In my experience, it all comes down to presentation. Most die-hard Trump supporters aren’t as locked into their beliefs as people assume. But when we approach them waving the typical “leftist” flag, their defenses immediately go up.

I’ve had plenty of honest conversations where, if you avoid the usual framing, many of them actually agree with progressive policies. But you can’t come at them swinging it shuts everything down.

They’re not dumb, racist caricatures they’re people, just like anyone else. One of the right’s biggest strengths is building a shield that prevents our ideas from even reaching them. We need to ask: Why is so much effort spent on keeping our perspectives from mixing?

There is a lot of money and effort among the right wing party to antagonize the left to become more aggressive and hateful of the right. And we fall for it constantly. We’re trained to meet them with hostility, and that aggression plays right into the system’s hands. It doesn’t have to be that way. We should be discussing to understand their point of view and finding solutions for how the information we know can be used to open them up more to ours.