I don’t ever want to be on the same side of anything with Joe Rogan, but gotta say, one thing I’m hearing from fellow progressives, that we need “create our own Joe Rogan,” is just plain dumb.
News flash: you don’t just “create” something that goes viral.
Rogan didn’t even “create” himself.
That’s the market speaking.
And yet, we persist.
“I’m sure they’re scrambling to try to create their own version of this show. This is one thing that keeps coming up,” Rogan said on his show on Tuesday.
This comes up as the pols are misreading the influence of the Rogan types in influencing voters.
Reality check: our media environment doesn’t influence; it reinforces.
Joe Rogan isn’t talking progressives into going with Donald Trump.
Progressives aren’t listening to Joe Rogan.
Rogan is preaching to a choir.
He just happens to have the biggest pulpit on that side.
If you want to argue that progressives would be better off if we had one guy or gal who could get the ears of tens of millions, I won’t argue with you.
It’s how we get there that I will wonder aloud about.
So, what, we just find our own D-list actor/comedian/MMA commentator, decide he or she is the one, all agree to listen, and voila, we have “our own Joe Rogan”?
Not going to work.
In fact, if we try to “create” a woke Joe Rogan, it’s guaranteed not to work.
Our side isn’t any more inclined to follow an anointed one as anybody else.
It has to happen naturally, is what I’m getting at.
Also, before we can get there, we may want to cut it out with trying to cancel people for saying what’s on their mind.
If there’s anything we can learn from the market, from Joe Rogan somehow being the #1 podcaster, and Donald Trump somehow being on the verge of a return to the White House, it’s that people are tired of being told that they’re wrong all the time.
Lighten up, Francis, as it were.
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Chris Graham
