ESPN host Stephen A. Smith, considered by many to be the most respected voice in sports media, told Newsmax on Monday that he has moderated his political stances because the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left.
"You know, so many people talked about the MAGA right," Smith told "Rob Schmitt Tonight." "I was like, What about the progressive left? What are we doing here? What are we paying attention to? Are we not paying attention to the type of stuff that's going on? Are folks talking about the economy? No. Are they looking at the border and seeing 12-plus million people cross the border illegally and bringing that up? No, there's no problem at the border whatsoever. Everything was great.
"This is what we heard for 3 1/2 years. When you look at those kind of things and then you're seeing people get suspended or lose jobs for, you know, echoing the wrong pronoun and us having conversations about gender, bathroom use, and all of this other stuff. I'm like, it got a bit extreme and a bit ridiculous."
Smith said many in the Black community vote Democrat, mainly as the result of civil rights legislation of the 1960s. But he added many live conservative lives because they came from conservative households.
"Our parents raised us in a certain way where you can't come into the home with that, with such nonsense, when you're talking to your mother or your father, they ain't having it," Smith said. "Yet, somehow, some way, inexplicably since the civil rights legislation, you know, the Democratic Party has had the Black vote for the vast majority of that period. But in the end, looking at all of those things, I just felt that it became a bit crazy and quite frankly, a bit unfair."
Smith said the Democratic Party needs to move more to the center in order to regain standing with voters.
"I think they should be moderate-leaning," he said. "Whether it's left or right, you should be moderate. You should be a centrist. You should be of the [former President] Bill Clinton ilk, willing to work with and having to work with the [former Speaker] Newt Gingrich's of the world."
Smith reportedly said in January that he and others who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in November were "damn fools." He said Monday he would still vote for Harris, or maybe not have voted at all, because President Donald Trump's behavior scares him.
"I've never been one to denigrate him, calling him racist and bringing up Nazis and Hitler and all of this incendiary stuff," Smith said. "I don't go that route. What I say is a vast majority, somebody like yourself and others that cover this on an everyday basis, you have a level of understanding about what's going on. And so you might know the end game and you might see the forest from the trees.
"The average American citizen does not. And when you watch him conduct himself, he scares the living hell out of you. Now, you might not mind if you're the average American out there because you look at the left and what they were doing and you say, I don't care, anything but them. But if you're center, you know, or left, you're scared to death because you're like, Oh my God, I hope this works. I hope this man doesn't cause World War III. I hope this doesn't happen. I hope that doesn't happen. You find yourself, and it makes you nervous."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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