by Matt Taibbi
There’s no worse feeling in media than being the next guest after Stephen A. Smith. Whatever you have to say, you’ll say it worse. Right, wrong, whatever, the man was born to be on television. The upside is listening to his segments. Last night, while waiting to talk about NPR, I listened as Chris Cuomo told a story about an unnamed hip-hop artist complaining that it took a rich white man like Trump being abused, for people to see the “maladministration of justice” black people have always known. What did his guest, Stephen A. Smith, think?
STEPHEN A. SMITH: No question… that hip hop artist who called you, he’s right on the money… Here’s the sad part… It gives credence to the argument Trump made during a speech weeks ago where he talked about black folks relating to him… Now, what the hell would black folks have in common with a guy that was born on third base thinking he hit a home run? Born with the proverbial spoon in his mouth? It’s the legal system… I can say this because 95% of the time I voted Democrat… I’m looking at a Democratic party that looks at the black community that says, “We are there for you. We are there for you…”
But when it’s time to vote, you want to talk to black people about what you’re doing for them… and how you are on our side. But this man right here, who’s the presumptive GOP nominee, is in a position to literally get back into the White House because what you’re doing to him, we find fairly relatable to things that have been done to folks in our community, and it’s happened for decades. There’s no escaping that fact and Trump pointing it out, and being accurate in doing so, is perhaps the height of embarrassment for the Democratic party, in my estimation.
This exchange was preceded by a classic Stephen A-ism:
When you got four indictments and 91 counts and two impeachments and civil suits in excess of $454 million… but he still keeps marching forward, marching forward, gaining momentum… The only way to get him is to beat him, and they don’t seem to be able to do that either. And I’m quite disgusted by it, to be quite honest with you.
If you watch ESPN you’ve heard that speech a hundred times: “You got Karl-Anthony Towns and the Stifle Tower Rudy Gobert and the high-flying new face of the league in Anthony Edwards and Naz Reid and Slo-Mo Anderson and all those boys, and you can’t even beat the eighth seed in your conference one time in the regular season — one damn time, J.J. Redick! — frankly, I find that disgusting.”
The Trump rant (click here to watch) was no sports take, nor particularly novel, as Stephen A’s been branching into politics and appearing as a guest on Fox News, which can’t get enough of him for obvious reasons. The hit pieces haven’t come yet, but if he keeps this up, they will, and we can guess what form they’ll take. It’ll be ugly. But any Democrat watching should immediately recognize the red flag Stephen A. is raising, and I don’t mean the one that has to do with race. This is about sports:
Americans love sports because we have a strong egalitarian streak and love the simplicity; you play better, you win. The villain is always the overconfident favorite taken down by an underdog who wants it more. Phi Slamma Jamma dunked into infamy by Lorenzo Charles, the Greatest Show on Turf cut down by a placekicker, Miracle on Ice… That 1980 Soviet team was actually quite likable and packed with all-time greats, but they’d been trained to show no mercy in international play and piled 16 goals on poor Japan before the fateful clash. Americans love that story because the Soviets were so much better, because that’s sports: you gotta play the games. “If we play ‘em ten times, they might win nine” — but the ice doesn’t know the odds.
In every sports contest two groups of spectators are irrational and have worthless takes: the fans of the two teams playing. (This rule applies with equal or greater force to politics.) Once the homers are out of the picture, the rest of the sports-watching world argues over who will win, who should win, who deserves to win, who maybe deserves to lose… This country hates a sore loser, but a sore winner is worse. Act like you’ve been there! A PhD and an iron worker in the stands of a Buffalo Bills game will be equally plastered by the third quarter and react the same way if their own team chooses to run up the score, especially against an opponent they might see in the playoffs. They’ll stare at each other in glassy-eyed panic, each knowing: “That will come back to haunt us.”
Every sports fan — rich, poor, black, white, old, young — is steeped in these intricacies. We know why “ball don’t lie,” and why coaches who whine about injuries deserve to lose (“Next man up” is the rule). Stephen A. may not be the spokesperson of “the black community,” but he might be Chief Justice of sports talk. Democrats should hear what he’s saying: to the average person, these interminable Trump indictments and lawsuits and lawfare (hearing a popular sportscaster use that term unironically should inspire a Beltway mass-clench) seem worse than cheating. It comes off as cowardice, fear of even competition, something that never, ever plays in this country. “The only way to get him is to beat him, and they don’t seem to be able to do that,” is a heavy indictment, and if he’s thinking that, you can bet a hell of a lot lot more people are. Just win, baby. What happened to that?
