Dave Smith and the comedians who misuse their influence

Today we continue our holiest crusade against those who pollute the internet with their poorly thought out and often vicious beliefs. It’s a real sacrifice – last night I went to cook dinner and put on some wholesome nature documentary on YouTube about weaver ants and found that my algorithm is infested with people talking about Jewish conspiracies and finding Atlantis. 

In this edition we feature comedians that turned into political commentators and specifically Dave Smith. Dave Smith is a comedian and libertarian who often criticizes both Democrats and Republicans through a libertarian lens. With 836,000 followers on X, he regularly appears on the Joe Rogan podcast. 

We’ve covered some genuine bigots and irrational people recently and it would be easy to throw in some Smith quotes out of context that paint him in an unfavorable light. For example, during an episode of his comedic podcast “Legion of Skanks,” during a concession speech after running for president of the podcast, Smith said “find a gay person in your neighborhood and rough ‘em up a little bit.” He ran on the platform of making the podcast “less gay.” This was all in jest though and while many would object to making homophobia a joke, there didn’t appear to be actual malice behind it, at least from a superficial look.

Smith, like many other comedians-turned-commentators, endorsed Trump during the 2024 election and spoke to his audience over the course of many podcasts about why he was voting for Trump over Harris. 

Many, including myself, believe it to be, on balance, bad for society that more of the public is deriving their political opinions from social media and comedic podcasts. Dave Smith is well aware of this sort of attitude and finds it arrogant that anyone would have a problem with people like him voicing their opinions and influencing people. 

According to him, he can read books too. I’m sure Smith can read just fine and of course the suggestion here is not that comedians shouldn’t be allowed to do so, it’s that the audience should hesitate to form beliefs on the basis of comedic podcasts and that comedic podcasts should hesitate to influence politics. 

Smith has now apologized for supporting Trump saying that it was “a bad calculation” on his part and called for his impeachment. Other Trump-endorsing comedians like Joe Rogan and Theo Von appear to be having similar regrets. By the looks of it, the main motivation that Smith had for voting for Trump is that he promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht and that he appeared to be less prone to international aggression and intervention. 

Trump is now doing the exact opposite of everything libertarians stand for and Smith has acknowledged that. One wonders how you can make such a miscalculation given the abundant evidence that Trump is ill-suited for office. Everything that Trump is now doing, from tariffs to veering toward authoritarianism was written in Project 2025 and clearly tied to Trump’s movement. 

It’s praiseworthy that Smith and other comedians are acknowledging their mistake, but the truth is that they were fooled and they directly contributed to a portion of their audiences being fooled as well – that’s the responsibility that people with influence must bear. 

For those with the influence of Smith and Rogan or anyone with a large platform, it seems important to acknowledge when you should avoid wielding it – particularly with matters of supreme importance where you are not the best equipped to distill large amounts of evidence about that domain into robust opinions. Similar to Rogan’s disposition to endorse pseudoscience and bad medical advice. It’s not a matter of intelligence either, it’s about being responsible with your power and acknowledging the limits of your expertise.

On the “Mehdi Unfiltered” podcast, Smith was pressed about how he could be surprised that Trump bombed Iran when, during his first term, he assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and withdrew from the Iran deal, leading Iran to ramp up its uranium enrichment, essentially setting the stage for the US bombing their nuclear sites. Smith responded that he always knew Trump would disappoint on this but has consistently said that he voted for Trump in large part because of the pardon and because he thought Trump would be better on Iran and Israel. 

It’s hard to blame comedians for being fooled. Democrats first presented a clearly compromised candidate in Biden and then a very unlikable Harris. Comedians wagered that Trump was the better option and boy were they wrong.

Would we have more transgender bathrooms and dumb progressive policies if Harris was elected? Of course. Would we be on the precipice of a full blown dictatorship with troops on streets, a secret police kidnapping people, blatant corruption in every part of the executive branch with obvious quid pro quo deals where rich people are buying influence and pardons directly from the president, and a global trade war? Probably not.

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.