Why US Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan

The sentiment has been parroted ad nauseam, but the problem with this idea is that the left side of the aisle is not full of cultists. People refer to Joe Rogan as all powerful, but it's the people that continually tune in that gives him momentum. People throw darts at Elon for being a rich pillar behind the republican party, but it's everyone that stayed on X instead of abandoning it like they should have that gave any credence to his platform. If anything, a fair amount of the left still engages with right-leaning media because they want to be informed. We don't want an echo chamber, but it means some of us fuel the fire.

There is no scenario in the current climate we live in to which we'd find a leftist propaganda-vomit podcast that will equal the engagement of something like Joe Rogan. The left does not want a vice which is all that podcast and like-minded shows are: They're just rage fuel for viewers to froth at. The left wants problems solved. Regardless of how well it achieves that goal, that's what it wants. And no one, not even alternate-reality-Joe Rogan himself, could solve problems at a mass large enough and interesting enough and lizard-brain-scratching enough to match up.

[...] when Rogan endorsed Bernie back in 2020, he and Sanders were met with swift backlash. Instead of recognizing Rogan's massive reach and ability to connect with an audience that might not immediately be inclined to vote with the Democratic party, some progressive Sanders supporters called on the candidate to denounce Rogan's endorsement because the podcaster had made transphobic comments in the past.

This could have been an article in and of itself. Even if the Democratic donors were willing to give money to the folks who stream daily about how irresponsible they are with it and that they should be salted to taste, even if the Democratic politicians were willing to give access to the people who podcast about how they are enabling and becoming a Diet Coke version of MAGA, you still have to deal with an audience that will eat someone alive any time they have any sort of outreach with any guest outside of the audiences comfort zone. Breadtube is known for eating their own over the littlest things, how is that going to operate at scale as a voice of a generation? Trying to appease all three of those would be like throwing Thor in with Scylla and Charybdis, any one of them being able to sink your boat any minute and then attempt to be genuine on top of that.

I feel like this is getting it backwards. Joe Rogan is not a Republican or conservative talk show host, at least to start. Remember when Sanders was on the show? Rogan had his audience before he was a political partisan.

You’ll never get the “Joe Rogan” of the left if it starts from politics establishment or political roots. Politics is icky. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are icky to people.

Having read this I may seem shallow to start but I think Hasan Piker nailed it, even if he is also pretty good at getting in his own way, at least in relation to the people the Democrats need to court:

i got 7.5 million live views on my election night coverage but i dont have the backing of right wing donors that do pr for me so i assume it doesn't warrant a vanity fair article

And his quote at the bottom:

"This is not a cultural war that you can win just by doing fucking podcasts," Piker reiterated on his Twitch stream. "You have to still have a solid defense mechanism at the top, that aligns with the interests of people like myself. If the Democratic party is running around being like, ‘everything is fine actually, just vote for us, we've got to defend the institutions,’ while everyone is like, ‘I don't give a fuck about the institutions’… You can't reach them."

To be clear, Hasan is as far away as you can get from Joe on the left. Joe Rogan's big benifit is his image projects that he is he isn't quite a right-wing sycophant, he just hangs out with a bunch of them. He doesn't push back, but most of his endorsement is tacit rather than explicit. Hasan would be closer to an Alex Jones: Loud about an agenda, pushing it, cultivating a deep cult of personality and saying very extreme shit (this isn't about the merit of their claims, but the relative positioning of them on a left/right scale, and their passion/conviction).

Lefty Joe would have to be a center-left progressive who won't challenge their more extreme people (your Robert Reiches, your Bernie Sanders, Cornell Wests, etc), but give them enough room to say their piece and get it in front of the everyman. This "everyman" poses another issue, but I need to talk about myself briefly to try to inform my point.

