On Election Day Eve, one particular endorsement pushed Trump’s campaign beyond the victory tipping point: Joe Rogan’s. The endorsement came about two weeks after Trump took a detour to film a three-hour episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, showing up to his Michigan rally notably late. Why would a presidential nominee prioritize a podcast with a former UFC Color Commentator over a rally in a high-ranking swing state?
Joe Rogan must be understood as more than an audio juggernaut. His show has become a magnet for young men who are disillusioned by the Democratic Party, forging a collective narrative of the Oppressed Straight White Man. Donald Trump was aware of this, and he used it to his advantage to reach the malleable minds of young male voters.
Trump has wanted to appear on the Joe Rogan Experience for a long time. The show is Spotify’s top ranked podcast, boasting over 18 million subscribers–81 percent of whom are male and 56 percent are under the age of 35. On the Lex Friedman Podcast in 2022, Rogan said, “I’ve had the opportunity to have him [Trump] on my show more than once, I’ve said ‘no’ every time. I don’t want to help him. I’m not interested in helping him.” But in the years since, Rogan has come around. In the first few minutes of the Trump episode he explained, “Once they shot you, I was like, he’s got to come in here.” Like many other men in America, Rogan appears to be both fascinated and sympathetic to the “Trump Struggle,” from the “stolen election” to the trial to the assassination attempt.
Listening to Trump’s appearance on the podcast is a bit like entering a sonic man cave. Littered with ads for Call of Duty, caffeinated gum, and a facial razor called “Manscaped,” Rogan’s undertone throughout the podcast is one of encouragement, doing everything to cultivate a safe space for Trump to air his unfiltered grievances.
Nobody holds a grudge like Trump, and Rogan seemed eager to jump in and pry into these wounds. “The machine started working against you,” Rogan laments, “There’s probably no one, in history, that I’ve ever seen, that’s been attacked the way you’ve been attacked.” The story of Trumpian politics is a reactionary one. Trump, along with an increasing number of men like Rogan, both deny that white male privilege exists and argue in turn that they’ve been discriminated against.
This is a story that young men everywhere are turning to and telling themselves; a story which Rogan himself espouses and steadily instills into all his listeners. In an age where fifteen second TikTok videos barely hold our attention, Joe Rogan’s 2-4 hour sit-down talks should be obsolete. Yet, his unique messaging makes them enthralling for so many men. In a 2019 article from The Atlantic, Devin Gordon meditates on his paradoxical media success: “Like lots of other white men in America, [Rogan] is grappling with a growing sense that the term white man has become an epithet.” For men across the country, –white or not–pushing back against the perceived demonization of men resonates. Gordon writes, “He’s reckoning out loud with a fear that the word masculinity has become, by definition, toxic.” In 2021, he went so far as to state this explicitly on his show, “You can never be woke enough, that’s the problem…if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to [where] straight white men are not allowed to talk.” Trump, previously banned from posting on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for “his incitement of violence,” then, becomes the living manifestation of this censorship.
Some have argued that Kamala Harris missed her chance by not agreeing to Rogan’s terms for an interview. But maybe Harris knew that the fundamental message of her campaign was diametrically opposed to the Rogan Experience. Harris’ experiences as a POC woman might not resonate with predominantly white male listeners who feel like they’ve suddenly been pushed to the outs of society. Kamala instead took a jab at catering to the ever-widening gender gap by appearing on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast in October, but critics are fair to point out that this was a “safe zone” for Harris. Cooper’s audience is made up overwhelmingly of young females–a group that has trended towards loving Harris since the early days of her campaign.
And the rise in highly gendered media is reflective of our current political reality. The ever-widening “Gender Gap,” which refers to the diverging politics of young men and women, has grown larger than ever. A report on political ideologies by the Harvard Youth Poll found that the divide between men and women under 30 had more than doubled, from 8 points in the spring to 20 points in October. The gap was largely attributed to Harris’ 30 point lead among young women, as many young male Trump supporters were found less likely to vote.
Democrats have had a strong grasp on the youth vote for over a decade. But the youngest generation of male voters have begun to shift this trend. This fall, another Harvard Youth Poll found that 26 percent of men ages 18-24 say they identify as conservative, five points higher than 25 to 29 year old men. Though it is impossible to pinpoint the direct cause, the rise in media consumption among the younger generation, alongside Rogan’s rampant popularity with young men, are key factors.
As many young men drift further and further down the alt-right pipeline, it’s unclear how democrats can salvage this once-loyal voting block. What is clear, however, is that Rogan’s popularity is symptomatic of a greater collective movement: the rise of the Oppressed Straight White Male. Since 2020, nationwide discussions of privilege have instilled straight white men with the sense that they cannot struggle–that their sex and skin tone make adversity impossible. Though this is a deeply misconstrued interpretation of the Black Lives Matter Movement, it results in a profound alienation. Young men are especially vulnerable to this narrative, and the rise of Joe Rogan must be understood as a defensive mechanism. The swing to the right, then, is a reactionary one.