8 ms·

Fox News has been the hyper-profitable and true mainstream media for awhile now. They make a lot of money because they're pandering to a slight minority opinion

Fox News has been the hyper-profitable and true mainstream media for awhile now. They make a lot of money because they're pandering to a slight minority opinion that is often not well supported by other organizations. Put another way: they manufacture and distribute information that otherwise wouldn't exist and this is actually in very high demand by people with a message. In short, supply is scarce for reactionary messaging and when effective communicators do emerge in that market they immediately find a ton of interested parties throwing money at them. Rogan is an extension of that phenomenon, and it's the reason he makes lots of money. He's a lot like Limbaugh or Hannity in his career path; by showing a willingness to cater to authoritarian reactionary views, he's opened himself up to a lot of media opportunities. What's weird about the narrative around Rogan is that he was ever "alternative" to begin with. He's been indistinguishable in methodology from the average conservative pundit for some time. His guest lists are very similar to the average conservative pundit. That he used a different broadcast media isn't that significant. He panders to the same sorts of audience segments in a younger audience.

rayiner 6y ago
Joe Rogan is an “average conservative pundit?” He’s an agnostic who is antagonistic to the Catholic Church. And, from his Wikipedia page: > He has described himself as being "pretty liberal" and supports gay marriage, gay rights, women's rights, recreational drug use, universal healthcare, and universal basic income, while also supporting the Second Amendment. He also has criticized American foreign policy of military adventurism. He’s basically Howard Dean; and to the left of Joe Biden for the most part.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  Most leftists I know consider Rogan to skew conservative. (And Biden is hardly Left, so that might not be the best yardstick.)
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    The no true leftist meme.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      You can't just redefine the political spectrum every four years and pretended there's no history or global context. Bernie Sanders is a slightly left-of-centre person in a global context with slightly left-of-center politics which appeal more to the libertarian landscape then to the Communist, Anarchist or even Mutualist landscape. The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become.
      - nkurz 6y ago
        > The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become. This is disputable. Did you have thoughts on the story a from a couple months ago about the Swedish journalist making the point that Sanders supporters would be considered far left in Sweden: https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-bernie-sanders-far-left-swedens-ruling-social-democrats-official-says https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-b...
      - harryh 6y ago
        1) Bernie sanders thinks that we should have a tax system that is more progressive than Sweden, has higher capital gains taxes than Sweden, higher corporate taxes than Sweden and an individual wealth tax which Sweden does not have. At least on the issue of taxation, it's clear that he is to the left of that country (and basically every other country on the globe). 2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week. 3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point). To be honest I can't think of any issue off the top of my head where Bernie Sanders is to the right of Sweden's current policies. Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms? That is very hard to imagine.
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    I'm a "leftist" and I consider Rogan progressive, just like anyone else who chooses to vote for Bernie Sanders.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      Certainly in relative terms Bernie Sanders would represent some aspects of progressive politics. However it's very important to know how regressive American politics are. While the loss of life is extremely unfortunate, the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now. Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world we also can't deal with aglobal pandemic because we simply lack the infrastructure for Public Health and we've spent 20 years arguing about whether we should have it. Bernie Sanders's policies are slightly right of Macron, and he's pretty much the poster child for neoliberal centrism globally. He wants the same thing many other similar capitalist Nations have, which is essentially using tax dollars to ensure business prosperity by offsetting high-risk costs like healthcare.
      - harryh 6y ago
        the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now The US is currently expected to have fewer per capita deaths from COVID19 than the UK, France, Spain, Italy & Sweden. See: https://covid19.healthdata.org/ https://covid19.healthdata.org/
        raydev 6y ago
        Looks like May 14 and later are still projections. It's now May 25. Given the spikes we've seen since states have started reopening, I'd want to see more up-to-date stats.
        harryh 6y ago
        I certainly agree that predictions are hard. And things could go in another direction. I'm just saying that the progress of the disease to date has not been an "object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure."
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Within American politics (who else's politics would we be talking about here?) Rogan is squarely on the left. As evidenced by Biden, he's to the left even of many Democrats. (Remember, a big chunk of the Democratic Party is religious African Americans, half of whom are opposed to gay marriage, and hispanic Americans, many of whom are opposed to abortion.)
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      > Rogan is squarely on the left. As evidenced by Biden, he's to the left even of many Democrats. I think an awful lot of American leftists disagree strongly with you. Being left of Biden is hardly an accomplishment.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        I think Biden is too far left, so being to the left of him is definitely not an "accomplishment." But my point is about the meaning of words. In discussing an article about an American media personality, describing Rogan as a "conservative pundit" is simply incorrect.
        KirinDave 6y ago
