Stephen A. Smith and the Performance of Neutrality

How a credible sports journalist turned political tourist mistook balance for bravery.

Illustration by Riley Levine

When I decided to start writing on Substack, I knew I was signing up for a heavy job: to be honest, to fact-check, to speak truth to power. But every so often, I’m dragged into a topic I didn’t ask for. I’ll be minding my business when people start blowing up my inbox: “What do you think about Stephen A. Smith?” At first I wonder if they’re trolling me or testing me — but then it happens again and again, and I realize the quickest way to respond to everyone is to just write the damn article. So here we are.

I’ve been aware of Stephen A. Smith since the Best Damn Sports Show Period days, back when he’d show up yelling about the Sixers like he was auditioning to replace a fire alarm. I watched the man grind his way up — his short-lived late-night ESPN experiment (Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, which mercifully lasted one season in 2005) — and, of course, his evolution into the face of First Take, a show powered entirely by caffeine, ego, and decibel levels. I didn’t always agree with his sports takes— sometimes he’d praise a player I couldn’t stand or roast one who didn’t deserve it —but I never doubted his credibility as a sports journalist. Operative word: sports. This was a man who broke real news, like when he was the first to report LeBron James’s blockbuster decision to leave Cleveland for Miami in 2010. For that lane, he was legit — loud, dramatic, but legit.

If Stephen A. had just shared a dumb opinion about Rep. Jasmine Crockett, I could’ve shrugged it off. Everyone’s entitled to a bad take. But when his commentary isn’t just dumb but wrong — especially about politics — I have to say something.

Recently, Smith went after Crockett for calling Donald Trump a “white supremacist” and a “piece of shit, dismissing her words as “rhetoric for the streets.” He seemed baffled that a Democrat from Texas would speak bluntly about Trump, as if her job were to play nice with him. But Crockett doesn’t represent all of Texas; she represents District 30, which covers most of southern Dallas and parts of Tarrant County — communities that voted overwhelmingly against Trump. Her duty isn’t to curry favor with the man who lost her district; it’s to represent the people who sent her to Washington.

And for the record, it’s not the president’s job to meet with every member of Congress. Presidents meet with party leaders — people like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Crockett’s day-to-day work involves legislation, hearings, and constituent service. She doesn’t need a handshake with Trump any more than Stephen A. needs a political science degree.

---

---

Crockett does her job effectively. A former civil-rights attorney, she co-sponsored the CROWN Act to ban hair discrimination, pushed bills on gun-violence prevention and maternal health, and fought for housing fairness and economic equity. When she clashes with Republicans in hearings, she’s doing what her district expects — holding power to account. Smith mistakes passion for unprofessionalism because he’s used to judging things like post-game interviews. Politics isn’t SportsCenter, and Crockett isn’t auditioning for First Take.

But of course, he couldn’t just leave it there. He doubled down, whining that people were “canceling” him — the go-to defense for loud men with microphones who realize their bad opinions have consequences. Then, right on cue, Bill O’Reilly came to his defense. Yes, that Bill O’Reilly — the guy who paid tens of millions to settle harassment cases. The guy who once claimed slavery “wasn’t that bad” because the enslaved had “decent housing.” That guy. O’Reilly backed Smith’s comments and smeared Crockett as “a phony.” And Stephen A., who loves to pose as the reasonable liberal at the table, seemed flattered by the attention.

It’s a pattern. Smith relishes praise from right-wing media figures like O’Reilly and Sean Hannity while pretending to be politically neutral. He even pops up on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show, a network whose audience is so small you could fit them all in a group chat. There he cosplays as a political analyst—sports cadence, political ignorance, all bravado. The man talks about the Senate like it’s the Eastern Conference.

Then Bakari Sellers weighed in, saying he felt “disappointment, not resentment” toward Smith. I have a lot of respect for Sellers — he’s sharp, thoughtful, and a genuine voice in the culture—but on this, I disagree. Unlike Sellers, I’m not part of the “we” that ever had expectations for Stephen A. as a political thinker. I gave up on that fantasy years ago. If he says something about politics, I expect it to be shallow, self-serving, or flat-out wrong. His brand depends on confidence, not comprehension.

