WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2026
Joe Rogan, one columnist says: Our nation is in a world of hurt. It's amazing to see how many people seem to be lingering in various forms of denial.
As we noted yesterday, we thought David Brooks—a good, decent person—was lingering there, last Friday night, on the PBS NewsHour. Before we return to his puzzling conduct, Bret Stephens is attempting to help us see part of the mess we're all in.
Rather, Stephens outlines two parts of the existential mess we're all in.
Midway through his new column for the New York Times, Stephens describes the pair of titans who performed a three-hour podcast last week. No names are included in the passage posted below, though one titan will be easy to name.
For the record, Stephens is a man of the center right. This is the truth as he sees it:
Call the Veep, Agent Mulder!
[...]
The truth—that the most influential media figure in America today, with tens of millions of followers on social media, is a jocular bro with an Everyman affect who seems never to have encountered an idiotic or despicable conspiracy theory he isn’t willing to promote (moon-landing denial) or platform (Hitler revisionism). We are a nation that has moved at speed from the realm of fact colored by opinions to a kingdom of delusion infested with fear.
The truth—that the current vice president is by far the worst person ever to hold the office (move over, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and Spiro T. Agnew). ...The prospect of this callow and sinister opportunist taking the place of the erratic buffoon now governing us may be the single scariest thought in world politics today.
It's easy to see who he's talking about in that second paragraph. In Stephens' opinion, JD Vance is a "callow and sinister opportunist" who is "by far the worst person ever to hold the office" of vice president.
Opinions on that will differ. Opinion will also differ on Stephens' description of President Trump as "the erratic buffoon now governing us."
Is President Trump an "erratic buffoon?" At present, opinions differ. In fact, they differ quite widely—but Vance is easy to spot in the passage we've posted.
More interesting, in our view, is the first paragraph we've posted. In that paragraph, Stephens describes "the most influential media figure in America today."
According to Stephens, who is that person? We'll give you his name:
Joe Rogan!
Is it possible that Stephens is right? Is it possible that Rogan—the former host of The Man Show—really is "the most influential media figure" in our flailing nation today?
At the time of the Vietnam War, it was widely believed that Walter Cronkite—a deeply experienced war correspondent—was the most influential such person.
(Before his work in World War II, he had served as Moscow bureau chief for CBS News.)
The deeply experienced Walter Cronkite was most influential then. Is it possible that Rogan—"a jocular bro with an Everyman affect"—holds that position today, as our flailing nation keeps starting and stopping its ongoing war with Iran?
Is it possible? Yes, it probably is. Yes, we suppose it's possible, though it would surely be hard to say.
That said, is Stephens' unflattering description of Rogan accurate? Because we've never listened to Rogan's podcasts, we can't quite tell you that.
We've never listened to Rogan! But on a daily basis, for years, we've watched the aggressive buffoonism performed on such corporate propaganda shows as The Five and Fox & Friends Weekend, mixed with the ugly aggression of the prehuman Gutfeld! program.
No serious nation can expect to survive the culture created by such undisguised garbage can "cable news" shows—or the garbage which flows, on an hourly basis, from our failing nation's assortment of deranged podcasters of both the left and the right.
What happened on last week's podcast, triggering this column by Stephens? Right at the start of his column, Stephens attempts to explain:
Call the Veep, Agent Mulder!
Somewhere around the two-hour mark in JD Vance’s nearly three-hour podcast interview last week with Joe Rogan, the pair got into a serious conversation about supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena. By serious, I mean it in the sense that Rogan seemed to take the subject seriously while Vance cynically, or cretinously, or cravenly, or credulously or conspiratorially—or perhaps it’s all of the above—played along with him.
[...]
