Stephen A. Smith just ended his White House bid in the dumbest way possible

Stephen A. Smith makes a living, and a good one at that, at riling up sports fans.

The well-known ESPN personality has also been rumored to be considering running for President of the United States in 2028, and he has only fanned those flames over the past few months.

Smith certainly considers NASCAR fans to be sports fans. He does, after all, consider NASCAR, and motor racing in general, to be a sport. However, like many misguided individuals, he thinks that anybody can do it and that therefore the drivers are not athletes.

“Come on, man. That don’t count. You driving a car!” Smith ranted, after a caller called into his Mad Dog Sports Radio show on SiriusXM to suggest that Richard Petty, seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and 200-time race winner who holds countless other records in the sport, is among the greatest athletes ever.

“I’m being honest, it’s a great sport. But come on, bro. Getting behind the wheel of a car is not the same," he continued, insisting that Petty couldn't hold a candle to LeBron James.

We will say this: it takes an insane amount of preparation to be as elite as LeBron James is at things like flopping and load management, two things race car drivers could never dream of.

Back to Stephen A.

"You can be behind the wheel of a car in your 60s and 70s for crying out loud," he continued, willfully displaying his ignorance. "A golfer is not an athlete. A NASCAR driver is not an athlete. Just because you gotta walk the course for 18 holes for four days, that don’t make you an athlete.”

Anybody who knows anything about racing knows the level of training that goes into competing at the highest level and the physical demands that go into every race, regardless of whether you're talking about NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, or another series. The training is insane to say the least, and I can guarantee you that a 58-year-old Stephen A. Smith doesn't work out just to drive his car to work in the morning.

So we'll save you the standard "race car drivers are athletes 101" spiel that's been beaten to death for years and years, similar to Smith constantly finding random creative new ways to bring up LeBron. You either understand it, or have simply come to accept the fact that you're wrong and won't change your mind no matter what. Either one is cool.

Smith would take two laps in a NASCAR pace car or an IndyCar two-seater, both of which are basically slow-motion compared to the real thing, and probably lose his lunch. Heck, he'd wake up sore the next morning after a few rounds doing 30 mph at the local kids' go-kart track.

But seriously, somebody needs to make this happen, and one NASCAR team is already on it.

Stephen A. Smith alienating NASCAR fans is bad news for POTUS prospects

Of course, Smith's NASCAR take is totally not political and should have nothing to his chances at the White House.

But in the year 2026, this probably isn't a stretch to suggest.

NASCAR fans, or again, race car fans in general, typically don't handle this level of disrespect too well, not just because of the boring "drivers aren't athletes" party line, but because of the fact that he let his own ignorance show by insisting that all they're doing is "driving a car".

Bottom line, he admits he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about, yet he runs his mouth anyway.

At least, for example, when he runs his mouth and stirs the pot about the NBA, he actually has a general understanding of the sport.

Smith has been a Democrat his whole life, but it's no secret that his recent political stances have deviated from the party norm, and he hasn't been shy about his frustrations with the party as a whole. He has not only spoken out a lot more about political topics than he used to, but he has come across as a lot more moderate or even conservative in many cases.

And if he is serious about running for office, he is going to need to continue to appeal to that audience to have a chance.

Given the fact that the majority of the NASCAR fanbase has always tended to lean right, Smith's race car driver hot take will only serve to alienate the fans he had been slowly and steadily winning over.

It may not seem like it matters, but in this day and age, there are those on all sides who have strange reasons for voting the way they do, and with social media (and even AI slop) actually possessing a legitimate political influence on certain segments of the population, yes, these delusional comments could very well come back to bite him, even if for no other reason than being a clear demonstration of poor judgment.

While most anybody can indeed drive a car, we could also sit here and say that anybody can throw a ball or put one through a net or swing a bat. There's a reason very few get to the top level of motorsport competition that Smith is trying to insult, and it's the same reason very few get to the top level of football, baseball, basketball, you name it.

You have to be elite at what you do, the best of the best, and that goes for any kind of sport or competition.

And for as much as I'm wholly convinced that many golf "fans" are just folks who want to be seen as part of the ritzy crowd (sort of like a much, much larger percentage of F1 fans than even we would want to admit), there's a heck of a lot more to golf and golf training than simply walking from hole to hole.

Again, anyone can swing a golf club, but there's a reason there are only a select few competing at the highest level and making millions of dollars. There's a reason that so few ever even come close to reaching the top. There's a reason why, despite the lazy, age-old "anyone can do it" narrative, everyone doesn't do it.

Perhaps it's safe to say that Smith belongs in the aforementioned "wrong but won't change his mind" category.

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