For context, Sellers explained his frustration in an Instagram video, saying Smith “stands on the shoulders of strong Black men” and should know better. But that assumes Smith still sees himself as accountable to something beyond his paycheck. He doesn’t. He’s a capitalist by confession, and capitalism, in his case, has become a moral hall pass.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the pathology of political apathy — how disengagement corrodes democracy from within. Stephen A.’s version is even slicker: the performative neutrality of someone who mistakes detachment for depth. His “both-sides” shtick is the same toxin in designer packaging. He thinks staying above the fray makes him wise when it just makes him complicit.

He loves telling audiences he’s a capitalist — it might be the only political statement he’s ever made. He’s made money his mission, once saying, “If you are in the world of business, that means you are in the business of making money.” ESPN, Fox News, NewsNation — if it pays, he’ll pontificate. And yes, he’s said he voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, but even that came wrapped in his trademark both-sides routine — endorsing competence while downplaying conviction. The problem isn’t that he hides his vote; it’s that he hides his values. And he’s not alone. Look at Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who refused to endorse Biden in 2024 not because of policy disagreements but because he didn’t want to cause “division.” That’s the same brand of performative neutrality Stephen A. lives by — the belief that staying silent is somehow noble, when really it’s just safe.

Psychologically, Smith is a case study in how fame distorts self-awareness. Start with the Dunning-Kruger effect — people with the least knowledge in a field often express the most confidence. He’s an expert on basketball yet delivers political commentary as if governing were just another locker-room rivalry. It’s not. Then comes the false-equivalence fallacy, his favorite. He treats every conflict as a 50-50 debate: Democrats do bad things, Republicans do bad things, so both must be equally wrong. It’s the intellectual equivalent of arguing that arson and fire safety are two sides of the same coin.

We also see the halo effect, where his credibility in sports convinces viewers he must be credible about politics. It’s why people assume “loud” means “knowledgeable.” Add confirmation bias — his craving for approval from both the left and the right — and you’ve got a man who chases validation like it’s a brand deal. He interprets compliments from O’Reilly or Hannity as proof of fairness, when they’re really signals he’s drifting toward their narrative. And beneath it all lies moral disengagement, the psychological trick that lets people frame cowardice as civility. He calls it being “balanced.” I call it protecting the bag.

Smith’s whole persona rests on the illusion of intellectual independence. But you can’t be independent when your livelihood depends on not offending the powerful. His loudness is camouflage. He says enough provocative stuff about athletes to look fearless, but when it comes to politics, he flinches. He thinks keeping one foot in each camp makes him a centrist sage; it actually makes him a political tourist.

Meanwhile, Crockett’s doing the work — fighting for constituents, navigating committee hearings, and telling the truth in rooms where truth is unwelcome. She’s what political scientists call a descriptive representative: someone who not only legislates but reflects her community’s lived experience. When she calls Trump a white supremacist, she’s not freelancing; she’s echoing what millions of Texans of color already know. Stephen A. just can’t process that because, to him, politics is theater and every loud woman is out of line.

I almost feel bad roasting the ESPN guy for knowing so little about government — but then he keeps talking. He keeps walking into the political arena with his microphone and his misplaced confidence. And honestly, if he wants to work for Fox News, I hope he gets his wish. At least then his audience would know exactly what they’re signing up for. Maybe he can even sit in on The Five when Tyrus is busy pretending wrestling is journalism.

The truth is, Smith’s problem isn’t ignorance — it’s incuriosity. He doesn’t care to understand politics beyond how it affects his brand. And that brand thrives on moral relativism, the same sickness hollowing out public discourse. It’s easier to say “both sides are bad” than to learn why one side is trying to dismantle democracy. It’s safer to mock outrage than to name injustice.

So yeah, maybe I didn’t want to write this piece. But I did. Because when a man with Stephen A. Smith’s platform uses it to misinform millions about how our government actually works, silence feels worse than fatigue.

Jasmine Crockett doesn’t owe Donald Trump civility. She owes her voters honesty. And I don’t owe Stephen A. Smith the benefit of the doubt. The next time he feels like cosplaying as a political thinker, I hope he remembers that the rest of us are watching— fact-checking, laughing, and waiting for him to stick to the sport he actually understands.

---