Marc Maron may have retired his long-running podcast, but his thoughts on who’s to blame for Trump haven’t changed a bit.
Maron appeared on the On with Kara Swisher podcast on Thursday, where he blasted right-wing comedians for “dismantling liberal democracy” after they backed Donald Trump with their platforms and brought him the young male vote. The general consensus among the comedians, namely Joe Rogan, Flagrant host Andrew Schulz, This Past Weekend host Theo Von, Kill Tony host Tony Hinchcliffe, and more, was that Trump would usher in a post-cancel culture world.
“When comics get duped into this idea that because they can’t say tranny or worse words, that somehow or another that the left is infringing upon their freedom of speech,” Maron said. “It’s so shallow and stupid. And because they fought for it, they just became part of the party line of dismantling liberal democracy.”
He added, “It was never a freedom of speech issue. It was never a constitutional issue. You could say whatever you want, and you’re just gonna have to shoulder the burden of the consequences.”
Rogan, the podcaster with the widest reach at 11 million listeners per episode, endorsed Trump in the eleventh hour of the 2024 election, after he and his acolytes conducted softball interviews that portrayed the now-79-year-old president as a man of the people.
Last April, following Trump’s victory, Rogan celebrated that he now felt free to use a disability slur on his podcast, calling the word’s supposed comeback “one of the greatest cultural victories.”
Maron tore into Rogan for the comment, saying at the time, “I hope all the ‘anti-woke’ comics are happy about pushing this all through.”
“The big question is when will they shut up about trans people, intellectually challenged people, immigrants, the disabled, and minorities.” He added, “I hope it was all worth it so you can say the R-word again.”
Rogan hit back by suggesting that Maron, an avid cat lover, was just jealous of him and his “friends” and suffered from toxoplasmosis. Schulz and Hinchcliffe made similar dismissive comments about Maron in response.
Nearly a year and a half after Trump assumed office a second time, several of the manosphere’s key figures have broken with him on key issues. Rogan has criticized Trump for his handling of the Epstein files, which much of the manosphere believed he would fully release, as well as his massive ICE raids, which Rogan called “horrifying.”
Schulz called the raids his “breaking point” for supporting Trump. “I didn’t think what’s happening right now with ICE could happen in America,” he said. Others have expressed their disillusionment with the president, including Theo Von.
Maron weighed in on the shift on Thursday. “Ultimately, what happened, because they were used as cudgels to dismantle the entire infrastructure of DEI and everything else, so now they don’t have to shoulder anything. Because now they can say those words with impunity, and the left has no traction to counter it because we’re living in two separate worlds.”
However it all shakes out, Maron declared, “I hold them responsible for being the front line” to usher in Trump’s second era.
Added Swisher, “The stupid hammer.”
“That’s right,” Maron replied.
