You’re talking about him, aren’t you?
Democratic politicians, the mainstream media, and progressive members of the Hollywood elite—in short, Team Blue —have designated Joe Rogan as public enemy number one. Rogan is the reigning king of podcasting: Episodes of his show, which typically last for three hours, are downloaded millions of times. His audience dwarfs everybody else in the commentary business, right, center, or left. Joe Rogan has completely disrupted the legacy media. pic.twitter.com/rBLCYweag0 Pomp???? (@APompliano) January 3, 2022 And they hate him for it—in part because they don’t understand him. He doesn’t hew closely to a specific political tradition or interest group. He’s a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), but also he thinks the left has gone crazy on transgender issues. He called former President Donald Trump dangerous and many of the former president’s supporters » f-ing stupid, » but he has also repeatedly challenged the Democratic Party’s approach to COVID-19. This, more than anything else, has made him a target of Team Blue: He is skeptical of covid mandates and has featured guests on his show—Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, Alex Berenson, and others—who have questioned the efficacy of the vaccines. I don’t agree with what many of these guests have had to say, but Rogan evidently believes his audience can benefit from hearing different, clashing points of view. Listeners have the agency to accept or reject what they hear. Team Blue apparently can’t stand this. But they have little power over of Rogan. They can’t get him thrown off TV or ejected from Facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube. Rogan has a deal with Spotify, and so far Spotify has stood by Rogan—even as liberal music artists have started withdrawing from the platform in protest. Neil Young kicked this off last week, telling Spotify that he would not share the platform with someone who spouted medical misinformation.
