Is Joe Rogan Liberal or Delusional?
If you were to ask Joe Rogan where he stood on the political spectrum in America he would claim to be somewhere in between a liberal and progressive and has gone on the record asserting as much. But given his recent behavior that is indicative of a slide to the right side of the political spectrum and the fact that there are many kinds of delusion, I have been forced to question whether Joe Rogan truly harbors progressive values or if he is just another delusional person espousing nationalist ideals while masquerading as if the polar opposite were true without even realizing it; as is the malady of delusion.
Despite being infinite due to their complex and extremely subjective nature though, delusions all share a similar array of deeply ironic symptoms and failsafes. A good starting point for the symptoms of delusion has been outlined by Karl Jaspers who regarded a delusion as a perverted view of reality, incorrigibly held, and consisting of three components:
1.They are held with unusual conviction
2. They are not amenable to logic
3. The absurdity or erroneousness of their content is manifest to other people.
Put simply, the source of the extreme conviction is a cocktail of a hyper-ego and a rampant confirmation bias which opens the door for irrationality and the resultant absurdity that often emerges from it all. And if you’re sitting here and thinking to yourself that delusional behavior and ignorant behavior have a lot in common and are wondering if there’s a relationship between delusion and ignorance, you are absolutely right. Just as behavior born from ignorance tends to be involuntary, the same is true of delusion in that it is not a self-actualized state of mind and it often seems as if these adjectives can be used interchangeably. Unless there is a bonafide medical reason such as schizophrenia, bipolar, and the like in play, delusions are usually predicated on little else than common household human ignorance, its substrate if you will.
As such and since delusions are most evident in our behavior, specifically whenever Joe Rogan’s assertions seem to conflict with actions or when his actions don’t appear to be grounded in rational thought so much as regurgitating misinformation and right-wing talking points, we then have a green light to examine his behavior further and look for confirmation biases, rampant ego, and irrationality to determine for ourselves if Joe Rogan is delusional in insisting that he is a progressive or something else altogether rather than simply entrusting him to answer such questions accurately; all of which is completely fair given his stance on identity elsewhere in the world.
For starters though, if Joe Rogan were operating on a delusion, then this delusion would both be galvanized and defended by a rampant confirmation bias and ego, basically a megalomaniac, and we should be able to find that he would only be allowing guests on his shows that mostly align with confirmation biases or at least don’t push them to any sort of extreme if this were the case. It’s common for deeply flawed people in positions of great power and influence to only expose themselves to people that make them look good. Among other failsafes, most delusional people get extremely petulant and run away screaming when confronted with reality, clearly preferring to avoid it wherever possible, so to say that they avoid situations that expose them to reality is fair in my opinion. There are outliers such as grandiose delusions though.
And to no surprise, Rogan doesn’t seem to have many people on his show that conflict with his ideology or challenge him philosophically. More often than not, his show serves as an echo chamber for him on intellectual matters or a megaphone for conspiracies. Debates are rare while jovial conversations and conspiracy banter seem to be his chief exports. With this in mind though, we can infer that if he was delusional, then he mostly agrees with the people he has on his show which immediately casts doubt on the legitimacy of his claim to be a liberal or a progressive when actually looking at the type of people he has on his show by the numbers.
Although he definitely has a wide range of people and personas on his podcast, when it comes to politics and conspiracy theories his preference for conservatives, republicans, nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing propagandists is painfully evident. He is by no stretch of the imagination sanctioning the devil by having the likes of Alex Jones (3x), Eddie Bravo (81x), Jocko Willink (4x), Tim Pool (3x), Tim Dillon (8), Michael Malice (5x), Dana White (2x), Mike Baker (11x), Ted Nugent (1), Pat Militech (1), Candace Owens (1x), Tulsi Gabbard (4x), Ben Shapiro (3x), Colion Noir (3x), Andy Ngo (1x), Kyle Kulinski (4x), Gavin McInnes (2x), Milo Yiannopoulos (2x), Marcus Luttrell (1x), Douglas Murray (2x), Larry Sharpe (1x), Gary Johnson (1x), Steven Crowder (3x), Tim Kennedy (3x), and Dan Crenshaw (3x) on his show repeatedly; 152 visits in total from people that can best be described as the Mos Eisley of nationalism; you know the nemesis of progressivism.
Meanwhile, his guest counts for left-leaning political figures pale in comparison. With the likes of Krystal Ball (1x), Bernie Sanders (1x), Andrew Yang (1x), Ana Kasparian (2x), Cornel West (1x), Edward Snowden (2x), Jon Stewart (1x), Cenk Uygur (1x), David Pakman (2x), Matt Taibbi (2x), Lawrence Lessig (1x), and Bill Maher (1x) on the JRE, liberals and progressives are an outlier class; 15 in total or 1/10th the number of people that can best be described as the antithesis to progressivism and liberalism; 1/6th of the Eddie Bravo conspiracy-laden guest appearances alone. I’ll leave it to someone else to compare the exact amount of white male guests to the non-white or guests, but if my intuition serves me well then it’s safe to say that non-white and female guests are extreme outliers.
