Congratulations by getting away by the skin of Uncle Sam's teeth and the grace of covid. It's time to stop blaming the Russians, they merely held up a mirror for the most part and tipped the scale in 2016. Sure they are an issue, but one the experts and policy can solve. It's the historic social problem of not just racism, but the conditioned sense white supremacy that is the cement that holds the aggregate of grievance together. A glance at the voting demographics and geographic distribution, says it all. It's demographic changes as well as evolving social factors that are breaking up the solid south and hold hope for the future.
I said before this "war" for the soul of your nation breaks down into what I call strategy and tactics, to borrow the real war metaphor. Diplomacy is war by other means and so is politics, non violent social war and the battle field is hearts and minds, the weapons are empathy and reason.
Tactics is the fight on the ground to get and hold power and it might involve driving Donald nuts so they can win in Georgia and all the other honorable and acceptable things involved in such a fight. Strategy is Joe level work, reducing social stress so reason can prevail, finding the source of genuine grievances and addressing them. This part of the war is fought the same way you fight terrorists, cause that is what you are doing, fighting political terrorists. How did peace come to Ireland and even Canada and Quebec? By cutting extremists off from the support of reasonable people in the middle.
Joe's problem is the only ones left to convince are racists and they are very unreasonable people. Fortunately reduced stress, sense of threat and addressing of grievances, will cause these "propensities" to have less of an effect on their moral judgement. Time, introspection and personal growth and evolution will cause some of Trumps support to fall away. Millions of new voters are spawned each cycle and millions die with their attitudes and most of the new ones will learn of these times firsthand and the narrative taught will be an honest one taught from a liberal perspective by largely liberal women.
I'm an optimist, especially long term, but I'm a realist in that I apprehend the danger of the current situation and the fact that many of you live with these people. To change hearts and minds you must first start with the heart, George Floyd's slow motion murder didn't just shock, it reached into their chests and grabbed them by the heart and that is what opened up their minds to facts. The Lincoln Project always sets the mood or "feeling" before the narrative, you have to know how people work to manipulate them to act against their conditioned propensities. Donald needs no skill or perception to blow the dog whistle into the bullhorn and moron could do that, it takes no brains to spread hate.
