Matt Jones won’t ‘stick to sports.’ Can KSR host teach us to bridge political divides? | Opinion

A few months back, I went to a conference on opinion journalism about how to “depolarize” political debate. In states all over the U.S., people live in their own political echo-chambers; we believe what we hear there and don’t believe much from outside of it. The disagreement over those beliefs has become more vicious and unpleasant. We’ve stopped listening.

Disagreement is particularly acute in states like Kentucky, where the stark rural/urban divide further accentuates our political differences. Our polarities break down communication because if you think Donald Trump is a savior and I think he’s the anti-Christ, then we won’t get very far.

But there is someone who manages to speak to both sides of these debates — Matt Jones, founder of Kentucky Sports Radio and a major statewide media personality. The prickly, pugilistic sports radio/pro wrestling magnate is a Democrat who estimates that between 75 and 80 percent of his viewers are Republicans, most of them pro-Trump. He has so much confidence in his bipartisan appeal that he flirted with the idea of running for U.S. Senate in 2019, although ultimately decided not to.

Jones doesn’t pull punches; he’s constantly scrapping online with people who tell him to “stick to sports” and stop talking about politics. But he keeps talking, about politics and lots of other things, and they keep coming back to his show. So I wondered if he might have some ideas on the ways we talk to each other, especially as we get ready to face Fancy Farm, the most fractious, divided, downright ugly event in Kentucky’s political calendar. We sat down for about almost two hours to talk about politics, communications and ways to do better at both. Here are some highlights.

Jones makes the very good point that social media like Twitter, or whatever we’re calling it these days, is not the real world, even though politicians and media pretend it is.

Jones is as online and salty as the next person, but he spends most of his time talking to listeners on a texting app that people send directly to him during and after the show. That way, there’s less posturing and more straight talk.

“There is a segment of people on each side who want to fight,” he said. “But I believe 90% of this country wants to like their neighbor, and wants to not fight ... And there’s a lot of media that is creating the incentive to fight, especially on the right. But I don’t believe most people want to live like that. So what I try to think of is what is the language that I can use to give my opinions in a way that doesn’t just immediately make them mad, that at least makes them hear what I’m saying? I think people can really disagree with you, and still be cool with it.”

What Jones has come to realize over the years is that for his lot of his listeners, he’s the only liberal they know.

“For a lot of the state, especially in the rural parts, they don’t really know anybody who claims to be a liberal anymore. And so like, I’m the one liberal. And so I get a lot of people who will genuinely call me and say, Matt, what do you think about (whatever issue of the day)?”

Issues involving transgender people have been a perfect example of this. First, Jones said, he didn’t know many trans people and had to educate himself on how to talk about it. Turned out, a lot of listeners wanted to talk about it, particularly in the realm of sports.

“Because I’m their one liberal friend,” he said. “And so how can I talk about it in a way that’s respectful and says what I want to say, which is these are human beings whose lives are valuable and who we need to treat with respect?” he said.

In 2022, Senate Bill 83 prevented transgender girls from playing on girls teams. It turned out the bill affected exactly one seventh-grader from Louisville.

“So I tried to just say, hey, why are you so worked up about this?” Jones said. “There’s one kid in this entire state who was trans? And think about how much effort these people have put into this over one person? Do you really think that’s worth it? Because when you hear the politicians, you would think that there’s hundreds of them. And you would think that like sports have been overrun. And I’m like, ‘there’s one kid, and I think the kid was like in seventh grade.’ And when you say it like that, without going, ‘you’re a bigot, you don’t care you blah, blah, blah,’ they might step back and go, ‘well, maybe this isn’t as big a deal as I thought.”

Liberals are terrible at talking to people.

“I think liberals believe they’re smarter,” Jones said. “And that intellectual arrogance comes off from the way they talk. They talk down to people. They talk to people like they’re stupid. And there’s never been a human being on Earth that wanted to listen to somebody who thought they were stupid.”

As an opinion columnist, I’m guilty of what Jones says is the number one mistake liberals make: “How many times have you heard liberals say something like, ‘why did they vote against their own interests?’” he said. “What an arrogant statement to say, that you know better than they do what their interests are. Well, maybe they care about things you don’t. And rather than telling them what they should care about, why don’t you try to understand what they care about, and explain why your way is better for the things they care about. But we look at them and go, what matters to us should matter to you. And the fact that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. That’s the implication.”

People in cities need to do a better job of understanding places like Eastern Kentucky. And vice versa.

“You know, one of the things I had to learn is, what matters to most people is that they can have a life where they work hard, take care of their families and live a good life. And there was a part of me that would always say, ‘well, why don’t these poor people I grew up with in the mountains, why don’t they feel the same way?’ ” (Jones comes from Middlesboro in Bell County.)

“Liberals always say, ‘why aren’t they mad about the fact that these coal companies came and left us? Why aren’t they mad about the fact that we don’t have health care and that we’re fighting over pennies when they (coal companies) have zillions?

“But then I looked at it a little differently, which was these people never grew up expecting to have anything. And the things that mattered to them, they’re seeing slip away. They used to be able to live in the mountains, and they knew their kids could live in the mountains and find a job. And yeah, they may not be rich, but they could be together, and they can be close to home and they could survive, and now that’s going away, and they don’t know why it’s going away. Well, what if instead of sitting there and acting like they’re stupid, we understand that being close to Harlan County matters to people in Harlan County. And that they don’t see coal like the killer of the climate, but see it’s what put food on the table and what paid for the store downtown. And if you start to see that it becomes much easier to communicate.”

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton acted like coal was evil. Trump promised to bring it back. He failed, but he at least understood that it was something that mattered to a lot of people in Appalachia.

“Whether you think coal is evil, coal miners were not evil,” Jones said. “And we lumped all that together. And we took coal completely away from these people. And we gave them nothing back. We didn’t do what we did with tobacco farmers. I mean, with tobacco farmers, we like gave them a bill that helped them build a new life. It wasn’t what it should have been. But it was better than that. We didn’t do any of that for coal miners. No wonder they love Trump.”

Lecturing people won’t change their minds, no matter where they are on the political spectrum.

“I don’t even really necessarily have a desire to change people’s minds,” Jones said. “Because I don’t think that works. I think you help people change their own minds. Because people don’t like to be told what to do. But if they come to the realization themselves, then I think they’re much more likely to actually change the way they think about something. It’s not my desire to turn the state liberal, I don’t have that power, even if I wanted to. My desire is to get people to listen to opinions that they might not otherwise hear in a way that is digestible for them.”