        Maybe if I did that I'd be more concerned. I said he profited from and resembled one, but that he's an American centrist with strong reactionary sympathies. If your entire engagement here has been to dispute that I said this, then wow have we both wasted a lot of time.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  Reactionary conservatism is not limited to religious communities in America. As an extreme example Richard Spencer said he was an atheist in many of the violent Nazi communities don't refer to a literal or specific God but rather a racial will. It's difficult not to call those people reactionary. I do think people are misunderstanding my comparison. I think Joe Rogan is a reactionary, but I don't know if he's a conservative. I know that he profits and Norma sleep from the same machine that creates other conservative media. In that sense I don't think he's very different from Limbaugh, Hannity or Crowder or Shapiro.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    Sorry, I used dictation for this comment. "and Norma sleep" is a hilarious interpretation of "enormously".
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The average conservative pundit supports Bernie Sanders? I hate to just fire off a gotcha, but I honestly don't understand how to interpret the idea that Joe Rogan is similar to a Fox News pundit.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  Several of the conservative podcasters have come out for Bernie Sanders and Yang had broad support from a lot of them as well. This isn't because they're somehow more left; it's because Bernie Sanders cut much more along anti-capitalist libertarian. While we're not used to hearing a ton from that wing of the libertarian party in the media, they've been regaining ground in their political spaces over the last 5 years.
  - JamesBarney 6y ago
    What conservative podcasters came out as pro-Bernie?
- myko 6y ago
  Timmy Pool purports to be a leftist / Sanders supporter but his audience are fringe rightwing/alt-rightists who after listening to his show for awhile tend to become full blown alt-right. Part of his schtick is that he claims to be a leftist while concern trolling for the alt-right. Not saying Joe does this but claiming to support Bernie and then publicly saying you'd prefer to vote for trump than Biden doesn't make me confident in his progressive bonafides.
2019-nCoV 6y ago
Joe Rogan has voted liberal his entire life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ctTmQn8w7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ctTmQn8w7A
- KirinDave 6y ago
  This is probably not an appropriate conversation for Hacker News but essentially you can vote Democrat in America and still be a reactionary conservative and those are not inconsistent positions. American politics is shifted so far to the right that any honest categorization of it suggest that almost no "leftism" actually exist in the politics. America's notion of liberalism is largely defined economically. Looking is clearly a Centrist with strong reactionary leanings. He has all the hallmarks of this. For example he's historically been very soft on conspiracy theory culture and is even been part of some of those movements himself. He clearly profits from the same system that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro also profit from. Nor do hosts of said shows need to believe the profitable aspects of their work to profit from them. Ben Shapiro does not seem like the kind of person who's so stupid that he believes that a permanently flooded house could be resold, but he's definitely said that and then subsequently defended it. I also suspect that Crowder doesn't believe many of the things that he says, but it's his business.
  - whatthesmack 6y ago
    > American politics is shifted so far to the right I saw this and stopped reading. Just about spit out my coffee. Do people really think American politics are shifting to the right, when somebody like Bernie Sanders for President was unimaginable 15 years ago, yet is somewhat popular today?
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      Missing the tense is important. But it's worth noting Obama was considered a "progressive" candidate. While his appointment was a meaningful milestone for American race politics, his actual politics were... disappointing to many leftists and progressives.
    - 6y ago
JSavageOne 6y ago
> He's been indistinguishable from the average conservative pundit for some time. He's voting for Bernie Sanders, and you think he's a "conservative pundit"? I don't think you know what you're talking about.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  An awful lot of conservative people were moved by certain aspects of Bernie Sanders rhetoric. The notion that Bernie Sanders was a deep leftist is propaganda by the authoritarian right. compared to the majority of politics elsewhere in the world he's a Centrist. many leftists in America viewed him as a compromise candidate, not a representative candidate. This is probably because he's much closer to an anti-capitalist Libertarian position. Thus he cut across many traditional political aisles along a different axis. And if you think for a few minutes I'm positive you can proposed people who are much further "left" of the political spectrum in American politics then Bernie Sanders. AOC comes to mind.
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    AOC wasn't running for president. Bernie Sanders was THE most progressive candidate running for U.S. president in 2020. I mean he identified himself as a socialist.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      He didn't quite do that, but even if he did that wouldn't matter. He's a slightly left of center in a global sense, anymore than it'd make sense to call Biden "the progressive" candidate.
      - JSavageOne 6y ago
        I'm not disputing you on U.S. politics being conservative on the global scale, just that it's not fair or accurate to call Rogan a "conservative" when he's voting for the most "socialist" candidate on the ballot in his country and endorsing policies like a universal basic income, something considered "leftist" in basically every single country including the Scandinavian countries who have still yet to implement it. Sure overall perhaps he's still a "conservative" on the global scale, but by that definition the entirety of U.S. politics is conservative (including CNN, MSNBC, etc), and that speaks more to the state of politics in the country itself than Joe Rogan.
kjakm 6y ago
You realise he's hugely popular outside of the US? In other words I doubt Fox News and American conservative politics has very much to do with his popularity. It maybe affects some of audience but there is a large contingent that doesn't care about that nonsense.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  I'm confused how this would damage my point. It's not like conservative media isn't wildly more profitable in many other countries. This has to do with a scarcity of friendly and popular media outlets for authoritarian, reactionary, and conservative views.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    I’m not sure there is a scarcity. In the UK at least the vast majority of newspapers have a conservative view point.

