Joe rogan
© Vivian Zink / Syfy / NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesJoe Rogan
Beyond the left/right binary.

In a widely shared Sunday tweet, journalist Matthew Sheffield asserted that controversial podcaster Joe Rogan "overwhelmingly" favors "right-wingers" as guests. Rogan has been at the center of multiple outrage cycles recently (even the White House has been weighing in), with many progressives — including musicians like Neil Young — attempting to get the audio platform Spotify to cancel his contract. Proving that he's some sort of right-wing nutjob has been a major thread in all this.

Rogan and his supporters insist that he's simply open-minded and likes to talk to people from across the political spectrum — and a quick glance at some of his repeat guests would certainly suggest this.

Liberal actress Amy Schumer has been on Rogan's show four times, while Trump-loving actress Roseanne Barr has been on three times. Liberal director Kevin Smith has been a guest (four times), as has conservative rocker Ted Nugent (three times). Sex advice columnist and podcaster Dan Savage, Cenk Uygur of the left political show The Young Turks, whistleblower and civil liberties advocate Edward Snowden, and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) have all been on Rogan's show. As have conservative commentators and entertainers like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones.

Many of Rogan's guests don't fit into neat political categories. For instance, politically independent YouTuber Bridget Phetasy has been on four times. Rogan also likes guests from the atheist and skeptic communities. Neuroscientist, podcaster, and author Sam Harris — best known for his writings on atheism and debates with religious believers — has been on eight times. Psychologist and author Steven Pinker (famous for books like How The Mind Works and The Blank Slate) has been on twice. Skeptic magazine founder Michael Shermer has been on six times.

In the chart made by Sheffield — who describes himself as "post-conservative" in his Twitter bio — all of the people listed in the above paragraph are coded as "right-wing." So is English actor Russell Brand, who has campaigned against austerity measures and made a documentary against the war on drugs. So is Gabbard, who was literally a Democratic presidential candidate. So is Elon Musk, who describes himself as a "registered independent & politically moderate." And so are all the Rogan guests associated with what was briefly termed the Intellectual Dark Web — folks like journalist Bari Weiss (on twice), biology professor Bret Weinstein (on seven times), Canadian author and professor Jordan Peterson (on seven times), and evolutionary biologist Heather Heying (on twice) — regardless of whether they personally consider themselves liberal or libertarian-leaning.


I don't mean to single out Sheffield especially, but his tweet made the rounds, and it's illustrative of the ways in which Rogan has been awkwardly folded into a conventional left/right political argument that doesn't quite fit the podcaster, his listeners, or a lot of other discussions these days.

As writer Kat Rosenfield points out, "many of the 'right-wing' guests explicitly favor left/liberal policies and voted dem in at least the last 4 presidential elections." Others on the right-wing list tend to lean libertarian, or to support a mix of policies and cultural attitudes associated with the left and with the right.

The whole thing makes no sense — except as an exercise in labeling anyone out of step with progressive orthodoxy in any way at all as a right-winger. That's the thing all of the centrist or left-leaning folks that Sheffield labels as right-wing have in common: a quibble with some aspect of mainstream Democratic or progressive politics. In many cases, these quibbles are related to free speech, which much of the mainstream modern left has been turning against.

In the past, there seems to have been more acceptance of ideological diversity and policy differences within parties and political movements. But — alas — these days, many Democrats/progressives or Republicans/conservatives who refuse to march in lockstep with these groups' thought leaders get cast as traitors. It's nuts.

But the Rogan guest list highlights more than just the intensifying gatekeeping of political labels. It also showcases — as Rosenfield puts it — "the total breakdown of left/right as a meaningful political binary."

These days, we've got Republicans calling for economic and regulatory policies that would've been considered too left for the left just a few decades ago. We've got liberals who reject all sorts of liberal values, like freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

We've also got a whole lot of independents who can't stand either mainstream political party. More people now identify as independent than as either a member of the Democratic Party or of the GOP.

The list of Rogan guests does highlight something telling, just not what Sheffield thinks it does. It shows how inadequate the language of left versus right is for discussing politics and cultural leanings in 2022.