"It was fun when the outrage was so performative."

One interesting thing happening in comedy is that the Rogan crowd has sensed the tide turning on Trumpism and perhaps even that Trump himself is a bad guy, but they have yet to extrapolate from this that perhaps the progressive social movements of the 2010s were righteous efforts to prevent what’s happening right now. Here, for instance, is Andrew Schulz lamenting that the culture wars just aren’t fun anymore, because progressives are outraged for sensible reasons (ICE, anti-trans legislation, war) rather than performative ones (pronouns, racism):

Schulz: What do you see in culture war that you vehemently disagree with? I think that for the most part, when there's culture war, I kind of agree with it. When people are upset at the ICE stuff, I was like, "Yeah, I agree with that."

AlexxMedia: Yeah. I guess the DEI shit is kind of done. I wasn't happy with them revoking all the DEI shit.

Schulz: Right.

AlexxMedia: They're still trying to do the trans stuff though. They're still complaining about the bathrooms and shit.

Schulz: But it's like—

AlexxMedia: Like now, like—

Dov Mamann: He tried to throw that in the SAVE Act. Did you see that?

AlexxMedia: Yeah.

Mamann: That's sort of a weird little—

AlexxMedia: I think in Tennessee, 1,700 people, their license got revoked because they were trans and they put the wrong gender on their shit. And so now they just revoke their license. [Ed. note: he’s thinking of Kansas here.]

Schulz: See that, that—

AlexxMedia: Now you just inconvenience 1,700 people and—

Schulz: Nah, that I kind of—

AlexxMedia: Why? Why does it matter on your fucking license?

Schulz: Let me tell you, because don't put your shitty driving on the new gender. Women gotta deal with enough. You know what I mean? Women gotta deal with enough already and then stereotypes of them being bad drivers. If you're changing—

AlexxMedia: Yeah, but if you going from man to women, you just made the driving better in their gender.

Schulz: But you're getting pulled over. I thought that's what the licenses are.

AlexxMedia: No, no, no. They just invalidated their license—

Schulz: Right, so let me take the other angle with what I said.

AlexxMedia: Okay.

Schulz: Don't make us think women can drive now. I could do the joke on both sides. Don't make us think women could drive. But now we had a good stereotype that existed for a reason for a long time and now you're going to make it too—

AlexxMedia: Fuck up the fun, bro.

Schulz: Yeah. It's too much equality now.

Mamann: Insurance premiums are gonna go up.

Schulz: Exactly. No, no. I think that—

AlexxMedia: I think that's stupid.

Schulz: So that's my feeling.

AlexxMedia: It's unnecessary.

Schulz: That's my feeling. It's like now the complaints are a little bit more reasonable. To me, I'm like, I don't think that's performative. I think that’s [the Kansas law] stupid. It was fun when the outrage was so performative—

AlexxMedia: Okay.

Schulz: Because you could push back against it in a fun way, because at our core, we all knew it was performative.

AlexxMedia: Yeah. You're talking about with the sports stuff.

Schulz: Not only sports, but just all culture war that existed over maybe, I would say it really started probably 10 years ago and then around six years ago, it really ramped up.

AlexxMedia: Like “my pronouns” and the—

Schulz: Yeah, well even the Hollywood actors with the black and white video and say all the performative outrage is perfect fodder for jokes because in our core, human beings that are on a primal level, we're like, "Yeah, this is, but people are a little scared and gullible it because they don't want to be called—"

AlexxMedia: Yeah.

Schulz: "—A bigot or something like that." But now the things people are upset about, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm upset too. I don't want to be at war. I don't want the ICE shit going on."

It comes as no surprise that Schulz can’t wrap his head around the prospect of causes leading to effects. Still, I think it’s edifying that even in his attempt to concede that the left is reasonable now, he can’t help but reflexively defend anti-trans legislation and make misogynist jokes before he even knows what he’s talking about. It’s a common refrain on his side that the performative wokeness of the 2010s drove people to Trump, but what we see here is how performative contrarianism serves exactly that function. Once Schulz understands what the Kansas law actually does, he calls it stupid; if only he could apply that same consideration to the substance of left-wing activism over the last decade. 

“I don't trust an Indian who never had a job.”

In other “oh my god he admit it” news, the comedian, podcaster, and Louis CK opener Mark Normand is in the thick of promoting his new Netflix special, None Too Pleased. Here’s how he described it to Club Shay Shay’s Shannon Sharpe last week: 

Sharpe: So what can people expect from None Too Pleased?

