Joe Rogan, the host of the world’s most consistently popular podcast and a massive influencer, has all but fully turned on Trump over broken promises. While everyone surely has a right to mock Rogan’s absolute idiocy for ever buying a Trump promise in the first place, that’s different than saying we shouldn’t understand the magnitude of the shift as emblematic of what many Trump voters feel.
Nor should any of us fail to appreciate the power of the turn without regard to what we feel about Rogan personally.
Trump emerged in 2016 wholly out of an ecosystem that couldn’t care less about what Trump actually believed about any one issue; indeed, in 2020, the GOP didn’t even bother to write a party platform, in part because the party didn’t know what it believed until Trump told them. It wasn’t about beliefs or values; it was about rage over minorities and immigrants. In 2024, the election was more about the economy, but still with a good dose of racism and misogyny that carried him to victory.
It was never about policy. Even immigration issues boiled down fundamentally to racism and rage. Look at us now: we don’t just have a closed immigration system. We are actively punishing people who are simply here and working.
Except there are indications now that some GOP support is a bit about policy, at least for some, and the rage cannot override such concerns.
Affordability, the economy generally, tariffs — they all play a role. But no broken promise is easier to point out as concretely than the Iranian war as purely selfish and misguided decisions, a nod to the military-industrial complex, a lack of care for the ultimate results — dead soldiers, a closed strait, and much higher fuel prices, none of which impact a billionaire, all making life much more difficult for those of us toward the middle-bottom.
And so Rogan uses it as, perhaps, just a red flag, as being disappointed by Trump to the level of dropping support for him and his minions altogether. As reported here, Rogan described the promise regarding no foreign wars as “not real” at this point, especially since Iran’s become “a giant quagmire,” adding that he “didn’t like it at all.”
More interestingly, Rogan also opined on the immigration situation, the one that went well beyond anything “promised” by stating, “Are we really going to be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”
Yes, Joe, and we didn’t just wander into it this second term. You fail to remember taking babies from parents long ago.
Undoubtedly, Joe remains fundamentally uneducated as to issues he should easily have understood prior to the election, upon endorsing Trump.
It is critical for us to appreciate that Rogan isn’t that influential. No, this is noted more for its indicativeness of where the GOP lies right now in some Trump voters’ minds. Sure, most are Trump now and forever, even disregarding civil judgments for sexual abuse, evidence of association with Jeffrey Epstein, and the horrific place in which the country stands, domestically and internationally, but not all. Indeed, the nation is so closely divided that the 10-20% of Trump voters like Rogan, the ones who care about policy, are no longer, by definition, in support of all things Trump.
What does that mean? It means serious trouble coming for Trump, above and beyond possibly losing Congress.
Why? Trump survived everything to this point?
True, and “survival” isn’t so much the issue as power — the power to implement whatever he wants at any point. Republicans no longer need his endorsement for everything; Trump isn’t running in 2028 under any circumstances, not when polling is in the low 30s and 50% of the country is saying they strongly disapprove of his term versus the mere 20% who strongly approve.
It is entirely conceivable that Congress can pass legislation well beyond the veto point (see what happened with Epstein’s matter, without regard for how the administration handled it).
But survival during and after the presidency is also on the table, depending upon the issues Democrats find as committee majority leaders. We truly don’t have any idea as to what is out there, what might truly be found.
Again, though, this is less about Trump destruction, more about real power. Without unadulterated support from all Republicans — which he won’t have, as indicated by Rogan’s shift — with Republican support fracturing, Trump will become the lamest duck in history, with little room to maneuver.
Think of Rogan as the canary in the ultimate political mine. The gas will not kill every miner, just the voter who is deepest in, the one scraping close to disapproval of Trump; voters like Rogan, their unadulterated and undereducated support for Trump now dead.
Think of it as power more than survivability. However, we don’t know everything out there. We will see. With Rogan, there is something we already see.
It is not nothing.
Jason Miciak is a Raw Story Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, attorney, consultant, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at [email protected]
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