By this point, the two men had already propounded one conspiracy theory—that the Los Angeles mayoral election had been rigged (a claim previously debunked by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor); followed by Vance’s accusation that Joe Biden’s staff got him to eat ice cream “in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable” (a remarkable way of turning naked mendacity into adolescent prurience into another conspiracy theory); followed by an exchange about eating corn dogs in public (because, you know); followed by an argument about whether the Ten Commandments should be mandated in Texas public schools, in which neither man appeared to be aware that the commandments are not originally Christian.
We've omitted three examples of Vance's pronouncements concerning demons and the like. Regarding Vance's claim about the way Joe Biden ate ice cream, we'll tell you something Stephens probably doesn't know:
Back in the day, the brain-numbing stupidity about Joe Biden's eating of ice cream sprang full-blown from the empty head of Jesse Watters on a regular basis (along with so much more). On The Five, the other children would titter and chuckle, pretending that this inane behavior made sense.
(After that, it would often be time to over-talk Tarlov again.)
Watters co-hosts The Five each day, then hosts his own program, Jesse Watters Primetime. They're the two most-watched programs in the American "cable news" firmament—and Watters, the most-watched person in cable news, is a gender buffoon and undisguised tribal clown well past all the way down.
Out of madness of this sort, very bad politics grows. But on Friday evening's PBS NewsHour, David Brooks seemed blissfully unaware of the mess we're all in:
What, us worry? he said.
David Brooks is a good, decent person. Also, he's very bright. Tomorrow, we'll return to an ongoing mystery:
Why is the world—why on earth—did David Brooks say what he said?
Tomorrow: Jonathan Capehart's concern
So the VP has nothing more important to do, then to waste three hours w/joe Rogan? How much are we paying him?
ReplyDeletePR and public appearances are part of the VP's job during every presidency. This isn't the problem to focus on.
DeleteTake away the bigotry and fascism, and the Republican Party is nothing but a cabal of child rapists.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Others are all the same, and they're evil.
DeleteIf they aren't evil, why haven't they dealt with the Epstein child rapists? The Others have the power in both the House and Senate.
DeleteDG, 11:03 is talking about the GOP, a political party, not the voters. Can you grasp that? What do YOU call a political party that supports a psychopathic, pathological liar, corrupt as fuck, a party that lies for him and debases themselves before him, allowing him to rule as a king, demonizing all liberals and trying to steal elections, sending a mob to attack the Capitol? If you don’t like the word “evil”, then you can supply your own.
DeleteYes, the GOP is a cabal of people, and these people are all bigoted, child-raping fascists.
DeleteWell, they are fascists, DG. That word seems to fit them, as a factual matter. Do you object to it? Leaving aside the child raping (they are hiding the Epstein files because Trump is all over them…meaning, in your estimation?), how do you respond to 12:11, DG?
DeleteNo doubt, ignoring the open bigotry, fascism, and sexual predation of the Republican Party makes it harder to call them fascists bigots who support sexual predation.
DeleteThey are all enablers of child rape to the extent that they do not prosecute the people who committed crimes against children along with Epstein. Including Trump. Using the word "cabal" changes nothing about their culpability under the law and the refusal of Republicans in congress to take this seriously.
DeleteThe bigotry is displayed by the Republican gerrymandering of districts to eliminate minority representation in states that have large minority populations.
DG thinks that if some individual Other can be shown to be non-guilty of bigotry, then all right wingers are excused from that accusation.
Yes, and calling the Others bigoted, child-raping fascists invariably leads them to reconsider their evil ways and start voting for Democrats.
Deletemaybe overgeneralizing is a right wing trait?
DeleteDG's point is that not each and every Republican voter threw a childish temper tantrum at the United States Capitol just because black people's votes were counted in the 2020 Presidential election, so you can't say all Republican voters are the same.
DeleteOthers point out not one Republican voter threw a childish temper tantrum at the United States Capitol just because the Republican Congress passed Trump's HUGE tax breaks for the rich and corporations, so you can't say any of them are economically anxious.
