Joe Rogan
contested the idea of technology platforms imposing bans
Kanye West’s
The most recent song glorifying Adolf Hitler, which highlights that the millions of downloads the “somewhat appealing” track has received on X somewhat validates the rapper’s anti-Semitic beliefs about a supposed “organized effort” by Jewish individuals to erase him from all platforms.
West, who has
openly expressed his love
for the leader of the Third Reich in recent years, uploaded the songs “Heil Hitler” and “WW3,” another tune that glorifies Hitler, to X earlier this month. While Spotify and SoundCloud
rushed to remove
The song from their platforms spread rapidly across the social media site led by Elon Musk and garnered millions of views.
“Ye’s latest share features a compilation where historic footage of Hitler is used alongside his music as background audio. Additionally, he posted an X clip showing influencer Andrew Tate—a known misogynist—playing the same song inside his vehicle. This second video has garnered more than 3 million views,” according to NBC News.
reported
Last week, “Ye’s account on X is marked as an organizational verification, which makes it potentially eligible for monetization and advertisements. However, it remains unclear whether his account actually utilizes these features.”
As the pro-Nazi sentiment continued to circulate through right-wing social media channels, Rogan tried to navigate a delicate path this week. He aimed to condemn West’s malicious and provocative statements while simultaneously upholding the absence of censorship on X. Concurrently, he suggested that the song’s widespread appeal on X might lend credence to certain claims West has made regarding Jewish individuals.
Talking to comedian Tom Segura during an episode of
The Joe Rogan Experience
earlier this week, Rogan brought up the song and quickly pointed out that it’s “kinda catchy,” prompting Segura to declare “that’s the problem with it.”
Noting that West has “never lost a step” when it comes to production, Segura then tackled the subject matter itself. “There is a thing where that song is like, what are you doing, dude? Like, what are you doing, for real?” Segura wondered.
“It’s the ultimate pushback,” Rogan replied.
Segura, meanwhile, felt that “making a catchy song” about shouting “Heil Hitler” only serves to give permission to others to do that very thing in public. “Like, you’re just getting at a minimum, you’re just going to get more people that think it’s cool to say, ‘Heil Hitler.’ Like, that’s at the minimum,” he added.
“Well, I think that’s part of the program. I think that’s what he’s trying to do,” the popular podcaster replied.
Rogan’s guest would go on to wonder if that’s “cool to do,” noting that while “it’s fun to troll the masses,” you are now going to “get less educated people” who think it’s “a fun thing to say” on he streets. “You really want people just walk around, be like, ‘you know what’s tight, man? Heil Hitler.’ It’s f*cking insane,” he exclaimed.
“It’s also kinda like the sign of the times,” Rogan insisted before going on a tangent about the “benefits” of allowing anything to be published online.
“I want to say this carefully because I…want to say real clearly I don’t support people saying that. I don’t think it’s a good thing to say. I don’t say it. I don’t think any racism is good. I don’t think antisemitism is good,” he said.
There’s an advantage in simply allowing people to speak their minds,” Rogan went on. “Let them express themselves however they want, even if what they say isn’t great. That’s the upside of Twitter, but it comes with a downside too. Consider how some songs gain massive traction despite being banned across all platforms. Is it beneficial to censor content on these platforms, or would it be more effective to leave it accessible for public discussion?
He argued that banning the song then makes “people want to hear it more” and thus makes it “more popular.” From there, Rogan asserted that the millions of views the song has received on X also appeared to prove West’s antisemitic remarks about Jewish people.
“And then it kind of supports what he says, which is that there’s this concerted effort if you talk about Jewish people, that they’re going to remove you from everything, remove you from banking, which is what he’s saying, they run everything,” Rogan proclaimed.
Piggybacking on that argument, Rogan pointed to the controversy over Kill Tony star Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. In his observation, you can “just talk s*** about Puerto Ricans” and nothing will happen to you, noting that Hinchcliffe has only seen continued success since that moment.
“There are certain people you are allowed to pick on and make jokes about or mock or say something, and you can get away with it,” Rogan added. Wrapping up his thoughts on the song, the
“Intellectual Dark Web” member
described the first time he heard “Heil Hitler” and how it made him wonder what the endgame was for West.
“I’m watching on my phone like, yoooo! And then my first thought was, ‘How does this end?’ Because this ends,” he stated. “This is going end. There’s going to come a time when they’re going to realize this is a problem, so how does it end? Does it end in assassination? Does it? Does it end in financial ruin?”
When Segura said he wasn’t sure about the rapper’s current financial situation, Rogan insisted that “they can’t steal your money, but they can de-bank you.”
Rogan’s deep thoughts on West’s “kinda catchy” pro-Hitler song come a month after neoconservative commentator Douglas Murray
took him to task
for his “just asking questions” philosophy and platforming of extremists such as
Ian Carroll
and
Darryl Cooper
, both of whom have peddled antisemitic theories.
“I feel you’ve opened the door to quite a lot of people who now got a big platform, who have been throwing out counter-historical stuff of a very dangerous kind,” Murray told Rogan and his guest, comedian turned foreign policy pundit Dave Smith. “These guys are not historians; they’re not knowledgeable about anything!”
As
The Hollywood Reporter
senior editor Steven Zeitchik
observed recently
, “the world’s biggest podcaster is slowly moving from conspiracy-curious to a launderer of antisemitic and anti-scientific ideas right before our eyes,” adding that his show is “an active way of denying basic truths about history and science through the clever curation of guests.”
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