Theo Von & Dave Smith Bemoan the Great Replacement and Anti-White Racism, Praise Nick Fuentes

Dave Smith appeared on Theo Von’s podcast today for a wide-ranging conversation about Trump’s attack on Venezuela, the Medicare fraud scandal in Minnesota, and—you guessed it—the looming extinction of white people in America. 

Smith, as I’ve written, has spent ample airtime lately spreading the racist and white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, but I believe this may be the first time Von—a close friend of Holocaust denier Candace Owens and attended Tucker Carlson’s holiday party—has offered his endorsement to the notion that America should remain a majority white country. To wit: 

Smith: Being offended by words or jokes is such a white chick thing, but they project that onto Black people. But actually Black people, because I've known a few of them, are the least offended people ever. So there's a weird dynamic there too. Also though, and I'll say, maybe this will be a real controversial thing to say at the end, but I do think that we've lived under a world order for a long time where being a bigot is the worst thing in the world. It's like, the worst thing you can be is racist. And part of that is because we live in the world order that defeated the Nazis. And so the biggest villain of all time is viewed as the racist and the greatest liberator of all time are viewed as the anti-racist. And the biggest villain in the religion of modern America, the devil is Adolf Hitler and Jesus is Martin Luther King. That's kind of like the way popular the culture is constructed.

I think that there is actually a lot more nuance to bigotry and that everybody has a bit of bigotry in them. But I think that America—it is true to some degree that Americans have been replaced by immigration policy from their government. America went from being a 90% majority white Christian country to now being it's like in the 50s percentage and may even be a majority/minority country in the next couple decades, and then white people might ultimately be a minority in this country going forward.

Von: And the mainstream media demonized whites.

Smith: Yes. This was done against the will of the domestic population. There was never a referendum on open borders and massive racial change in America because it would've failed. The country wouldn't have supported it. And there is going to be a group of people, not just white people, but there are going to be a group of people who wish that America remain majority white.

"We've lived under a world order for a long time where being a bigot is the worst thing in the world."

And that doesn't mean you have to hate Black people, or that doesn't mean you have to hate Muslims or hate Latin American or Latino people or whatever. It's like, there's nuance between—there's a view where you go, "Hey, I want America to remain majority white because that's kind of what America's always been and I want it to continue being what America's always been." That doesn't mean I want to reinstitute slavery or have a genocide or something like that.

Von: A hundred percent. And if you're a white person, you're like, "Well, what the fuck? I don't exist?"

Smith: Why am I supposed to root for my own destruction?

Von: Yeah. I don't have a place to exist at? Fuck that, dude.

Smith: Well, it would be crazy to go—

Von: I'm just so sick of like—there's just so—it's like—yeah—it's just so sick of white people are always the bad people. I'm sick of your movies of white people are always the bad people. And that's one of the things that's craziest about the genocide stuff. It's like, well, now you have a group of people, you have Israel and their government that has set the bar for who the new bad people are.

This exchange came on the heels of a conversation about Nick Fuentes, the neo-Nazi Holocaust denier whom Smith recently hosted for a friendly conversation on his own podcast. Joking that Fuentes certainly wouldn’t have taken an Uber Black to Smith’s podcast studio, Von remarked that the popular young neo-Nazi—who has praised Hitler, said women should be denied the right to vote, and argued that rape really isn’t so bad—is “fucking brave, dude.” Smith, meanwhile, called Fuentes “brilliant” and “hilarious” and praised his “legendary” talent. To wit:

Smith: I'll be honest. He told me he took an Uber to the studio. I did not see with my own eyes how he got there. He could have biked.

Von: Not an Uber Black.

Smith: It was certainly an Uber White. No, honestly, my impressions, I like Nick and my—

Von: Oh, he seems like a fascinating cat. He's obviously fascinating. People are fascinated by him.

Smith: Well, he's brilliant and he's hilarious, which is already something that just like, I just like that. I like funny people.

Von: He's fucking brave, dude.

Smith: Well, he's definitely brave. And we have some pretty large areas of disagreement, I think. But I've always kind of believed like, okay, so then maybe this is kind of like a little naive or something, but my attitude was always like, all right, so we got some areas of disagreement. So hey, let's talk about them and let's have more conversations and more debates and more—you know what I mean? And just I think he gets a few things wrong, but then again, he gets some really major things right. And I think that this is part of the reason why they're all so scared of him. 

"Nick Fuentes is a very relevant, interesting person."

If you want to say that Nick goes down a road of racialism and even—it's not that he is praising Hitler and Stalin. He's saying some complimentary things about them or something like that. [Ed. note: Fuentes has said Hitler was “awesome,” “right,” and “fucking cool.”] But if you want to say that going down this road of racialism and kind of revisionism about some brutal dictators in history, if you want to say, "Hey, that's wrong and that's off limits," or something as a cultural rule or a cultural norm, well, how the hell is the guy who's defending a genocide going to tell me that that's the case? You know what I mean? It's like, "Oh, you guys are going to tell me, oh, Nick Fuentes is morally reprehensible, says the people signing the bombs that are going to drop on babies?"

