The dilemma with most Trump supporters is their anger — a palpable anger about their waning lifestyles and their expected economic security. Anger is typically the result of unresolved fear and boy do millions of Americans have a ton of unresolved fears, stoked daily by conservative talk radio and conservative cable news networks.
So, just how does one separate an individual from their anger? Logic rarely do so. Prayers, unless the individual is highly religious is generally a fail. How do you assure someone that if they cast a vote for say, Hillary Clinton, the only remaining viable candidate, that their lives will somehow magically improve?
The only way that I have found to “talk to” a Trump supporter is to simply listen to them rant about the opposition. If during their rant, designed to relieve some of their perceived and often very real issues, I try to find one deeply meaningful issue where their misconception is completely unrealistic and I try to slowly counter those misconceptions with non-aggressive truths delivered without incredulity or even a hint of “are you stupid or what”.
Politics has become so toxic over the last thirty years that people have abandoned family and friends over their choices for a political office. Of course, each of us would like someone to come into the political arena and deliver us the economically secure lives that the majority of us had during the years after WWII up until the early 1980s. But that hope of supposedly “making America great again” a code for when white men were in charge, white men who have been and are still in charge, regardless of the color of the skin of the current American president.
So, this myth or hope of believing in a pure “Hail Mary moment” of just throwing out the current political system to embrace the change, and Trump will surely bring unprecedented change, is a concept that will result in more economic insecurity and increasing fear that will ultimately plung most hanging onto the fringes into a special American Gulag!
Without a doubt change is needed and necessary but to step off into the abyss without a plan, well, that’s just plain stupid. And as we all know, you just can’t fix stupid!