ESPN host Stephen A. Smith said on Monday that he has moderated his political stances since the Democrat Party has moved so far left.
“You know, so many people talked about the MAGA right. 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,” Smith told Newsmax. “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.”
Although many in the black community vote Democrat due to the 1960s civil rights legislation, many live conservative lifestyles since they come from conservative homes, he argued.
“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. 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 continued.
The Democrats need to moderate if they want to attract voters, Smith added, saying that he thinks “they should be moderate-leaning.”
“Whether it's left or right, you should be moderate. You should be a centrist. You should be of the Bill Clinton ilk, willing to work with and having to work with the Newt Gingrich's of the world,” Smith said