I spent a bit of time around 2017-2019 in leftist spaces online that I could find, ranging from Democratic Socialists to various communist subreddits, and took in a lot of media in the interest of forcing a perspective change. I sort of did this to counter the accidental pull that happened when everything I followed online around 2010 seemed to pull sharply right. It worked, but not how I expected, I didn't come out a communist or even a Leftist, but had a better grasp of progressive/leftist theory and am generally better informed for it. Heck, I came out a better person for it, I feel. But it also highlighted some issues:

1. Progressives (painting with a huge brush here) sort of... aren't. I actually became fascinated with James Baldwin during this time because he gave voice to some stuff I saw where it seemed like a largely white, generally privileged group was attempting to push narratives about minorities and progress that didn't seem to mesh with the groups they purported to help. There is also a historic pattern going back to the Civil Rights movement in the 50s-70s with paternalist progressives that Baldwin, and I'm sure other forgotten Black thought leaders write about, that gets washed away because it's very inconvenient. When people talk about how the Democrats forsook "minorities" and took them for granted, this is the mechanism by which they did it, by and large: Assuming they know what these groups want and surging forward expecting them to follow.

2. Progressivism harbors a disdain for the "everyman." Part of my quest was to expose myself to new ideas, since I grew up stuck in conservatism (it never added up to me, but was there), became a fairly standard American liberal, and became more progressive as I matured. However, if I tried to empathize with the "everyman" anywhere to try to explain even my past actions, people would lose their shit. I confessed to voting for Jill Stein in 2016, not really knowing how bad Trump was (it's surprisingly easy to not be engaged if you've never really been), other sort of... centrist sins hoping to inform when somebody asked an earnest question, and people absolutely refused to hear me out. These are the amplified voices online, the voices that are helping create platforms and run campaigns, because they are engaged and active politically, but generally fail to see what is actually happening on the ground. It's quite a bit better outside of leftist spaces, at least, but still an issue.

3. The "everyman" is not interested in (1) and feels rebuked by (2). The current Democratic platform and party has a lot of the problems of American progressivism and Leftism: Infighting, the voting constituency vocally alienating their politically adjacent allies, etc. The racial paternalism in (1) is an extension of America's issue of systemic racism and the whites' domination of American culture creating this default state.

The three points are not me venting about Tuesday's outcome, but issues I genuinely believe need to be resolved, and have felt this way about for the better part of a decade.

This is the part where I can't really offer a solution because, like many things, there simply isn't one solution, or even a solution.

Provided we found somebody in a Bill Burr or Jimmy Kimmel, somebody progressive or at least universally center-left, but more middling who seems to have never left their humble origins behind, we would need to sell them to the everyman. This is the hard part because you need to meet them where they are politically and lead them leftward gently without spooking them with the wrong jargon, and even cherrypick the topics you are loud about.

When I think about why I liked Joe Rogan, I think about the breadth of ideas he had on. I cherry-picked which podcasts I listened to, but he had connections to people he could also make relate to his audience and is great at making that happen.

We would also need similar personalities for guests. Who was/could be the Left's 2014 Milo Yiannopolous? Who would be the Left's Alex Jones? Can we get scientists or science communicators with the charisma of conspiracy thought leaders? We would need a wacky cast of politicized characters to put up on said podcast to bring these ideas out. To a very large point, Joe Rogan is a small piece of the puzzle, the environment he cultivated around himself of seeming bipartisanship to court the middle of the US's spectrum is the part that needs to be recreated. We need an oppositely charged centrist sphere to undermine the sort of default conservatism that centrism unfortunately seems to represent.

Essentially, I don't think it's that Democrats won't build a Joe Rogan, it's that they can't build a Joe Rogan.

Sometimes, online or in person, people will spitball about "who should run." President, Senator, something like that. And it's very common, in those conversations, for people to raise a celebrity's name.

Why?

Because people follow charisma. Not intelligence, not wisdom, not "good ideas", not "fair values", nothing like that. Sure, many folks want those things. Many admire those things. But that's not leadership when you're talking about mass populations.

A small group can be swayed by a smart, fair, perceptive, and adept person, a person with those qualities. Why? Because in those small groups, that "leader" will often have the time and ability, opportunity, to reach out personally to each member of the group. Will be able to impress them, impress upon them the reasons and purposes of decisions, will be able to show them they're listening individually to that group member's concerns.

