Dave Smith: Comedian, Podcaster…Presidential Candidate?
”We stand for repealing the entire Progressive Era,” says Smith.
HD Download"You have this white hot culture war, and really the only people who have a solution to the culture war are libertarians," says Dave Smith, a comedian, a podcaster, and one of the most visible faces of the Mises Caucus, which took control of the Libertarian Party at its national convention in Reno this May.
Smith gained a following in the comedy world with his seat on the raunchy Legion of Skanks podcast, which he's parlayed into a career as a political commentator who often appears on cable news and on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience and Timcast with Tim Pool. He regularly sounds off on political issues and intra-libertarian disputes on his own show, Part of the Problem.
Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Smith in Reno to get his take on the Mises Caucus takeover of the Libertarian Party and to discuss his status as a possible 2024 Libertarian presidential candidate.
Produced by Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller; edited by John Osterhoudt and Danielle Thompson; camera by James Marsh and Weissmueller.
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Watch out Desantis and Buttigieg, the ballot is getting crowded.
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I'm sure they're quaking in their boots.
"You have this white hot culture war, and really the only people who have a solution to the culture war are libertarians," says Dave Smith, a comedian, a podcaster, and one of the most visible faces of the Mises Caucus, which took control of the Libertarian Party at its national convention in Reno this May.
Well, let's hope so because I've been a bit disappointed thus far with "libertarian" response.
OH NO THEY DID AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVE! THEY HAVE EXACT QUOTES OF HIS! THIS IS A HIT PIECE! WHY DOES REASON HATE LIBERTARIANS!!!!
D-
Or just call it gay.
Can we get a transcript please?
Yes, so we can scan over the self-aggrandizing bullshit.
Interesting sub-headline. I would be very curious for him to expound upon that.
Same. Saying stuff like ”We stand for repealing the entire Progressive Era” is making it way too easy for disingenuous progtards (but I repeat myself) to claim that "Libertarians want to go repeal child labor laws and the 19th amendment" and so on and so forth, when that - I assume - is not anything close to what he was intending.
Let's start with the 17th amendment and some child labor laws and see how that goes.
One progressive era amendment has already been repealed, so it's not even unprecedented.
Libertarians do want to repeal child labor laws.
And, effectively, libertarians do want to repeal the 19th Amendment as well, though perhaps not quite in the way you imagine.
Since the lazy folks at Reason fail to provide a transcript for their videos, I don't know if this gentleman has ever run for office before.
The Presidency is not a OJT kind of situation. If you haven't run for office before, the Presidency isn't the place to start.
I disagree. The President is one man who gets things done by appointing and herding others, and by using the bully pulpit. This is not some corporate CEO.
But, man, it really shouldn't be. I don't disagree with your assessment of what the Presidency has become, but it is really not what it should be.
No, that is exactly what he is; the Chief Executive charged with accomplishing the will of The People as codified by the Constitution and Congress United. He accomplishes the 'law' using his assistants chosen by him and consented by Congress to faithfully execute what the Congress has sent him.
I don't want him to be a visionary. I want him to not color outside of the lines. Anyone should be able to do this job.
Yes.
I pipedream about running for President.
"What are you positions?"
- The laws as passed by Congress and the states
"What is your agenda?"
- To faithfully execute the laws as passed by Congress, provided their constitutionality.
"What are your goals?"
- To get Congress to resume their role as legislators.
Never run for public office as far as I know. But is a comedian. I find him profoundly unfunny, but I think he's one of those unfunny New York comedians that New Yorkers find hilarious. Not being a New Yorker I just don't get it. I don't think he's going to go over well in Peoria.
Of course you do.
I don't think he's going to go over well in Peoria.
Running as a libertarian pretty much guarantees that he's not going to go over well anywhere. If the last couple of years have taught us anything it's that people don't actually want freedom or liberty, at least not in any real sense. They would rather have (false) promises of security and free shit and will gladly give up any and all rights for those things.
This is true, but no reason to make the LP an anarchists only club. And not just any anarchist, but only the right brand of Anarcho-Capitalism. I see a lot of pushback against the MC from voluntaryists and agoristsm, who are both technically anarchists of the free market variety, just without the shrines to Rothbard.
How long until they revise the membership pledge to affirm that one wants to legalize the private ownership of nukes.
He isnt an anarchist. He is a minimalist.
people don't actually want freedom or liberty
for you. nearly all laws consist of the same intent; I don't want to do 'X'. so I support laws preventing you from doing so.
