Joe Rogan: Hitler "Doesn't Sound Nearly Radical As You Thought He Did”

Mark this. On today’s episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring comedian Eleanor Kerrigan, Joe Rogan goes on one of his standard rants about trans people. Among other things, he argues that “there’s a lot of social value in being trans today” (with which Kerrigan agrees), says there is “a crazy low barrier to entry to be a part of a protected class and to be celebrated,” and suggests it is important to distinguish legitimate trans people from those who transition for attention:

This is what we have to be wary about. Because when you see these cluster cases, like particularly young girls, you get 10 girls that are on the spectrum and they all go trans in the school together, that's crazy. And you have to realize that people are motivated, just like you were when you were a young girl and you were dressing like a boy and acting like a boy, and then you go, “Oh, I gotta not do that anymore, and then now boys like me.” People are motivated by behaviors that get them positive reinforcement. And in this time, in this day and age, there's immense amount of positive reinforcement of being a part of the LBGT pride, whatever it is movement. 

And that makes sense because it's a natural reaction to the times when we were kids, where gay people were shunned and shit on, and it was up until 2013, Hillary Clinton was saying that she didn't think that marriage should be between gay men. It should be between a man and a woman. Barack Obama used to say that. They all used to say it. So imagine being a gay person back then—and so there's like this natural overcorrection. So we're in this overcorrection right now. But this overcorrection gets co-opted by opportunists who are just narcissists, just people with mental illness. 

And people who realize that they can get a tremendous amount of attention by just fitting into this new place. And it's also a great way for perverts and sex offenders to weasel in. If you were a guy and you are really into dogs, you get a job as a dog trainer. Guy's really into dogs, he loves working with dogs. If you're a pedophile, wouldn't you get a job at Nickelodeon? You would, right?

[Here Rogan talks about the Nickelodeon abuse scandal for a bit without ever managing to spell out what he perceives as its connection to trans people. Shortly thereafter:]

Because here's the thing, and you just have to look at it like a system. Groups of people always want more people in their group. Always. Like, people that use Windows PCs will try to convince you that Apple sucks. They will. Now, trans people, unless they're actively trying to reproduce by going to a clinic—unless you're a trans woman who has a fully functional dick and you're having sex with a trans man who has a fully functional vagina and hasn't taken so much testosterone that they're no longer fertile. And then even so, like, what's going on there? But that's like, it's not the regular way that people have kids. And there's no guarantee that you're gonna have a trans kid. So there's only one way to get more trans people. You gotta recruit. You gotta recruit. If you can’t draft, you must recruit.

Wild stuff, right? Now here’s where it gets interesting. Roughly 30 minutes later, we find Rogan marveling at the revolutionary power of artificial intelligence, specifically its power to translate Adolf Hitler's speeches from German to English:

ROGAN: So what they can do now though is they can translate Hitler's speech. So they've got Hitler's speeches, that Hitler gave in German, and you get to see it in English. And you’re like, Oh. He sounds like Trump. He doesn’t sound nearly as radical as you thought he did. I’m just kidding—he doesn’t sound like Trump. He doesn’t brag about himself. 

KERRIGAN: He doesn’t? I thought he did.

ROGAN: He’s not funny. Like, Trump is funny.

KERRIGAN: Okay. Trump is definitely funny.

ROGAN: He says funny things. No one’s like him. But what he’s doing is not, like, We gotta kill the Jews. Like, that’s what I thought it was all—I thought it was all like, We gotta exterminate the Jews and kill—when you see those things, those speeches, that’s not what he’s saying.

KERRIGAN: You can’t convince somebody, just to say it outright. You have to manipulate them first. So he brought ‘em in, he really brainwashed them.

ROGAN: For sure. And also, he’s meth'd out of his mind.

I invite you to consider these passages in light of each other.