rayiner 6y ago

Joe Rogan is an “average conservative pundit?” He’s an agnostic who is antagonistic to the Catholic Church. And, from his Wikipedia page: > He has described himself as being "pretty liberal" and supports gay marriage, gay rights, women's rights, recreational drug use, universal healthcare, and universal basic income, while also supporting the Second Amendment. He also has criticized American foreign policy of military adventurism. He’s basically Howard Dean; and to the left of Joe Biden for the most part.

Pfhreak 6y ago
Most leftists I know consider Rogan to skew conservative. (And Biden is hardly Left, so that might not be the best yardstick.)
- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  The no true leftist meme.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    You can't just redefine the political spectrum every four years and pretended there's no history or global context. Bernie Sanders is a slightly left-of-centre person in a global context with slightly left-of-center politics which appeal more to the libertarian landscape then to the Communist, Anarchist or even Mutualist landscape. The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become.
    - nkurz 6y ago
      > The fact that the average American can have this conversation and not seeing any contradiction and labeling Bernie Sanders far left as opposed to, say, Sweden or Finland just shows how distorted this conversation can become. This is disputable. Did you have thoughts on the story a from a couple months ago about the Swedish journalist making the point that Sanders supporters would be considered far left in Sweden: https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-bernie-sanders-far-left-swedens-ruling-social-democrats-official-says https://theweek.com/speedreads/896948/democratic-socialist-b...
    - harryh 6y ago
      1) Bernie sanders thinks that we should have a tax system that is more progressive than Sweden, has higher capital gains taxes than Sweden, higher corporate taxes than Sweden and an individual wealth tax which Sweden does not have. At least on the issue of taxation, it's clear that he is to the left of that country (and basically every other country on the globe). 2) He also is for virtually abortion on demand where in Sweden it is largely prohibited after the 22nd week. 3) On health care Bernie Sanders has said that individuals should have "no premiums, no deductibles, no copays" which is also to the left of Sweden where individuals are expected to pay for some of their own medical care (before the government steps in to cover all expenses past a certain point). To be honest I can't think of any issue off the top of my head where Bernie Sanders is to the right of Sweden's current policies. Do you seriously think that if Bernie moved to Sweden he would start calling their politics too left wing and start arguing for conservative market reforms? That is very hard to imagine.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  I'm a "leftist" and I consider Rogan progressive, just like anyone else who chooses to vote for Bernie Sanders.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    Certainly in relative terms Bernie Sanders would represent some aspects of progressive politics. However it's very important to know how regressive American politics are. While the loss of life is extremely unfortunate, the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now. Despite being one of the wealthiest nations in the world we also can't deal with aglobal pandemic because we simply lack the infrastructure for Public Health and we've spent 20 years arguing about whether we should have it. Bernie Sanders's policies are slightly right of Macron, and he's pretty much the poster child for neoliberal centrism globally. He wants the same thing many other similar capitalist Nations have, which is essentially using tax dollars to ensure business prosperity by offsetting high-risk costs like healthcare.
    - harryh 6y ago