Normand: I hit every group. I feel like everybody does trans jokes. I do trans, Mexican, Black, gay, Muslim.

Sharpe: So everybody gonna be offended?

Normand: Yes, everybody. Equal opportunity. I'm inclusive. I brought everybody in. And it's all about love. It's all about ball busting. It's like my childhood. I'm writing jokes that I would want to hear or my friends growing up would want to hear. And just put all that HR shit behind you and then just sit and enjoy it. Don't sit and analyze, is it problematic? No, it's just fun.

I do appreciate when they just come out and say it: comedy, for these guys, is an ethical pretext to say unethical things, specifically the sorts of unethical things that satisfy their childish urge to bully the marginalized and vulnerable. 

Normand went on Rogan’s podcast last week for a wide-ranging discussion about the special, comedy, Trump, Epstein, and losers like Marc Maron who attack other comedians for making inappropriate jokes. There is much I could share with you from the episode, like the bit where Rogan says, regarding a photo of a woman giving Bill Clinton a massage on Epstein Island: “If she claims victim, I call horseshit. She’s clearly having a good time.” In the interests of brevity, however, I’ll stick to the segment where Normand and Rogan marvel over the (untrue) fact that Zohran Mamdani never had a job before becoming mayor of New York City:

Normand: It's like Zohran. I don't trust an Indian who never had a job.

Rogan: Is he Indian?

Normand: Yeah.

Rogan: Mamdani?

Normand: I believe he's Indian.

Rogan: Is he?

Normand: Oh yeah. I think he's from Africa, but he is Indian.

Rogan: Yeah, he's from Africa.

Normand: But you never had a job? Every Indian guy I know is the hardest working dude on the planet.

Rogan: He's never had a job at all?

Normand: No. I think he was a rapper.

Rogan: Mamdani's never had a job?

Normand: No, I don't believe so. This is his first gig.

Rogan: That's crazy.

Normand: I know.

Rogan: Imagine your first gig, you're the mayor of New York City. On one hand, super impressive.

Normand: Very impressive.

Rogan: First gig. Way to go. The sky's the limit for this guy.

Normand: I know.

Rogan: His first job, he was the mayor of New York City.

Normand: Yeah. It's like losing your virginity to Heidi Klum.

Rogan: I think he won because he said he's not going to Israel.

Normand: That was smart. And affordability.

Rogan: Yeah.

Normand: New York's so expensive.

Rogan: Well, so yeah. People are like, "We're tired of the rich..."

Normand: “We're broke.”

Rogan: Well, the narrative is the rich people are causing all your problems and we need to tax the rich people. But meanwhile, the rich people in New York are responsible for more than 50% of the taxes.

Normand: Sure. Well, Hochul just said, "Please come back." Did you see that clip?

Rogan: Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.

Normand: And I think he seems like a nice guy. I think he's got good intentions. But you need some experience and you need money. Because he keeps saying "free." Free buses, free healthcare, free childcare. And you're like, "Stop saying free." That should be illegal. Because someone has to pay for it.

Rogan: Right. There's nothing free.

Normand: Nothing is free.

Rogan: You're just adding to the bureaucracy, you're adding to the government waste, you're adding to the possibility of fraud.

Normand: Yeah.

Rogan: While you're just releasing people on the streets.

Normand: Yeah. And I think—I have a theory that Muslim is cool. Muslim is like the new Black. It's cool. Muslim's hip now. It's different, it's exotic, it's fun.

Rogan: I think the problem is people conflate Muslim and Islamists.

Normand: Sure.

Rogan: And there's two very different things. I know a lot of Muslims and they're great people.

Normand: Totally.

Rogan: But Islamists are people that want a global caliphate, and they want death to the infidels. This is the difference between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia are Muslims, the Iranians are Islamists.

Normand: Right.

Rogan: They're state-sponsored terrorism, the whole deal.

Normand: Yeah, yeah. Well, any extreme, like a Hasidic Jew versus Paul Rudd.

Rogan: Yes.

Normand: Paul Rudd's a fun guy, has a cocktail, he's a funny movie. And then a Hasidic Jew is like, "All right, let me cut your foreskin off and suck the blood."

Rogan: Right. Give you herpes.

There you have it: Iranians are terrorists and Hasidic Jews are bloodsucking STD-spreaders. Spotify, give this guy another $500 million!