It’s a strange, surreal world we live in when Joe Rogan and Donald Trump have somehow morphed from “Fear Factor” and “The Apprentice” into two of the most prominent political voices of the day. Just imagine, back in 2008, pitching this to someone: “So, in 2024, two former reality TV icons are going to sit down for a podcast chat that will be touted as the defining political moment of the year.”

You’d be laughed out of the room.

We’ve got technology that can scan our faces and unlock our phones, yet here we are, hanging on the every word of a man who used to convince people to eat bugs and another who offhandedly mentioned eating dogs in Springfield.” Is this the future?

Probably.

Somewhere out there, historians are collectively sighing, imagining the pop culture footnotes they’ll have to add to textbooks one day. Yet here we are, glued to the spectacle of it all. And maybe that’s the real 2024 lesson, coming right out of Beaver, PA, the county that was the election indicator; it’s not the man, it’s the message.

Onward.