323: Joe Rogan Defects?

Conspirituality

This episode of Conspiratuality explores the evolving political stance of Joe Rogan amid growing disillusionment within the MAGA and MAHA influencer circles. The

Key takeaways

• Joe Rogan's political stance appears driven more by opportunity and attention than genuine ideological conviction.
• Rogan's recent expressions of disgust over geopolitical violence do not translate into a full break from MAGA or Trump support.

Main topics

• Joe Rogan's shifting political alignment
• MAGA media-machine fragmentation

Notable quotes

Someday in the future, Joe Rogan may ask Jamie to be his mirror... on an ayahuasca trip where Anthony Fauci comes as the Angel Gabriel.

Conclusion

While Joe Rogan may show signs of internal conflict or disillusionment, his core behavior remains rooted in opportunism rather than

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) Our hometown is not a test tube. 90 miles northeast of Nashville, a battle for the future of America plays out in one small town. Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land. We need cities on a shining hill. This is Our Town, a podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment and fights back. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to Our Town on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (0:35) We've got a very different kind of sponsor for this episode, The Jordan Harbinger Show, a podcast you should definitely check out since you're Speaker 7 (0:43) a Speaker 2 (0:43) fan of high-quality, fascinating podcasts hosted by interesting people. The show covers a wide range of topics through weekly interviews with heavy-hitting guests, and there are a ton of episodes you'll find interesting since you're a fan of this show. I'd recommend our listeners check it out. We have a fair amount of overlap. You know, Jordan recently did an episode on remote viewing and how the U.S. government spent millions of dollars on this ESP pseudoscience. You might also look up an episode called Saving Bro's Soul from Alt-Right Rabbit Hole. Anyway, you can't go wrong with adding the Jordan Harbinger show to your rotation. It's incredibly interesting. There's never a dull show. Search for the Jordan Harbinger show. That's H-A-R-B as in boy, I-N as in Nancy, G-E-R on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Speaker 1 (1:45) Welcome to Conspiratuality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris. I'm Speaker 3 (1:56) Matthew Remsky. I'm Julian Walker. Speaker 1 (1:58) You can find us on Instagram and threads at ConspiratualityPod, as Speaker 4 (2:02) well as individually on Blue Sky. You can access all of our episodes ad-free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on Speaker 1 (2:09) Patreon at patreon.com slash conspirituality. You can also access our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions if that's easier for you, but you will still get ads on the other episodes. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support. Speaker 3 (2:34) Conspiratuality 323, Joe Rogan defects? Speaker 3 (2:40) Jamie, can you search, is Joe Rogan the most influential stupid guy in the world? Okay, okay, what does it say? Oh, that looks like a long entry. Wait, what are the sources? Conspiratuality? Isn't that a podcast? What, they did a book? Like on me? 2023, huh? Speaker 3 (3:05) Someday in the future, dear listeners, Joe Rogan may ask Jamie to be his mirror and facilitate the next and most important psychedelic experience of his life, a walkthrough of his craven MAGA and MAHA boosterism and what it says about his soul. On that ayahuasca trip, Anthony Fauci will come to him and offer him penance, but also forgiveness and also take his microphone away. But not today, folks. Today, we only get to reflect on Rogan making the next most intimate discovery, that Trump is a grifter, so adept at grifting he fooled all the grifters. Is he defecting? What would that mean? Julian's going to look at broader trends of MAGA disenchantment in the influencer class, and Derek's going to run down the ongoing disillusionment and flight of the bone marrow crowd from RFK Jr.'s side. Speaker 7 (4:11) This government has done some shit that no government has ever done before and one of them is the crypto stuff the crypto stuffs nuts like Trump has made billions in crypto. Yeah, look Government's so fucking crooked. And then you got his sons and his sons are involved in all these weird business deals where the business deals have to do with some things that Trump put. And then the sons are involved in these businesses. And like, there's a lot of money flowing around. So Speaker 3 (4:36) there are a bunch of these clips floating around. Another one from the same episode has Rogan stunned, stunned. I tell you that Trump is selling early access to. social media posts so that cronies can manipulate betting markets. You've seen some of these, right, guys? Speaker 1 (4:54) I've seen a bunch of them, and it's not surprising. Brogan has always been someone who learns things in real time and reacts often poorly. Sometimes, like in these cases, it's almost like a little bit of enlightenment to him, but I don't think it's going to change his overall politics much. Speaker 3 (5:14) Right. Well, the question as to whether Joe Rogan is defecting from Trump with all of these realizations, whether he's defecting from MAGA, from libertarian-flavored geopenis, is really, to me, about the contradictions of populism or the relationship between political values and riding the zeitgeist. You know, is he leading? Is he following? What might he be defecting to? And in June of 2023, we published our book and we included a few pages on this top topic on Rogan. And so I thought I'd start today by taking a walk through that text and just sort of capture the political influence arc of the world's biggest podcaster. But before launching in, here's what followed our filing deadline of October 