see url:
https://slate.com/culture/2021/07/stop-insulting-trump-voters-washington-post-wise-brilliant-great-advice.html
see full story...good...common sense advice article...😉
Quote<<<
On Thursday, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by columnist
Gary Abernathy arguing that Americans need to stop insulting Trump
voters lest we fail to achieve “what’s necessary for our nation to
survive.” Easily the greatest work on the importance of being nice to
Trump supporters that the Post has published since Kathleen Parker’s
“Progressives’ Shaming of Trump Supporters Won’t Work” (Aug. 9, 2019) or
James Hohmann’s “Liberal Hostility Toward Trump Aides Could Galvanize
the GOP Base” (June 25, 2018) or Michael Gerson’s “Stop Sneering at
Trump. It Won’t Help” (April 20, 2017), Abernathy’s essay is a timely
reminder of the importance of historical amnesia, and the urgent need to
treat Trump voters with civility and respect and deference and reverence
and adoration, no matter what they’ve done.
After all, the 2020 election is over, and so is the violent attack on
the Capitol Trump incited in a futile attempt to cling to power, and
even if people are still dropping like flies from the deadly pandemic
Trump catastrophically mismanaged, there’s no reason to be rude. You
wouldn’t treat someone like a moral leper just because they root for the
Orioles instead of the Nationals, so why would you judge someone for
handing the country over to a pack of racist crooks who promptly got
more than half a million Americans killed? Trump voters would prefer not
to think about whether or not they bear any responsibility for the awful
things done in their name by the people they explicitly told to go do
awful things in their name, and it’s important for those of us on the
left side of the aisle to respect their culture.
As we all come together to clean up the mess that some of us
deliberately caused, it’s clear that insults will get us nowhere.
Calling Trump voters “dumber than a bag of hammers” only reveals that
you are unserious about moving forward as a country. Going on to clarify
that you meant to say that Trump voters were “to a person, dumber than
the dumbest bag of hammers at a hammer store that used to specialize in
selling extremely dumb hammers before the health department shut it down
for selling bags of hammers that were so dumb it was against the law”
will do very little to reach across the political chasm. It may feel
good to insult the people whose stupidity, hatred, and fear caused
untold suffering all over the world. It may feel great. It may feel like
sitting on the porch and taking your first sip of an ice cold beer after
a hot day, or finding a $20 bill in your coat pocket, or seeing the face
of an old friend who’s been gone for a long time. It may feel so, so
great. But consider this: Don’t?
Instead, try listening to Trump voters and their concerns as though you
were plucked from the cabbage patch this very morning, fresh as the dew,
with no memory of what happened when we spent several years listening to
Trump voters and their concerns. While you’re listening, you can show
your commitment to democracy in America by murmuring things like “I
see,” or nodding your head in an understanding manner. Do not do that
thing where you pretend like you’re coughing and bark “Bullshit!” into
your fist when the Trump voter you are listening to says that of course
they didn’t approve of everything Donald Trump did. Do not accuse them
of enabling a nihilistic death cult that is steering the entire planet
into a lake of fire. Do not throw pies or fruit or bricks. Do not say,
“What’s that? It seems like you’re trying to talk, but all I can hear is
a thick, clotty bubbling sound, because you’re up to your eyebrows in
the blood of your fellow citizens.” Shaming will never work!
>>>End of Quote
