Ahead of Her Time

You'll never guess who now sounds like Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It is Joe Rogan who, despite now channeling Hillary Clinton, still slams the left, endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, and doesn't suggest that he regrets opposing the Democrat in her unsuccessful race against Donald Trump in 2016. Speaking at an LGBT for Hillary fundraiser on September 9, 2016, Mrs. Clinton inelegantly remarked

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

Once you find yourself saying "to just be grossly generalistic," it's time to stop. Nonetheless, it would have been helpful to evaluate Clinton's reasons for considering them deplorable or suggest that she may have underestimated the number.  (Also, "generalistic" is not a word.)  Even more useful to voters would have been noting that the candidate added

... thankfully they are not America. But the other basket- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas- as well as, you know, New York and California- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out hope that their lives will be different. they won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Innumerable authors, talk show hosts, pundits, and others have since made a career, some a successful and lucrative career, from "discovering" that Donald Trump tapped into widespread sentiment that Americans in the "heartland" have lost hope in government which has worked for the affluent and left them behind.  These individuals, we have been told incessantly the last several years, voted for a savior they believed would throw norms out the window, bust up tradition, and destroy the "deep state".

Hillary Clinton said the same thing. And now an ex-actor and extraordinarily successful podcaster to the dispossessed is saying roughly the same:

"Trump supporters are f---ing nuts, man," Rogan said on a new episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. "They're rabid."

Rogan added that Trump "represents something other than just a person to them."

"He represents a leader that they wish they had, which is a real problem in our society in general with leaders," the host added.  "We look to them as if there's something different than every other person that's ever been a leader before. Like, "This is the one. This is the one that's going to save us, right?"

Rogan did do a couple of things differently than did Clinton. The latter said "half," refusing to imply that all Trump supporters were identical, whereas Rogan referred to "Trump supporters," suggesting his comments applied to all. Additionally, he used a profanity, which has become obligatory for politicians, podcasters, and others to prove their authenticity. 

It was ironic, then, that the remark of the then-Vice President had precisely the opposite moment. In a 2021 analysis, a Washington Post reporter noted that Jonathan Allen, author of the book "Shattered" about Clinton's 2016 campaign, said the remark

seemed to reveal a private thought that she had never dared state in public. In that way, it "ended up being symbolic of one of the things that her critics said they hated about her, which is that they believed that she's inauthentic. And oddly, I think that was a pretty authentic moment.

When Joe Rogan denounces Democrats for what he views as "open borders", "COVID mandates", "forcing people to get vaccinated", and of course, the existential issue of pronouns, he obviously does not sound like Hillary Clinton, whose insult became a rallying call for her GOP opponent.. Rogan's attack, accusing Trump supporters of being "nuts" and "rabid", also is more personal than was the candidate's assessment. Perhaps that was part of Clinton's problem- criticizing them thoughtfully and accurately and with an authenticity that could not go unpunished.

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Dangerous Misconception(s)

Oh, yes. Sure, Joe!

Joe Rogan: "It's not that Trump doesn't have faults. He most certainly has faults, but we all have faults. But they had control of the media and they turned him into something that he wasn't just 10 years ago to them."pic.twitter.com/f0Hj1noLzJ

— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) November 9, 2025

As the saying from last decade goes, that (comment) didn't age well.

A disgrace that FOX gives what is basically free political advertising to Trump during an NFL game. https://t.co/svliG7e2ax

— Congressman Brendan Boyle (@RepBrendanBoyle) November 9, 2025

Trump was offered a platform to repeat, and reinforce, some of his go-to lies. He was set up with the non-question "We'd love to hear your thoughts about where we are as a nation, how we're doing."  The President replied

Well, we're doing  great and recruitments is doing phenomenally and, uh, people have spirit, the stock market hit an all-time high, prices are coming down. We inherited a mess, prices are coming way down, and I'll tell you, our country has over $17 trillion they have invested, which is a record. So we're doing great.