I dunno, DG. This is a comment section of a blog, where you can be candid in your assessments. If you consider how democrats vs republicans actually campaign, you will see that democrats usually appeal to bipartisanship, whereas republicans almost never do. Few if any democratic politicians call the GOP bigoted evil child rapist enablers. Yet it is SOP for republicans to publicly call democrats evil communists. “Fascist” is a term that fits the GOP, and it seems to me that voters should be told what the GOP stands for, in all honesty. If they are being lied to, you tell them they are.
DeleteDG thinks he's making a point that if we want to lead Republican voters to reconsider their evil ways and start voting for Democrats, we should excuse their bigotry and fascism.
DeletePersonally, I don't think that will work, and DG is kind of a knucklehead for thinking some that ridiculous.
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DeleteAnd you're kind of a knucklehead for thinking that I think that we should excuse anyone's bigotry and fascism.
DeleteOk, DG. But when we call out someone’s bigotry and fascism, we are told, by you and Somerby, that we are just being woke, and that pushes voters away.
Delete1:13 -- There are some who spend their lives seeing bigotry and fascism everywhere. (Several are prominent anons in the very comment section.) The backlash against these scolds fuels the "anti-woke" and "anti-DEI" campaigns which power Repubican victories in many states. Perhaps incessantly calling the Others evil comes with a political cost.
DeleteI’m not what way is the current iteration of the GOP, as a party, not fascist, DG?
DeleteI mean, for example, that calling all those who identify as GOPers "bigoted, child-raping fascists" may be a tad bit over the top. And may, even, be counterproductive to the electoral prospects of Democrats.
DeleteNow provide an example of a Democratic politician publicly calling the Republicans that, DG.
Delete1:29 - I agree: These bombs are being launched by people like us.
Delete“People like us”? You mean people at political blogs and such? Why should that influence how people vote in an election? Are commenters at blogs and such supposed to be good little boys and girls (but only if they’re liberals) and never say anything that might upset a right winger?
DeleteIt's America. Say anything you want. And then, if you habitually call all GOPers child-rapers, bitch and moan when we lose elections.
DeleteBut since it's America, I'll say what I want. And what I want to say is that it would be nice to persuade even 1% of the Others to vote for Democrats; that at least 1% are not child-rapers; and that calling all of the Others child-rapers tends to discourage that 1% from listening to what we have to say.
So all of us here at political blogs should stop saying these things, even if we feel they are true, because that’s why we “lose elections?” Do we lose every election? Are there possibly other reasons we lose (some) elections? Is it untrue to call the current Republican Party fascists, and it’s just politically bad to say it, or is it perhaps true? Is bigotry a big thing in their party? It seems to me it is, but I’m not supposed to say that because it will cause some Democrat somewhere to lose her election?
DeleteI think I'm dealing with two types of anons here. One type gets an orgasmic rush of moral superiority from calling others "bigoted, child-raping fascists." These anons are addicts to the rush and can't be reasoned with.
DeleteThe other type sees a Republican party pursuing an anti-immigrant program because of its racist fear of black and brown people, a party protecting child-raping predators likely including President Trump, and a party engaged in entrenching its rule beyond the power of elections to displace.
And that's how I see the Republican party.
And yet, we're the minority party. As such, it seems to me that we should be especially disciplined in how we confront and defeat the Republican party at the polls. While we still might be able to do so
“its racist fear of black and brown people, a party protecting child-raping predators likely including President Trump, and a party engaged in entrenching its rule beyond the power of elections to displace.”
DeleteDG…you just called the GOP a racist, fascist, child rape protecting party. How in the fuck is that substantially different than what the original commenter said?
2:07 -- What I would suggest? Truth, that's all. For example, it's not true that all GOPers are child-rapers. In my view, we should not say untrue things.
DeleteAgain: What are the rules of propaganda? One, the Others are all the same. Two, they're evil.
I would avoid propaganda because it's not true.
