At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, “find the next Joe Rogan.”
Here’s the thing, Rogan could lean left (not centrist, left). Remember this?
Here’s the deal: there will never been a popular centrist online presence which is stronger than the right wing populist one. Centrists don’t do popular. They don’t have the instincts. It’s all about pandering to elite and PMC ideology: thing Yglesias and Ezra Klein and their ilk. They can run numbers, sure, but no one gets super worked up. No one who wasn’t going to vote Democratic no matter what loves them.
Rogan is a populist. He was willing to go left, he’s willing to go right. He’s not going to go Centrist. There will never be a centrist Joe Rogan.
This is a symptom of a larger problem.
Six months after the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 defeat, the party’s megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers.
If by left-leaning they meant left, this would be theoretically possible, but what they mean is centrist:
Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media like sports or lifestyle podcasts. Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump’s victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.
It’s been memory holed, but there was a time when the left was stronger than the right online. Vastly stronger. The 2000’s, the days of the so-called netroots or blogosphere. It wasn’t even close. The big names were left wing, and the biggest right wingers did numbers that were one-tenth of theirs.
This was widely acknowledged. There were mainstream press articles about the right wings online problems.
Then Obama took power and the word went out: if you’re a Democratic operative or donor, you should stop funding the Netroots, and if you don’t, well, you will be frozen out of work if an operative and if a donor your interests will not be prioritized.
I was there, I was an insider, and I know. Combined with Google and Facebook systematically driving advertising revenues into the dirt, along with some other issues related to Democratic core voters lack of any actual principles other than “our party is always right and the Republicans are always wrong and the left owes us their votes and has nowhere to go”, the Netroots died. Took a few years, but the job was done.
The Netroots mantra was “more and better Democrats”. We fundraised for Democrats, but we also primaried Democrats we considered bad. This was unconscionsable to Democratic power brokers. We were supposed to be entirely an adjunct and not interfere in internal Democratic politics at all. So they put the Netroots down like a diseased dog.
Democrats want a cheering section. They don’t want anyone who will do anything but promote the candidates chosen by insiders.
That’s NOT how a popular online movement works. It isn’t how any of the movements which have been successful on the right worked. They all primaried Republicans they didn’t like and pushed policies they believed in even if the party didn’t agree.
So donors can throw as much money as they like at the problem, but unless they’re willing to fund the actual left and to understand that funding doesn’t mean they get complete control, they will fail.
Better would be encourage already existing left wing populist figures, to give them some funding and to not try to astroturf a new online movement.
But then they might say “Free Palestine” or “Biden is senile”, and you can’t have that.
And without that, no one will really trust them, and they won’t grow to huge stars.
You can have effective powerful left wing online populists or you can have court eunuchs who always back the party line.
Choose one.
Oakchair
to help Democrats “find the next Joe Rogan.”
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Maybe they mean they need to find all the other populists who won’t obey the PMC, and do what they did with Rogan, Kennedy, Gabbard, and Kucinich. Drive them and their supporters out.
Imagine the responses if in 2004 you went around telling people “20 years from now the Democratic party will be the pro-war party. They’ll be shrills for big pharma. They’ll cheer for censorship. Demand the government control your body, and get hysterical when the Republican’s begin removing industrial pollutants from water and food. ”
You’d be laugh at but here we are. Surreal.
bruce wilder
A “working-class” party is only possible for a Party willing to do things for broad swathes of the population, economically substantial things like protect them from billionaire predators. Raising funds from billionaire predators or from the allied class of PMC parasites is obviously incompatible with this objective on a fundamental level.
I cannot argue that money cannot buy lots of propaganda and stir up voters with Democratic loyalties and New Deal nostalgia. Obama worked. “Community organizer” etc. Bernie worked out well for the powers that be, twice. The Party establishment will always make such sure there is a Manchin or Sinema in place to play Lucy and take away the football. A Democratic President has to be a monster or empty shell or, preferably, both a monster and practically brain-dead.
If a Rogan — for argument’s sake, “the real deal” — is he automatically “right-wing” for any reason other than the absence of left-wing politicians and supporting pundits in the political ecosystem?
Purple Library Guy
Harder to do now . . . search, social media platforms, all the algorithms promote the more hateful right for “engagement” (or in Musk’s case because he’s a fascist), and suppress the left because billionaire owners aren’t fond of anyone who wants to take any of their money and power.
Purple Library Guy
Oakchair, what on earth? The Republicans are systematically gutting anything that might possibly stop industrial pollutants from getting in water and food. Far as I can tell, the Democrats haven’t said a lot about it, but mostly just because the zone is so flooded with shit that it’s hard to notice that among all the other DOGE casualties. And certainly again, the people demanding that the government control your body is mostly the Republicans. On censorship, interpreted broadly, it’s more mixed–Democrats are more likely to insist that you not say nasty things about broad categories of people, Republicans are stopping you from accessing books and information they don’t like, which seems like much more real censorship to me.
