Popovich on Presidential Election Outcome: ‘We Are Rome’

AT&T CENTER – Tuesday evening, Donald Trump was named the next President of the United States of America. The election results for most media and election analysts was almost shocking, and as reality has struck that Trump will be the next President, numerous NBA Head Coaches and players have given their opinion on the election results.

Friday evening before the San Antonio Spurs played the Detroit Pistons, Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich gave his opinion on the outcome of the election and what it says about the country.

“I don’t think my voice is that important, but I’ve spoken on this before and I probably will again but right now, I’m just trying to formulate thoughts. It’s too early, I’m still sick to my stomach. Not basically because the Republicans won or anything but the disgusting tenure and tone and all the comments and xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and I live in that country, where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing to me. It had nothing to do with the environment and Obamacare, and all the other stuff. We live in a country that ignored all those values, that we would hold our kids accountable for – they’d be grounded for years if they acted and said the things said in that campaign by Donald Trump. I look at the Evangelicals and wonder; those values don’t mean anything to them? All those values to me are more important than anybody’s skill in business or anything else, because it tells who we are and how we want to live and what kind of people they are. And that’s why I have great respect for people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain, John Kasich, who I disagree with on a lot of political things, but they had enough fiber and respect for humanity and tolerance for all groups to say what they said about the man. And that’s what worries me. I get it, of course we want him to be successful, we’re all going to say that, everybody wants to be successful you know, it’s our country, we don’t want it to go down the drain. But any reasonable person would come to that conclusion, but it does not take away the fact that he used that fear mongering and all the comments from day one. The race baiting from making Barack Obama, our first Black President illegitimate. It leaves me wondering where I’ve been living and with whom I’ve been living and the fact that people can just gloss that over and just start talking about the transition team and you know, we’re all going to be kumbaya now and try to make the country good without talking about any of those things and now we see that he’s already backing off on immigration, on Obamacare and other things, so was it a big fake? Which makes you feel it’s even more disgusting and cynical, that somebody would use that to get the base that fired up to get elected and what gets lost in the process are African Americans and Hispanics and women, and the gay population. Not to mention, the eighth grade developmental stage exhibited by him when he made fun of the handicapped person, I mean, come on. That’s what a seventh grade-eight grade bully does. He was elected PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. We would have scolded our kids, we would have had discussions and talked until we were blue in the face trying to get them to understand these things, and he is in charge of our country. That’s disgusting.”

Reporter: “I know personally…”

Popovich: “I’m not done. One could go on and on – it’s we didn’t make this stuff up. He’s angry at the media because they reported what he said and how he acted. That’s ironic to me, it makes no sense. So that’s my real fear and that’s what gives me so much pause and makes me feel so badly that the country is willing to be that intolerant and not understand the empathy that’s necessary to understand other groups situation. You know, I’m a rich white guy and I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it. I can’t imagine being a Muslim right now, or a woman, or an African American, a Hispanic, a handicapped person. How disenfranchised they might feel. And for anyone in those groups that voted for him, it’s just beyond my comprehension how they ignore all that. And so, my final conclusion is, my big fear is, we are Rome.”