All-star panelist Ben Cunningham joined Friday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s anticipated transit plan and how it may clash with the overall preference among Nashvillians when it comes to transportation.
In a previous segment of Friday’s show, Cunningham said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit plan may include the creation of a light rail from downtown Nashville to the Nashville International Airport.
Continuing that conversation, Cunningham agreed with Leahy when he said Nashvillians prefer “individual transportation,” not mass transit.
“People want individual transportation. They don’t want to be on a bus. They don’t want to be on some mass transit. They don’t want to take a stupid light rail,” Leahy said. “I think about this – Who goes to the airport? I mean, some people from downtown go to the airport, but most people, when you go to an airport, you’re driving from one of the suburbs, right? If you put a billion dollars of light rail to go right to the airport, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Cunningham replied, “That’s the political pressure that the Democrats have to deal with.”
“All these greenies that want to get people out of their cars. That really is the ultimate goal of the greenies. They hate cars. They think they’re polluting, they think it causes global warming. So they want to get people out of their cars and they don’t care how much they have to spend to kind of get the camel’s nose under the tent there. And then of course, they see this fantasy of light rail running all around Nashville and from Murfreesboro to downtown. And that’s the fantasy. And for them, this is the first step,” Cunningham said.
The conversation then pivoted to Leahy and Cunningham discussing the growing inability to have rational discussions with individuals that share different viewpoints on issues.
“It is absolutely nuts. And that’s where we are these days… When we have lost any ability at rational discussion, at debate, at people entertaining ideas, at entertaining disagreement, we’re to the point where the whole concept of disagreeing with people is foreign. It’s crazy. You talk to people and disagreement is evil. Disagreement is you’re defined as evil. If you don’t agree with a liberal, that’s the very definition,” Cunningham explained.
“And this whole thing with Trump and demonizing Trump, and Biden, basically from day one of his administration saying these Trump people are awful, there are threats of democracy and he has beat that drum every day. And the press picks it up, the liberals in these colleges and universities pick it up, and that’s where we are. They really do regard us as an existential threat and they regard us about democracy, you’re a threat to democracy,” Cunningham added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
