If Stephen A. Smith really is going to attempt to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in the 2028 election, it seems abundantly clear at this point that his messaging will focus around one key point: Democrats suck.
ESPN’s newly minted $100-million man performed reasonably well in a poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates in January when pitted against some of the biggest names in the party. There’s a big difference between a poll conducted in January 2024 and one conducted in January 2027, but at the very least, it seems to show that the sports media maven has put himself in consideration, even if he’s flipped and flopped over his interest in such a thing multiple times.
This past week, President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs sent the country and the globe into an economic tailspin and sank the stock market. The reaction from financial experts has been sobering and Democrat leaders have pounced on the situation, which they say is the latest in a long line of decisions that will cripple the economy and hurt everyone except billionaires.
Smith took to his podcast, The Stephen A. Smith Show, on Saturday to make sure everyone knew who was at fault for all of this.
“Yes, you did say he was a threat to democracy. Yes, you did say, don’t think that what he says is true, that it’s going to happen. Yes, you did say, beware, beware, beware. You told us those things, but you still lived life allowing cancel culture and identity politics to be pervasive throughout our society,” said Smith.
“Y’all did that as Democrats. And then when people tried to tell y’all, and instead we tried to get y’all a focus on the concerns of the American people, the cost of living, inflation, et cetera, the borders, not open borders, stopped denying that 12 million plus people crossed the border illegally. When we told you to stop doing that, when we told you to pay attention to the price of eggs and cheese and bread and gas and stuff like that, even though you touched on it, the focus was making sure that you touched on the moral fabric and the moral compass of individuals to guilt us into voting for the Democratic Party.”
“Y’all are very, very fond of talking about how Donald Trump lies. Some of the things that have made people uncomfortable about Donald Trump, I got news for you, he hasn’t lied. Didn’t he say tariffs, tariffs, tariffs was what he was going to live by? Did he not say that he was going to close those damn borders? I believe he said that. Did he not say that he was going to address crime in our streets, and things were going to get very, very bad for lawless individuals out there? Did he not provide indications that he could give a damn about the civil rights and the human rights of individuals that were considered lawless?”
Smith’s rant essentially boils down to ‘We knew he was going to be bad, but at least he told us he was going to be bad. It’s your fault for not stopping us from letting him do all the bad stuff.’
He cited a mixture of legitimate concerns about Democratic Party messaging during the election and conservative concern-troll messaging (cancel culture is the kind of topic no one outside conservative circles has discussed since 2019). Smith also failed to cite instances where Democrats did attempt to solve some of those issues but were thwarted by Republicans and Trump. He also doesn’t seem to be paying attention to any of the work some Democrats have done since the election.
Smith then paints a concerning picture of the American public that makes them sound like an abuse victim.
“We know him,” said Smith. “We know he’s gonna lie. We know there’s some other things he’s gonna be honest about. We know he’s gonna be narcissistic. We know he’s gonna care primarily about himself and his name, and he’s gonna put that above all else in most instances. We know that he might not read the reports, whether it’s involving national security or the economy or anything else. We know that he operates primarily off gut. We know that he puts people in their positions and their primary responsibility is to be loyal to him as opposed to be incompetent or qualified for their jobs. We know all of this, which means we know him.
“He ain’t right, but you’re just as guilty as he is. You put him back in that White House because you forgot about your own, the chunk that really matters, not the fringes who are not going to give you an election. You did that, and that’s the way it goes.”
Again, there are kernels of truth in how the 2024 election went down, but it’s an odd message for someone who presumably might want to represent the Democratic Party one day. It also speaks to a very low view of average Americans, seeing them as guileless automatons who need saving from themselves.
Smith doesn’t like to be painted into a corner politically. While he regularly chums it up with Fox News hosts, he bristles at the notion that he’s a conservative (he identifies as an Independent). He has also spoken negatively about Trump.
That said, if you listen to enough of his political rants, you start to see the same common themes. He’d probably loathe his comparison, but Smith seems to fall into the Bill Maher zone. A libertarian-leaning moderate who hates liberals and happily launders conservative talking points about them.
While Smith talks a big game and is more than happy to tell you what everyone else is doing wrong, he also never provides any solutions other than generic notions. In that way, he is perhaps the perfect politician for our modern times.