Joe Rogan used his podcast to tear into a viral clip of a socialist conference speaker who argued that fitness itself is a fascist idea. On The Joe Rogan Experience with comedians Ehsan Ahmad and Deric Poston, Rogan played a video of a masked woman at a socialist gathering telling the crowd they need to “give up the fantasy of being fitter than the fascists” and that pursuing fitness is “not just that it’s cringe” but “politically revealing.”
The speaker, reading from a laptop, went on to say, “Our task is not to become less disposable, to become more useful to the ruling order. What we all need to be doing is rejecting disposability in all of… the point is not to beat the fascists at their own game. It is not to lay a better claim on their own territory by being fitter, more eugenic. In fact, the more disgenic the better.” She added that treating fitness as a goal “erases the history of less struggles around the world.”
Rogan was floored by the framing.
He said, “I saw some video where there was some socialist conference and this lady had a mask on and she was talking about how we can’t try to be fit like the fascists and she was like, talking about fitness and then fitness and optimizing your body being like a fascist idea and connected to white supremacy,” he said. “This is the craziest cope I’ve ever seen for you being lazy.”
Ahmad and Poston piled on, mocking the visual of the speaker still wearing a mask years after COVID restrictions ended while lecturing a live audience through a microphone.
“It is one of the weirdest things that’s going on in our society today is the people that are insistent on continuing to wear masks,” Rogan said. “Look at her with a glasses sitting on the mask. That is nuts.”
The group also questioned the logic of framing personal health as an oppressive structure. Ahmad pointed out the irony that “what would be more useful to the reading order if the populace was slow and fat,” suggesting the argument undercuts itself.
Rogan added that mocking sit-ups while invoking global struggles rang hollow, joking, “If you want to erase Gaza, do pull-ups.”