Is it really calling a GOPer a child-raper when we ask why Republican voters vote for those who hide/excuse the child-raping activities of men like Trump?
DeleteThe Others are not the best source of new Democratic voters. Our strategy is to attract young voters, Independents and less-consistent voters who sit out elections when they don't see a personal interest. Trying to attract anyone who would tolerate the right even one second is a lost cause, because they have demonstrated that they don't have the empathy to care about the issues important to Democrats.
You are exaggerating when you suggest that we on the left consider all Others to be actual child-rapers themselves. It is the men elected or appointed to Republican office who engage in child raping (via Matt Gaetz and his pimping of 17 year olds to House members, for example, or Lutnick who visited Epstein island claiming it was a family vacation). Men who will not prosecute the clients of Epstein's sex trafficking are child-raping enablers but no one thinks all Republicans commit incest (like the quiverfulls). We think they are unwilling to prosecute those who do rape children.
If an Other cannot get behind prosecuting child rapists, then they aren't going to care about anything else Democrats care about, which makes changing our priorities to appeal to them a waste of time, not to mention a dilution of our efforts that undermines our ability to achieve change.
DG, if you are not a child rapist yourself, why do you tolerate those guys in office?
2:16 -- Some, say even 1%, of GOPers do not see that the project of their party is racist deportation, pedophile-protection, and party entrenchment. (And I could add, crony-capitalistic corruption.) Calling ALL GOPers "child -rapers" and such tends to prevent us from helping them see what has become of their party.
Delete"DG, if you are not a child rapist yourself"
DeleteHere's exactly my point. Do you think I'm going to bother to read what this anon has to say?
DG,
DeleteAgree, it would be much better if we charged the child-rapers in the Republican party, so we could differentiate then from the few Republicans who don't commit child rape and are accused of doing so wrongly by bloggers.
Remind me again which party runs the Department of Justice, which refuses to do, when you have a minute.
We should all just pretend that the the gop isn’t racist and fascist. Maybe they will stop being racist and fascist then.
Delete3:15 -- I'll try one more time, and then give up. Not everyone in the GOP is racist and fascist. There are Latinos in the Rio Grande valley who voted for Trump; maybe, after seeing what he's done, they might be able to reconsider their views of the GOP, leading to a Talarico win. But -- call them racist, fascist child-rapers, and see which way they vote.
DeleteDG, do you realize the republican controlled Senate is about to make Todd fucking Blanche the fucking AG of the United States of America. Do you notice any fucking republican objecting? Get back to me when you find one and is willing to act on it.
DeleteDG: He calls them child rapists to get attention. The whole shtick is trolling. A lonely, unserious person trolling for attention.
Delete3:35 -- You're right. That proves the Latinos in the Rio Grande valley all like to rape kids, deport brown-skinned immigrants, and salute dictators, and we should denounce their innate and intractable evilness!
DeleteJoe Rogan is no Walter Cronkite and opinions vary about the President. Somerby is really profound today.
ReplyDeleteWe are not in a mess because Joe Rogan has influence. We are in a mess because Trump is president and has staffed his administration with incompetents and grifters. Somerby is obsessing over something Brooks said, which he doesn't quote so we can obsess too, while calling Brooks good, decent, sharp, all praise for a conservative opinion writer. Tomorrow he will do Brett Stephens, another conservative. Are there no liberals Somerby can quote, ever? There are a lot of good decent Democrats saying astute things, especially on Substack (where literate people go for opinion). But we have to hear about Joe Rogan?
ReplyDeleteIn the old days, Somerby used to explain the difference between reporting and propaganda. Now he just promotes the propaganda while pretending it is informative. Too much Illiad rots the mind.
DeleteIt's surprising to see Stevens call a fellow Republican a "callow and sinister opportunist" who is "by far the worst person ever to hold the office" of vice president. Someone whose potential election as President is the "single scariest thought in world politics today."
