One by one, the beleaguered 20-something liberals explained what had brought them to a Brooklyn beer hall for an unusual club meeting.
Part book club, part exposure-therapy session, the gathering had required them to immerse themselves in some of the brashest and most effective commentators on the right, including the white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. When they listened, as much as they disagreed with the speakers, they understood the left had gotten something deeply wrong.
“The Trump campaign events were some of the best events I’ve ever been to,” said Amalia Hochman, 24, who used to work for the left-wing climate group Sunrise Movement, describing what had drawn her to the group.
“I was shocked when we lost,” said Peri Kessler, 25, a law student who has worked for Democratic campaigns, referring here to the Democrats’ 2024 presidential run. “I really drank that Kool-Aid.”
It was a rare in-person gathering of a largely virtual club called Unfortunately Not a Sound Bath, which bills itself as a “right-wing podcast listening club for left-leaning people.”
The group typically convenes every other week on Zoom to discuss, for instance, the views of the popular right-wing pundits Matt Walsh and Benny Johnson.
The discussions are led by the club’s founders, Nina Harris and Jordan Silver of Crooked Media, a podcast network founded by former Obama White House staff members that includes “Pod Save America,” a darling of left-wing media. Ms. Harris, 28, and Mr. Silver, 35, started the club a year ago, the first month of Mr. Trump’s second term, in an effort to get out of their bubbles and understand how a powerful right-wing media ecosystem had perhaps helped him to victory.
It’s one of several groups dedicated to helping liberal Americans empathize with, or at least comprehend, their conservative counterparts.
Alex Clark, who hosts the podcast “Culture Apothecary,” which is affiliated with the right-wing organization Turning Point USA, said she was pleased to hear that members of the club were listening to her show.
“The liberals are looking at us and saying, ‘Wait a minute — why are we not resonating?’” Ms. Clark said. “That’s really juicy to me.”
Not so long ago, she added, the scales seemed tipped in the other direction: “Ten years ago, the conservative right was saying, ‘We need to be listening to left-wing media’ and ‘Why do they seem like the cool kids?’”
When Mr. Silver, the vice president of marketing at Crooked Media, and Ms. Harris, who works for Crooked Media’s political arm, started texting about forming the club, they agreed that the responses that liberals had mustered during the first Trump term — pink-hat protests, complete with cheeky signs with puns about the president — no longer fully matched the moment.
As their idea for a listening group took shape, they floated some names — “bubble breakers,” “masochistic listening club,” “fight club” — and reached out to about 50 people they knew.
As the club expanded, it eventually included John Evans, whom Ms. Harris had met through the dating app Feeld.
“It didn’t work out,” Ms. Harris said of the date.
“Well, it led to this,” said Mr. Evans, 29, who stood nursing a beer at the Brooklyn meet-up.
He added that, at his brother’s recent wedding, his father had twice brought up Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA before he was assassinated last year, during a toast.
The club has 600 members who have cycled in and out, some devoted attendees and others more intermittent. They cover a wide cross-section of ages and even political views: A recent meeting included a silver-haired boomer observing that his children were getting their news on social media and a Gen Z-er jokingly speculating about how far Mr. Carlson would take his proclivities for Zyn.
Humor is encouraged; messy emotions are to be kept in check. The point, the founders say, is to analyze what makes the conservative voices so effective at captivating and persuading their audiences.
“We’ve gone from, ‘Let’s use this as a grief Zoom’ to ‘Let’s really be tactical,’” said Ms. Harris, who lives in Washington, D.C. “It’s the emphasis Jordan says in the beginning of every call: ‘We’re not here to talk about how sad we are.’”
Ms. Harris and Mr. Evans reserve the right to pull aside those who drift into talking about their feelings. Some members say the club has helped them keep their cool while listening to right-wing conspiracy theories or political ideas they consider offensive.
Members also declared that they haven’t found themselves persuaded or “red-pilled” by the media they have consumed.
“I haven’t turned to the dark side yet,” joked Henry Ewing, 27, a test prep tutor who was in attendance on this January afternoon. “I find a lot of right-wing messaging to be good, even if I don’t agree with the logical conclusions.”
During meetings, the group divvies up into Zoom breakout rooms to dissect podcast episodes for strategies they might be able to replicate. Listening to Ben Shapiro and Mr. Johnson, members agreed that both were good at hammering home a core message, like “how cheap is your gas.” Listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene in conversation with the comedian Tim Dillon, they noted how often the congressional representative said she “hates politics,” rather than emphasizing her identity as a mother and business owner.
The challenge of effective political messaging has animated Democrats for the last year, prompting them to throw millions of dollars at the problem. But some on the left are skeptical that liberals can simply mimic the tactics that have catapulted the right to electoral victories.
“You can’t really just take what the right did either in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and then pour it into the present and have the left do it,” said Sam Adler-Bell, a co-host of “Know Your Enemy,” a podcast that takes a bookish approach to studying the right. “That’s one of the reasons our show is not a guide to effective movement organizing.”
Mr. Adler-Bell added that he believes protests and other forms of resistance remain important for the left.
“I remember right after Trump was re-elected the feeling of, ‘Oh, wow, we don’t know this country — if we just march around and go back into our MSNBC echo chamber then we’re doomed,’” he said. “But it turned out I felt better once people started marching.”
Some members of the club said that immersing themselves in right-wing chatter has helped them find common ground with friends and family members with opinions that differ from their own.
Over Thanksgiving, one member, Kyle McIntyre, 28, found himself in a conversation with his Republican relative, who was telling him she disliked Mayor Zohran Mamdani and liked President Trump. At first, he bristled. But then they found an area of agreement: He and his relative both opposed congressional stock trading.
“Most of the time you’re disagreeing with people you love,” he said.
Ms. Harris said she is not certain how long they will keep running the group. She is once again wondering if the political mood has shifted, pointing to recent immigration crackdowns around the country.
She questions whether the strategy of right-wing media immersion is proactive enough.
“The club was meeting the moment in 2025,” Ms. Harris said, talking with Mr. Evans, the person she had met on a dating app.
“Everyone wanted to know what went wrong in 2024,” Mr. Evans agreed. “Now we’ve done that soul searching.”
Emma Goldberg is a Times reporter who writes about political subcultures and the way we live now.
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