In the aftermath of its loss on Nov. 5, the Left has turned its lonely eyes to Joe Rogan.

The irreverent, world-conquering podcaster — 14.5 million Spotify followers and counting — is considered a symbol of Donald Trump’s ability to use unconventional media outlets to reach disaffected voters, especially young males aka “bros.”

Trump’s interview with Rogan has garnered 50 million views on YouTube, while the podcaster endorsed the former president in the final hours of the campaign.

With Trump showing extraordinary strength among young men, progressives are wondering how they can get into the Joe Rogan-type game. As a headline in The New York Times put it, “Trump’s Win Leaves Democrats Asking: Where Are Our Bro Whisperers?”
Bernie Sanders has said when “clearly you have an alternative media out there” with “millions and millions of viewers,” Democrats have to be taking part.

Elie Mystal of the left-wing The Nation magazine has declared, “Liberals need to BUILD THEIR OWN JOE ROGAN.”

Progressives are correct about the power of Rogan and his cohort of bro podcasters, but they don’t understand how thoroughly anathema their ideology and cultural sensibility are to this kind of programming. They could — like the Harris campaign — have $1 billion to spend and still not be able to create one semi-popular bro podcaster.

How is the party of policing what people say to ensure that the discussion always stays within a narrow set of guardrails going to create — or even tolerate — freewheeling heterodox media voices?

If Left did manage to create a progressive Joe Rogan in a lab, as soon as he said something controversial out in the wild, he’d be subject to cancelation.

This is exactly what happened to … Joe Rogan. Before he was a Trump bro, he was a Bernie bro. He is socially liberal, has mocked religion and is no way a traditional Republican. But the Left turned on him with a vengeance because he expressed controversial views on COVID and had a rogue virologist on his show.

This made Rogan a public enemy who had to be controlled or silenced.

A key aspect of Rogan-type influencers is that they question authority, and the authority they question is, largely, the elite consensus — making them dangerous and beyond the pale for the people who believe that consensus should be enforced via social pressure or censorship.

It is telling that Kamala Harris didn’t appear on Rogan, and the reason why. “There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff,” a senior adviser to the Harris operation explained, “that didn’t want her to be on it.”

Although the adviser in question tried to walk this back, her story is an accurate reflection of how the Democratic world works — it is susceptible to the demands of youthful ideological enforcers who are easily offended and unforgiving of those giving offense.

If progressives created their own Joe Rogan, he’d likely be a bore. He’d have to watch what he said and toe the party line on cultural questions. Progressives have plenty of media outlets that do this already — and they, notably, have no appeal to the bros.

Rich Lowry is editor in chief of the National Review

Editorial cartoon by Steve Kelley (Creators Syndicate)