Forget Joe Rogan. Start with a Car Podcast.
Why we should stop looking for the perfect messenger — and start joining the conversations already happening.
In rare moments of calm in today’s news cycle, we hear a constant refrain: Where’s our Joe Rogan, or the one man who can win back the disillusioned dude demo? As if the solution to a gendered political drift is to decree some sort of Game of Thrones-style prophecy and hope that a singular bro-king with a progressive heart, a podcast empire, and Kit Harrington’s looks magically appears. Or that Dean Withers is going to lift a glowing sword, yell “By the power of climate justice!” and transform into a swole lefty icon sent to reclaim the group chat. Or…just throw money at the problem.
But that’s not the question we should be asking. The question is: How can we show up, authentically, where men (and young men) already hang out? There have been attempts already, some successful (Pete Buttigieg on Flagrant comes to mind) and some, not so much (Gavin Newsom’s aisle-crossing attempts, although the dude is holding his own in LA right now). Because while high-paid consultants search for a unicorn influencer, or try to manifest one, real conversations are already happening in places where men are.
I happened to stumble upon one of these conversations, and it definitely wasn’t on Pod Save America. The Smoking Tire, a YouTube channel and car podcast, recently spent an hour unpacking immigration policy in Los Angeles with surprising clarity and urgency. I think it actually offers us a winning model for how to talk about challenging topics in casual settings that nurture growth and even incite action.
Like many Dads out there (and Moms too!), I’m a car guy, and I started out as a car kid. Before the Internet, I channeled the supposed wisdom I’d gained by reading car magazines into a “job” as a car-buying expert, aged 8. My first client was my grandmother, who was seeking a replacement for her withering Oldsmobile, and after I told her to buy a Volvo because it would outlast her, my mom gasped and never recommended my services again. (By the way, she outlasted the Volvo, even after it had been handed down to me and endured four years of college life in the snow belt.)
Now, as a car adult, I still fancy myself as a bit of a car expert (peep my side project covering electrified driving), and the car content I consume on YouTube and podcasts comprises the most manosphere-adjacent stuff in my media diet. How so? While the majority of creators in the space steer away from politically charged content, the comments do percolate with a bit of climate change-denialism and green energy bashing, juxtaposed with religious fervor for fire-breathing internal combustion engines and manual transmissions. While many (including the Elon Musk fanboys) see electrification in driving as innovative, the minority equates any emissions-saving legislation or even cultural shifts towards EVs as a threat to their manhood — something the current administration appears to be backing with executive actions.
It doesn’t surprise me to see Car YouTubers get into politically-adjacent conversations about the gas vs. electric debate, or even the tariff drama, given its impact on the availability of new cars and car parts. It definitely surprised me last week when Matt Farah, host of The Smoking Tire, revealed that his topic would be immigration raids in Los Angeles. Here’s the full episode:
Farah is a longtime automotive journalist and content creator, known for driving the best cars in the world at high speeds around tracks and through the California canyons. He’s been making The Smoking Tire for nearly 20 years, while also serving as an editor-at-large for Road & Track magazine and hosting various car programs on TV. He’s also the Los Angeles business owner behind Westside Collector Car Storage, a high-end vehicle garage center with two locations.
At the time the ICE raids began in LA, Farah says he was abroad, and started seeing anecdotal coverage of the situation on social media, namely via a post from his friend Sergio Siderman, an immigration attorney and fellow car guy: “I saw Sergio post something on Instagram a couple days ago and it was something like, ‘ICE raids are back in LA and people are getting scooped up off the street,’ and I was like, ‘Wait, is this real?’”
Let’s call this Step 1 of this “how do we get dudes to care about stuff” model: Curiosity. So much manoverse content boils down to conversations about shit we don’t know. It’s natural to start an episode with a question, which, in this case, was, “Why is ICE detaining people in Los Angeles.”
“We're not going to be talking too hyperbolically about it, or at least we're going to try,” said Farah to open the episode. “But [our guest is] going to answer some very important questions about about the state of immigration in our city and our country right now. And it's just the real information — not from a politician or a pundit, but from somebody on the ground that I think you guys should hear.”
“I’m not trying to turn this into a politics show or whatever, but sometimes something just feels close enough to home that you can’t not say something.” — Matt Farah, The Smoking Tire
Step 2 is Care. This situation that’s happening in my community doesn’t feel right to me, and that’s amplifying my curiosity. Matt’s an LA guy, who owns an LA business, and works in an industry that’s about as diverse as they get, demographically. He lives and works with folks who hail from all parts of the globe, and when they start getting scooped up by ICE, it matters to him. “I’m not trying to turn this into a politics show or whatever, but sometimes something just feels close enough to home that you can’t not say something,” Farah continues.
