Podcaster Joe Rogan spoke to comedian Arsenio Hall on Wednesday about how he has felt “politically homeless” for a long time as he does not feel comfortable with either major party in American politics.
“It’s so stupid,” Rogan said. “I’m politically homeless. I’ve been politically homeless for a long f—— time. Neither one of them make any sense to me. We need like a logical centrist government that like just says there’s a lot of things that we should do to make this country a better place!”
Rogan argued that a key problem is that when the left proposes something logical, people on the right reflexively reject it, and when the right, in turn, proposes something common sense, it is condemned by the left.
“It’s a team thing, it’s like the Dolphins versus the Raiders,” he said.
During their conversation, Hall recalled how it felt talking to former President Bill Clinton on his late-night talk show in the 1990s, noting that even in candid conversation off the air, Clinton was an incredibly intelligent person. Rogan agreed, saying that he would love to interview Clinton on the podcast but that many of his controversies would likely make it difficult.
“He’s one of the greatest presidents of all time, for sure,” Rogan said. “You go back and listen to him talk when he was running for president, he’s like, super sensible. Like everything he said made sense.”
Hall suggested Clinton had likely moved to the right, saying it was a textbook case of showing how a savvy politician knows he needs to compromise and adapts his policies to serve the needs of Americans in his day.
“For sure. But I think the problem is parties all have to agree, and they then form ideologies that you cannot stray from,” Rogan said.
The host then contrasted how one person might say, “‘Hey, maybe an open border is a bad idea because terrorists can come through’” and then a Democratic hardliner might respond, “’No one’s illegal on stolen land!’”
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Rogan went on to recall how the rhetoric of Bill Clinton and later his wife Hillary Clinton on issues like immigration enforcement now resemble current right-wing talking points about immigration, arguing they aren’t “right-wing” so much as just “sensible.”
After Rogan pointed out how different the Democratic Party was in the past — particularly before the rise of transgender politics — Hall responded, “When you deal with left and right, you almost have to attach a year, because we’ve seen parties change. I’m always reminded that the Democratic Party was the party of the Klan if you go far enough back. So I’m a ‘Republicrat,’ I have to look at it all.”
Rogan agreed, citing how he recently played a clip of Hillary Clinton voicing immigration enforcement policies that sounded “MAGA.”
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After Hall repeated his point that one has to attach a year to know what the Democrats and Republicans stand for in that time, Rogan agreed, saying, “Well, it’s all — you’re just being manipulated, and you’re being manipulated by these two teams, and you have to pick a team. You have to decide which team are you on.”
“I hate that,” Hall agreed.
