How does Joe Rogan go from being a Bernie Sanders supporter to endorsing Donald T 8 years later?

The Coffee Shop
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I think it’s an important question to ask to help understand, not the basket of delporables, but the swing voters who occupy that 35-50% range in DJT’s approval ratings over time.

It’s easy to dismiss JRE as a dope, or someone who’s been a closeted conservative this whole time who only faked support for Sanders 8 years ago, and who was lying when he said DJT should never be allowed in the White House against after January 6th.

The two quotes I’ve heard:

  • Elon Musk convinced me
  • The final straw was when Obama repeated that lie about good people on both sides

The second quote is absurd. Why would one “lie” from Obama cause you to endorse the most dishonest politician we’ve ever seen? This smacks of cognitive dissonance which is hiding whatever the real reason is.

The first quote, however, is a little more telling. Rogan seems to epitomize the meme with the blue hat people on the left shoving the centrist at the red had people on the right. They then shout, “why are you siding with them?!” as the red hat people offer help.

Rogan has been vilified by the extremes of the left for at least a decade, beginning with a benign comment he made about how he doesn’t think large men should be able to identify as women and then enter MMA competitions and beat the crap about of biological women. The T community were not happy with that. Then it moved on to platforming conservatives, despite have left wing guests as well, to complaints that he doesn’t tell the righties how wrong they are when on his show (he actually had, especially regarding gay marriage, but also government regulation), and then CNN targeting him for the use of Ivermectin.

Don’t get me wrong, he has been a quasi-anti vax nutter and a conspiracy freak. But all the while the left was going after him, the right was grooming him. In my personal experience, as a center-left moderate, most conservatives view me as a potential conservative and try to convince me to change my worldview. Most liberals, OTOH, view me also as a potential conservative, and want me to know what a bad person I am (I’m certain I’ve been guilty of exactly this when arguing with people to the right of myself).

Joe’s an idiot, so who cares? Right?

Am I on to something? Or is it something else? Will rich white guys turn conservative as they age and accumulate wealth, and the left just needs to replace them with new young people? Or was Kamala just not able to win a lot of these male swing voters over? Or are people really that captivated by the spells the Trump casts on to his audience?

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This post partially inspired by a DSW post on the Musk thread:

"Ignoring Elon specifically, this is a fascinating trend. What makes people with so many resources, so much money and power, etc. spiral to the crazy so severely in this way?

Not Elon’s autism spectrum condition, what has made Elon (and many other nutters) change so bloody much in the last decade? Is it a brain worm, was it covid, is it something else? Is it just the allure of sucking up to the powerful? It is also JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and hundreds of others that 10 years ago were saying very astute things about trump (that he was an unhinged conman and not remotely fit for office). And yet today, they think trump (and his absolutely idiotic ideas) are the best things ever.

To me, very puzzling.

But maybe I am not just cynical enough about human nature."

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So two things to add:

What was the “both sides” lie claimed about Obama?

Then, what about people that are super rich that have not changed or become unhinged as they became successful? Are they the exceptions that prove the rule, or something else?

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I think you raise some good points. The left have bashed him undeservedly for years-when are they going to learn hating and attacking everyone isn’t a good way to get people on your side?

Then Harris wouldn’t even go on his show-a huge mistake.

I think Rogan likes free speech and one side has been guilty of trying to shut that down and cancel culture. Culmination of factors and its not surprising. I’m sure like most people he wouldn’t prefer Trump, but compared to the alternative he didn’t really have a choice.

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My impression of Rogan is that he is not super smart or educated and lacks a good bullshit detector. My snarky answer was going to be he is so open minded his brain fell out.

Ignore politics. He seems fascinated by Graham Hancock. Hancock makes stuff up and pushes bullshit. He is the prototype of pseudoarchaeologist. When Hancock debated Flint Dibble, an actual archeologist, on JRE the factual debate was a bloodbath. But Hancock is really good at sounding smart while saying nonsense. So Rogan had Hancock back and they both talked shit about Dibble.

Rogan is just too easily swayed by slick sounding people talking bullshit.

