Joe Rogan must be stopped
This is the consensus reached by all of the most compassionate and wise voices in society. According to the White House, Spotify should not merely lead off Rogan’s COVID-19-centric podcast episodes with a content warning; according to press secretary Jen Psaki, “our view is that it is a positive step, but that there is more that can be done.”
According to CNN’s Brian Stelter, host of the ironically named “Reliable Sources”: “He is now apologizing. And we’re going to find out if that’s enough for Spotify, the company that has an exclusive distribution deal with him.”
Neil Young, a has-been rocker, agrees. He, along with other washed up old hippie musicians have taken his music off Spotify in protest of Rogan.
What was Rogan’s great sin? To hear the media tell it, his great sin was COVID-19 “misinformation.”
Now, this is a rather vague charge, given the fact that our public health authorities have informed us over the course of the past two years that lockdowns were effective, cloth masks worked, masking of children was necessary, vaccines prevented transmission, natural immunity was inferior to vaccine immunity, and the virus could not have originated with a Chinese lab leak—all pieces of misinformation later reversed.
Rogan, however, promised to be more informed and to have more guests regarding COVID-19 vaccines.
When Spotify didn’t deplatform Rogan over ThatCharge, the reason for his deplatforming demand morphed into: Rogan was a racist because he used the N-word while quoting lyrics from rap music years ago. Rogan apologised again after a left-wing activist group released a compilation video of Rogan using such language.
But apologies aren’t the point. Rogan is not a racist, but that’s what everyone thinks. The radical left sees you as either a tool or an object lesson. Rogan is now an object lesson.
For two reasons, he has been an object of ridicule. First, Rogan has steadfastly refused to toe the party line with regard to President Joe Biden; ire broke out against Rogan in 2020 for the crime of noting that Biden appeared “mentally compromised” in the middle of an election that the media had declared a turning point in the future of democracy.
Second, Rogan hosted guests who are not content to repeat the views of the left on a variety of issues. That’s why the left has demanded that Spotify remove old episodes of his show entirely: Alternative voices must not be heard, and Rogan has the unfortunate habit of talking to such voices for hours at a time and letting them say their piece.
There are many lessons to be learned from the Rogan dust-up.
First, corporate overlords can be completely stupid. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek believed that picking up the exclusive license to Rogan’s show would increase listenership and advertising dollars; he was clearly blindsided by the blowback, to the extent that he issued a mewling letter to the company’s woke interns begging their forgiveness for their hurt feelings.
Second, the media don’t care about freedom of speech as an idea. They’re interested in freedom of speech for themselves and no one else. It’s been fascinating to watch the evolution of our treasured Journalismers (TM) from guardians of the First Amendment to attack dogs on behalf of Big Tech censorship of their perceived enemies.
Third, apologizing for insincere radical-left ally is always a mistake. Their goal is not to have a conversation. Their goal is destruction. If they find you useful, they may allow you to become Reek to their House Bolton; if they don’t, you become Ned Stark to their Joffrey.
Rogan will make it through all this. Perhaps Spotify ends up paying him a bag of cash to leave, and he takes his audience and goes elsewhere, tanking Spotify’s stock price on his way out the door. Spotify should be ashamed of their cowardice.
But no matter what happens, the lesson will be learned by those who don’t have Rogan’s audience: Shut up or face the whirlwind. Most will shut up.
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