The Democrats HAVE become the more pro-war party, and they’re certainly shills for big pharma. But at least they aren’t morons who decided they don’t believe in vaccines (thinking of vaccines, I’ve started to think big pharma has basically not resisted the whole anti-vax thing for the same reason they’ve generally gotten out of the “cure” business and into the “treatment” business: A vaccine that basically wipes out a disease doesn’t make them that much money compared to the disease continuing to spread and needing more expensive treatment over and over).
Oakchair
is he (Rogan) automatically “right-wing” for any reason other than the absence of left-wing politicians and supporting pundits in the political ecosystem?
——
I’d guess no, he was a Sanders supporter back in the day.
He’s “right-wing” because the marketing arm of the ruling class believes that slapping the label far right on anyone questioning certain dictates is an effective strategy to contain those questions.
jrs
I don’t believe a rich person is going to go left in any meaningful sense. Yea pigs could fly, and hell could freeze over, and someone as rich as Joe Rogan could become a leftist.
mago
Admittedly anyone I knew who had the big bucks came by their wealth outside the law, just as all the establishment power players did with their inherited wealth, only difference being where it came from and which side of the fence you sit on.
Money monkeys ain’t gonna shake the mango tree just like Joe Rogan will serve his masters and whatever keeps him playing.
They’re all self serving short con artists.
The long term cons keep them playing along.
Ain’t that America . . . ?
miss jennings
Joe Rogan obviously likes power. Being near it. Being a part of it.
Joe Rogan was quite happy being among the elites at Trump’s inauguration.
‘I like Bernie and Tulsi!’ said Joe before Bernie capitulated.
I guess then it was just down to the pull of the cultish RAW-aligned Gabbard whose entire persona is a fraud. Gabbard is and always has been a pure politician. She is not an outsider, and she of course parlayed her desk job in Iraq into her political career, making people believe she is a part of the warrior class. She was never remotely anti-war or anti-imperialist rather she called out a few select US abominations (among all the many) that were politically convenient for her. So she made Kamala Harris look foolish at the convention in a scripted moment. Big deal. And not exactly hard to do. We’re talking about Kamala Harris.
If Rogan were worth anything, he might look into these things a little deeper. But Rogan’s whole schtick is ‘Hey, I’m just a stupid pothead comedian/MMA guy – don’t take my word for anything.’
Joe’s stupid schtick evidently appeals not only to the less intelligent people of the US who are often derided here. It also holds appeal to some of the otherwise intelligent people who post here at Ian’s site!
God help us.
‘Hey, I’m just a stupid pothead comedian/MMA guy – don’t take my word for anything.’
This is the best advice Joe Rogan has ever given you. Heed it.
‘I don’t believe a rich person is going to go left in any meaningful sense. Yea pigs could fly, and hell could freeze over, and someone as rich as Joe Rogan could become a leftist.’
Yep. He’s got a quarter billion dollars. Have fun with good old Joey Rogan folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdR5xw-UWl0
Feral Finster
Sincerity is key. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made!
If anyone thinks that anything good can come out of Team D….
Oakchair
Oakchair, what on earth? The Republicans are systematically gutting anything that might possibly stop industrial pollutants
——
The republican governments in Utah, Florida, and various cities/counties this year passed laws removing the most prevalent neurotoxin from public water.
RFK Jr. isn’t a republican, but he was appointed by one and recently began banning the use of a range of cancerous and neurotoxic food additives.
Pollution from oil isn’t the only source of pollution.
——
the people demanding that the government control your body is mostly the Republicans.
—–
The Biden administration forced millions of people to get Covid vaccines. Democratic state governments force up to millions of children to get dozens of vaccines.
The body doesn’t end at the womb.
—–
On censorship, interpreted broadly, it’s more mixed–Democrats are more likely to insist that you not say nasty things
—-
Are you ignoring the entire Biden admisntration or do you not know about the largest instance of mass censorship in American history?
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf
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But at least Democrats aren’t morons who decided they don’t believe in vaccines
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Mark Twain said it best in 2021: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed. If you read the science you’re an anti-vaxxer.”
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I’ve started to think big pharma has basically not resisted the whole anti-vax thing for the same reason they’ve generally gotten out of the “cure” business and into the “treatment” business: A vaccine that basically wipes out a disease doesn’t make them that much money compared to the disease continuing to spread and needing more expensive treatment over and over
—-
Keep going with that concept, you’re so close. So very close.
These scientific studies will help you along:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7268563/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28188123/
https://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-6-to-12-year-old-U-S-children.php#gsc.tab=0
miss jennings
‘Have fun with good old Joey Rogan folks’ should be more like ‘Rogan and his ilk’ as Ian’s post and the comments are broader than the initial focal point of Joe Rogan.
bruce wilder
you know how I know the Democrats are worthless? because at the very moment when even an ounce of integrity would be the most powerful political weapon they could wield, they cannot muster any.
