[basseq]

Which part? (Seriously.)

My point was that there's no one source of truth. Perception is reality. To a vast majority of his supporters, Trump is not a racist xenophobe. Period, full stop. And this isn't stupid: an intelligent, reasonable person could make that argument. And plenty of Trump supporters are intelligent, reasonable people.

Did something get lost in translation?

[oh_sigh]

Okay, that's fair. I took your original post to mean something along the lines of "Trump supporters believe something stupid, and when you talk down to them, they just dig into their stupid beliefs. If you would come at them nicely, you would have a better chance of teaching them how stupid their beliefs are"

[basseq]

The exact opposite! If your train of thought starts with "Trump supporters believe something stupid" (or wrong, or racist, or whatever), you've already lost the discussion. Because you're not interested in having a discussion: you're interested in forcing your worldview on someone or, more likely, parroting someone else's talking points.

I'll say that a different way: if you think that a large number of people with whom you disagree are stupid (or racist, or whatever excuse you choose to minimize their logical decisionmaking), YOU ARE IGNORANT AND NAIVE.

You may disagree with them. That's fine. You might be interested in finding common ground and compromise instead of running around accusing everyone of being a stupid, racist xenophobe. In that case, you're looking to have a dialogue which can only happen from positions of mutual respect.

That respect is lacking, particularly on the vocal left.

You may convince someone to "see things your way", but you have to open yourself up to see things their way.

[oh_sigh]

I completely agree with pretty much everything you say. It was hard for me to tell if you were making a specific point about "special" Trump supporter, or a general point about persuasion. I took it the wrong way, probably due to my cynicism of the level headedness of discussions that happen online. My bad. Goes to show what I know.