speak out, the more that we all thrive, like a rising tide lifts all ships. I do hope that, if I'm able to serve any purpose, it's to give something of a permission structure for folks in the legacy media to know that the end-all, be-all way to move forward is not that we have to abide by some undying principle of neutrality. It's that we can call a spade a spade here. And if something is, you know, if one side is more corrupt than the other side, it's okay to just say one side is more corrupt than the other side without having to say, but also the Democrats did this, so don't worry, we're making sure to punch down on both sides here.

Dan Koh: I'd say it's a bad commentary on the way news is that they struggle to find a MAGA commentator that they think is acceptable to put on in the guise of neutrality. I mean, right?

Brian Tyler Cohen: Right.

Dan Koh: And can you give a sense of when you kind of saw the traffic starting to shift? I mean, maybe you could give a little bit of a sense to our listeners about the sheer numbers here, right, what the average viewership of a typical legacy media outlet is versus what you're getting every day.

Brian Tyler Cohen: So, I think that it changes a lot. Obviously, like, in the immediate aftermath of the election, things looked awfully grim for legacy media. I mean, there were some networks and shows that were getting tens of thousands of views. I believe, roughly, you'll see primetime shows get somewhere in the ballpark of a few hundred thousand to low millions of views, maybe just over a million or so for legacy media outlets. My channel, for example, in this past month, got roughly 250 million views. So, about eight or nine million per day. So, and just to give you a sense of where that stands in relation to even where it stood previously, the most views I had ever gotten on my channel prior to the election was Election Day itself.

Dan Koh: How many hours was your stream? That must have been an endurance.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I think that was roughly, like, eight hours. That is a test of, like, look, gives me a whole new appreciation for what Cory Booker did to sit. I was going to say, any bathroom breaks in there or not?

Brian Tyler Cohen: There were bathroom breaks. Yeah, I mean, luckily, you know, folks aren't looking for me. It wasn't some marathon of folks who are looking for me to, like, achieve some feat by not peeing during the election returns. So, definitely did that freely. But, look, I was sitting, I was eating pretty quite minimally. And yet, you know, that wasn't anywhere close to what Booker did. So, a new appreciation for being able to stand up for 24 hours straight. But, with that said, the most views I'd ever gotten was nine million prior to the election. I was averaging about six or seven. And it always peaks in the immediate run-up to an election. It's, my views are completely cyclical, just like any other outlet's views, I'm sure, are cyclical. And there is a spike right up to the election, and then that plummets and slowly builds up to the next election. And the views that I'm getting now, on a daily basis, are, in some cases, double what I had in the lead-up to the election, which is unprecedented for, you know, April of an off-year to get that kind of viewership. But I think that, look, people are tuned in right now. And the switch from legacy media to independent media has been so swift and kind of exponential at this moment that I think that's owed, in large part, to what we're seeing right now.

Dan Koh: You know, we had Ben Meiselas on from Midas Touch Network to talk about the amazing network they've built over there. Where do you see this going? I mean, obviously, you two are some of the biggest players on online and in the media ecosystem in general now. And there's been studies, I'm sure you saw that Media Matters study, that showed just the vast presence of the right-wing subscriber base and viewer base, and that, despite the work that you and Ben and others are doing, there's still some catch-up to be played. So, where do you see it going? Do you think there's a world in which, someday, Democrats overtake that, or do you think this will be a constant battle of innovation?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think it's going to be, that's a really good question. First of all, it might feel like, in the short term, it has to be a battle between the two sides where we try to overtake them. But I really do think, at the end of the day, that it's going to have to be a battle of innovation. Because, if you looked back five years ago, nobody would have predicted that we would be in this moment right now, vying for viewership on apps like TikTok. I really don't know that we even know what the next platform is going to be. I made a gamble with YouTube back in 2019 and 2020 by really focusing my attention on that website. And there are folks that focused all their attention on podcasting, thinking that, you know, listening to podcasts was going to be the future. And, in large part, if you had asked somebody five years ago, hey, what's going to be the future, they would have said, there is an RSS feeds on podcasts, and now anybody who does an audio-only podcast sees that the growth on those platforms has been anemic, at least for a few years now, while YouTube has been pretty meteoric in its rise. And so, you just don't know what the future is going to look like. So, we have to, we have an inherent obligation to make sure that we're innovating. But, at the same time, given the ecosystem that we're working with right now, it has to be a fight to get as many eyeballs as possible and to bring in as many new, you know, voters, persuadable voters, into our content as possible. That has to be the immediate goal, the short-term goal that we're looking at right now, which is, look at how many people are picking up their phones and logging into TikTok and Instagram and YouTube. And, for the folks who are not bought in on our side, the folks who are still persuadable, we have to figure out ways to reach them. And so, if that means getting more voices into the left-of-center ecosystems that we can try and gain parity with what they have on the right, great, let's do it. If it means figuring out more creative ways to get the apolitical people, great, we have to do that, too. Let's get culture creators on the left, in the same way that the right has embraced culture creators, get, you know, health and wellness and DIY, and try to claw back some of those spaces that the right has been really smart about investing in.

