I really can’t tell if you’re being an asshole or not. These are people I grew up around, admiring some of. The uncle I fished with and his son, my cousin, currently beyond reach. I spent every summer with them. It’s heartbreaking. Am I going to cave and let them back in without some kind of ‘come to Jesus’ moment? No, but I am willing to let them admit that they were wrong, successfully lied to, and become welcome members of the family again, because I’m not a monster and neither are they. I don’t think they genuinely believe half of the shit they spout, but do it to fit in. They never had an opinion about immigrants or trans people until it was fed to them. They were just happy hicks doing normal happy hick shit.

Idk man I’m just upset about my family and jealous of people that don’t have to deal with writing off roughly half the people they care about.

If you label every person who voted for Trump a Nazi, you might be a Nazi

What about when it’s your family? I am estranged from a lot of people that I care deeply for because they refuse to engage with reason. I’m not trying to put anyone on a pedestal, good or bad.

I just want people to know that they are welcome to change their minds, nobody is going to mock them for doing so, or say I told you so. That’s what they expect, and pride is part of what holds many of them back from admitting that they were wrong. Because it’s what they would do. Unfortunately, we’re going to need to take the high road.

At some point we need to start welcoming people to the Light, instead of demonizing them for having been in the Dark. It’s pretty difficult for me not to dunk on people as they wake up to the nightmare that they voted for, but a lot them ARE actually otherwise decent folks. Making America Great is going to involve deprogramming a lot of people.