“And Sergio’s not just yelling into the void — he’s an immigration attorney. He knows what he’s talking about.” Now we’ve got Credibility entering the mix as Step 3. If we’re going to learn about something, let’s bring in an actual expert, and not just volley around our own hot takes. Dudes respect someone who’s actually done the work. It’s “doing your research,” but upgraded.
Now, Credibility is generally where we get into sticky situations in the manoverse. We can all point to guests who’ve appeared on popular podcasts under the guise of “expertise” and unleashed gobs of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Building rosters of subject matter experts who can easily maneuver in this space and build trust with existing hosts and influencers — that’s a great place to invest effort right now, rather than trying to fabricate a dream host.
Sergio meets the moment on The Smoking Tire. He and Matt are obviously pals, but anyone questioning his car-guy bona fides would be instantly swayed by his tales of 1990s Honda Civic motor swaps, working on a 240SX with his daughters, and Ferrari ownership, which he weaves effortlessly into the flow of the conversation.
With his car credibility established, Siderman has an easy time segueing into a breakdown of the immigration issue in LA, and even for someone like me who’s been following the news, I found it to be a pretty illuminating take, getting deeper into the “why” behind the government’s strategy. Here’s his breakdown — or Step 4, Conversation:
Trump promised mass deportations — and now they’re trying to make that real. Trump’s team is aiming for 3,000 deportations a day — nearly a million per year. But most deportations used to happen at the border, and that’s no longer working the same way.
That’s because the border is basically closed. Right now, asylum offices (called CBP1 offices) aren’t letting as many people in. So there aren’t as many “turnaround” deportations at the border, which used to inflate the numbers.
So, to meet their goals, ICE is coming into cities and neighborhoods and going after people inside the U.S. — pulling people off the streets, out of homes, even from schools and courtrooms.
They’re targeting the most vulnerable people. ICE focuses on undocumented people who don’t have lawyers, don’t speak English, and aren’t already in the legal system. These are the folks least able to fight back.
They’re using old deportation orders. ICE is using old lists of people who were ordered deported years ago — even if those people have built lives and families here. If ICE finds someone on that list early enough in the day, they can be deported by the next morning.
If you don’t have papers and no case on file, you’re the “low-hanging fruit.” That’s who ICE wants — the people who won’t put up a legal fight. If you do have a lawyer or paperwork in process, ICE usually moves on.
It’s not about real crime. Working without papers or living in the U.S. without documentation isn’t a criminal offense — it’s a civil one. But ICE treats it like a crime. Meanwhile, employers who hire undocumented workers face little or no punishment.
There’s a due process crisis. People are being detained or deported without fair hearings. Siderman calls it “eerily reminiscent of 1930s Germany” — it has the vibe of rounding people up based on race or status, not justice.
Through the conversation, we get to Comprehension, Step 5, as Farah, co-host Zack Klapman, and guest host, fellow automotive journalist Jonny Lieberman, pepper Siderman with questions and comments, reacting to his expert explanation of the situation.
“So wait… shoplifting could easily be a much bigger crime than being an undocumented person in California right now,” Farah says at one point, “for which the punishment appears to be being kidnapped off the street and sent somewhere.” Later, he quips, “The ‘tough on crime’ people are awfully selective with what kinds of crime they're being tough on.”
Farah asks whether undocumented immigrants are “keeping a low profile” because they’re worried about being caught, and Siderman brings up a study from Stanford that shows that “the criminal likelihood of a white American is significantly higher than an immigrant,” debunking some of the common accusations by the government that a huge crime wave is being perpetrated by those who’ve entered the country illegally. “I am not the least bit surprised,” says Farah.
“Anyone listening in America, what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today was picked by undocumented workers.”
— Jonny Lieberman, guest host, The Smoking Tire
“These people are our neighbors,” Farah says later. “The idea that they would be categorized as an invading anything is insane. They make delicious food for us. They work in our businesses and take care of our households.”
Lieberman adds: “Anyone listening in America, what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today was picked by undocumented workers.”
Where The Smoking Tire leaves off, at least in Episode #1020, is before what I’d call Step 6: Commitment. What do I do with this?
I suppose one could argue that for a car guy like Matt Farah — who, by the way, lists his profile name on X.com to Matt “Stick to Cars” Farah, a cat-call to the trolls — simply taking the time to engage his audience on this topic is commitment enough.
For the rest of us, though, it can be a simple step. Share the episode. Talk to your kid. Follow the person or persons doing the work. Text it to your buddy. Or just pledge to stay in the discomfort for a little while and revisit the idea of Commitment a little later.
Moving forward, let’s think about how we get the car bloggers thinking about climate change. Or the college-age influencers wondering about school choice. Or the sports guys chatting about parental leave. It turns out we might not need a unicorn. We need a strategy. And a little faith that men will show up — if we meet them where they already are.