Here is my analysis of a fascinating anecdotal political development in my family. I’ve personally had mixed feelings about the Joe Rogan endorsement as I’m not really a fan of the guy; this isn’t a statement that it’s “good” that it happened, I just want to explore my thoughts about it’s effects. I have volunteered for Bernie during both primaries, and while I’m excited that there’s now at least one more Bernie voter out there since last week, this diary is more about how I understand my father politically, why this endorsement had a big effect on him and why I think this might actually move a bunch of libertarian-leaning Rogan fans towards Sanders.
My dad doesn’t neatly fit into any typical voter profile. He immigrated to the US from Mexico as a kid and has been a US citizen most of his life. He went from working on farms to starting several successful small businesses and has changed fields several times. He’s now in his late 50s and still working with his hands every day, hunting and fishing in the countryside in his free time. Politically he’s an “interesting” mix: anti-union but anti-NAFTA, pro immigrant rights but kinda anti-welfare, pro education but (somehow) anti-affirmative action. Believes in climate change and believes in aliens. He was an infrequent voter until I become politically active (I have worked on several campaigns for Democratic candidates since finishing college). He has voted Democrat for president his whole life but doesn’t identify as a Democrat and will gladly vote for down-ballot Republicans that he’s personally met and has a good feeling about (sigh). He has a lot of respect for certain types of independent-minded politicians like Ross Perot and John McCain, and he really might have been interested in voting for Trump if the guy hadn’t been so incredibly racist. While my dad despises Trump he had no love for Bernie or Hillary last time, though he did vote for her in the general to stop Trump. So, an interesting mix.
To say the least, I wasn’t thrilled when I found out he had started listening regularly to the Joe Rogan podcast. I do think it’s harmful that Rogan gives a platform to hateful people and that his general ethos is anti “identity politics”. In the past few years I’ve started hearing my dad complain about identity politics and people getting too sensitive etc, which I’m pretty sure I can trace back in part to Rogan’s influence. On the other hand, this has honestly been an improvement as he used to listen to a lot of AM talk radio which we all know has played a role in conservatizing millions of middle-aged men. For awhile I was worried that my dad raging about the far left destroying this country would be a long-term trend, but that kind of speech has pretty much disappeared since he switched to Joe, who’s politics are incoherently all over the place. Besides, my dad most prefers Rogan episodes with scientists and “scientists” (eg Pyramids=Aliens people), and sitting in the car with him I’ve listened to some genuinely interesting interviews, like the one with Dr. Cornel West.
My dad’s days are spent running his current business and at night he’s on the internet watching Joe and all kinds of random things on Youtube. I’m guessing he’s seen 100s of Bloomberg ads in the past 2 months and over the holidays he declared that he was supporting him. If I think about it, it makes some kind of sense; Bloomberg has executive experience, he can claim to be independent from the Democratic party, he’s a businessman like my father (but 1,000,000x richer), and he has the money to run a massive general election campaign to defeat Trump. My dad’s no fan of stop and frisk but apparently he was willing to overlook that. What’s fascinating to me is that rapidly after hearing the Rogan endorsement, my dad switched his vote (and yes it remains to be seen if it stays switched but he seems more committed this time). This tells me that Bloomberg’s attempt to buy votes is only getting very shallow support that can be lost easily. Meanwhile Rogan has built up a lot of trust and respect over years with his listeners that apparently will transfer into votes, and upon reflection I think I understand why.
While I don’t think my dad is representative of the exact ideology of very many people, he IS representative of a large group of men who have a mixed political ideology that can’t be neatly separated into left wing or right wing , who don’t identify with a political party or movement, but do identify with a type of traditional masculinity. I think Rogan’s appeal to these guys is that he presents as both manly and intellectual, open minded and also unafraid to state his opinion. He affirms their traditionally-masculine identity (UFC fighting anyone?) with his do-it-yourself (libertarian) tell-it-like-it-is style, while also inviting his listeners to experience broad perspectives from an actual diverse range of guests (including some amazing and some terrible people). In a way, this breadth of exposure has primed his audience to accept someone as far from the center of the political spectrum as Sanders. What’s really interesting to me though is that Joe’s endorsement statement is about Sander’s consistency, not his agenda. He’s saying “I will vote for the guy who has strong opinions and has held them for decades without trying to pander to anyone”, which strikes me as a traditionally-masculine value statement. In this way it side-steps the question of ideology to focus on style, which I’m now thinking could actually be really effective at swinging his listeners into Sanders’ camp regardless of their background. I think my dad’s politics don’t align amazingly with Sanders, but like the Rogan endorsement he now is resonating with Bernie’s strong-willed independent outsider identity.
And so ironically, it seems that Rogan and my father are making their choice based on identity and not ideology. Identity Politics FTW.