[jfengel]

What's going on inside their head is disgust. They have been told that some people are dirty, and the revulsion comes from a place deeper than rational thought. Once you believe that, you'll believe anything about your opponents: that they want to kill you, that they want to molest children, that they hate decency and want to destroy your country.

Steven Pinker does a good demonstration: he takes a brand new comb out of a package and stirs a glass of water with it, then offers it to you to drink. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing wrong with the water. And yet a fair number of people won't do it, and those who do will still feel just a little weird about it.

That's extremely low stakes. The higher the stakes, the harder it will be to overcome it.

Clearly, you did, and others have as well. But for many others, the constant reinforcement of their prejudices means that they simply won't reconsider their premises. As far as they're concerned, these are basic facts that are confirmed for them every day. The only people who tell you otherwise are disgusting and dirty.