People want whatever the media tell them to want. My mother recently hoped that someone would assassinate Vladimir Putin. It was the first time in my 49 years that I've heard her remark on foreign politics. That's the power of media.
If the media tell people to want freedom and liberty, they will want that. Dave's gift is the ability to communicate libertarian concepts to normal people in an inspiring way. Getting the message into the mainstream media would be huge, and his candidacy would do that, if only a little.
You know he has a podcast you are free to listen to so you don't feel so uninformed right?
George Washington would beg to disagree.
Well, he's got my vote ... but I've always voted Libertarian where possible, since even Johnson+Weld were better than D or R, and I live in California, where no non-D vote matters. May as well help the L party with ballot access for the next time. There's very little reason to vote otherwise.
Gaagh, I even held my nose and voted for conspiracy loon Badnarik. Okay, Barr/WAR was a pretty hard swallow too. But not Dave Smith. I'm sick of this party bullshit. I'm done with parties. Democrats and Republicans are evil, Libertarians are stupid.
Nobody cares.
As a TDS-addled asshole, no one cares who you vote for.
The idea that this guys appeals to anyone but the Mises Caucus Choir is ridiculous. He really thinks he can beat Gary Johnson's vote total? Really?
I remember when he debated Sawarak, and he dodged most of the questions preferring to make lame jokes. But me brought his entourage who wouldn't stop cheering every time he spoke, and who gamed the Oxford Debate rules so he won. Any regular debate Sawarak would have won because he stayed on point and answered the questions and was prepared.
So he appeals to people who honor the Oxford Debate rules more in the Breach than the observance.
/me lost to someone who knew the rules so me wanna take my ball and go home
The relevance to winning votes is lost on me.
Debates are overrated anyhow. Rarely do they move the needle very far. They can't win you an election, they may cost you votes or help to neutralize an attack by your opponent (thinking Reagan and his age quip in 1984), otherwise they are just canned responses.
Let me amend my comment:
/me lost to someone who knew the rules to something that doesn't matter anyway because it's just stupid so me wanna take my ball and go home
> The relevance to winning votes is lost on me.
The goal of the LP has never been to win votes. Hence the reason the Mises Caucus in in power. The high vote total of Gary Johnson had them spooked.
Dave Smith certainly acts like a politician. Does not answer the debate question just goes off on a tangent. So yeah, the LP version of Trump and Biden. I wonder who his Corn Pop will be.
"... the LP version of Trump and Biden..."
This pathetic TDS-addled pile of shit still (willfully) refuses to accept the difference between the best POTUS we've had in a century and drooling Joe.
Eat shit and die, asshole.
I mean he is one of the most well known mises caucus members that took over the party. But no, your sensitivities are the pulse of the party.
You know if the LP was truly interested in winning they either work a lot harder on recruiting people to run in down ballot races rather than the presidency until they've established themselves as a viable alternative or they would work to endorse candidates from either party who espouse their ideals. Maybe a rating system like the NRA and others use. Endorsing candidates and issues that matter may be a better way to bring about real change than running as a perpetual also ran party.
i know we have done this at our county level. we look at voting records for legislators and have made strong public statements supporting a sheriff when he refused to enforce pandemic mandates.
Why does Reason keep saying "Dave Smith: Comedian..." rather than the more proper "Dave Smith: "Comedian"..."?
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The intro doesn't mention his appearances on CNN and Fox, just Joe Rogan and Tim Pool. He has been a regular contributor on Kennedy for some time.
They have their narrative. It aligns with the one from liberal media.
Dave Smith: "We stand for repealing the Progressive Era."
I could cite a dozen books on the fallacies/contradictions of Progressive politics. Mises wrote that many on just their economic fallacies. The majority won't read them, won't listen to long arguments. Repealing policy mistakes is a mistake. Why?
"There a 1000 striking at the leaves/branches of the tree of evil for every one striking at the root." - H.David Thoreau
The root is authoritarianism/collectivism, i.e., the initiation of violence, threats, fraud, in the name of the majority. Most people believe in this political paradigm, in the abstract, theoretically. They can't defend it politically, but that's not why they are "true believers". They have been brainwashed. To undue it, each believer must start to question a little, some aspect, because someone inspired their doubt by showing them they have conflicting beliefs. That realization will induce discomfort with an attempt to resolve their inner conflict.
That is why sticking to fundamentals is so effective, so much more lasting, than attacking the policy, the bad laws.
Oh, great…a party takeover by a group of individuals even less electable than their predecessors…