Donald Trump’s election victory shows that this is Joe Rogan’s America now

“I’ve had the opportunity to have him on my show more than once – I’ve said no every time. I won’t help him. I am not interested in helping him”. That’s what podcast host Joe Rogan said about marginalized former President Trump in 2022. He couldn’t make it any clearer that he was “not a Trump supporter in any way, shape, or form.”

How times can change. In the two years that followed, Donald Trump would stage the most remarkable political comeback in living memory, soaring past his primary competition and fending off impeachment and assassination attempts to become the successful Republican challenger for the 2024 election.

And Trump knew he needed Rogan. The podcaster, with 15 million subscribers and an A+ list of guests, had warmed to Trump in the interim, even as he maintained the tough but fair assessment of both Republicans and Democrats that brought him widespread popularity. Agnosticism shifted to outright support with an 11th-hour endorsement of Trump on Election Day.

Rogan’s official stamp of approval may have come too late to sway many voters, but his sprawling three-hour interview with the man he argued vehemently against being on the show the week before could surely have surpassed an astonishing 45 million views on YouTube alone.

That Rogan’s views are of such interest is testament to his continued relevance and popularity. It was strange, then, that Kamala Harris declined the opportunity to appear on the show after Trump, apparently citing scheduling issues, an unwillingness to fly to Austin, Texas, and a desire to keep the interview to an hour—which any Joe Rogan Experience superfan would know is tantamount to sacrilege.

Don’t let Rogan’s final endorsement backfire on him: he expressed his qualified admiration for Harris even while talking to Trump, and he was clearly seriously interested in hearing what she had to say. Rogan has happily hosted Democratic votes before, where he chatted warmly with Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

Call it hubris. The Harris campaign, aided by Silicon Valley super PAC Future Forward, spent $700 million on high-end advertising. She also heavily used Trump on land game operations with mocking dismissals of Elon Musk’s (admittedly chaotic) contributions.

Rattled by criticism that she avoided the press, she eventually submitted to a few brief TV interviews. A few, highly selective podcast appearances would follow — in retrospect, appearing on “Call Her Daddy” when Hurricane Milton hit North Carolina might have been a bad call — but Rogan was clearly a step too far.

Trump was savvy enough to follow Rogan’s star. Credit goes to Alex Bruesewitz, the young Vance staffer who apparently pushed for Trump to take advantage of alternative media networks.

The Joe Rogan listener is not so unlike the Donald Trump voter: both are skeptical of establishment authority, hate foreign intervention, are virulently anti-woke and — as this morning proved — represent a diverse snapshot of modern American identity. He cannot be dismissed as a “bro” influencer in the same way as the pro-Trump YouTube pranksters Nelk Boys. As the world wakes up to the election results, it’s clear that America is now Rogan country.