Why a liberal Joe Rogan will fail

The left must “build its own Joe Rogan.” As liberal America surveys the smoldering ruins of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and the mainstream media watches in amazement as they have been overwhelmed by new alternative platforms, it’s a rallying cry that has gained momentum . If elections are now won or lost by podcasts, perhaps liberals could build their own?

The spark for this idea was clearly Trump and JD Vance’s appearances on Rogan in the days leading up to the election – alongside the claim that Kamala Harris skipped the podcast for fear of backlash from progressive activists for “amplifying” an anti-vaxxer idiot. It remains to be seen whether Rogan’s interview with Trump and his subsequent support were so decisive in shifting the election to Trump. But it was certainly the glory day of the Trump campaign’s media strategy of courting disaffected young voters via the environmental podcast, with appearances with Andrew Schulz, Theo Von and Lex Fridman. In contrast, Harris spent a lot of money on celebrity endorsements and stuck to the usual established media outings like Saturday Night Live.

The desire to double-left Rogan to fight back is understandable. But it’s self-defeating and confusing. He completely ignores the phenomenon and the attractions of Joe Rogan. It’s not that he’s right-wing in itself. He is not a creature of a Republican-affiliated think tank. Rather, he is an eclectic comedian with an assortment of genuine personal interests – combat sports, comedy, UFOs, conspiracies – as evidenced by the guests he speaks with. This is why he can have absurd conversations with Terrence Howard about how planets are made; explore the JFK assassination conspiracy theory with Oliver Stone; and considering the prospect of nuclear war with investigative journalists like Annie Jacobsen. All this plus in-depth, organic conversations with celebrities from Jamie Foxx to Adam Sandler. One of his most recent guests was Josh Dubin, a criminal justice reform advocate from the Innocence Project. Additionally, he speaks softly and allows his guests to speak, and when he disagrees with them, he does not interrupt them unnecessarily. And he likes to laugh.

Naturally, his listeners appreciate this and his popularity has skyrocketed because of it. So he continues to do it. There is clearly a libertarian motive to Rogan’s views – his assertion of the right to guns and drug use without state censorship – but he has no coherent policy. He is not an ideologue. That’s why it is popular. At any given moment, he may be intrigued by Bernie Sanders or Ben Burgis championing the idea of ​​socialism, and attack Brendan O’Neill for his support of Israel’s war in Gaza. And in another, he may express affection to Peter Thiel, follow Elon Musk’s voting recommendations, and ultimately officially support Trump.

Now that Rogan is extremely wealthy and more materially connected to figures like Thiel and Musk, perhaps he can be considered “right-wing.” But it’s clear he wasn’t like that in the beginning and how he became the mammoth of the podcasting world. And one of the main reasons that Rogan and many of the young men who listen to him have “moved right” and even become MAGA-adjacent is that Republicans, especially in their current Trumpified form, and “the right » generally don’t do it. seem like the prudes of the moral majority or the hawkish “neoconservatives” with whom they grew up. Now they’re less likely to cancel you because of a risky joke or an opinion that strays from the hymn. Indeed, the Republican Party under Trump and its periphery are seen as the center of rebellion against the ruling Democratic Party and the censorious “woke” liberals who will undo it with the flip of a coin.

Young men like to be rebels. Comedians aspire to be the ones who break taboos with a joke and risk martyrdom because of it. They are drawn to the MAGA world because Trump projects an antinomianism that was once associated with the New Left radicals of the 1960s: public vulgarity and a crude disregard for official authority. Conversely, the liberal left constitutes the new “moral majority”, the censors, the guardians of decency and public standards. They’re the ones who worry about Trump’s “unpresidential language” and latch on to Tony Hinchcliffe’s “garbage island” joke about Puerto Rico, without understanding the context of the current landfill crisis on the island. For people “interested” in the joke, including many ethnic minorities, these hysterical reactions will always make you seem boring.

Most people who listen to Rogan are nonpartisan, heterodox, influential voters who can be contacted and engaged, not calcified reactionaries. But the problem with trying to craft a “left-wing Joe Rogan” is that he will instantly seem inauthentic. People know when you’re not being sincere and when you’re just using something to promote biased propaganda. Part of the problem with many liberals and leftists in general is that they treat politics as a form of cultural affinity. Except that democratic politics necessarily means that you will have to engage with people who don’t share your cultural tastes to achieve political power and social transformation. The left doesn’t need its own Joe Rogan. All they have to do is go to platforms like Rogan and engage – and laugh while they’re at it.