I take a mild interest in RFK,Jr and his efforts to something about the health crisis enveloping the U.S. Life expectancy is declining. Obesity is epidemic. COVID-19 left public health credibility in a shambles. I don’t try to arbitrate all the controversies the Democrats insist are enveloping RFK,Jr — I do not have the medical knowledge. But, I have noticed a pattern in the cases where I do have a bit of knowledge: the Democratic critics are propagandizing and Kennedy has a case. I am NOT saying Kennedy is right — my judgment on that would not be worth much. What I am saying is the Dems tend to go for a blanket slander at a high level of generality and with black-and-white narrative control — classic propaganda techniques to destroy credibility and to encourage an audience to make sweeping if superficial judgments.
“Vaccines are safe.” No qualification.
I saw one that I mentioned before that disturbed me: the executive director of a professional association for public health called for RFK,Jr to be fired. One of the charges was promoting doses of vitamin A as a treatment for measles, on the grounds that there is no evidence for Vitamin A is useful in treating measles. The only problem was that Vitamin A is a treatment for measles. Large doses are a standard part of hospital treatment of measles. That is an instance of the absence of integrity that I think has become standard for Democrats and their allies.
The U.S. has some serious public health issues, but I do not think Democrats care about those problems, at least not enough to be selective and scrupulous in their criticisms. We are supposed to “believe in vaccines” to quote PLG like the Immaculate Conception. RFK,Jr has criticized one particular polio vaccine (there have been and are several designs / formulations) but in Democratic propaganda it gets blown up like he has been advocating abandoning polio vaccination altogether.
RFK,Jr has suggested that with fluoride in many toothpastes and even mouthwashes, it might be a good idea to reevaluate blanket policies of adding fluoride to drinking water. He’s been ridiculed for noting that cell phone radiation can cause certain kinds of brain tumors, which seems to be well-supported science by the way. And, it just goes on like that.
I haven’t seen Democrats apologize for Russiagate. Or acknowledge their immigration policy under Biden. Or apologize for gaslighting the country about Biden’s mental acuity. Or explain Obama’s intense persecution of national security whistleblowers.
I am NOT saying Trump is the “real” lesser evil. My view is that small-d democracy is being extinguished because the establishment in both Parties would prefer not to have to do anything for voters at the expense of their big donors. But, as long as politics as practiced is for donors to finance massive, manipulative propaganda campaigns, one thing we ordinary folk can do is to resist the manipulation and to tell the truth when we know some of it, factual or moral.
shagggz
As far as the mainstream goes, there is no left and there will not be a left. The best we can hope for is a housebroken sheepdog apologist for warmongers like Bernie or AOC, and we know where those lead.
As for a left worth its salt, such as the Due Dissidence boys, they’ll be ratfucked into oblivion if they ever get big enough to matter to the mainstream.
Soredemos
@miss jennings
Joe Rogan was the left’s Joe Rogan. Or rather he was genuinely receptive to a whole host of ideas that are either outright left wing, or at least Sanders-style social democratic. Watch his episodes with people like Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, or Dave Rubin and see how he pushes back on right wing concepts.
He also still is left leaning, depending on the issue. Joe Rogan actually is something of a genuine centrist. He’s guided substantially by what he thinks makes some sort of baseline, common sense. No, he isn’t politically erudite. But he’s also not an unmitigated neanderthal douchebag (and he’s certainly not a Nazi).
What turned him ‘right’ was the constant gaslighting from the media and Liberal mainstreams on a variety of issues, starting for him with the obvious agenda driven lying about allowing men to LARP as women and ruin women’s sports for actual women, particularly in MMA. After that he became a repeated media target and started to focus on obvious media lies, both about himself and other issues. Liberals drove him right, essentially.
I don’t even say any of this as any kind of Joe Rogan fan. I habitually pay him no attention on a daily basis and have never seen a single episode of his podcast in its entirety. But I know enough about him through osmosis, and pay attention to people who do follow and care about him enough to document these types of sagas.
Also, whether Joe Rogan is ever worth listening to or should be as successful as he is is irrelevant: tens of millions of people do listen to him, and he is that successful. Any political cause worth a damn is going to simply have to engage with figures like Rogan. With all do respect, effectively no one is paying attention to whomever you might offer up as actually worthwhile commentary: not the Yves Smiths, the Michael Hudsons, the Ian Welshs, etc etc. None of these blogs, or YouTube interviews that might get a couple thousand views from already committed true believers, matters.
You could also do a lot worse than using someone like Joe Rogan as a vehicle for communicating policy ideas. He’s actually not an idiot, is a substantially fair minded interviewer who gives his guests plenty of uninterrupted space to speak, is genuinely supportive of and receptive towards a whole host of ideas that wouldn’t get play in a neoliberal outlet. And, most importantly. a huge number of people listen to his show. Joe Rogan gives you a bullhorn straight into the brains of millions of the kind of middle-age suburban and rural white man dad that liberals keep losing elections partly because they’ve made it clear how much they hate this demographic, and then act baffled when they don’t vote for Democrats.