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Joe Rogan reminds me of a handful of very good friends I have. They are reasonably smart and educated people, but they are much more inclined to believe an amazing story than they are to believe a boring fact.

It might just be as simple as 8 years ago Bernie Sanders just had a really compelling way of speaking and was outside the box, and now he’s listening to Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk.

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At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Even if Obama told 500 lies, you can’t argue that you’re endorsing Trump because of lying.

But to answer your question, “There were good people on both sides,” was likely not meant to imply that Nazis are good people, but rather that there were people protesting who were not Nazis, but instead, were good people.

Of course, if you really want to know what the “tells it like is” guy really means when he speaks, its, “I’m going to say whatever I need to say to gain power, fame, and money.”

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I’ll assume you are talking about the side that is threatening to revoke ABC and NBC’s news licenses and wants to crack down on whistle blowers.

Ask Bud Light and Colin Kaepernick what side is into cancel culture.

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I suspect Rogan also likes the self built image of fighting against the establishment. Bernie was an outsider, popular with young people who wanted to buck up against the Democratic party establishment. Trump is an outsider, popular with people who want to buck up against our entire system of governance. I think Rogan probably likes a little of that “maverick” energy.

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That would also jive with liking Hancock.

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Yeah, really amazing that Kamala said she was “too busy” to go on Rogan’s podcast. For what a rally in a swing state in a very blue city?

She had the time and could’ve talked to a massive audience, far more than any cable news network.

She declined and was a chance to maybe make way to a key demographic, white males between 20-40.

Would it have made a difference? Probably not, would the margins have been closer? I believe so.

One thing Trump did very well was do A TON of interviews with internet influencers, where more and more people are going. He saw the market, realized the opportunity and went with it.

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Joe Rogan supported Bernie Sanders but the Democrat Party blocked him from running against Hilary. The Democrat Party isn’t the same. Neither is the Republican Party. It’s 1969 all over again.

Who cares who Rogan supports? If you support a politician because of a talking head or celebrity you should have your right to vote taken away.

What Rogan does is gives people an uninterrupted 3 hour platform to talk. No politician can talk for three hours only about the crap they are selling. They end up showing some of the clock personality. Something Harris’ team apparently didn’t want her to do.

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Seems like a good example of audience capture.

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I think it was that Kamala simply did not inspire voters. I cannot tell you any significant position she held. Trump had 3million fewer votes than he did in 2020. But Kamala had 15 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020.

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I think Trump would bigly disagree with you.

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Thanks, but my central question (as you quoted it in your 2nd post) was kinda different. It was more why is it that certain people (some wealthy, some super rich, and some not) seem to change and become more unhinged over time? (like Elon Musk and many others)

While other people (some wealthy, some super rich, and some not) do not seem to change much, do not get unhinged over time. And can still base their actions almost entirely on factual evidence?

Not saying that you know the answer to this, but I am just asking anyone for conjecture on what might be happening. What makes these two groups of people so different? What are the deciding factors? And so on.

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Very well said. I could not agree more.

(with a few tiny edits for accuracy)

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Americans will neither be inconvenienced nor made to be uncomfortable in any way. The soundbite is the preferred form of research. And the bite that makes them comfortable and the most convenienced is the bite they like. Rogan, Bannon, trump, Tiktok have perfected this bite. It is similar to being under a spell. They make people immediately grab the easiest and most comfortable. Mostly by making intelligent thought an enemy.
We are well into the 3rd generation that has had access to everything, fueled by an air of entitlement. To the ignorant, an MMA promoter with an audience is going to be far easier to agree with, than someone asking one to look for objective evidence that causes one to make a change that may be uncomfortable.
Veruka Salt. Augustus Gloop, Mike TV, and the gum girl…. 56% of the American electorate.

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For starters, Obama never said anything like ‘‘good people on both sides’’. Trump said that.

I don’t know anything about Joe Rogan except what I see on ST but I assume that he does whatever he does to make money. He might have started as a Sanders supporter and realized that liberals don’t have a need to be told how to think but righties really need to be told how to think.

So Deep Throat was right again, just ‘‘follow the money’’!

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Yes. I bet if you put a gun to his head and asked him what he truthfully believes, it wouldn’t be what he says online.