2022. Rogan drew condemnation from the ADL over some comments around how Jews are running Hollywood. He hosted RFK Jr. over and over again. And actually, maybe that's part of where the bridge between the Bernie left and the populist right gets built. Like, what do you think about that, Julian and Derek? Speaker 5 (6:29) Well, you know, he certainly he finds Bernie very appealing, you know, early on in his arc. But the contrary, I think some of that is the populist appeal of a figure like Bernie who seems like an outsider, who's charismatic and has a very strong personality. But that all dovetails with everything else that contrarian populist pseudoscience conspiracism has to offer. Speaker 3 (6:58) Yeah. Well, he goes on from there, of course. It's a roller coaster. He signs the Spotify deal, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in 2024. He keeps plugging RFK Jr. The election is drawing near. And in October, negotiations fall through for him to interview Harris. But of course, he hosts Trump on the 25th of October and then endorses him on the 4th, saying that talking with Elon Musk pushed him over the Trump line. By April of 2025, some cracks begin to show when he hosts Dave Smith and Douglas Murray on Israel and Gaza. And there's some daylight growing between non-interventionists and hawks apparent in that episode. In December, Mangione kills Brian Thompson and Rogan acknowledges rage at the dirty business of for-profit health. But by June, he's hosting Sanders again. And this year, he has shown the most strain with his running crowd by expressing disgust over genocide and the attack on Iran, but not so much disgust that he's not showing up in the Oval Office as Trump signs an order to fast track the psychedelic ibogaine. But to be clear, he's still in the mood to call communism the gayest shit ever. Speaker 1 (8:22) And if Trump were to ask him to come to sign... To the signing of another psychedelics initiative, I'm sure Rogan would be right there. I think to me, it kind of balances between being an opportunist and also just thinking back over the years of Rogan, though, he's always said he's not a journalist, even though he plays a role in media. And that's all we've done episodes on this and the role of media in this time. But when you don't declare yourself anything, it becomes very easy. Like, you know, we get into discussion about our politics here. And Matthew, you very clearly state you're a leftist. Now, within leftism, there's going to be debates, as you always bring up about things. But you very clearly Speaker 4 (9:07) define where you fall. Rogan never really does that. And what that does is it gives him an out so that he can go full in behind RFK Jr., which he Speaker 1 (9:17) was for a while. He can at least take a general interest in Sanders, which he had him on, and he enjoyed seemingly that conversation and likes some of what Sanders has to say. But then he could just keep jumping around to whatever his monkey brain wants him to be into that day without really ever being held accountable. And that, from my perspective, from a media studies perspective, brings its own set of problems. Speaker 2 (9:44) Yeah, it has its own set of problems. It's a particular way of approaching that content creation kind of phenomenon. It's been very successful for him. Does he say it's the gayest shit ever? Or is he agreeing with someone like, is it Shane Gillis? Do you remember, Matthew? Speaker 3 (9:59) He's on with Shane Gillis. Yeah, Speaker 2 (10:02) yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I just have to say, from my Speaker 5 (10:07) perspective, kudos to Bernie for... Going on this recent run of being on Rogan and the sort of affiliated podcasts that orbit him, Bernie's willing to go in there and try to talk some sense to an audience that has, you know, I think some of whom have drifted towards Trump just based on zeitgeist. And I think Bernie is hoping he can connect with some of them. Speaker 1 (10:34) And we are seeing more of that. We, you know, obviously we have Pete Buttigieg, who's a regular Fox News appearance. But then just last night before the recording, Abdul Al-Said goes on with Jesse Waters, which honestly, it was a shit show in all sorts of directions. But the fact that people are trying to reach those crowds, I think, is generally a positive. Speaker 3 (10:55) So we've got this question, which is how clearly did we see him back in the fall of 2022? So here's Speaker 1 (11:03) what we wrote. Joe Rogan isn't a conspirituality influencer per se, which is why he doesn't get Speaker 4 (11:09) a chapter in this book. Sorry, Joe. His function is enabling. He provides an entrepreneurial yang to the yin of content providers like Charles Eisenstein and a wild west influence network into which charismatics who lose institutional support from publishers or medical colleges can fall and hit the ground running. So it went during the pandemic that Rogan's Austin studio became a fusion cell for every major bad and dangerous idea out there. from vaccine efficacy to the non-existent benefits of ivermectin. Speaker 3 (11:44) I'll just say, Derek, that one of the advantages of not declaring yourself as a journalist is you don't actually have to declare your guests as being experts either, right? Like you can let them occupy Speaker 1 (11:54) some sort of marginal space. Yeah, good point. Okay, Speaker 4 (11:57) we went on. Rogan, who infamously hosted his longtime friend Alex Jones twice, just want to flag that he's since been there again, so it's actually more times now, is also in the booster category of conspirituality, though the difference between what he says and what he sells is less stark. While Jones merely talks, yells really, about things like mindfulness, Rogan is a legit hot yoga fan obsessed with body optimization, ice bathing, meditating in isolation tanks, psychedelics, and supplements. Speaker 1 (12:30) And when COVID hit, he played a