Dan Koh: Well, it seems like, since the election, every armchair person has their opinion on independent media, and a lot of people have some amnesia about what they were saying beforehand about the impact of it. Do you think, and I'm sure you've been right at the center of people giving their opinions on how they feel, I tell you, they've watched all along, when they probably have just started since after the election. What is your opinion on whether Democrats have learned from 2024? First of all, do you think that the lack of attention to this space was a primary reason in the outcome? And then, do you think that we have, have you seen the signs of us learning our lesson, or are you worried that we haven't?

Brian Tyler Cohen: I think, in huge part, the fact that Democrats refused to validate independent media because they've always viewed legacy media as adequate as our message distribution system is why we didn't have the same degree of growth that the right has. Look, we all know that anybody who had 25 bucks to buy a microphone got time with Donald Trump. He would sit down with them, knowing full well that he can validate those people for just 10 minutes of his time. He would turn them into evangelists for him, talk about an ROI, give somebody 10 minutes of time, help build their audience, which they can then, because now they're legitimized in the eyes of their audiences, I sat down with Donald J. Trump, like, yeah, well, let's keep listening to him. And now that he did that, now that he's responsible for helping build up their audience, those people are going to be missionaries for Donald Trump himself. And so, it's a win-win for him. Why would everybody not do this? The Republicans, more broadly, have been really quick to do that. I mean, they, you know, they'll sit down with senators, with congresspeople. And it's been really difficult, even for somebody like me, who had a large platform in the lead-up to this election. The bane of my existence, for so many years, had been trying to get people to sit down with me because it just never was viewed as legitimate. I mean, even with the statistics you had, I mean, like, I say this because you said we went from six to seven to nine, that's still six or seven million, right? You still have trouble with that in the lead-up to the election?

Dan Koh: And once we got into, you know, 2024, obviously, it was an easier draw. But there were still folks who I couldn't get, which is to say nothing of the fact that, when my numbers were smaller, just maybe one or two million, then, I mean, by midweek, when I was supposed to be able to deliver my podcast by the weekend, I would always be in a panic, it would always be difficult to get people. And yet, those same people would always be on the Sunday shows, they would always be on MSNBC and CNN, they would always be talking to the New York Times. And so, it was difficult, even with millions of followers, just because it wasn't in their toolbox, it wasn't in their schema to ever talk to independent media folks, because they always assumed that it was covered by virtue of the fact that everybody we needed to get was watching CNN or watching MSNBC. And, by the way, Democrats always took the popular vote. And so, there was nothing really to push them off this idea that we weren't speaking to the majority of people, because we were winning elections, we were talking to the vast majority of people, they were on our side. And then, of course, you know, this election showed that that was not the case. It was dubbed the podcast election. And, to answer your question, I do think, in large part, Democrats, albeit too late, recognize where we went wrong as it relates to independent media. And we've seen, you know, an avalanche of Democratic senators and lawmakers starting to create content themselves and, you know, posting that stuff directly on social media. Chris Murphy and Cory Booker have been really effective at doing this. I mean, Chris Murphy often gets hundreds of thousands of likes and sometimes millions of views on his posts that he posts directly onto Twitter and Instagram. Cory Booker's got well over a million followers on Instagram. And so, the folks who are doing it, who have really taken the lead on embracing independent media, you know, that's obviously shown in a big way. Bernie Sanders, you know, goes without saying that his views on YouTube are in the millions. AOC, obviously, has a following of millions of people as well. So, the folks who have been quick to embrace it, you know, those people, I think, are showing that it's possible from the Democratic side. Still, obviously, a lot of work to be done, but at least something to be said for this, the slow-moving cruise ship that is the Democratic Party, to be able to embrace independent media and to be able to be at least somewhat nimble is a step in the right direction.

