When Bernie Sanders Did the Joe Rogan Show

Bernie Sanders’s viral appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast — terra incognita for liberal politicians — showcased his unique ability to communicate left-wing values across the ideological divide.

Senator Bernie Sanders appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on August 6, 2019. (YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, screenshot)


From actively spurning big donors to calling out corporate malefactors by name, there is much about Bernie Sanders’s political style that separates him from the liberal politicians who dominate the Democratic Party. But among his most heterodox traits is a willingness to bring his arguments to skeptical or even right-leaning audiences: a practice he’s engaged in on more than one occasion.

In 2015, Sanders addressed a crowd at Liberty University — the largest evangelical Christian university in the world. More recently, he participated in a televised town hall hosted by Fox News. Both events, perhaps understandably, elicited controversy from some on the left. Nevertheless, in both cases, Sanders successfully exposed a new audience to his ideas and emerged unscathed, drawing cheers and approval from corners where they might otherwise have been unthinkable. By the end of Fox’s town hall event in April, he actually seemed to have won over the majority of attendees with his arguments for democratic socialism, against oligarchy, and in favor of Medicare For All.

This week, Sanders repeated the strategy by appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience: a hugely popular but decidedly non-left-leaning podcast that features an eclectic buffet of guests ranging from fairly innocuous weirdos to overt reactionaries. In less than twenty-four hours, the episode has already garnered well over two and a half million views and, judging by its reception thus far, Sanders and his arguments proved a hit — even to those accustomed to getting their political bearings from the likes of Sam Harris and other dubious sources.

This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.