By Dominic Pino
Friday, April 11, 2025
Douglas Murray was a recent guest on the Joe Rogan
Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the U.S. Plenty of people
would give their left arm to be on Rogan, where guests have multiple hours to
share their views with his millions of listeners. Murray doesn’t need the
exposure, having a dedicated fan base of his own, and he didn’t play to type.
Instead, he took on Rogan and the show’s other guest, Dave Smith, right from
the start and didn’t let up for the next three hours.
He did so in a way that was combative yet civil, and he
had a clear point to make: Rogan has not had the best judgment in which voices
and perspectives he chooses to lend his platform. Murray was very clear-eyed
about nasty and dangerous undercurrents on some parts of the online right that
are playing with antisemitism and Nazi apologia. Murray particularly objected
to two recent guests of Rogan’s, Darryl Cooper and Ian Carroll, who he said are
part of mainstreaming these ideas.
Cooper is the podcaster who made waves for saying Winston Churchill is the “chief villain” of World War II
and that Adolf Hitler wanted peace and was downplaying his personal
antisemitism during his rise to power in the 1930s. Carroll is a YouTuber who
explores a variety of conspiracy theories, insinuating on Rogan’s show that
Israel supported pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein and discussing the
“Pizzagate” theory about the DNC.
Murray challenged Rogan on whether that was such a good
idea. It’s clear Murray isn’t making any kind of argument against free speech.
He’s one of free speech’s greatest champions and has been the target of various
efforts to suppress his own speech, especially in Europe.
Rather, he was arguing over whether Rogan has been using
his platform wisely. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the issue the Apostle
Paul raised to the Corinthians: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but
not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but not
everything is constructive.”
Rogan didn’t have much time for these concerns, but it’s
nonetheless good that Murray raised them. He’s right about the ability of the
internet to spread poisonous ideas quickly to many unsuspecting people, and
there’s just no need for more Hitler contrarianism or Israel conspiracy
theorizing than there already is.
Murray criticizes the “just asking questions” posture
that these people frequently use when spreading their nonsense. He notes that
they often disclaim themselves that they are not experts, which is fine, and
nonexperts are allowed to have opinions. But Murray asks why the audience
should treat those opinions as especially insightful when they aren’t based on
much of anything in real evidence. Just because some experts are wrong some of
the time doesn’t mean all experts are wrong all of the time, and Andrew
Roberts is probably a better authority on Winston Churchill than a
podcaster like Cooper.
This is a three-hour conversation, and Murray also
devotes considerable time to debunking anti-Israel and anti-Ukraine nonsense
from Smith, whose arguments would in a previous era be easily recognized as
Chomskyite but in today’s ideological ecosystem are more identified with the
right. Rogan invited them both on the show to have the debate, and it was good
that they had it and that Rogan’s audience got to hear Murray.
Murray pokes at the funny tendency that critics of U.S.
foreign policy have of saying the government is always lying but then quoting
government officials when they say things that back them up. He makes quick
work of Smith’s mischaracterization of the Gaza blockade based on his actual
reporting from the ground. He criticizes Smith, a comedian, for making
anti-Israel views part of his “shtick” even though he has only read many biased
things about the conflict. He calls out the constant moral equivalence that
Smith seeks to draw between the U.S. and every evil regime in the world. It’s a
tour de force that, due to its length, required impressive mental and physical
energy to perform.
A lot of Murray’s criticisms echo those made by Buckley
in earlier debates. In his obituaries for both Ayn
Rand and Murray Rothbard, Buckley raised the question of judgment.
He praised them both for their determined stances in favor of individual
liberty and against collectivism, in much the same way Murray praises Rogan and
Smith for supporting free speech and opposing wokeness. But there’s more to
life than that, and there’s more to a healthy political philosophy.
Murray is calling Rogan and Smith to higher things, the
ideals of America and of civilization more broadly. I felt that call as a
viewer, and I hope more in Rogan’s audience will as well.
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