‘Respect the competition’: Stephen A. Smith says left got too comfortable ‘vilifying’ and ‘denigrating’ Republicans

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith told SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly on Monday that Democrats have grown too comfortable with “vilifying” and “denigrating” Republicans.

Since President Donald Trump’s election, Democrats have struggled to craft a unifying message, hitting a new record-low favorability rating, according to a recent CNN/SSRS poll. On “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Smith and Kelly discussed a clip of New York Times columnist Ezra Klein claiming voters who “follow the news” vote Democrat, while those who don’t vote solely for Trump.

Kelly called Klein’s remark “deeply offensive” before citing data on news consumption among voters on both sides, prompting Smith to compare Klein’s comment to calling Republicans “deplorables.”

“But what the left has gotten accustomed to doing is vilifying you and denigrating you if you don’t agree with them. That’s why the young voters turned against them,” Smith said. “You’re a parent. I’m a parent. This is very, very simple. Talk to a kid. Talk to a youngster. Even in the throes of trying to teach them or discipline them, call them an idiot and then ask yourself, ‘How often are they going to listen to you? How often are they going to even come in front of you to hear what you have to say?’”

“Yet somehow, some way, folks on the left don’t get this. I’ve said to them on many occasions, I said, ‘Listen,’ over the last few months. I said, ‘I’m not saying you sit idly by and be mute. But in the same breath, the man [Trump] won the election. OK? See what he’s going to do. Speak against what you want to speak against in an effort to try to win the midterms, OK? Outside of that, that’s your only recourse,’” Smith added.

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According to a CNN/SSRS poll released on March 16, Democrats’ favorability has plummeted to 29% among voters, a 20-point drop since January 2021. Support within the party has also taken a hit, with only 63% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents approving of their own party — a nine-point drop since January and an 18-point decline since the start of the Biden-Harris administration.

“Anything else you do, especially anything that remotely resembles the rhetoric that you were spewing on the campaign, you’re dead in the water. You don’t have a chance because people are going to say, ‘That’s the kind of nonsense we don’t want to deal with. We ain’t trying to go back to that,’” Smith said.

Smith went on to say that even “as crazy as Trump can come across as being sometimes” with his rhetoric and stances, he was “considered closer to normal than the Democratic Party to the American people.”

“If you know that, you would think you go back, you lick your wounds and you say, ‘We gotta restrategize, and we gotta get our act together,’” Smith said. “They didn’t. They still haven’t. That’s why if they continue on this path, the Republicans are going to win the midterms. They’re going to get even more seats.”

“But if you’re the left, you got to stop being so emotional, and you got to stop disrespecting the competition,” Smith added. “If the right’s the competition, then so be it. Deal with them respectfully. Respect the competition, and come up with a game plan that’s different from the nonsense we’re hearing.”

While struggling to have a unifying message, Democrats have also failed to find a unifying messenger to get behind for the midterm elections. According to the CNN/SSRS poll, over 30% of respondents failed to name a Democrat leader they thought “best reflects the core values” of the party. For those who did write in a name, only 10% chose Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 9% selected former Vice President Kamala Harris, 8% said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and 6% selected House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

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