Joe Rogan and Stephen A. Smith. Stephen A. Smith and Joe Rogan, edit via Liam McGuire.

There’s an art to earning a critical mass of followers in this fractured ecosystem of media chatterboxes, but Stephen A. Smith’s ability to retain attention is another feat entirely.

Now in his 13th year of yelling takes over the sound of his ego on First Take, Smith’s peer in the sports debate arena, Skip Bayless, has been phased out at FS1. As Bayless’ schtick grew stale, his audience shrank, whereas Smith has adapted and cleared a fresh path to become a mogul in the attention economy.

During the most recent election cycle, Smith’s forays into political punditry grew more frequent and earned him as many plaudits as his rhetoric on First Take or NBA Countdown. In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election, Smith’s pontifications have crescendoed into a direct relationship with the MAGA universe on Fox News, News Nation, and through the eponymous Stephen A. Smith Show.

In the summer of 2022, Smith launched Know Mercy, which beget The Stephen A. Smith Show, and soft-launched it as a nascent audition for his late-night host aspirations. However, side-splitting humor and hijinks move the needle on late-night, not acerbic commentary.

Smith’s streaming show taking a detour from sports and flirting with right-wing politics follows a familiar route traveled by UFC ringside color commentator Joe Rogan.

Rogan also moonlights as the host of the most-listened-to podcast in the world. From afar, the Joe Rogan Experience is a low-effort propaganda machine that purports to be an impartial podcast for free thinkers. In reality, the show has positioned itself as a go-to right-wing microphone.

It’s a savvy, if not risky play for the most recognizable name at ESPN to align himself with the most-watched cable network. Meanwhile, Smith maintains a plausible deniability to protect his growing popularity. He fashions himself as an independent voter who boldly speaks truth to power.

His most recent criticism of Democrats during a panel segment on Real Time With Bill Maher was a shot across the bow that pierced through the mainstream media veil.

“He’s saying ‘I kept my promise,’” Smith explained during a discussion about Trump’s executive orders while acknowledging they’d likely be struck down by the courts. ‘Then you turn around and look at the left and you say ‘What promises did you keep?’ What voter can look at the Democrat party and say ‘There’s a voice for us, somebody who speaks for us, that goes up on Capitol Hill and fights the fights that we want them fighting on our behalf?’”

After his comments achieved viral status, a family member of mine who has never watched an episode of First Take watched it, and texted me, “Oh brave new world when Steve Smith was right about something.”

I can admit if Stephen A. cooks. When Smith catches fire rhetorically, he can spin a take at 100 MPH right across the metaphorical media plate. He understands the theatrics of politics more than the policies.  It plays on television because the median American voter despises politics, and has often gravitated toward anti-establishment outsiders who condemn career politicians and the status quo, which is probably why he was amused by a poll that showed him polling at 2 percent in a hypothetical primary.

However, Smith’s fire and brimstone sermons against the excesses of “the left” are often contrasted by his placid perspective of the current president and administration. Throughout the election cycle, Smith played footsie with MAGA-Land hand-puppets Sean Hannity and Mark Levin on their respective shows. During one of his frequent appearances on Life, Liberty & Levin, Smith performed an all-too-familiar form of mental gymnastics to flip into Trump’s camp once the political winds shifted, telling Levin, “I voted Democrat, and I’ve got to tell you something right now: I don’t like the fact that I did.”

When grilled by Levin about possibly supporting Trump, Smith replied “Quite possibly,” and added that Trump would still “have to prove a lot.” However, in the early weeks of the new administration, he’s been a lickpittle for Trump. It’s shrewd. Becoming a media ally of this administration and its bro-ligarchy comes with its advantages.

Smith’s about-face on Trump is indicative of his core philosophy. He is a cutthroat opportunist who will do whatever it takes to expand his brand and maintain relevance. Smith cites his distrust of both parties for his status as an independent, but when it comes to most elements of the MAGA movement, he typically pulls his punches.

