“Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan warned Joe Rogan that Democrats’ refusal to acknowledge President Donald Trump’s legitimacy, particularly in the post-COVID era, threatens rule of law.
In both his first and second terms, Trump has seen massive pushback from leaders in major institutions. This ranges from sanctuary cities refusing to work with federal agents to major officials going against his agenda as commander-in-chief.
Even on the ground level, there has been popular sentiment that he was not a legitimately elected president . This comes amid the same years that America’s other major institutions have had a crisis of legitimacy after the COVID-19 pandemic, something Sheridan addressed in his interview with Rogan.
“I think in 30 years when they look back, like — we are still suffering from a society from COVID like still, and not so much from the disease itself, but from our faith in the institutions around us,” he said. “Whether it’s government, whether it’s the media, whether it’s pharmaceutical companies and the way that it was manipulated to gain power for a political group, and it was effective and so when something’s effective then people just keep doing the same thing until it’s no longer effective right?”
He argued there was a similar idea in the military from the initiative to “win hearts and minds” of America’s adversaries abroad. Sheridan suggested that this may have worked in Japan, where the Emperor had implored his subjects to stand down and surrender amid World War II; it has not worked in other places since.
America’s conflict, however, is an internal one, he suggested.
“So our government, and it’s so dangerous what we’re seeing,” Sheridan lamented.
“You can like Trump or not like Trump,” he continued, noting that, “People are going to like presidents and dislike presidents, but now defying the rule of law because he happens to be the head of the federal government and openly defying the federal government. The repercussions of that are going to be, ‘Okay, fine. You can’t stand this man. You think he’s a terrible president, and you’re not going to follow his laws. But that’s the new normal now.’”
“So when a president gets in that you do support, then the other side, because we’ve established this precedent, they’re just not going to follow his laws either,” Sheridan warned. “And now we’ve eroded the rule of law, and then what happens?
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“The slippery slope is very dangerous,” Rogan said, noting that while he is not in favor of illegal immigrants being in the United States, the normalization of militarized police in public life may enable the far-left once they get back into power.
Rogan added further that he isn’t even sure whether there is another way to do mass deportations, noting that quick removals may be the only answer to Democrats having allowed an overwhelming and rapid influx of illegal immigrants, but nonetheless, “you’re setting a weird precedent, you’re setting a precedent that can be used in other ways.”
“It’s slippery. It is slippery. And again, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And these politicians right now who are doing all of us a tremendous disservice in Washington, I feel, our elected officials, because they’re not thinking beyond this next election. And maybe they never have,” Sheridan said. “But they were better at hiding it, maybe.”
