The Rest is Politics: An anchor in the storm

The Rest is Politics (TRIP) resides at the eye of the storm, dispensing clarity, logic, and much-needed civility, all while surrounded by turbulence and thunder. Critics label it as an “echo-chamber”, but it can instead be seen as a soft, if insular, battleground for pragmatic politics. If there’s anything a podcast should always do, it’s use its sole medium, conversation, as a tool for the constructive purpose of illuminating civil discussions and productive voices which contribute to their realm of interest, whether that be crime, celebrity drama, politics, or anything else. This is where the critics get TRIP wrong: it’s less about advancing ideology and instead encouraging audience reflection and purposeful conversation on current affairs.

TRIP offers a return to the traditional role of the humble podcast.

Over time, podcasts, and all political news for that matter, increasingly attempt to drag their listeners or readers into partisan boot camps. Back straight, head high, salute your superiors, Full Metal Jacket-style. This is a distortion of their original purpose, not as arbiters of some vague ‘objective truth’, but as inducers of everyday conversations and opinions. In this sense, TRIP offers a return to the traditional role of the humble podcast.

But isn’t it just a cult of middle-class centrists? Another way of wording this is that it’s popular amongst the mainstream, and why that’s an issue is never made exactly clear by TRIP’s nay-sayers. Challenging mainstream views is the ‘in’ behaviour of our time. Unusual, unorthodox, and even extreme opinions have never yielded more prominence than in the contemporary attention economy. Combine that with a general desire for political upheaval (not being the Tories or Labour is the primary reason for Reform’s surge in popularity), and the populism with which this comes, and more than ever, having a view defined by the political spectrum as central is increasingly atypical. In many ways, centrism is a dying art.

TRIP is the antithesis of the radicalism many clamour for, and is popular amongst the very voters whom those closer to the ends of the political spectrum view as barriers to accomplishing their vision.

When this broader context is taken into account, it is obvious why some loathe TRIP. It is the antithesis of the radicalism many clamour for, and is popular amongst the very voters whom those closer to the ends of the political spectrum view as barriers to accomplishing their vision. TRIP epitomises the issue many have with politics: an obsession with pragmatism and gradual change. TRIP’s opponents often cast it as an echo-chamber or something to this effect, but they regularly converse with those who sit firmly outside the realm of the so-called ‘centrist bubble’, such as their recent interview with Zack Polanski. The issue isn’t actually that they’re in an echo-chamber, but that the hosts, the centre-left Alastair Campbell and centre-right Rory Stewart, don’t cave to unorthodox ideals.

The interview with Polanski turned heads. One commentator went so far as to reflect that the interview reflected “the problem at the core of The Rest is Politics; it fundamentally serves to protect the status quo”. This critique stems primarily from Campbell and Stewart’s frustration with Polanski’s economic proposals, which draw on Modern Monetary Theory. But if TRIP represents the mainstream, we can, by extension, see how the views of its hosts reflect both a lack of understanding and passion for such radical economics, not just amongst themselves, but the wider populace, too.

The hosts can be mouthpieces not just of their own concerns but also of the often dismissed majority sceptical of newfound ideals.

If TRIP voters are all ‘centrist dads’, then Polanski or any radical will have to win them over if they are to win power. Though such figures are often lauded by their own supporters, it can be hard for them to connect with the average voter, as reflected in TRIP’s Polanski interview. The hosts can be mouthpieces not just of their own concerns but also of the often dismissed majority sceptical of newfound ideals. Some of the methods deployed against Polanski in the interview were misguided, sometimes focusing more on qualifications than on ideas, but all stemmed from frustration at what came across as idealistic, nonsensical fiscal policies.

If Polanski had suddenly convinced the TRIP hosts that his ideals were to be marvelled at, would such rapturous indignation have dawned? It’s hard to imagine so, but during periods of apathy such as the one within which we currently reside, those who still hold any kind of loyalty to more traditional governmental ideals of centrism become controversial because they are distinctly uncontroversial. TRIP suffers from irony; in trying so hard to be what it isn’t, it becomes what it never would have been (or wanted to become).

They do not deploy tactics that directly or indirectly encourage the listener to join their centrist clique, but instead offer insights from which personal opinions can be crafted and individual judgments made.

Returning to the purpose of a podcast, TRIP is misunderstood. It isn’t a political podcast in the same way that The Ben Shapiro Show, Candace, or Majority Report are, yet many perceive it as the centrist equivalent. TRIP invites reflections from the audience on our crazed political epoch, with Campbell and Stewart’s commentary forged as much in factual history and personal experience as in their own philosophies. It doesn’t impose views; at most, it invites them. They do not deploy tactics that directly or indirectly encourage the listener to join their centrist clique, but instead offer insights from which personal opinions can be crafted and individual judgments made. TRIP stays true to what a podcast should be, opting not to conscript, but to convince and construct. The vehement opposition it receives speaks less about TRIP itself and more about the state of political communication today.