Comic Dave Smith is the Intellectual We Deserve

Dave Smith’s rise says less about him and more about the rot in our civic culture.

by Ben Cohen

Dave Smith has become something of an internet sensation in recent weeks. The New York based comedian engaged in a three hour debate with Douglas Murray on the Joe Rogan podcast, mostly about Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I covered the debate in an article last month and attempted to unpack Smith’s obvious intellectual deficiencies — chiefly, that he doesn’t know anything. From my perspective, Murray subtly but effectively dismantled Smith’s arguments by articulating why experts exist, and why it is still important to listen to them. Smith spent much of the podcast straw-manning Murray’s argument by claiming Murray was against free speech (he wasn’t), and citing debunked “historians” that no one outside of Rogan’s audience thinks is credible. I saw Murray as the clear winner and hoped Smith would melt back into the fringes of Joe Rogan’s sphere of influence.

But as the weeks pass, Dave Smith’s relevance has grown, and many believe he “owned” Dougla…