Bernie: Kamala Would've Won if She Did That Joe Rogan Interview

Bernie Sanders has been doing a lot of Monday morning quarterback-ing in the aftermath of the 2024 election, and I don’t want to get lost in the weeds of all that. Other people are doing a much better job knocking down Bernie’s horsesh*t that the Democrats abandoned the working class despite a plethora of evidence that this administration did no such thing. (Which specific type of working class is Bernie talking about? I’ll let you noodle on that one.)

Anyway, what the opportunistic senator from Vermont has been getting right is that we have an electorate out there whose media diet is horrifying. Large swaths of the American public live in an alternate reality, which we’re seeing in post-election interviews where demographics targeted by Trump are convinced they’re the exception and will be fine, or even more mind-melting, they’re excited for Kamala Harris’ policies because they thought Trump proposed them. The people are not very bright, folks.

Part of that dumbening lies at the feet of Joe Rogan, who has spearheaded the bro-ification of way too many young men. Just so this doesn’t get twisted, I have no special love or affinity for the guy. When I write little quips like, “Joe Rogan is the voice of reason? We are truly f*cked,” that’s not any type of praise or quiet respect at all. That’s simply me marveling at the terrifying reality that our best hope to reduce carnage is Trump listening to Rogan when he says not to attack the Left. That’s our best case scenario, and it should make everyone sh*t every single pair of pants they can find.

How does this apply to Bernie? He’s now slamming Kamala for not going on Rogan’s podcast and rambling for three hours like Trump did. Via The Daily Beast:

Sanders appeared on Rogan’s podcast in 2019, and he touted Rogan’s endorsement in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. “You have an alternative media out there, a lot of podcasts that have millions and millions of viewers get on the show,” Sanders said on Sunday. “Disagree with you here, I agree with you there. I don’t see a problem in doing that.”

I guess the question here is how did going on Joe Rogan’s podcast work for you, Bernie? Did you win the primary? Did the guy who skipped Rogan suffer a devastating loss? Just curious.

Snark aside, I get Bernie’s calculus. Would it have killed Kamala to do Rogan’s podcast and broaden her reach? It seems like her campaign had some very justifiable concerns that panned out. Rogan immediately turned around and endorsed Trump because he loved that Elon Musk was involved in the campaign. A whole bunch of goddammit there.

Here’s how Rogan described the situation with Kamala’s team passing, and I want you to note how this all seems entirely reasonable at first. Via Mediaite:

“I bet there’s a person in there. I bet I can get to that person,” Rogan said when discussing the “what if” scenario where he did interview Harris. “I wanted to find that person. I didn’t want to hear all the speeches. I don’t want to hear, ‘I was raised middle class,’ I don’t want to hear any of that shit.”

“She’s a roller skater, did you know that?” Von asked.

“No, I would love to find that out. I would love to talk to her about all kinds of shit. I literally said — because there were a few restrictions of things they didn’t want to talk about, but I said, ‘I don’t give a f*ck, get her in here.’ Like, whatever you want to talk about. Then they want to know if I edit. I was like, there’s not going to be any editing, there’s no editing. We’re not going to edit,” Rogan said.

Well, that seems nice. Joe Rogan just wanted to know about Kamala the person, you guys. That’s all. Oh, wait, he said what next?

The comedian did blast Harris and accuse her of deploying “80 different accents” during her campaign, but also said he simply wanted to talk to her and he would have been happy if politics never got brought up at all.

Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but what would have been the purpose of Kamala Harris going into that environment? What message is going to get through to an audience who hangs on the every word of a stoner dipshit who thinks calling Puerto Rico a garbage dump is top-tier comedy?

Yes, our side needs to rethink a lot of things after this election, but treating Joe Rogan like some sort of kingmaker probably ain’t it. Did he personally propel Trump to the White House? No. Is he someone to watch more closely because he’s tied into the yap-osphere that’s radicalizing young men? Absolutely. We can’t just stick our heads in the sand and pretend he doesn’t exist.