With such a lopsided ratio between left-leaning and right-leaning guests though, this opens the door for an equally disproportionate amount of right-wing propaganda emanating from the JRE as well; all of which is deeply irrational. To no real surprise, Joe Rogan and his guests have repeatedly regurgitated COVID conspiracies, election fraud conspiracies, forest fire conspiracies, second amendment zealotry, copaganda, anti-trans rhetoric, and the non-existent border crisis to name only a few. He even went so far as saying that he’d vote for Trump over Biden:
“I’d rather vote for Trump than Biden. I don’t think he can handle anything. You’re relying entirely on his cabinet if you want to talk about an individual leader who can communicate, he can’t do that. And we don’t know what the fuck he’ll be like after a year in office. The pressure of being President of the United States is something that no one is prepared for. The only one who seems to be fine with it is Trump, oddly enough. He doesn’t seem to be aging at all or in any sort of decline. Obama almost immediately, started looking older. George W. (Bush), almost immediately started looking older.” — Joe Rogan, JRE #1453
And much like any other right-wing propaganda show, he doesn’t seem to have guests on his show that oppose these views. When was the last time that the JRE had a guest like Liz Fong-Jones on to chat about issues facing trans people or even better yet, the broader issues of technology from the perspective of an actual employee? Never, but he’ll talk to James Damore and Debra Soh for hours.
When was the last time the JRE had someone like Jenn Budd, a former CBP agent and whistleblower, on to talk about the “Border Crisis” and maybe talk about how it’s just a smokescreen for replacement theorists? And when was the last time he had an actual immigrant on the show that was forced to come to this country illegally for a better life? Never, but he’ll chat with the opposition for hours while grazing over these same subjects with people that may be a bit more compassionate.
Another inconsistency concerning Joe Rogan’s claim to being a lifelong liberal is both his move to Texas, second only to Idaho as far as white nationalist loon strongholds are concerned, along with his justifications for it and his timing. On top of being as critical of California, Gavin Newsom, and other governors around the country that were thrown to the wolves by the Trump administration as any right-wing COVID denialist hopped up on qanon delusions, Joe Rogan took this to another level by even moving to Texas, a nationalist stronghold and the most open state in the country during the pandemic just to cement this stance.
You mean to tell me that as a progressive, Joe Rogan looked at the state of the world and level of right-wing extremism gripping this country and opted to move to Texas? Because that seems like something a scared nationalist would do and this is especially the case if they already lived in a progressive stronghold.
To be fair to Joe Rogan though, this could just as easily be an edge lord grift. For all we know Joe Rogan could truly hold progressive values while simply tailoring his show to maximize viewership, ad revenue, and supplement revenue from his target demographic of micro-dosing white nationalists; telling them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear and selling them anything that they’ll buy; Goop for boys if you will.
Lending credence to the Goop hypothesis though is Joe Rogan’s ancillary revenue streams. Like Alex Jones, he has his own supplement and health brand, Onnit, and it’s not a coincidence that this brand benefits immensely from the success of his podcast, especially among his demographic of fans albeit more tactfully than Alex Jones could ever do it.
In all, it’s anyone’s guess what Joe Rogan’s pathology or grift is. That said though, it’s hard to vote for Donald Trump without harboring mass delusions and that is especially the case for anyone trying to vote him in for a second term such as what Joe Rogan has alluded to. And when evaluating his convictions which are as irrational as they are absurd and laden with bias, the presumption of delusion isn’t much of a leap and this is especially the case when he attempts to present his opinions as that of a progressive.
But let’s not forget that being delusional does not preclude one from being a digital grifter. No one makes hundreds of millions in revenue by accident or without a grift. Money at this echelon is intentioned. And like so many others on youtube, Joe Rogan most likely just a reflection of his demographic and is using his podcast and supplement brand to capitalize on his loyal wing nut followers while tailoring it, optimizing it if you will, to maximize his monetization of this demographic like everyone else on Youtube. As a consequence of Joe Rogan’s grift though, whether it’s intentioned or an involuntary delusion, the JRE appears to normalize and amplify right-wing views and the misinformation they’re contingent on.
It goes without saying, but none of this behavior seems to be the hallmark of progressivism, liberalism, and the like; especially when he’s amplifying the opposition of progressivism ten times louder on his platform; quite the opposite. While there are indeed outliers on his show and while correlation does not equal causation, trends are a thing and enough correlates can exhibit trends that allude to nationalist causation in this case. Joe Rogan’s behavior is indeed wildly inconsistent with what you would expect from a legitimate progressive to say the very least and can best be described as that of a progressive nationalist.
To those that still somehow believe that Joe Rogan is a liberal or progressive, I leave you with this. Whereas most progressives would have something to say in the face of leftist fear-mongering, Joe Rogan is sitting there in agreement and trashing on Marxism like a card-carrying idiot nationalist from Texas. Snippets like this are the standard, not the exception. By all means, find me another progressive that wouldn’t counter Jack Carr’s statements in this segment of JRE to the left. By all means, find me another progressive that sniffs the holsters of nationalists as much as Joe Rogan. It just doesn’t add up.