I would like to know the reasons for this evaluation.
"It's surprising to see Stevens call..."
DeleteAre you referring to Stephens? This is the kind of mistake a foreign troll might make, not anyone familiar with the conservative op-ed writer Somerby mentions. No one familiar with the guy would call him Stevens.
It’s an innocent mistake. David is real.
DeleteI’m sure Stephens has articulated his reasons. It’s called “the internet” DiC. None of us has to remain ignorant. It’s a choice.
DeleteAnyone who thinks Trump's daily corruption and criminality is worse than any other businessman has a bad case of TDS.
DeleteThere is no similarity between Trump's sociopathic behavior and the conduct of business in our cities. A business who behaved like Trump would go out of business, as Trump has many times. Trump behaves like a gangster with dementia. He had to be bailed out by Russian oligarchs who own him, making him a traitor to his country. He is a sex criminal and felon. Most businessmen are not, aside from a bit of infidelity and tax evasion. That is a difference of both scale and kind.
DeleteIt makes as much sense to believe in demons as it does to believe in angels (which many religious people do) or God for that matter. Religious beliefs are not subject to logic because faith is the heart of belief, not reason. There are worse things about Vance than Somerby appears capable of observing.
ReplyDeleteHere is a man who lied in his autobiographical book about his upbringing. He is a guy with no firm sense of himself, having changed his name multiple times:
"James Donald Bowman: His birth name.
James David Hamel: The name he used throughout his childhood and early adulthood after his mother remarried and his stepfather adopted him.
James David Vance: His current legal name. He adopted this surname in 2013 to honor his maternal grandparents, who played a major role in raising him.
J.D. Vance (with periods): The name he used when he first rose to prominence and published his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.
JD Vance (without periods): His current preferred public and political name."
This kind of shapeshifting is a psychiatric symptom.
This is the man who called Trump "America's Hitler" but is now his chief sycophant. A person with a weak sense of himself has no moral compass. Now he is a newly hatched Catholic with a religious rebirth, another symptom of his lack of a stable sense of self, an identity up for grabs to the highest bidder (such as Peter Thiel). These are personal choices but they also display the same kind of erratic behavior as Trump.
Somerby might have identified Trump's problems much earlier in Trump's life, but he needed Mary Trump to tell him what was wrong with a man with obvious major flaws. JD Vance is the same kind of guy and sane people should be able to recognize that he has as much integrity (or as little) as George Santos. Vance is a threat to our nation, not just because of his maladjustment but because he is smarter than Trump. We don't need to elect a smart demon to office when a stupid one has just done so much damage to our nation.
And what is Somerby's focus? On Joe Rogan and conservatives such as Brooks and Stephens. This is why we blues are in such deep shit. The people who are supposedly part of our coalition are reading and talking about assholes on the right instead of our country's need for leadership. Somerby's identity problems are as obvious as Vance's and arise from the same source -- money and attention to an unstable narcissistic self-image. Too bad it has to be as sell-outs.
When your own life is a construction and not a reality, why shouldn't the rest of experience be the same? Making conspiracy theories out of unrelated events or circumstances is little different than making a narrative out of your past and fabricating fictitious life events, as Vance did with his own childhood. He grew up in middle class Middletown Ohio not Appalachia.
DeleteVance's mother apparently had addiction problems but Vance has borrowed her struggle as a hard-luck story to ride into office. I find that despicable. A book about HIS pain is little help to her but reveals a kind of narcissism and opportunism borne out by his subsequent performance as a politician. Those cats and dogs aren't going to eat themselves when facts become convenient lies, they are tools to manipulate others, make money and evoke sympathy for a life he didn't live. Those who live in Appalachia were as maligned by his book as the Haitians who never ate pets.
"Sam Workman, a professor of political science at West Virginia University, called the book “poverty porn.” He said the reception to it has more to say about the disconnect between intellectual pundits in academics, politics, the media and rural working-class people than anything else.