global role in spreading conspirituality vibes. And Speaker 3 (12:36) I'll just say that throughout the book, we contrast the concept of boosters with believers. And for me personally, at the time, I... thought that this was an important distinction because it would give some insight into how one might interact with misinformation and the people who, you know, are suffering under it. Like, Are you talking with someone who's convinced or somebody who's trying to sell you something? And what are the parasocial attachments involved? So Julian, the text goes on. He Speaker 2 (13:02) got there by being a 900-pound gorilla in a new information ecosystem. He smashes the stats of big cable news because listeners from various political demographics say they trust his affable, irreverent style and a seeming open-mindedness that allows him to talk to anyone. about anything for hours at a time. He's smart enough to ask engaging questions of A-list authors and academics. But as a stand-up comedian, he's also fluent in the lore of rock stars and the debauchery of Hollywood and sees laugh-wow value in crypto archaeology Speaker 5 (13:34) and UFO cover-up stories. Speaker 3 (13:37) Now about being the 900-pound gorilla, Julian, I think you're going to get into how the bulwark is now actually competitive with JRE in terms of numbers, right? Speaker 2 (13:46) Yeah. Yeah. That's coming. I also want to say here from that last paragraph, and I haven't thought about this with Rogan before, he follows the Speaker 5 (13:54) improvisational comedy ethic or technique of always saying yes. Speaker 3 (14:01) Yeah. You Speaker 5 (14:01) always, if Speaker 2 (14:02) you're in a long form thing where you want to improvise and go all kinds of interesting places and find the laughs, never say no. Speaker 3 (14:10) That's so, that is. That's profound. I don't think we've really discussed that, have we? Because I mean, yeah, there's something in there about rhetoric and conversation and the principle of yes and. Speaker 2 (14:22) It's part of this frictionless kind Speaker 3 (14:25) of aesthetic, right? It's not only going to create three hour podcasts, but it's also going to sort of, I don't know, jet fuel the sort of, I don't know, the flights of imagination that he's trying to monetize, right? Absolutely. Speaker 2 (14:39) So. To carry on with the text, Rogan was a Bernie bro. He hosted firebrand progressive Dr. Cornel West, but also trad masculine self-help author Jordan Peterson, who came on to say that because the climate was everything, it couldn't be studied. Rogan also hosted Gavin McInnes, the founder of the violent alt-right street gang Proud Boys, which played a central role in the Charlottesville uprising and later. the Capitol insurrection. Speaker 3 (15:08) You know, I just should say, because we, I did, we didn't make this clear in the text that Gavin McGinnis disclaimed participation in the Charlottesville, uh, Unite the Right uprising, but there was a bunch of proud boys on the ground there. So the, the text goes on, by the time this book is in print, the Joe Rogan experience will be nearing its two, 2000th episode of the hours long form podcast format that its host has pioneered. Now it's up over 2,500 shows now, the sheer volume of content resists any final word on Rogan's personal political values or worldview on reality beyond the sense that he seems to reflect and amplify the American zeitgeist as a whole. He's a mixed martial arts aficionado who has punched his way out of the category of influencer to blitz the epistemological infrastructure of a nation. Now, here's a graph where we attempt a metaphor. about his political economy. Speaker 4 (16:06) Rogan's podcast functions like the Walmart super center that opens up on the access road to a mid-sized town. It's enormous. It's open late. It dries up the mom and pop shops in town. Parking is easy. You can buy anything there in a low-cost, frictionless consumer experience. But usually, you can't tell where the product comes from and you won't know its quality until you get it home Speaker 1 (16:30) and use it. Speaker 3 (16:31) You know, I think... Some of that is really apt, but I don't think it's quite the best metaphor anymore. I think it captures the size, but not the feeling of intimacy that Rogan is able to generalize and generate. What do Speaker 2 (16:44) you Speaker 3 (16:44) guys think? Yeah, Speaker 2 (16:45) I think that's right. Speaker 3 (16:45) I think you said it. Okay, so the text goes on. Here's what we can say for certain about Joe Rogan. In the same way he was prescient about his winning podcast style and its independent business model. He was also able to sniff out the shiniest bits of content for an anxious pandemic media market, but too often that meant boosting misinformation to millions. Okay, so from there, the chapter goes on to a forensic catalog of his COVID bullshit. You know, he's discouraging healthy young people from vaccinating. He's treating his own COVID recovery via ivermectin and other unproven remedies as a success story that his millions of followers might emulate. By January of 2022, he's hosted the triumvirate of COVID quacks, Drs. Malone, McCullough and Corey, letting each spend three hours pushing debunked treatments. Speaker 5 (17:37) Yeah, this is so important that he had these three guys on and that they were sort of sent to him by Brett Weinstein. But at the same time, Matthew, that this. his COVID recovery is going on. There's also a really bad miscalculation by the legacy media in terms of how they cover this, right? They insist on saying that he took a horse dewormer. And who is this guy, Joe Rogan, who's, you know, doing all these crazy things. There's also some evidence that I've seen that when his original Instagram reel, I think it was, was used where he's standing, talking to the camera about how much better he feels and how the cocktail has helped him that they may have sort of used a filter that made