Stavros Halkias Gently Pokes Holes in Joe Rogan’s Dumbest Immigrant Take Yet

Joe Rogan says that the Democrats opened America’s borders to illegal immigrants to win their votes — the green card-holders wonder, “What votes?”

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 prohibits all non-citizens, including both legal and illegal immigrants, from voting in federal elections. However, there are a small number of municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont that allow non-citizen permanent residents to participate exclusively in local elections. Those two sentences contain these things called “facts,” and as such, they are equally prohibited from appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience.

In a recent episode of Rogan’s podcast, the Manosphere magnate invited comedian Stavros Halkias, who released his debut Netflix special Fat Rascal earlier this week, to hear Rogan’s takes on immigration policy and Voter ID laws while Rogan himself failed to grasp the basic principles of both. Halkias, the son of a permanent resident who legally emigrated from Greece 40 years ago and who still has no voting rights, gently quelled Rogan’s rambling by reminding him that, unlike assault rifles and testosterone boosters, voting rights are only available to citizens. 

To be clear, Rogan’s explanation for why Democrats in Chicago are allegedly incentivizing illegal immigrants to move to the Windy City isn’t an original argument — it’s a talking point that’s become increasingly popular among far-to-alt-right politicians and pundits in recent years. The fear that an immigrant group would gradually infiltrate a country and influence its government to the detriment of native citizens’ political power is most prominently expressed in the “Great Replacement” theory, which, like many of the ideas espoused on JRE, has roots in Nazi philosophy — just replace “Jews” with “Democrats” in Rogan’s case.

But Rogan definitely doesn’t know any of that. Like most of his opinions, he probably got this one from his more extremist friends, or from some tweet that Elon Musk sent him. And, just like the rest of his views, Rogan’s stance on a possible connection between immigrants coming to Chicago and a failed voting law in New York can be reversed in an instant depending on who is sitting in front of him. Thankfully, Halkias’ explanation of his father’s experience helped Rogan course-correct his focus toward real problems regarding citizenship in the United States — but not before Rogan demonstrated to his listeners that he doesn’t know a goddamn thing about immigration.

On Joe Rogan’s subreddit, the internet’s largest fan forum dedicated to the comedian and his podcast, a clip of the immigration conversation quickly rose to the top of the front page as listeners lambasted their leader for his uninformed rant. “2014 Joe would make fun of how easy it is to stir up 2024 right wing Facebook meme Joe,” one user wrote, while another added, “Imagine believing that they would let so many people in because they want chaos or new voters, as opposed to a cheap and easily exploitable labor pool. Joe is fucking clueless to how this country actually works.”

Another Rogan fan wondered of the host, “Hows about lookin stuff up before stating it as fact? Fuckin meathead,” to which someone answered, “That would be woke.”