Maybe the problem in our politics is people like me? When my brothers and cousins, or neighbors, start spewing right wing tropes, lies and bigotry I forget that they are the victims of manipulation by moneyed interests controlling media messaging, and they are the victims of global capital and corporations who really are stripping away the possibility for a dignified middle class lifestyle for broad swaths of American workers. This dual action, reality of the stripping away AND their blaming the problem on "the left", immigrants, Americans of color and "woke" culture results in large numbers of Americans actually not understanding their real economic and social interests. But people like me too often blame the victims. I think they are stupid, uneducated, racist, xenophobic and some of them are fanatically religious, still hewing to long-discounted belief structures.
But maybe I'm wrong to think of them as permanently fitting that profile; true, they too often act like that these days! But that is not the real person acting - it is the twisted simulacra they are living in which is inverting the humanity they could each have if they too could be "woke". Shades of “The Matrix”.
So I want to quit blaming and vilifying the victims - they are the victims (as we all are to some extent) of the malicious manipulation of culture and economics by the owners of global capital, oligarchs, authoritarians and moneyed interests in this country who have somehow convinced themselves AND their victims that someone else, something else is responsible for their problems.
Let's be gentle and forgiving of our Red State friends. Let's keep our focus on the real sources of problems in our country. Let's overcome the institutional barriers to Democratic majorities in government. Let's legislate relief for the problems in Red States and the rest of our country whether or not a minority of folks believe that equal rights, fair taxation, social safety nets, environmental activism and aggressive regulation of corporations are in their real interests.
It does appear as if many have fallen prey to mass hypnosis and lost all reason. I am looking forward to reading more of your posts.
There will be no reconciliation in this country. The divide is there and it is, most likely, permanent. This country has never been as divided as it is at this moment.