Oh, we will be sacrificing Nate Silver on a bipartisan altar of poopoo'ing for a loooooong time.

I think Sam's right about this. The only thing I'd correct is that Trump doesn't judge his supporters publicly. I fully believe Michael Cohen when he says that Trump is consciously playing his base for schmucks.

(Edit: Maybe) the most damaging thing in american political culture right now is the absolutism, on top of (or because of?) the polarization. Racism is either non-existent, or everyone is racist. Or all white people, at least. Choose one or the other, and it's a "one strike and you're out" rule for the other side of the aisle. Being wrong shouldn't be a death sentence, but conversely, people need to be more open to accepting and admitting that they're wrong. It's all a terrible set of positive feedback loops. Complicated issues are best understood on an infinite dimensional spectrum, but the human brain's natural tendency is binary classification of everything. Unfortunate.

So. Does supporting Trump automatically make someone a racist? I dunno. At the very least, it is a form of complicity in enabling the spread of racial tension. I've had it explained to me that Trump's economic policies somehow make up for this, but I've never heard a person of color make the argument. Well, besides 50-cent bitching about Biden potentially raising his taxes the other day (it didn't go well for him). I don't think any economic policies are worth Trump's inclinations to shred the social fabric of this country along racial lines. And I genuinely don't understand how "power of the individual!" libertarians can support an aspiring autocrat hellbent on consolidating power into the executive. Maybe we should teach history better? To be clear, I'm not accusing you of this particular issue, but we definitely have a collective problem recognizing fascism. But I digress.

Anyway, if we all more often approached a good-faith discussion or debate with people we disagreed with, I think we could see a social healing to a degree that most thought was no longer possible. Again, there has been one particular person doing his best to prevent this; Actively sowing division to mobilize his base of support, knowingly deceiving, modeling dangerous rhetoric, abdicating facts and science, AND LIVING THE ALL CAPS LIFESTYLE, BAYBEH. Hopefully his microphone shrinks enough that we can return to a more reasonable style of interacting. Might have to wreck a few tech giants, though. Fbook and tweeter.com have removed the humanity from our interactions. My profile picture is way easier to punch in the face than my face IRL, I think. Still punchable, though.

It's true that I don't know how to approach a discussion with dyed-in-the-wool Trumpies without coming across as "sanctimonious". Humor, self-deprecation (I've always been so shitty at this, oh wait, hahah, I'm making a joke! Update: It was received as a bad joke, so I'm self-deprecating again), and forgiveness are all on the menu. Forgiveness is only meal-prepped, though, I'm not ready to serve that shit yet.

I'm not convinced that Trump-ist politics is a problem that can be solved, honestly. But I'm still gonna try, because if I just sit on my hands, I'll hate myself forever.