Your truth is definitely not going to set us free.

“Trump supporters are either bigoted extremists pushing back against progressivism, poverty-stricken people with limited education angered at being left behind in the economic downturn (especially poor whites in rural areas), or some combination of the two.”

I’m not sure I understand, are “bigoted extremists pushing back against progressivism” and “poverty-stricken people with limited education angered at being left behind” the same group or, two different groups? I’ve met lots of Trump supporters who are neither.

You’ve stated your positions without explaining or defending any of them. You simply jotted them down, assuming you were right, assuming they were factually and logically correct, as though your truth would be apparent to all reasonable people.

Not so.

I spent months working to defeat Trump and, in my venue it worked, we beat him but, in the course of those months I not only lost some friends, I met lots of Trump supporters and counted some new friends amongst them.

Trump supporters are a very diverse group. They include members of all the groups you seem to think Trump will victimize but, who don’t seem to have those same fears. They seem all to have one thing in common. They don’t trust politicians.

On how or why they are dishonest, Trump’s followers disagree but, their common trait is a deep-seated belief everyone in Washington is dishonest.

Many of them think all politicians are simply filling their own pockets. I wondered if this could be the result of psychological projection but, that would imply there are tens of millions of corrupt Americans out there. Do they assume politicans are corrupt because, if they were in office they’d be corrupt?

Maybe or, maybe the past decade has convinced them all politicians are the same.

Others feel oppressed by and helpless before the Federal Government, which they see as a monster, out of control. The EPA stopping you from fishing in the half-acre pond you dug in your backyard because, even though it connects with nothing, it’s a “navigable waterway” feeds that feeling of oppression.

One woman told me she supported Trump because he’d throw out everyone in Congress and put them in jail. For what? “Because they’re politicians.”

I met doctors, lawyers, nurses and engineers, blacks and Hispanics who supported Trump. Almost none of the Trump supporters I met and with whom I argued fit into whatever your (still unclear) groups seem to be.

Most of them agreed, Trump won’t do the things he threatens to do. So why vote for him? Because even if he won’t do exactly what he says, he fights back against the things they don’t want, many of the things you seem to advocate.

Are they ignorant and bigoted because they don’t agree with you?

Lots of smart, educated, hard-working people think progressivism is a bad thing. If I explained progressivism to most blacks or Hispanics in the terms of its early twentieth century instigators, most of them would be aghast, as would you. Progressivism is, and was designed to be, a slow march to slavery.

If you’re a progressive, even though many of them won’t recognize your philosophy by name, you’re going to find no common ground with Trump supporters and, if you assume all those who oppose progressivism are stupid, uneducated and bigoted, my question is —

when will you join the Trump camp? — because, you seem to be extremely bigoted yourself.

(I could venture guesses about your levels of education and income but, what would they prove? Nothing. A person isn’t defined by his or her income or how many letters he or she is allowed to type after his or her name. Only a bigot would judge people’s opinions by their age, income or titles…right?)

I don’t know you so, I’ll assume you have reason to believe the Brits’ decision to exit the European Union is based in bigotry. I think that untrue. I have lived in the UK. There is plenty of diversity in the UK. There aren’t many blue people; if you’re blue you might get some stares but, nobody gives a second glance at people of all the common colors, black, brown, yellow, whatever.

I was there when their decision to retain the pound or adopt the euro was being debated. Many rational, intelligent people asked how a multinational financial union could survive without a fiscal union.

Obviously, it can’t, it isn’t and, it won’t. It exists because nobody’s figured out yet how to dissolve it but, dissolve it will, it must because Europe is not one country, not one culture and so, it can’t have one currency.

Many of those same rational, intelligent people asked how a political union could survive without a central government with supreme authority. That’s what Brits feared, Brussels would become the supreme authority.

Shazam…

That’s what many Europeans, not just Brits, MANY Europeans fear and regret, the amount of power they’ve given Brussels, the amount of authority faceless bureaucrats, for whom they don’t vote and, whom they can’t fire, exercise over the smallest , most intimate and personal details of their daily lives.

The Brits aren’t breaking up the European Union, they’re just the first to leave which, since they wisely kept the pound, is easier for them than it will be for the Italians, the Spaniards and the French who, will eventually leave but, in a fashion much less elegant, much more tumultuous than will the Brits.

Imagine the Italians confiscating euros and replacing them overnight with lira. How much will the lira be worth? What about non-Italians with Italian accounts? What about Italians with non-Italian accounts? What about loans denominated in euros? What will they be worth?

It’s going to be one helluva mess. But, I sense you’re too young to grasp that.

The people who expressed dismay at Brexit the day after were a subset of the people who voted against Brexit the day before, who regretted not their own votes but, the votes cast by others. Poll Americans in December and, no matter who wins, you will find tens of millions of voters who will regret the results.

It’s an easy concept. I bet, if you think about it, you’ll figure it out.

I wish I’d been able to do more, to defeat Trump in other places but, even though I did what I could to stop him, I don’t look down on Trump supporters. I’m not superior to them. Even though I think Donald Trump is at best, a Democrat in Republican clothing and, at worst, a dangerous megalomaniac who cares nothing for the Bill of Rights, I don’t look down on those who support him.

They have their reasons. Allow me to express something most of them, including your aunt and uncle are probably too polite to say.

You are one of their reasons.

You are one of the people they wish to stop; people who look down on them, assume their own positions are right without examining or defending them, assume other’s positions are wrong without considering their points of view, assume their set of values is superior to the values of others, who would force everyone to be just like them because — they are right!

You are what they fear, what they hope he will protect them against.

I fought hard against Trump, whom I consider a dangerous, ignorant egomaniac, much more dangerous than you but, probably not much more ignorant and egotistical.

:)