Dan Koh: You know, not now, it's a matter of, okay, are some of these people that we have in the Democratic Party even capable of being able to succeed on independent media platforms? Or are they, you know, look, we have a problem with age in the Democratic Party. Some of these folks are never, you know, I just don't think we're going to get Steny Hoyer to, like, run a successful Instagram account. And I don't think we're going to see Steny Hoyer stitching any video content anytime soon. So, you know, I think it's, it'll be interesting to see what happens in '26 and '28 because the Democrats have largely viewed themselves as the party that represents young people. Not only do we see that we largely lose that toehold or that hold that we had over young people in this latest election, having lost 18- to 29-year-old men, but our party doesn't really reflect that either with the age of its members. It's, I think, we took it for granted in the Obama days when, you know, Obama was cool, and virtually everybody in my generation, all the millennials, were and continue to be very liberal. I think, having grown up at a time where it was definitely culturally acceptable and in vogue to be a Democrat. But now, you know, our candidates and our elected officials are quite old. And so, I think, inherently, within that, you're going to lose young people who can't relate to them as well.

Dan Koh: So, in terms of winning elections, I have kind of a two-part question for you. One is, you know, do you have a sense, from your, you know, a lot of people, a lot of the narrative now is meeting people where they are, right? We got to go where they are, we got to get, you know, people are firing up YouTube, are firing up Spotify to listen to a podcast while they're going to work, whether commuting, etc. How many of your listeners do you think are people who are always voting for the Democratic candidate? How many of them are what you would probably put in the persuadable bucket? And how do we, how do we take advantage of, hopefully, Democrats learning their lesson to get more of those people to listen to you, to Midas Touch, to other places that are, you know, informing people in different ways?

Brian Tyler Cohen: So, we've run, I have a buddy of mine who owns, like, a data company, we've run some tests on my audience, and I've seen that my audience is about 50% Democratic, about 30% independent or persuadable, and about 15% Republican. And the rest of the folks, we're not able to glean any information on their partisan affiliation. But it's changed how I create my content, in that I think, very often, when I'm putting videos on YouTube, that it would be easy to just go full-bore Democratic, liberal, attack Trump mercilessly, and get pats and claps from my audience. But, oftentimes, I'm even acknowledging the fact that, if you are an independent, if you are a Republican, if you are a conservative Democrat, X, Y, Z. And so, I'll try to formulate my message in such a way that it makes it more palatable for what I view as my target audience, knowing full well that the majority of my audience still does include Democrats. But, you know, really, the goal here, the reason that I'm on YouTube versus spending all of my time on Twitter, is that that's where the most people are. And that's where I have the biggest opportunity to be able to persuade folks. And so, I could spend all day on Twitter and kind of speak to my ecosystem and try to make sure that, you know, journalists and reporters see what I have to say, because that's where they lurk the majority of the time. But I'm less interested in being on Twitter and focusing on soft influence in that respect and more focused on just seeing how many people, regular people in the country, I can talk to. And if I can help dig somebody out of a right-wing rabbit hole, if I can help give somebody the tools that they need, even if they're already Democratic but they can't speak on politics with enough authority, if I can give them the tools they need so that they can speak to their parents or their friends and be able to pull some facts out, then that's success for me. And so, oftentimes, I'll create my messaging in such a way that I'm really focusing, every single day, on being able to persuade people, as opposed to just getting pats from people who already largely agree with me.