      the timely object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure is on full display globally right now The US is currently expected to have fewer per capita deaths from COVID19 than the UK, France, Spain, Italy & Sweden. See: https://covid19.healthdata.org/ https://covid19.healthdata.org/
      - raydev 6y ago
        Looks like May 14 and later are still projections. It's now May 25. Given the spikes we've seen since states have started reopening, I'd want to see more up-to-date stats.
        harryh 6y ago
        I certainly agree that predictions are hard. And things could go in another direction. I'm just saying that the progress of the disease to date has not been an "object lesson of America's ridiculously inferior health care infrastructure."
- rayiner 6y ago
  Within American politics (who else's politics would we be talking about here?) Rogan is squarely on the left. As evidenced by Biden, he's to the left even of many Democrats. (Remember, a big chunk of the Democratic Party is religious African Americans, half of whom are opposed to gay marriage, and hispanic Americans, many of whom are opposed to abortion.)
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    > Rogan is squarely on the left. As evidenced by Biden, he's to the left even of many Democrats. I think an awful lot of American leftists disagree strongly with you. Being left of Biden is hardly an accomplishment.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      I think Biden is too far left, so being to the left of him is definitely not an "accomplishment." But my point is about the meaning of words. In discussing an article about an American media personality, describing Rogan as a "conservative pundit" is simply incorrect.
      - KirinDave 6y ago
        Maybe if I did that I'd be more concerned. I said he profited from and resembled one, but that he's an American centrist with strong reactionary sympathies. If your entire engagement here has been to dispute that I said this, then wow have we both wasted a lot of time.
KirinDave 6y ago
Reactionary conservatism is not limited to religious communities in America. As an extreme example Richard Spencer said he was an atheist in many of the violent Nazi communities don't refer to a literal or specific God but rather a racial will. It's difficult not to call those people reactionary. I do think people are misunderstanding my comparison. I think Joe Rogan is a reactionary, but I don't know if he's a conservative. I know that he profits and Norma sleep from the same machine that creates other conservative media. In that sense I don't think he's very different from Limbaugh, Hannity or Crowder or Shapiro.
- KirinDave 6y ago
  Sorry, I used dictation for this comment. "and Norma sleep" is a hilarious interpretation of "enormously".

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

The average conservative pundit supports Bernie Sanders? I hate to just fire off a gotcha, but I honestly don't understand how to interpret the idea that Joe Rogan is similar to a Fox News pundit.

KirinDave 6y ago
Several of the conservative podcasters have come out for Bernie Sanders and Yang had broad support from a lot of them as well. This isn't because they're somehow more left; it's because Bernie Sanders cut much more along anti-capitalist libertarian. While we're not used to hearing a ton from that wing of the libertarian party in the media, they've been regaining ground in their political spaces over the last 5 years.
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  What conservative podcasters came out as pro-Bernie?
myko 6y ago
Timmy Pool purports to be a leftist / Sanders supporter but his audience are fringe rightwing/alt-rightists who after listening to his show for awhile tend to become full blown alt-right. Part of his schtick is that he claims to be a leftist while concern trolling for the alt-right. Not saying Joe does this but claiming to support Bernie and then publicly saying you'd prefer to vote for trump than Biden doesn't make me confident in his progressive bonafides.