So great that his party, north, south, east, and west, was pummeled on on Election Day. Military recruitment in fact has been on the rise, since before Trump was re-elected. Prices are increasing, not decreasing. And the $17 trillion figure Trump has cited periodically is far larger than the $8.8 trillion claimed in the White House website, which itself is a gross exaggeration. Even the rise in the stock market is shaky, with most economists believing it is built on a foundation of sand, with the artificial intelligence craze leading the way. Things are not "great" or even good.

Nonetheless, the danger is not in what Trump says but that the media generally has been fine with it, notwithstanding Rogan's imagination. 

For what seems several years but has been far less, we have heard "Russia. Russia. Russia." as a dismissive reference to the investigation of Donald Trump for the interference by Russia in the 2016 presidential election.  Yet, in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Special Counsel Robert Mueller identified

accounts of dozens of contacts between senior members of the Trump campaign and several Russians, including those who said they were Russian government agents, for the purpose of electing Donald Trump and defeating Hillary Clinton. It includes reports of secret meetings with campaign officials, including two members of the Trump family, which Mueller concludes violate campaign finance laws.

Mueller did not accuse anyone of "collusion" because "collusion" is not a legal term and is not in itself a federal crime.

Moreover, Mueller remarked "(I)f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment." That sounds a lot like "we suspect he did but proving it beyond a reasonable doubt in court would be uncertain."

Approximately 17 months after the Mueller report was released, the Senate Intelligence Committee- chaired Marco Rubio of Florida- revealed, as explained here

how the Trump campaign willingly engaged with Russian operatives implementing the influence effort. For instance, the report exposes interactions and information exchanged between Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik and then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. According to the report, campaign figures “presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence vulnerabilities.” (Manafort was later convicted of tax and bank fraud.)

Yet, Trump would continually refer to the controversy as a "hoax," His acolytes consistently followed suit. As recently as twelve months ago, a statement by the Ohio Senate majority referred to "the same Democrats who pushed the Russia collusion hoax" and claimed- dishonestly- that the Steele dossier "was debunked by the Mueller report."  It did no such thing.

And still it goes on. However, broadcast media still allows Republicans of all sort to go on the air, call "Russia, Russia, Russia" a hoax, assert that the Mueller report found there was no collusion, and that the Steele dossier has been debunked.

Only one item in the Steele dossier- a collection of uncorroborated intelligence reports intended to be just that- has been shown to be false. Trump attorney Michael Cohen did not meet in Prague during the 2016 campaign.

And yet, even the august New York Times ran an article in 2021 entitled- inaccurately- "why the discredited dossier does not undercut the Russia investigation." Cut to 2025 and President Trump is blaming Ukraine for defending itself against aggression by Moscow, but somehow the Steele dossier is routinely slammed as "debunked" or "discredited," and the media goes along as if the critic has remarked something as innocuous as "it's hot in Miami in August."

This is not old news or moot. Much of Donald Trump's political success and power stems from his claim that he was cheated out of becoming your, and my, President by Democratic shenanigans, assisted by the media, in 2016. Add to that refusal of the media to label as a "lie" Trump's obviously false statements. And his rapidly declining health (video below from Australian television). Further, there is the conventional wisdom that Mr. Trump was hit by a bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2024.

    

As of this past April, Donald was prescribed two medicines for cholesterol reduction, one for a skin condition, and aspirin.

Well, yes, aspirin, a de facto drug which prolongs bleeding time and inhibits platelet aggregation. And yet, struck by a bullet or a bullet fragment- the FBI's conclusion- the victim did not even require stitches. It is unknown exactly how long he bled because hospital doctors did not issue a statement or hold a news conference, nor was a medical report ever released.

Nonetheless, an AP article nearly two weeks after the crime was entitled "FBI says Trump was indeed struck by bullet during assassination attempt." In the minds of most Americans, that reads "bullet," not "bullet or bullet fragments."  

Aware of all that- more likely, not aware of all that- Joe Rogan appears convinced that the media has ceaselessly victimized Donald Trump. This self-delusion, shared by the vast majority of Trump supporters, will continue while Republicans uniformly embrace the President, Democrats don't question the zombie lies, and the media has no incentive to own up to their pro-Trump, pro-GOP bias.

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