Dan Koh: Can you talk a little bit about the challenges of trying to appeal to the independent audience and even the Republican audience from an algorithm perspective? Because you recently went public with an alteration that you did on some of the thumbnails and uploading your videos to make sure that you could send them more easily to independents and Republicans. And I think most people don't realize kind of how the algorithms incent more division and more partisanship.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Correct. This may not come as a surprise to most people, but the internet doesn't exactly reward nuance or moderation. And so, that's been tough for me because the one thing that I can't hedge on, really, is the way that I package my content. Because, really, what you're dealing with in YouTube's algorithm is, okay, your video is going to go up there, and you've got ten or 20 minutes to make sure that your video gets clicked versus the other ten videos that it's going up against or 20 videos that it's going up against. And if your video is appearing in the algorithm next to all of this other content that's being served from all of these other creators, and no one's clicking on yours because they're clicking on all the other videos that do have, you know, saucy titles and flashy thumbnails, then your content is going to die on the vine. And so, for me, knowing that my ultimate goal is to be able to get what I think is an honest and accurate message out to people, an effective message out to people, you've got to play the YouTube game, and you've got to make sure that people click on your content relative to all the other content that's out there. And that's, sadly, the way that the ecosystem is. It's going to be a lot of those, you know, flashy thumbnails and saucy titles. So, knowing that I'll get people to click on those videos who are largely already bought in, even if the content itself is meant to give folks tools that they need to be able to reach other persuadable people in their lives, knowing that I ultimately want to even just make sure that they're shareable content for the people who've already watched the video and say, this is great, I wish I could share this with somebody, but the title says that Trump was humiliated, and they're not going to click on that, they're going to write you off as some rabid communist Marxist right off the bat. So, I created a second channel with the same content, but very straight-news titles, not taking into account at all the algorithm. And so, whereas a normal video of mine may get 750,000 views or 850,000 views or a million views because it was able to succeed in that algorithm, these videos may get a couple thousand views or 5,000 views or 10,000 views, but those videos, I know, are being shared with family members or friends or colleagues or neighbors of the people who are watching them. And those numbers are fine. Like, the whole goal of that is, it's just as valuable to me to get a million people to watch a video where they might largely be bought in, versus a video that only gets a thousand views where they may be going in front of brand new viewers or brand new voters or somebody who's completely persuadable or somebody who's disillusioned with the Republican Party as it stands right now. And so, it's the same reason I started my Spanish channel. Spanish channel only reaches a few tens of thousands. Well, at this point, it's been two years, and we've actually been quite lucky with the growth of that, because we're up to about almost 300,000 subscribers and about 10 million views per month. But the goal of my Spanish channel, initially, was, okay, no one is talking to Spanish-speaking audiences on the left, and the folks who are speaking to Spanish-speaking audiences are largely right-coded or overtly right-wing. And so, you know, I don't speak Spanish, but I have, you know, luckily, we have the use of AI, and I have a team of Spanish speakers who are able to make sure that that content is all accurate in terms of its translation. And, for years, I just kind of toiled away, getting hundreds or a couple of thousand views per video, knowing that that was valuable to me, knowing that I was getting in front of somebody who otherwise wouldn't have access to this kind of information.

Dan Koh: So, given how it can be hard to reach people en masse with the algorithms being what they are, given how divided our country continues to be, what is your advice for the 2028 Democratic nominee for president, or even a Republican candidate that's not MAGA, right? Like, what if a Democratic nominee came in and said, Brian, give me advice on how I best reach persuadable voters, and how I best continue to engage the base? What would you say?

