Thanks to the intimacy of audio and the antics of Trump, this election cycle is bringing listeners an unprecedented spate of opinionated incredulity. Political podcast pundits abound: Slate’s Political Gabfest and Trumpcast; NPR Politics; FiveThirtyEight Elections; Vox’s The Weeds. Two members of Obama’s administration have even started their own political podcasts: director of speechwriting Jon Favreau, on The Ringer’s Keepin’ It 1600, and senior adviser David Axelrod, on The Axe Files.

But there’s not much ideological diversity in the conversation. As of this writing, the only conservative shows in iTunes' News & Politics top 50 are rebroadcasts of syndicated talk shows: Glenn Beck's, and Mark Levin's. Podcasts have proven a viable platform to reach a liberal audience, just as radio talk shows have for conservative listeners. But what does that mean for the Americans in the middle? If you see November's vote as choosing the lesser of two evils, where can you listen?

“How could libertarians and social conservatives get along? How can we talk about it, while following certain rules of propriety?” says Rob Long, a contributing editor at the National Review. “There’s surely a place where that can happen, without everyone being a jerk.” With 1.3 million downloads per month—and growing fast since the start of the primaries—Long and his friend Peter Robinson, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, believe they’re creating that space: the Ricochet Network.

Conversations Among Conservatives

When they started the original Ricochet podcast in 2011, Long and Robinson wanted to create a space where they could have thoughtful conversations with conservative commentators. “A podcast was a natural way for us to reach a lot of people in conversation, rather than talk radio monologue,” says Long.

“There’s not a talk radio program on the left that can begin to approach right talk radio, but the center right doesn’t seem to be making use of the internet,” Robinson says. He attributes much of the liberal slant of podcasts to the media companies who invested in the space early on: Slate and NPR and The New Yorker, which each support top political shows, all started podcasts years ago.

True to their mission, the flagship podcast does feel like a conversation between friends, rather than the one-man-show of talk radio. Along with their co-host, journalist James Lileks, the two talk about current events, but also poke fun at each other, and assume distinct roles: Long, who wrote for Cheers before National Review, is more brash and jovial; Robinson, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is more of a policy expert.

As they see it, that mix of grounded wonkery and dogma-free discussion is a solution for those millions in the middle: people who are as put off by Rush Limbaugh's bombastic delivery as by David Plotz's liberal message. According to Robinson, most of Ricochet’s users (both listeners and those participating in the online forum) are in liberal college towns and state capitals like Champaign, Illinois and Austin, Texas. “There’s an articulate, politically aware, conservative audience that feels under siege in college towns,” says Robinson. “These are people who are literate and engaged, but lonely. We’re for them.”

A Bigger Tent For Conservative Punditry

After a successful first show, the Ricochet team has built a network of 27 podcasts hosted by a range of preeminent conservative thinkers, many of whom also write for National Review. Professors Richard Epstein and John Yoo talk legislation and the Constitution on Law Talk; CNBC’s Larry Kudlow and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty discuss current events on Money and Politics; Republican policy advisor Avik Roy explains domestic policy on American Wonk.

Those voices range across the conservative spectrum, from libertarians to social conservatives. Sometimes, the disagreements get heated, especially in the turbulent time of Trump—and that’s exactly what Long and Robinson want. “What’s happening on our podcasts is what’s happening among conservatives of goodwill,” says Robinson. “Rob and James and I are just tortured right now, like a lot of conservatives. The choice between Trump and Clinton is not a choice any of us would have wished for.” The show offers a space for conservatives—both show hosts and listeners—to reason through it.

But Long and Robinson see a need for conservative podcasts beyond just politics. “There is no conservative NPR,” says Scott Immergut, CEO of Ricochet. Left-of-center listeners, who make up 67% of NPR’s audience, may not see that as a problem, but the conservatives behind Ricochet do. So they’ve started to expand Ricochet’s scope, offering podcasts with a broader conservative lens. “There are a lot of movie geeks who don’t accept the prevailing media left-wing tilt,” says Long, who also co-hosts GLoP Culture, Ricochet’s memorably-named-even-if-for-the-wrong-reasons pop podcast. “Those topics are almost always delivered by the center-left and far-left perspective.”

This summer, Ricochet plans to launch more podcasts covering a variety of topics, for listeners who may not like Obama, but still like movies and football. “Well-meaning people on the left often think that conservatives see the whole world through a conservative lens—that we can’t eat pizza without thinking of Milton Friedman,” Long says. By offering a range of podcasts with conservative hosts, the Ricochet Network hopes to prove those liberal listeners wrong—and more importantly, to make some podcasts for everyone else.