Regarding Joe Rogan, a few things:
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Not all of the people who consume some of his content are part of this toxic crowd that is being spoken of. (If this is getting you triggered, make sure you read the rest of #1 and #2.) For example, he has on some experts in their field and does long interviews with them and gets way in depth. I was interested in eating broccoli sprouts for their numerous health benefits, and a woman called Dr. Rhonda Patrick is like THE broccoli sprouts expert. He had her on for a long interview and I watched some of it on YouTube looking for specific information. This is one of a few times I’ve stumbled onto his YouTube looking for content of a specific person who ended up having been his guest.
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There’s definitely a toxicity about a lot of his content/audience. I had a friend who I cut out of my life in 2017 for a handful of reasons, but basically the dude was just a toxic macho bro guy who was really annoying to me and could never let an argument go. He also thought Trump was hilarious and would be harmless, I could have made a big bet with him that people would end up in cages but I couldn’t live with myself making money that way. Obviously I should have taken the bet and donated it to charity. Anyway, this guy LOVES Joe Rogan. I didn’t know much about him at the time, and my buddy really wanted to go see a comedy show of his in Philly and hang out, so I agreed. At this point in time, I basically only knew Rogan as the Fear Factor guy. There were definitely a number of cringe moments during the routine for me, and each time my buddy was cracking up and loved it. The biggest cringe thing was the crowd. As soon as we got near the theatre and were walking in, I knew I had fucked up and was in for an annoying evening. It was like allllllllllll dudes. Barely a couple there, no groups of women, and the jokes/comments you could overhear made me uncomfortable being part of that crowd.
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Lots of these people will vote for a staunchly liberal candidate who doesn’t lecture them about the ills of their views on progressive social issues, then ignore it as that candidate does a bunch of great stuff on those issues along with the Medicare for All type stuff. Should we cater to them? Obviously not. Should we discourage their votes and support? I don’t know for sure, it’s a fair debate, but I think not. It’s complicated.
I mean, Rogan also said this, which is left of and stronger than what probably 95% of elected Dems in Congress would say about these issues:
Like, can you even imagine Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer or insert prominent eDem here saying of family separation, “If that doesn’t freak you the fuck out, you’re not a part of the team man, you’re missing it… What are we here for? We’re here for 100 years of whatever. If you want to spend a hundred years saying, ‘Hey she shouldn’t have fucking broke the law,’ I don’t want you on the team, you’re an asshole. I don’t give a fuck if you’re right or left, I don’t care if you’re religious, I don’t care if you’re an atheist, if that’s what you support, you’re an asshole and we don’t want you on our team.”
He goes on to basically say he’s glad AOC won even if he disagrees on issues with her, because she’s getting money out of politics and represents the people in her district, not the money.
Now I’m sure people can dig up a bunch of absolutely TERRIBLE things he has said or his guests have said without him pushing back, and I get that, and the left should have a discussion of this kind of stuff, but if we want to make big changes in the next decade, we probably need the support of these types of people.
- Catfacemeowmers nailed it with this:
I play poker with a handful of these dudes on the regular, like literally Trump voters who either fit that country club suburban Philly stereotype right down to the private golf course pullover or the Joe Rogan listener South Philly type.
The country club types are almost strictly voting on finances, so if we want to woo them with Joe Biden and promises not to raise their taxes, we can try, but at the end of the day, the teeny tiny difference between Biden’s tax plans and Trump’s tax plans may be a bridge too far and they may be in for four more years. This way we don’t get the Joe Rogan endorsement for the candidate, and we may feel morally superior in that regard, but if you think those voters aren’t spewing their toxic masculinity every time there aren’t women around, I don’t know what to tell you.
Some of the Rogan types will go for Bernie, because they really only care about 2-3 issues, and they tend to be stuff like getting money out of politics. I actually had a quiet conversation at the table with one of these types recently. He’s an Obama-Trump voter who I have considering Bernie if he wins the nomination. I had to ignore some comments during the back and forth about various issues that I really didn’t like ignoring, but by focusing on healthcare, getting money out of politics, honesty of the candidate, and just being a good person who’s not going to rip families apart, I was able to get through to him a bit. He viewed Trump as a necessary brick through the window even though he thinks he’s an asshole, and if his choice is to pick that same brick up and throw it again or to pick up a nicer brick and throw it, he’ll take the nicer brick, but he’s not voting for Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg.
- Joe Rogan’s overall political views may surprise some people. Like, I’ve seen < 10 YouTube videos of this guy totaling < 60 minutes in my life, and I can tell you he’s for socialized healthcare and improving and further socializing education. He’s for less bombs. He’s not randomly endorsing Bernie… His views actually match up with the liberal wing of the Democratic party on a lot of issues.
If you ask me, the question is not whether we should seek or accept these endorsements, it’s whether we should promote them and celebrate them. There’s a moral question to it and a risk-reward question. Bernie may have alienated some supporters and sent the wrong message to them… But bottom line: if we start getting a significant percentage (maybe even like 10-15% counts) of votes from this archetype of voter over the next decade, 60 seats in the Senate are back in play and just dominating the political landscape is in play. If the Faustian bargain is to not lecture them about their bigotry and sexism, and then to placate them with policies we want to enact anyway (Medicare for All, getting money out of politics, progressive tax policy) while doing the right thing on all of those social issues… That doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. Instead of giving them someone to blame for their problems, we fix their problems (which happen to be things we want to do anyway) and do the right thing on those social issues while hoping that their bigotry is reduced when their economic situation improves.
And, listen, if they don’t like it, they can vote for someone else next time and we should tell them to fuck off at that point. Nobody is saying we should be on bended knee on social policy for these voters.
