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Trump Supporters Aren't Stupid - I think this is a great point, especially the idea that shaming these Trump supporters is about the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

At the risk of ticking off some of my political minded friends; in pursuing my "extremist moderate" stance, I've talked a little more deeply with folks from "the other side". Back in early August I was realizing that this Trump thing had legs, when most of my likeminded folks were still in a scoffing "never happen" mode.

I think Trump would be a bad president, set back stuff on climate, more likely to pursue bellicose policies, have a bit much ignoramus economics, and that the risk factor for really bad stuff would increase. But - and this speaking from a fair amount of cushion and privilege - I don't think it would be the end of our world.

There is so much demonization of the other side, from both sides (not equally, but on both) that politics has become impossible and so we've made room for authoritarianism. Obama is the moslem devil, Bush is a dull-witted buffoon (2000) and a war monger (2004), Clinton is a philandering sleaze bag, Bush Sr. has no balls, Reagan's evil, Carter is a wuss... and a lot worse lately.

I hate to say it, but you got to see the good parts of Trump - for example, harder core Republicans thing he's dropping Democrat lines when he says stuff "we shouldn't let people die in the streets". Or not following the evangelical line that Planned Parenthood is evil incarnate. You need to see these parts, both because of the hopefully less than 50/50 chance he will be our political reality, and also because we need to stop seeing the other as evil. People can be objectively evil, but hardly anyone is the bad guy of their own story at that time, they just have bad assumptions and priorities.