Large groups don't afford those opportunities. Large groups follow charisma, because that's what cuts through the noise of thousands, tens of thousands, millions and more. That's what carries when it's a speech, not a small discussion personalized to that small group's wants and wishes and wonders.

That's what carries voters. And voters win elections.

This pisses people off, especially on the Left. Because they feel it's some kind of attack on their honor, their integrity. They protest, they say "no, I'm not a sheep."

Everyone's a sheep. You're either a sheep, or you might have managed to make yourself a shepherd. Sheep follow shepherds because they like them. That's charisma.

That's what the Left doesn't have. And it's what the Right, everywhere all over the world in most places I hear about, usually has. Right stands up charismatic people who harness their appeal, their resonance, to lead. They become leaders, they qualify as leaders, because of that charisma. Right finds that charisma and wins while Left stand by sputtering about how it's not fair.

Does it suck, that intelligence or aptitude don't weigh more? Sure. But you play the game being played. The reality is when you're trying to sway millions of people, charisma is what does it. Not "good ideas", not "integrity", not "fair." Charisma.

That's what the Left lacks that will make the most change in the impact on elections, and thus the political futures of a country.

Part of that is on Left 'Leadership'. Or, to fumble for some other more accurate phrasing, those people in Left circles who have "intellectually browbeaten their fellow would-be risers into polite submission." Left circles at the upper levels of whatever structures exist are small groups, and small group rules apply at that point.

So the Lefties who show up with their "it's not fair" axes to grind, if they have intellectual passion the others perceive as honest and just and inclusive, admire those grinders and those voices rise. Eventually, into senior circles where it's presumed they're going to lead the Left.

Meanwhile, the unwashed Left masses, who aren't anywhere near those lofty Left heights, stare blankly when one of those anointed persons steps out and begins to explain how it's important and just and fair to help grind the axes held out by that senior circle. Those Left audiences then look at each other, their fellow unwashed, and check to see responses. Looking for the direction the group's starting to go.

Because that's what people do. It's why charisma works the way it does. Most folks are terrified of the group rejecting them. So they want to go along. When they see their fellows in that mass group becoming enthused, impassioned, devoted, that carries them along too even if they're initially more reserved.

Dialed up to eleven, of course these reactions become fanaticism. They don't have to be wielded to that extreme, for one. And another, cult leaders and other evil, horrible people use these methods because they work.

Obama was, still is, exceptionally charismatic. The problem, in the wake of his two terms, is he mostly just used that to get elected twice and not much else. He didn't manage to turn his charisma to broader Left goals. Because, of course, he never was Left, even if the DNC held him up to those Lefties stuck under the Center-Right tent the DNC says is the only game in town unless you want to head further right to the GOP.

But Obama's the general example most people would remember right now. The reason he rose is because of that charisma. Not intellectual honesty, not vision, not wisdom. I'm not saying he's dishonest, lacks vision, or isn't wise; I'm saying those qualities aren't why he was elected twice. The masses flocked when he decided to explore whether or not he could move up and become President because they responded to his charisma.

That's what the Left needs. And it's what the Left won't get as long as people on the left, from social media to neighborhood meetings to key positions with inner circles on the Left insist on continually means-testing each and every Left issue when someone begins exploring a trek up to the mountaintop where they could stand before the Left masses and lead. The checklists Left wields are weapons, used to exclude.

"Well, you're not bad, and I don't hate you," some key Leftie who's organized a charity or some other organization that's influential will say, "but I'm not really comfortable that you don't espouse X or Y, or that you think Z or Z1 isn't the single most important thing to be highlighted and broadcast so everyone else agrees with that ranking on our To Do list. So no, I won't support you, and if you protest I will call you names, explain to the ears I have you're a bad Leftie, and not be an ally as you try to rise."

