Deace: The mob comes for Joe Rogan

Danger! “Threat level: Trumpian!” has been issued for another person of diverse views who dares to have a contrarian opinion — this time Joe Rogan.

Like Trump, Rogan’s fame came through things that have nothing to do with our current political climate. Trump was a real estate mogul and NBC television personality. Rogan also got his start at NBC, where he was an actor on the hit series “NewsRadio,” then hosted “Fear Factor.” He then broke out as the face of MMA.

Both built brands that others raced to attach themselves to without apology. MSNBC basically made sure that Donald Trump was a front-runner for president whether that was his initial intention for running or not, and the digital platform Spotify made Joe Rogan’s hit podcast its tent pole for relevance.

Then Rogan did the totally unacceptable, as did Trump. He insisted on being his own man.

None of this means these guys are carbon copies of one another, or that their opinions or ways of doing things are always agreeable or right. But it raises the question of how someone who obviously has entertained people on both sides of the aisle can suddenly become “literally Hitler.”

I mean, for any actual grown-up, shouldn’t it be viewed as weird bordering on insane that the same people who once defended diversity and tolerance as cardinal virtues now need to cancel anybody and everybody who doesn’t celebrate their inner pronoun or other idol du jour?

The latest example involves Rogan’s refusal to bow to what former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson calls “The Vaccine Church.” Essentially, these are sheeple who believe that unless you want everyone vaccinated for everything everywhere instantly with no questions asked, you’re “anti-vax.” Even, as is the current case with the COVID vaccines, when they’re not yet FDA-approved. To dare to demand informed consent, once a bedrock of American medicine, means you’re “anti-vax.”

Of course, currently there is no higher-profile anti-vaxxer in America than their own shaman, Anthony Fauci, who continues to publicly cast doubt on the efficacy of the COVID vaccines by insisting that you remain a member in good standing of the Covidstan leper colony even after full vaccination. But, alas, critical thinking is hard for cults.

Young people need not take the mark … err … vaccine, Rogan said, because they’re at very little risk for COVID. Whether you agree or not with his opinion, he’s not asserting something dangerous, because young people have been shown to be safer from COVID than from the flu. Yet this really isn’t even about COVID or vaccination at all.

As with Trump, it’s about having a large platform and daring to go off the reservation with it at all. It’s OK to be cool, to be hip, and to be popular as long as you pay all the right woke tolls and never dare to acknowledge that being an American fundamentally means freedom. Even the freedom to do wrongthink.

But when you abandon freedom to think for yourself, you end up in a country where Karens all over Covidstan toss their panties at a nasal-sounding BSer like the 80-year old Fauci, while the younger and more virile likes of Joe Rogan suddenly look like they need to see Dr. Pimple Popper stat! Where these women no longer swoon over Rogan’s actual picture of health, but can’t wait to triple mask with a duplicitous dwarf instead.

We are dealing with nothing short of cult oaths and pagan rituals at this point. Since Rogan’s popularity happens to come among a population of people who, for better or for worse, generally refuse to be easily tamed, that is a threat to tyrannical rule that simply can’t be abided.

Which should also tell you how fundamentally un-American are the times we’re currently living in. Critical thinkers such as Rogan used to be celebrated and emulated, and to be sure there fortunately is still a market for it in what’s left of America — hence Rogan’s success. However, the Spirit of the Age is on the prowl, seeking whom it may devour. You will comply, or you will be made to care, and resistance is futile.

Woke fatwas, like the tumors they are, metastasize daily. People with rough edges who believe in any framework of liberty must be silenced, for the Spirit of the Age is a jealous false god, and it will not share its pretend glory with another.

Thankfully, knowing what I do of Rogan, he probably doesn’t give a damn.

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