When the right says the pendulum is swinging...

“Donald Trump has lost so many people.”

Ask Tampa Bay talk-show host John Senning about NASCAR or the WWE and he can probably rattle off minutiae that are off the radar for so many liberals. He has curious musical tastes that range from country music to rap to reggae. His voice was one of the first to put Mike the Weather Guy on the map and he did an amazing, informative interview with an environmentalist trying to shut down Alligator Alcaraz.

I don’t know how he defines himself politically, but he leans red. It’s not hard to understand why, with a dad he nicknames “Big Red”. We are born and bred our culture, unless we have the fortitude to stray or break away. I’m full-blooded Massachusetts. (My friend, Cindy, calls us “Mass-holes”.)

Senning doesn’t do politics often on his show or if he does, it may take up one 15-minute segment. With a show that covers pop culture / current events and there’s a President Gone Wild, it would almost be errant to ‘say nothing, do nothing’.

“I’m feeling something. And I think. . . I think this Jimmy Kimmel has been a bit of an amplifier to people looking at things a little differently. . .”

I live mostly in my own echo chamber and consider myself fortunate that I’m not related to any MAGA’s. I have long-time Republican friends, who refuse to get their news from anywhere but conservative sources and are too lazy / apathetic to break out of their pigeonhole. I tell myself, it will hit them and when it does - it will hit hard.

According to Big Red’s son, it is already hitting them. He’s feeling it. Senning has over 100,000 listeners in the Tampa Bay area. He’s a longtime broadcasting professional who knows that he has to choose his words carefully. There’s that fine line between being authentic and losing listeners. Then there’s a corporate boss he has to be held accountable to.

When Senning started his September 24 oration on Jimmy Fallon, I held my breath. This isn’t going to be good, I thought to myself. I was wrong.

In a weird way, I think it was the barometer that pushed the pendulum further in one direction. I think Donald Trump has lost so many people. I think that moment - pretty much from after when he got shot through the election - you felt it in the air that something had changed and that people were looking at him a little bit differently and that there was the swing.

I think we’re starting to see the first semblance of the swing in the other direction. And I think it has a lot to do with voices like Joe Rogan, who went on his podcast and absolutely trashed the idea of Kimmel (getting suspended). There’s other people out there like like Shane Gillis, who are now starting to openly come out against Donald Trump. . .

And I really do think what that other swing back is going to be, is some version of an anti-woke left. And I think that is where we’re headed, where you’re going to see these people that are champions of free speech and didn’t like a lot of things from that previous era that also cannot get down the road that that we’re headed down. . . and maybe we’re seeing right leaning I think are starting to go in a different direction and and the movement will follow. . .

True conservatives, not you know died in the wool Trumpers, but people who want less government even going forward. We didn’t talk about it, but at the. . . at the Charlie Kirk memorial, I saw a lot of people, a lot of Christians, a lot of Charlie Kirk people saying the one problem with that memorial was Donald Trump who got up there and made it all political and then went on to say, “You know, Charlie loved his opponents and he showed them love. I hate my opponents.”

And to take a moment like that and at a time when we need everybody to tone it down. For you to take that moment at this memorial and highlight the fact that you hate the people you disagree with, I thought went against everything that people would like to think Charlie Kirk was about.

And I, I just feel like, I feel like he’s turning people off. He, it was a, it was a mess at the UN yesterday. He did get stuck on the escalator, which that may, that may have been on purpose and that probably was not a good thing. There’s just this, there’s I, I just am feeling something.

I’m feeling something. And I think. . .I think this Jimmy Kimmel has been a bit of an amplifier to people looking at things a little differently. . .

I mean, we’re this far in and this is just me being honest: I don’t know where everybody would tell you outside of the border, that they think he’s doing great. I could tell you the grocery prices, which we all voted upon - a lot of people voted upon - and it was a sticking point. They haven’t come down. In some cases they have maybe even gotten worse. The $2.00 gas never really came. I just - and again, it’s a long term and things are fickle and they go up and down on a dime.

Epstein. . . You start stacking all these things on and I just don’t think it’s been what a lot of people thought they were voting for.

Theo Von

Senning had also mentioned Podcaster Theo Von, who I remember from MTV’s Road Rules. Von had interviewed Trump before the 2024 elections. He made an ignorant video about immigrants being deported and Homeland Security snatched it for their social media posts. (I sound like a snob, but this is the intellect, right?)

Senning pointed out that the right-wing podcaster showed signs of that pendulum swing with Von’s own response:

The pushback from MAGA were what one would expect. Von got ripped and almost cancelled.

Conclusion

A liberal’s viewpoint can be skewed in the same way a conservative sees things through a narrow tunnel. There are data and polls, but most of us can’t stomach the hardcore fiction of the right and listen to the most popular podcasts in the country, like Rogan’s or Von’s.

I’m going to be as frank as Senning. Many of us are afraid to speak up for fear of hurting the overall cause or fighting with our own side. Anything we say can and will be used against us. Senning once said to me on a show regarding politics: “We’re closer than you think.”

That microcosm represents so many of us. Both sides can be fearful of stepping too close to that middle, but there’s still some aspect of commonality.

When an influencer shows the courage to take that step to speak out loud, they’re helping to right a sinking ship. Kudos to Senning. Imagine if our politicians were that brave.