Brian Tyler Cohen: The two things. One is the way we speak. It cannot just be in a way that is inoffensive and safe and uncontroversial. Speak like a normal human being. I mean, Trump has made a career out of doing that. And I feel like Democrats are so focused on making sure our message appeals to the broader swath of people that it becomes so sterile by the end that it doesn't even break through in a media ecosystem where you need slight fireworks to get anybody to pay attention. But, even the people who do hear you, you just undermine your own message because you just sound like a rote politician. And so, speak in a way that's normal. It's okay to curse, it's okay to get mad about something, it's okay to screw up. And, to the second point, go places where you wouldn't normally feel safe going. I mean, the reality is that, if you want to just go on MSNBC, that's great, you're going to be bringing sand to the beach, so to speak, because the people there already agree with you. It's getting into these new spaces where people are, and doing it early and often. You know, people can smell when you decide to go on Call Her Daddy, and this is no shot at Kamala Harris because she certainly had no time to stand up an entire campaign. But, if a politician suddenly goes on a popular podcast in October of an election year, the audience is, you know, we don't live in the same type of media ecosystem as we used to, where folks are largely neutral or largely nonpartisan until, and they'll make up their decision after watching a few of these ads roll during football Sunday. Like, that world is gone. People are creating their worldviews 24 hours a day, 12 months out of the year, years in advance. And so, the people who are watching Joe Rogan, for example, whose show has become recorded, like, that race for Rogan's viewers was lost for Democrats well before that was even some question of Kamala being able to go on his show. And so, we have to recognize that people are creating their political worldviews and building up their ideologies well in advance of September or October of an election year. And so, get in front of these audiences before it feels like it's transactional, before it feels like you're just showing up because, clearly, there's an election coming up in four weeks, now you want their votes, because people don't know you by then. And so, I think that's the biggest thing, is start the work now, and make sure you're actually reaching people where they are. And when you do talk to them, don't worry about being safe or adhering to some poll-tested message or saying something that's going to not turn off the most people in accordance with whatever focus group you ran, because I think people can, in an era of authenticity, people can sniff that out a mile away.

Dan Koh: And so, you've given advice to people who are running for elected office. My final question to you is advice for the listeners of this pod and the grassroots. And I think all of us know people who have been in touch with and talked to voters who are completely disaffected and disgusted by politics and have tuned out, know a lot of neighbors that maybe voted for President Biden but then voted for Trump this time. What's your message to listeners that they can take to their communities that might get those kinds of people engaged and excited again about the Democratic Party?

Brian Tyler Cohen: Yeah, I think, one is, we have agency here. And so, if you want the Democratic Party to look differently, recognize that we're the ones who are able to change it. Even for somebody like me, look, I'm a party guy, I am an avowed Democrat, I know a lot of people in this space who call themselves a Democrat or certainly don't want to be associated with the Democratic Party. But even I recognize that the party, as it stands right now, is not acceptable. And, in large part, that's owed to the fact that we have people who've been in office for decades. And so, I want to see people get primaried, I want to support primary challengers, I want to see the party look younger and more dynamic and more charismatic. And so, I'll be supporting primary challengers. But that doesn't mean to just relinquish the party altogether because I'm not happy with how it looks. It means figuring out ways that I can become involved and change it. And so, everybody lives in a district where you can take a look at who your elected official is and see if you're satisfied with what they've done, satisfied with how they've used their platform and their megaphone. And if you're not, then we all have some agency here in making the Democratic Party look better, as opposed to relinquishing it altogether. And the second thing I would say is to make one person your responsibility, one or two people your responsibility. It doesn't mean that everybody who wants to make a change in politics has to have some platform with millions of people, because you don't really. If you can work on one or two people over the next year and give them an accurate assessment of what's going on, then I think that, come election time, that will have a major impact. Because an example I like to use is Wisconsin in 2020. Biden beat Wisconsin back in 2020 by two votes per precinct. And so, if Trump was able to flip just two people per precinct, he would have won that state. And, oftentimes, we will see Wisconsin as the tipping-point state. And so, that really underscores the importance that just one person can have on the electorate, and certainly one person per precinct. So, I think, if everybody listening just focuses, not on trying to do everything, but just trying to do something, which is to find one or two people who wouldn't have otherwise been bought in on the political process, who wouldn't have been paying attention to politics for whatever reason, make them your responsibility. And if enough people do that, then the impacts of that obviously have the power to be massive.

Dan Koh: Brian Tyler Cohen, YouTube Channel, No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, check them out. Thank you for coming on the People's Cabinet.

Brian Tyler Cohen: Thanks so much for having me.

Dan Koh: I'm Dan Koh and that's it for the People's Cabinet today. Follow us on social media, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and see you on Tuesdays for new episodes. Let's go.