Today’s newsletter comes to you mere hours after the fate of American democracy was decided, once and for all. (JK.)

Sorry — I am genuinely not trying to be flippant about the outcome of yesterday’s midterms, aka the Most Important Election Of Our Lives Part Infinity. This newsletter was filed prior to Election Day, so as I write this, I have no idea whether we’ll be facing two more years of unchecked authoritarian power, a Blue Wave Redux, a leftist-socialist revolution (🤞), or a frustrating melange of wins and losses that the consultant class is already spinning to suit their narratives. I really hope it goes well! (Editorial note: it did, in fact, go well.)

Breaking electoral news isn’t exactly our beat here at Good Tape. But it’s also not not our beat, since politics and podcasting have long been intertwined. Recall how many pundits deemed 2024 “The Podcast Election,” based on Trump’s strategy of “Talk to high-profile jackasses who won’t push back” vs. Harris’ inability to be normal on “Subway Takes.” If the argument was about reach, Trump won it handily at the time. In Q3 of 2024, Trump appeared on shows that reached an estimated 23.5 million American adults per week; in the same period, the shows Harris appeared on reached about 6.4 million.

But prior to 2024, you might have called 2020 the Podcast Election, based on the revolving door of politicians featured on Crooked Media’s “Pod SaveAmerica” or the sheer number of shows that network launched. Or maybe it was 2018, when Crooked formed the organizing arm Vote Save America and raised nearly $3 million to help flip the House. 

Or wait — maybe it was actually the 2016 cycle, which coincided with the launch of “The NPR Politics Podcast,” “Politically Re-Active with W. Kamau Bell & Hari Kondabolu,” and the New York Times’ “The Run-Up,” a precursor to their mammoth hit “The Daily.” Heck, maybe the honor of Podcast Election should go to the 2006 cycle, when Slate’s very first podcast, “Political Gabfest,” was born.

With this history in mind, we wanted to do a quick pulse check of our community’s political podcast consumption of late. Have people been cramming their ears with urgent political content? Or have we been using podcasts as refuge from politics, given that every other media outlet and social platform has already been overrun?

We asked readers and friends of Good Tape to send reflections on what political content they’ve been absorbing, and why. Here’s what they said…