“If the Democratic Party has a problem drawing young men who believe that the excesses of wokeness have left them behind, could there be a more appealing figure than the guy they’ve been watching argue about sports for the past decade?
“Over the past three months, Stephen A. Smith has teased a possible run for President in 2028. I have enthusiastically posted about this on social media for a variety of reasons, [although] the details of Smith’s potential run have shifted around a bit: In November, he told the hosts of The View that he was a ‘fiscal conservative and a social liberal,’ and, while he supported a ‘live and let live’ mentality, he wondered why liberals had allowed hot-button issues, like transgender athletes participating in sports, to define their platform.
“He also said that he would run as an independent because he wasn’t going to be ‘bought and paid for.’ Last week, when asked by his friend Sean Hannity about the possibility of a run — a subject that gained steam online after a survey of potential 2028 primary candidates showed him polling at two per cent, just a point behind the former Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz and the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro — Smith said that he could beat any Democratic candidate who was under consideration, including Kamala Harris.
“Smith is almost certainly a fiscal conservative, but people reposted a 2009 tweet of his that reads ‘I loved hearing Bernie Sanders. He personifies my views as an Independent.’
“Since the ’24 election, I have written about the need for a ‘hostile takeover’ of the Democratic Party and the potential for new candidates who stand far outside of the establishment’s tepid, catastrophic choices. The policy positions of these candidates, I believe, do not matter as long as they are within reason — which means that everything from full-bore leftist economic populism to staunch, performative centrism is on the table.
“Liberal voters are angry about pretty much everything right now. They’re mad that Joe Biden decided to run again for President; they’re mad at Washington insiders and the media for withholding information about Biden’s decline; they’re mad at some vague entity they usually call ‘the D.N.C.’ for not coming up with a better strategy to defeat Donald Trump; they’re mad that the Democrats have not put up more of a fight against Trump and Elon Musk post-election. All this alarm and losing has made Democratic politics a rather miserable and humorless endeavor.
“What’s required for 2028 is a combative, attention-grabbing candidate who can punch the Democratic establishment squarely in the face.” — The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang, posted on 2.14.25.
I could also support Rahm Emanuel…easily. Not so much John “I am not woke” Fetterman…his galumphy dress sense is appalling (K-Mart shoes, no socks), and he has what look to me like man-boobs.