That dissonance is a signature trait of Rogan’s, who often cites his lack of party affiliation as a shield, while simultaneously parroting right-wing talking points, spouting anti-vax gish gallop, and putting his finger on the scales by swallowing any propaganda laid out there on his show by conservative guests with a childlike wonder. Instead of feigning ignorance, Smith presents himself as a sophisticated conservative on polarizing issues and replaces selective ignorance with selective populist outrage.

For instance, this week, he spun a gentle critique of President Trump’s executive order on spending freezes, which threatened to sew chaos, into a belligerent defense of the President’s intentions and a truculent attack on “the left.”

While Smith eagerly attacks the opposition party for reacting negatively to Trump’s harmful actions, he rants about Dems’ obsession with trans-athletes based on attack ads by Republicans.

Smith recently hollered about ousting California Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass from office. A few days later,  he was embracing New York City mayor Eric Adams, who is heading to federal court in March for accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from foreign sources.

His nearly hour-long softball interview with Adams, who possesses an approval rating lagging behind the much-maligned Bass in California, framed Adams’ attempts to become more amicable with Trump, who has discussed potentially pardoning Adams, as his civic duty.

Smith tried to depict criticisms of Adams’ issues in New York as a byproduct of his bucking the Democratic establishment as a black elected official focused on enforcing law and order. It was a ludicrous interpretation of why a former cop elected mayor after the BLM and ‘Defund the Police’ protests peaked, was now so unpopular in a city whose recent predecessors were Rudy Giuliani and the architect of Stop and Frisk, Mike Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the interview was an infomercial on the horrors of the Democratic party and the outgoing administration.  Adams’ responses received no pushback from Smith who nodded his head and lapped it up with glee.

The interview highlighted a key difference between Stephen A. Smith and the multitude of content creators populating the Republican manosphere. He embraces his racial identity. As a proud member of the National Association of Black Journalists and its mission, he’s spoken out against the scourge of anti-DEI rhetoric but has strategically kept Trump’s name out of his polemics. He apologized this summer for contending that black men can identify with Trump because of his legal woes. However, on Thursday morning when the president blamed an aviation disaster on DEI hires, Smith was silent.

On Friday, he addressed Trump but contradicted himself. Smith, who has repeatedly lambasted Dems that he believes get tangled up in supporting identity politics or LGBTQ constituencies at the expense of more pertinent kitchen table issues, did an about-face by advising Democrats to speak out against the marginalization of minorities, before using the segment to (again) tout his own political aspirations. Smith shooting out of both sides of his mouth is par for the course though.

Smith called for Biden to pardon Trump and let the choppa fly at ”idiot” Dems and the judge who sentenced Trump in early January instead of throwing out his conviction for the Republicans’ inevitable midterm victories in 2026 and JD Vance’s election in 2028. He also began his Jan. 10 show with a delusional monologue proclaiming how liberals in California couldn’t wait for Trump to be president, repeatedly burying Newsom’s presidential aspirations and crediting Trump for predicting in 2019 that fires would continue to ravage California, which is akin to taking a victory lap when sea levels rise in Miami.

More duplicitously, he praised a dubious social media post that blamed Southern California’s inability to fight the fires on their protection of Delta smelt fish. The post Smith read also ripped Newsom for his refusal to sign a water restoration declaration which Trump claims would have allowed millions of gallons of water to flow into parts of California. Unfortunately, that was also pure fiction. Unfortunately, the non-existence of this declaration didn’t stop Stephen A. Smith from proclaiming “Trump was right!”

That type of willful ignorance might work for an average Joe or Rogan, but for an esteemed, veteran journalist, his warm embrace of disinformation spewed by the most prolific liar on the planet is a symbol of either his gullibility or his desire to appease his growing right-wing audience.

DJ Dunson is a free agent sports and entertainment raconteur whose work has appeared in Deadspin, ESPN, Yahoo Sports, Bleacher Report, and Complex.