Hey MuddyUm,

After the first sentence, I figured I wouldn't disagree with anything you said here. I don't, factually, but your approach is all wrong. We need to embrace as many of these people (Trumpers) as we can. We need to welcome them into our lives and establish some shared humanity. We need to find something we share and, without arguing, rest in our common humanity long enough that we find common ground. I've been a hard-core socialist half my life and I'm a combat vet. I'm not bleeding heart. But we can't change their hearts and minds with facts, debates or smugness. We need one-on-one outreach. We outnumber them, so all of us don't have to participate, but a lot of us do if we want to change their minds.

There is absolutely no fucking reason that the abandoned children of coalminers and factory workers should be voting Republican. I'm with you. There is absolutely no reason that disenfranchised white people shouldn't realize that they are suffering economically, like many minorities (they aren't getting shot by cops, but their standard of living isn't rising either).

We need to stop dropping Latin mea culpas, being the elitist ghoul they imagine and actually reach out and form bonds with these people.

We need to be more like the black people who became friends with klansmen, eventually leading the klansmen to renounce racism (https://www.goalcast.com/2020/07/13/daryl-davis-black-man-convinced-200-kkk-members-to-quit/). We can't win this on facts (Trumpers have their own). We can't win this through intellectual debate- they aren't playing. We need to embrace these downtrodden people who are so lost that they see that Cheeto prick as their savior. Even if they aren't our people now, they need to be and we need them to be. We have real work to do in this country. The stupid divide between liberals and the down-trodden needs to be shattered.