Joe Rogan has never been shy about walking into the national conversation, but this week, the podcaster seemed alarmed. On The Joe Rogan Experience, he told guest Brian Redban that the U.S. might be creeping toward a “bona fide civil war.”
Rogan believes that the tipping point was the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025. The killing appears to have shaken Rogan’s belief that America can still pull itself together.
He said, “Regular people celebrating somebody getting murdered in front of their wife and kid on television in front [of] the whole world, as soon as you celebrate that, like man, you’re in dark territory.”
Joe Rogan has graded America’s current situation as “step seven” on a ten-point scale to civil war. Given his guest list — from Elon Musk to Bernie Sanders — Rogan’s politics have never fit a clear mold.. He’s a libertarian-leaning, weed-smoking, gun-rights-supporting, free-speech evangelist who endorsed both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump!
It’s not every day a major politician sits down with Joe Rogan.
Bernie Sanders did, and now we know why most skip the invitation.
Bernie pushed the global warming narrative. Rogan crushed him with undeniable data.
Then it got worse.
Rogan made Sanders instantly regret saying… pic.twitter.com/pgxDqn03RW
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) June 25, 2025
He called Justin Trudeau a “dictator,” described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide,” and has even said Ukraine was “about to start World War III.” Clearly, Joe Rogan’s ideology doesn’t fit neatly along party lines.
But his alarm taps into a pulse many Americans can feel. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio recently warned that America’s increasing debt, widening wealth gap, and political theatre are setting the stage for “civil war-like conflict.” Plus, a Politico survey found that around one in four Americans think political violence is “sometimes justified.” Among people under 45, that spikes to over one-third.
From January 6, 2021 (the Capitol Hill riots) to now, there have been at least 300 cases of political violence. This is a record high since the 1970s, according to Reuters. To add to this figure, there are also online threats or militias in small towns.
Shane Burley is a journalist who studies extremism and told The Independent that America’s rage is worse than partisan problems. “People engage in violence when they are not part of a stable social system,” he said. What backs such behavior are factors like economic despair, broken institutions, conspiracy culture, and isolation. It’s everyone vs. everything, basically.
“I’ve been in and around American politics for 50 years. I don’t remember a period in which there has been more anger and distrust than there has been recently.” — I talked with the BBC about what’s fueling political violence. pic.twitter.com/ZT0DZRYhm5
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) September 21, 2024
The internet has become an ideological battleground as Twitter (now X) rewards outrage. Most social media algorithms serve confirmation bias to their users on a plate.
That is probably why Joe Rogan said:
“Nobody knows what’s right (…) The only way you find out (…) is you have to talk to people.”
If the numbers are believed, Joe Rogan’s latest warning is not far-fetched. Political assassinations no longer sound unthinkable. Entire generations are growing up convinced that dialogue is a weakness and that “truth” can be negotiated.
And yet, Joe Rogan himself has hosted controversial guests, spreading misinformation, pushing back on orthodoxy. His warning seems less about taking the moral high ground and more about observing a nation tearing itself apart.