Delete“‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was so popular at the start, and all of a sudden everyone now dislikes it, because they realize the rabbit’s out of the hat in a way,” said Workman, who runs WVU’s Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs. “This is really about a lot of liberal intellectuals being caught off guard as to what the real purposes of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ were. It was the first foray into a really potent, conservative political career.”
On the heels of the book’s popularity, Vance started a charity called “Our Ohio Renewal” that he said he would use as a vehicle for helping solve the scourge of opioid addiction that he had lamented in the book. He shuttered the nonprofit shortly after clinching the Senate nomination in 2022."
https://apnews.com/article/vance-rnc-appalachia-republican-vp-b666f86429ace1d29a13691f6254ff79
Middle class people do no go around talking about ancestral homes, as JD Vance does in his book. They talk about visiting their grandparents or a summer vacation home.
Delete"Why is [sic] the world—why on earth—did David Brooks say what he said?"
ReplyDeleteWho cares? Why should anyone care?
Why doesn't Somerby capitalize the name of our planet, Earth? Is it unimportant to him?
Deletemercury, venus, earth, and mars are small planets, so they get small letters. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are giant planets, so they get capital letters.
DeleteBoycott Nolan’s Odyssey. He filmed some scenes in Western Sahara, which is illegally occupied by Morocco.
ReplyDeleteBoycott yourself and take your OT trolling elsewhere.
DeleteThis is a serious matter. Western Saharans are being deprived of their land and despoiled of their resources. Morocco is violating international law and UN resolutions.
DeleteMusk called Nolan a “worm” for apparently not having an all white cast.
DeleteThis film has nothing to do with that dispute.
DeleteWasn't DG voted off the Island yesterday? What is he doing coming back here?
ReplyDeleteHe’s an Other.
DeleteAlways a good political strategy for the smaller Tribe to start tossing people out of the tent.
DeleteWhat do you mean, DG? The tribe of people who criticize you is smaller than the ones who support you?
DeleteDG, you have the right to vote for whoever you want. No Democrat can throw you out of that. But we don't have to believe you hold claimed views when you contradict them so often. Same goes for Somerby.
DeleteThrowing DG off the island has nothing to do with voting or political strategy. It means he fails to play well with others here. Who wants a guy around who does nothing but attack other commenters on a personal level?
Hegseth is being offered $10,000 to take a public testosterone test. Apparently we can hold these guys accountable on the trivia but not the bigger issues, such as stats for injured US soldiers in the Iran war
ReplyDelete“David Brooks is a good, decent person. ”
ReplyDeleteIs this sarcasm?
“deranged podcasters of both the left and the right. “
ReplyDeleteDoes Somerby have an example of a deranged podcaster of the left, especially one with as many listeners as Rogan? ??
Some New York Times' moron is envious of Joe Rogan.
ReplyDeleteWhat else is new?
Somerby has become a rabid both-sidesist.
ReplyDeleteConsumption of info is not a contest to see who can become most influential. For those concerned about democracy, it is the means to an informed voting populace. This shouldn't be about whether Rogan has a bigger audience for Somerby either, but about who provides the best source of current events, political analysis, financial advice, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat's why this kind of essay by Somerby makes no sense to me. Rogan may have acquired a big audience, but obviously not for his info but most likely for entertainment value. Or it could be because he confirms preconceived opinions and beliefs or reinforces a sense of self-worth of some kind, or is unobjectionable as background noise. Somerby needs to figure out what Rogan provides and then think about whether that is worthwhile to listeners.
I do not understand why Somerby continues to watch Gutfeld and Fox given their offensive content and uselessness to anyone seriously interested in politics. To my knowledge, Somerby makes no recommendations about good places to go for liberals to find news. So what purpose does Somerby serve? Nothing helpful, as far as I can see.
The discussion goes on, and I still hate Dogface George.
ReplyDelete