NOBODY IS LISTENING ANYMORE

“Those people” just don’t get it. ‘They” think they can talk down to us and tell us what is best. I’ve heard too much of this kind of talk in the last week and I’ve finally reached the tipping point. I can’t hold my tongue any longer. May I have just a few minutes of your time to speak the words I’m not hearing anywhere else?

I’ve heard pundits saying “How did we get here?” all week long. Many of these same voices are the exact reason we ARE here and they refuse to take ownership of what THEY created. Endless hours of preaching to their own choirs. Liberals flocking to slanted media outlets, while conservatives do the same. Years of hearing and reading and seeing twisted accounts of the same stories so they can be shoe horned in to fit a particular narrative.

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich reacts to play against the Oklahoma City Thunder during the first half in Game 2 of a second-round NBA basketball playoff series, Monday, May 2, 2016, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is “sick to my stomach” over Trump’s victory. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Now we have our NBA coaches, sports writers and columnists speaking out to tell us all how horrified they are with the election results. Their bubbles of like thinking have been burst and they are angry. They are as angry now as the other half of the country has grown angered the last 8 years. You see, for every liberal who hates the things Trump has said about women and Mexicans , there is a conservative who hated being told in 2009 that “Republicans needed to get to the back of the bus” or that “Rural Americans cling to their bibles and guns”. Both sides of what has become our great national argument stopped listening to each other long ago.

The most successful TV News outlet on cable fed off this anger and built and empire and a movement. The rest of the more mainstream media spent the last decade working as cover for failed policies and perceived corruption. You know what came before the last 8 years in Washington? Failed policies and perceived corruption!

Nobody wants to own their own messes anymore. People refuse to admit on both sides when the ideas they believe in are implemented and they fail. They take issues and refuse to think that there might be two sides to the argument. Without that two sides of an argument premise, my industry is dead. Unfortunately it died in media coverage years ago. What it has created is a tone deaf society where both sides do a horrendous job of learning from each other. It is what caused me to cast a vote in every ballot initiative in 2016 EXCEPT this Presidential Race. I’m sorry, i had no interest in aligning with any of you.

Bruce Springsteen holding concerts to tell people how they should vote. After making a career of being the voice of the American worker, the factory guy, the blue collar voice in music. Ironically, those same people overwhelmingly rejected his chosen candidate. Conversely those who wrap themselves in the flag and constantly question whether a liberal “loves America” or whether someone else is a “Good American” because they won’t preach from the same talking points they do.

The largest urban areas in America strongly supported Clinton. Those centers of more liberal thinking can’t take a minute to understand how their message and world view was rejected by almost every small town and more rural city in America. It’s ironic because those same people can’t understand why people in the big cities are angry at the things Trump has said. They claim they are only words.

To both sides I say WAKE UP! Those large urban areas that supported the Democrats boast our highest crime rates, worst schools and failed economies. Many in rural areas chose to ignore hateful rhetoric, never putting themselves in the shoes of those who have been subject to this kind of talk in the past and never want to go back. Strangely, I don’t blame either side for being disgusted with the other. I’m disgusted with you both.

I am suggesting today that we all take some time to go back to kindergarten and “put on our listening ears”. Instead of crawling back into our myopic echo chambers let us turn our energies into demanding our press goes goes back to doing their job. That the news be reported with a critical eye. That opposing views be given a forum and consideration. Enough of thinking YOUR SIDE has it all figured out. Let me tell you, I have 16 years of American history since 2000 to tell you that YOUR SIDE doesn’t. They have both failed us, miserably. Unfortunately, we have all failed each other too.

My show has never been a “safe place”. I don’t foster a forum of let’s suck our thumbs and cry over spilled milk. I’m more like blunt force trauma. I love all my listeners, even the ones who tweet me nasty comments or send hateful emails. I consider those listeners a product of the environment. An environment that we all created. I know this…if we created THAT environment in 2016 America we can ALL create a new one.

Now, can we all just get back to things we can all agree on? Like the Cowboys suck or the Patriots are cheaters? Just kidding….much love to you all.

– John Kincade
Co-Host “Buck and Kincade” – 680 The Fan

Host “John Kincade Show” – CBS Sports Radio
Co-Host “BIG Podcast with Shaq” – Podcast One

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