Von: I agree.

Smith: Sorry. So you've lost that. It's just like to me, it's like that's over. You lose the ability to gatekeep this conversation, and now people like us will decide who the hell we want to talk to. And I decide Nick Fuentes is a very relevant, interesting person who I'd like to talk to.

Von: Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with talking to most people. That's what I think most of the time. Every now and then there'd be somebody like, "I don't think I would talk to them." But also it's wild that people assume you know everything about somebody when you're going to have them on a podcast or you're going to talk to them. It's like, dude, sometimes I haven't looked—I'll know the person, I'll be intrigued by one or two things I heard from them, but I'll have no idea sometimes if there's been other stuff that people widely disagree with or whatever.

"Look, man, the kid's really good at what he does. He represents a lot of people."

Smith: [...] So if you come at Nick the way Piers [Morgan] did where you go, "Let me play a clip of you. That's horrible what you said right there. I think you're a bigot." And he'll go, "Yeah, fuck you. I am." Whereas when I talk to Nick and I go, "All right dude, listen, I think shutting conversation down with accusation of bigotry is fucked up, but what do you actually believe here?" He actually opens up and gives you a much more nuanced take. And like, no, is he a few clicks to the right of me? Definitely. But—

Von: And he's a sensationalist though too. He'll—

Smith: Sure. And there's a lot of sarcasm in all of that.

Von: I could see him being a conductor or I could see him being the guy at the circus who's dealing with all the animals. He would be perfect at that. And I say that respectfully, because yeah, he's good at doing it all himself. But you have to have those moments that are bonkers out there or that seem bonkers to people.

Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I also just think in the... It's like from doing standup comedy, I know you know too, it's like you develop a bit of an eye for talent. And that doesn't even mean, it's not a question of whether you agree or disagree or whether they're your favorite comic or not your favorite comic, but you could love really edgy, really filthy comedy and you'd still go, "Nate Bargatze is a beast of a talent." You know what I mean? You just recognize talent.

Von: Yes.

"Some of those N-word clips go hard, dude, I'll be honest with you."

Smith: He's very good at what he does. And Nick's ability, just as a broadcaster, his talent is legendary. I mean, he's second to none. Maybe there are some tied with him, but Tim Dillon's ability to just ramp into a camera, Nick Fuentes has that level of ability. And so there is a part of it too where you watch all of these guys freak out, but you're like, "Look, man, the kid's really good at what he does. He represents a lot of people. He was de-platformed for having views that actually a lot of people have." And also, look, there's nuance to a lot of this shit. I think that being racist—

Von: And where was he deplatformed from? From YouTube?

Smith: Yeah, YouTube, he was kicked off Twitter. He was kicked off everything at one point. I'm not sure what he's back on now.

Von: And I don't know a lot of the stuff that he's... I don't know a lot of the things that he said. I mean, I know I've heard him say the N-word, I've heard him say—

Smith: He's definitely said that.

Von: —some other stuff, but some of those N-word clips go hard, dude, I'll be honest with you. And some of them, I've seen Black people—

Smith: Loving them.

Von: —do mashups and loving them, dude.

As it happens, Von and Smith are not the only comics to praise Fuentes, who I must stress once again is an out-and-out Nazi, in the last few weeks. In Shane Gillis’s Christmas Day appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, he joked that he’d like to see Fuentes run for president, prompting an earnest exchange about Fuentes’ political talents:

Rogan: He could probably win in a few years.

Gillis: Hold on, let’s talk.

Rogan: Listen, he couldn't have existed before. Right? Ten, 20 years ago, couldn't have existed. Now, super popular. What's 20 years from now look like? You know, maybe someone like that can win. 

Gillis: Well, we’ll see. 

Rogan: Listen, I will say this about it. It's fascinating that—there's a whole group of people that feel very unrepresented in the world. And especially like young men. And here you've got this young man with a very high verbal IQ. And he also does a lot of shitposting, a lot of talking shit, a lot of trolling, says women shouldn't be allowed to vote. So it’s wild shit.

Gillis: Wild shit.

Rogan: And that Piers Morgan thing was like, bro. That was an expert sparring with someone who thought they were an expert. They were playing two totally different games.

Gillis: And it’s also, the thing that people try to get Fuentes on is he’s still funny as fuck. 

Rogan: It’s funny.

Gillis: So that’s where you’re in trouble.

Rogan: When he hits them—“Do yo think you made jokes about the Holocaust,” he goes, “Too soon.” Like, dude. 

Gillis: He’s wild.

Rogan: But you could see Piers going, “Fuck.”

Gillis: When he was like, “Me mum died,” I was like, holy shit. 

Rogan: He got hit with a missile on that one. “Too soon, too soon”—I was like, oh my god. 

Here is perhaps a good time to remember that the fundamental reason so many of these comedians love Donald Trump and supported him as long as a decade ago is that they find him funny. He makes them laugh; he gives them permission to demonize the people they want to demonize. It’s not hard to see where this leads.