Man, what happened to Joe Rogan these past couple of years?

I seriously miss listening to the podcast, back when it was weird science, interesting guests, comedians being funny rather than political, and actual centrist political opinions. Trying to be objective here, I think the government under the democratic party actually has done some shady stuff historically, but not nearly as blatantly or openly criminal as Trump's administration. I feel like Joe, who's generally always proven to be a pretty liberal and thoughtful dude, has just become surrounded by this sounding board of right wing, anti anything liberal culture guys and because they're keeping his focus on the same right wing talking points he hasn't even considered the possibility that they could be full of it or that he might be missing the bigger picture.

I saw Dan from Hardcore History go off on X a few times recently, talking pretty openly about how dangerous the current administration is behaving and how bad things are right now. I discovered him through this podcast, and man do I wish Joe would have him back on to talk some sense into him. The last couple times I tried listening, Joe started on all the "corruption" Elon was finding, or "joked" about "liberal lunatics", and it just put such a sour taste in my mouth that I turned the episode off each time. I just miss the good old days, when Joe did some critical thinking and was a voice of reason who questioned whether he was wrong or not.