I get AND WELCOME all sides of the political debate. I live with a liberal (probably 2 liberals – my daughter/maybe and her mom/for sure*). I live in one of the most liberal zip codes in the country (look it up – 55405) and I work in two of the most conservative states in the country (Texas & Louisiana).
What I don’t welcome is people portraying themselves as neutral and not accepting that their personal opinion of something may not be accepted as fact by (probably) half the country.
If you support Trump you can’t deny that his lack of discipline with regards to his rhetoric makes it way too easy for those on the other side to label him as a racist. That doesn’t mean the majority of those supporters believe he is racist.
Most of Trump’s supporters DON’T believe he is racist. Maybe they are wrong about that – and is an entirely different discussion. But they can be wrong about something and still have an honest opinion that isn’t based on hate.
I have referred before to the article Our Culture of Contempt where Author Brooks describes the polarizing effect of assuming that “your ideology is based on love and your opponents is based on hate”.
If the left wants to be taken more seriously on the issue of race, they should stop labeling EVERY opponent they face as a racist. I’m 52 and have never voted for someone that the left hasn’t labeled as a racist. So sooner or later you just stop listening to the chatter.
Sadly, I don’t see the problem getting better – but getting worse.
Does Trump help? Probably not.
Does he make it worse? Probably so.
Is it necessary? I don’t know – but it might be.
In the mean time, it would be helpful if we could stick to what we want and stop ascribing motives to people’s beliefs and why they support the politicians they choose to support.
Nobody knows those things about other people and it leads us down a very dark path.
History says those dark paths are way darker than we understand and way harder to get back from than we can ever imagine.
*She would take issue with the “for sure”, and would probably say she is independent – which would not be correct. 🙂