2019-nCoV 6y ago

Joe Rogan has voted liberal his entire life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ctTmQn8w7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ctTmQn8w7A

KirinDave 6y ago
This is probably not an appropriate conversation for Hacker News but essentially you can vote Democrat in America and still be a reactionary conservative and those are not inconsistent positions. American politics is shifted so far to the right that any honest categorization of it suggest that almost no "leftism" actually exist in the politics. America's notion of liberalism is largely defined economically. Looking is clearly a Centrist with strong reactionary leanings. He has all the hallmarks of this. For example he's historically been very soft on conspiracy theory culture and is even been part of some of those movements himself. He clearly profits from the same system that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro also profit from. Nor do hosts of said shows need to believe the profitable aspects of their work to profit from them. Ben Shapiro does not seem like the kind of person who's so stupid that he believes that a permanently flooded house could be resold, but he's definitely said that and then subsequently defended it. I also suspect that Crowder doesn't believe many of the things that he says, but it's his business.
- whatthesmack 6y ago
  > American politics is shifted so far to the right I saw this and stopped reading. Just about spit out my coffee. Do people really think American politics are shifting to the right, when somebody like Bernie Sanders for President was unimaginable 15 years ago, yet is somewhat popular today?
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    Missing the tense is important. But it's worth noting Obama was considered a "progressive" candidate. While his appointment was a meaningful milestone for American race politics, his actual politics were... disappointing to many leftists and progressives.
  - 6y ago

JSavageOne 6y ago

> He's been indistinguishable from the average conservative pundit for some time. He's voting for Bernie Sanders, and you think he's a "conservative pundit"? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

KirinDave 6y ago
An awful lot of conservative people were moved by certain aspects of Bernie Sanders rhetoric. The notion that Bernie Sanders was a deep leftist is propaganda by the authoritarian right. compared to the majority of politics elsewhere in the world he's a Centrist. many leftists in America viewed him as a compromise candidate, not a representative candidate. This is probably because he's much closer to an anti-capitalist Libertarian position. Thus he cut across many traditional political aisles along a different axis. And if you think for a few minutes I'm positive you can proposed people who are much further "left" of the political spectrum in American politics then Bernie Sanders. AOC comes to mind.
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  AOC wasn't running for president. Bernie Sanders was THE most progressive candidate running for U.S. president in 2020. I mean he identified himself as a socialist.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    He didn't quite do that, but even if he did that wouldn't matter. He's a slightly left of center in a global sense, anymore than it'd make sense to call Biden "the progressive" candidate.
    - JSavageOne 6y ago
      I'm not disputing you on U.S. politics being conservative on the global scale, just that it's not fair or accurate to call Rogan a "conservative" when he's voting for the most "socialist" candidate on the ballot in his country and endorsing policies like a universal basic income, something considered "leftist" in basically every single country including the Scandinavian countries who have still yet to implement it. Sure overall perhaps he's still a "conservative" on the global scale, but by that definition the entirety of U.S. politics is conservative (including CNN, MSNBC, etc), and that speaks more to the state of politics in the country itself than Joe Rogan.

kjakm 6y ago

You realise he's hugely popular outside of the US? In other words I doubt Fox News and American conservative politics has very much to do with his popularity. It maybe affects some of audience but there is a large contingent that doesn't care about that nonsense.

KirinDave 6y ago
I'm confused how this would damage my point. It's not like conservative media isn't wildly more profitable in many other countries. This has to do with a scarcity of friendly and popular media outlets for authoritarian, reactionary, and conservative views.
- kjakm 6y ago
  I’m not sure there is a scarcity. In the UK at least the vast majority of newspapers have a conservative view point.