Of course, someone with messiah level charisma has an excellent chance to sway even those tightassed naysayers. That would-be leader with Charisma who can rely on steadily rolling Natural-20s would sway those objectors, and carry them along despite the reservations and objection. Most people don't have that level of Charisma. Even a very, very charismatic person probably doesn't roll Nat20s consistently.

Tip-top of the mountain movie stars often do. That's why they became someone the entire world knows, and usually likes. They used that charisma to entertain. But the unwashed masses who are predisposed to want to like a Leftie leader won't demand Nat20s, they'll be happy with plain ordinary "successful attribute check" results from a rising Charismatic leader.

But few of those would-be leaders can make it past the small-group inner circle environment because those inner circle occupants means test and nitpick using the Holy Left Checklist and cast aside the failures. Proclaiming them unworthy.

Fuck the failures. So what if they're like "well, I don't disagree, but I don't think X or Y are the most important thing, and we should just be happy with general live-and-let-live rather than working on ensuring each and every person in the country agrees it's super duper important."

Right now, when some Leftie says that kind of thing, it's the village stoning. Lefties froth at the mouth and cast them out. "Heathen, foul unbeliever, heretic begone!"

You want to win? You want the Left to play more of an actual role in American government? Stop nitpicking.

Learn to accept good rather than demanding ideal. Someone doesn't have to have fervor and passion for every item on the laundry list of ideals. It's probably going to be more than enough if they generally agree "yes, these are fine and fair things I don't disagree with, but we only have so much focus we can give or ask for, so some of them are going to just be things we support rather than things we will make The Essential Issue of our efforts."

Or, maybe the Left just are fuddyduddies in birkenstocks who aren't invited to parties because they're lame and boring. Which means the Left is basically totally fucked.

I don't believe that. I believe there are Lefties who'd be great at the party. THE party. Senior political leadership. With the position and power to effect policy and lead the nation.

But we'll never find those cool charismatic Lefties until the Left rank-and-file and Left inner circles stop dissing any of the Leftie cool kids who might be able to stand in front of the vast masses necessary to win elections and be given the chance to do just that. Sway voters and win elections.

People follow charisma, not checklists. You can hate the game as much as you want, but if you don't win you're sulking on the sidelines. Would you rather win, or sulk?

The DNC isn't left, but they like to lie and say they are. None of what I've said above is different for them. Obama managed to force them into hopping on his train, so maybe he did roll some Nat20s along the way. However you want to dissect Obama, he swayed the DNC, managed to sidestep them, or otherwise carried them as his first victory, so he was allowed without internal opposition to win two elections.

That's what the Left needs to let happen, and the DNC would benefit from it too if they ever pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to wipe shit from their eyes and recognize the game they're losing because they play like they don't care who wins. Find some charisma distilled into a person and start organizing behind that person.

There's a line in The American President (1995), where President Shepherd is arguing with MacInerney (Chief of Staff) and becomes frustrated with MacInerney and what he perceives as MacInerney always being in the position of pushing him into political conflicts just because it's going to be politically advantageous.

Shepherd: Now why is that? Why are you always one step behind me?

MacInerney: Because if I wasn't you'd be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin.

If the Left wants to win, we don't need popular professors. We need popular Presidents, Senators, Representatives, Governors, and Mayors. What can little Lefties do, little Lefties who can't win national Charisma checks?

Stop shouting down those who can. Don't just give those Charismatic Lefties a chance to rise, help them. Look for them and lift them up. Be part of the group, so others see the group growing and decide to hop on that train so it can roll to somewhere that'll actually matter rather than derail in a ditch while the Right reaches the station. Again. Litmus tests with a hundred boxes are a key reason the Left lingers in the shadows.

People follow Charisma. Focus that, follow that, or stay in the shadows.

Pure spit balling here, but I think the closest that the left could have to a "Joe Rogan" analog may be in the host of the "Behind the Bastards" podcast, but I don't think he would entertain the idea unless the Democrat Reform to something more progressive was already complete, as he's presented multiple criticisms of the Democratic party in it's current form, and has stated his personal beliefs are more Libertarian in nature.