One angry guy, Gregg Popovich, the for-now idled coach of the Houston Spurs
basketball team, gave an interview to Dave Zirin of The Nation on Sunday about the
current state of affairs in the USA, in particular venting his anger and ire about the
George Floyd execution. But he also weighed in on Donald Trump while he had the
magazine’s attention. Below is the interview, or as much as I could present here from a
source other than the magazine:
“The thing that strikes me is that we all see this police violence and racism and we’ve
seen it all before but nothing changes. That’s why these protests have been so
explosive. But without leadership and an understanding of what the problem is, there
will never be change. And white Americans have avoided reckoning with this problem
forever because it’s been our privilege to be able to avoid it. That also has to change.”
Popovich then gets far more specific regarding in his opinion the major source of the
problem, the aforementioned occupant of the nation’s house.“It’s unbelievable. If Trump had a brain, even if it was 99 percent cynical, he would
come out and say something to unify people. But he doesn’t care about bringing people
together. Even now. That’s how deranged he is. It’s all about him. It’s all about what
benefits him personally. It’s never about the greater good. And that’s all he’s ever been.”
“It’s so clear what needs to be done. We need a president to come out and say simply
that ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Just say those three words. But he won’t and he can’t. He
can’t because it’s more important to him to mollify the small group of followers who
validate his insanity. But it’s more than just Trump. The system has to change. I’ll do
whatever I can do to help because that’s what leaders do. But he can’t do anything to
put us on a positive path because he’s not a leader.“It’s like what Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz used to say when they had the courage to
say it: He’s unfit. But they have chosen instead to be invisible and obsequious in the
face of this carnage. In the end what we have is a fool in place of a president, while the
person who really runs the country, Senator Mitch McConnell, destroys the United
States for generations to come. McConnell has destroyed and degraded our judicial
system. He has tried to destroy heath care. He’s destroyed the environment. He’s the
master and Trump’s the stooge, and what’s funny is that Trump doesn’t even know it.
Trump’s always wanted to be part of the in-group, but McConnell is an in-group of one
and Trump plays the fool.“He’s not just divisive. He’s a destroyer. To be in his presence makes you die. He will
eat you alive for his own purposes. I’m appalled that we have a leader who can’t say
‘Black Lives Matter.’ That’s why he hides in the White House basement. He is a coward.
He creates a situation and runs away like a grade-schooler. Actually, I think it’s best to
ignore him. There is nothing he can do to make this better because of who he is: a
deranged idiot.”
There’s far more to the interview, including Popovich’s take on how to make the protests
very effective and powerful. But this we’ll hold for another airing. For now, let’s face it: if
a sidelined professional coach with some time on his hands because of a pandemic
puts himself out there, well, where are some of the others who have different kinds of
bully pulpits? Saw today that apparently Tiger Woods had something to say, but need to
dig deeper to find out what he thinks. We need more than ministers and priests and
rabbis speaking truth to power; we need more than the usual, albeit powerful and
important pundits as well. We need folks from all walks of life who have access to the
various “pulpits” by virtue of their positions and followings. Right now we need every
damned voice raised to create such a din it will be deafening and one hopes, downright
scary to the Republican folks who so far have remained stony silent in the face of the outrages their President is committing on an hourly basis. Trump is a lost cause;
perhaps those Republicans in elected positions are too. But at least for now I have to
believe some of them are not unmoved by this spectacle of malevolence.
Between this and the statement from James Mattis, I think the dam is breaking.
“If it keep rainin’/Levees gonna break…”
I hope so. Last night the police chief of Houston, no small city, and one which is also having protests, spoke very forcefully–including telling Trump to keep his mouth shut if he had nothing constructive to say. Thinking some governors are next. Ours in Maryland, Larry Hogan, is a Republican, son of the guy who voted to impeach Nixon, and Hogan isn’t shy about saying what is on his mind about the federal government response. Thinking now he may say even more, and this time about the protests. He wasn’t governor when Freddie Gray was killed by cops and then no justice was served, but he knows how quickly Baltimore can ignite.
Hint: if you pasted this text in, please check the line breaks before you hit post, or you’ll spend a lot of time fixing them after, because all those misplaced breaks make it hard to read.
Hi pj…….I didn’t paste it in; I sent it via attachment. Will try cut and paste next time. I didn’t for first piece have access to the site to submit.
Pop is the leading voice when it comes to speaking on Teump in the sports world.
Why do you demean him by saying that he is “spouting off”? I don’t get that at all.
Gosh Annette, I think a word may be just a word. Spouting off is not offensive in all of its definitions; only a few.
For example: to speak out publicly about someone or something; to reveal information publicly about someone or something. This is from the Free Dictionary, idioms section.
Yesterday I was urging my FB sports group, players, and coaches to speak out rather than be silent. A member replied, “Why? So the mainstream media can have their fun with us?”
So today, when I read your “spouts off” to describe a long and detailed, heartfelt response by a coach (and adding insult to injury by calling him “idle”), I was rather shocked to think that might be right!
We might gain by finding words that carry no negative tone at all, unless we choose to be that way.
Okay, let’s take this apart: “we might gain by finding words….. unless we choose to be that way.” What you are saying is that someone is choosing to be negative, which is quite the value judgment for one interested in parsing words for political correctness. No one gets everything perfectly right but to look for meaning in words where none is intended takes far more time than perhaps it needs to.
So, let’s fix this: what you meant to say I think is that there is no need for negative tone unless that negative tone is intended, not that one is choosing to be negative, which is a different thing altogether.
Further, I didn’t call him idle out of whole cloth: it was the word used to describe him in the pieces I read before writing the one I wrote.
Finally, there is quite enough of this kind of picking apart folks’ writing on Daily Kos; this needs in my opinion to be a far safer and more humane place to deal with each other. And I say this as a very long-time writer and more important, editor, of other folks’ works.
Excuse me, Houston Spurs??? What the heck happened while the NBA season was suspended?
Hi ozajh, sorry, my bad. I wrote this very, very quickly–I was quite frankly mad as hell at what I was hearing and seeing on MSNBC, which included some views of protests in Houston. I conflated Houston with San Antonio…………
BTW: Last night the police chief of Houston, a Cuban emigre, also raised hell about Trump, which is precisely what we need–folks from all walks of life weighing in and speaking truth to power.
No problem. It’s just that the Spurs is the team I follow (vicariously, from here in Australia) and I was wondering if something had happened . . .
Coach Pop has never been reluctant to speak out, at any time. It must irk a lot of Texas sports fans — the Trumper/GOP kind — but because he’s been successful, and they can’t typecast him as some weenie liberal — they usually swallow it. But I’m glad they have to.
Popovich has never held back when someone in the spotlight like himself needs to come forward and share an opinion that many of us non-celebrity types feel ourselves