An open letter to Dave Smith, friend to Holocaust deniers
You tried to scream and intimidate me into silence tonight. You failed. Now I'll tell you the truth.
Hey, Dave Smith:
You spent this week, and tonight, telling me how awful I was for writing in a post on X - in an obviously sarcastic way - that you had denied the Holocaust. But you did indeed deny it, for a laugh in 2017, to Richard Spencer, a neo-Nazi. As I showed you and the world.
We both know you were not serious about what you said to Spencer - in the same way we both know I do not think you really think Auschwitz was a spa. (That would be the weirdest Holocaust denial ever.) Instead of simply admitting what you’d said was a mistake after I showed you the clip, you doubled down, calling me a “faggot” (huh?) and various other slurs.
It wasn’t the debate I hoped to have, but it showed the world who you are and what you do when you’re up against facts you don’t like and can’t escape.
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(Whew, I’m glad that’s over. Please stand with me. I could use the moral support.)
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Your comment to Richard Spencer was painful and pitiful. But your embrace of Darryl Cooper is inexcusable.
Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center, called Cooper a Holocaust denier regurgitating antisemitic theories after his interview with Tucker Carlson last year. It pains me to admit this, because Tucker supported me during Covid – and in fact he’s been something of a friend to me over the years – but they said Tucker had denied the Holocaust too.
If I am ever on with Tucker again, I’ll ask him about that. Same with Joe Rogan. And if they won’t have me on after this, so be it. Some things are not worth compromising over, not for money or fame or friendship or anything else.
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And Cooper isn’t the only one with those views in your orbit. Palling around with these people, pretending they aren’t saying what they’re saying on other channels, and constantly referencing your status as a Jew to deflect questions about what you’re doing is wrong.
In truth, as I told you tonight, I’ve had to think about the Holocaust more in the last week than I had in many years. My family came to the United States generations before the Holocaust. To me, the Holocaust was a historical event, something terrible that happened to Jews in Europe. I neither obsessed nor forgot about it.
But guys like Darryl Cooper seem to want Jews to be thinking about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany and World War 2, to be obsessing about it. Not just because doing so can be difficult and depressing. Because they obsess about those events.
It doesn’t escape me how much Darryl talks about dead Jews. He is a bard of dead Jews. But I have asked him directly if he thinks the Holocaust was what it was, an intentional, genocidal plan to exterminate Jews. He wouldn’t answer.
So he croons endlessly about dead Jews, while simultaneously refusing to admit the most important reality of the Holocaust, its foul soul, its intentionality. He’s playing a very ugly game.
Now here you are, Dave Smith, a a potty-mouthed, middle-aged, unfunny comedian, lending yourself to them all.
To Darryl Cooper. To Ryan Dawson. To Candace Owens.
And her blood libel. Her actual blood libel. She is saying Jews – Leo Frank was a Jew – killed children on Passover. And you say she’s not an antisemite. What would it take for you to admit she is one?
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(Yes, Strxwmxn is being sarcastic)
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You think these people actually care what you have to say?
You think they’re interested in your recycled “insights” on Winston Churchill?
You’re useful to them, Dave. You Jew-wash them. They enjoy winding you up about Israel and Gaza and the global Zionist conspiracy, and you enjoy being wound up.
You can dislike or outright hate Israel. You wouldn’t be the first Jew to hate Israel or believe it is acting immorally. I don't like what Israel is doing in Gaza right now either, though the history and current situation are far more complex than you pretend. But you don’t have to work with antisemites or Holocaust deniers along the way.
Why you’ve made this choice, I don’t know. But you have, and I know the risks you’re running.
If you were smarter, or wiser, you’d see the greatest irony of all. Jews are always accused of being puppeteers.
But you, you’re the puppet.
Alex, I do not always agree with you, and my comments reflect that, but I respect you're putting yourself on this platform and connecting with your readers. Tonight was a train wreck. Before this spat, I had no idea who Dave Smith was, and TBH, I still don't. His aggressive, mocking, hateful, and anti-gay rhetoric was so over the top it became unwatchable. I stopped after about fifteen minutes. I am as MAGA as I think anyone can be. With that said, I do not know how anyone on the right can tolerate someone like him. I do believe you still need to answer for your continuing belief in The NY Times and the international desire to somehow make Israel responsible for feeding those whom Hamas is starving.
That was a shitshow. Like watching a slow-motion train wreck. Whoever this Dave Smith guy is, he believes the only way to engage is with hostility. He wasn't there tonight to exchange ideas or to argue - his tactic tonight was to bully and harass and shout over both you and the moderator and his objective was to get you to lose your cool (which you nearly did once or twice) and deflect and turn your words around and just keep saying "Where's your argument, f**g*t?! Why don't you stop talking gay stuff and make an argument?" It was a parody of a debate. It was a parody of an argument. That was 2 hours of my life I will never get back. Alex - you are much, much better than to be dragged down into the mud WWE-style with the likes of Dave Smith, whoever he is.