What Conservatives Believe

The well-known website, Wikipedia, defines conservatism as:

 . . . a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, hierarchy, and authority, as established in respective cultures, as well as property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as organized religion, parliamentary government, and property rights with the aim of emphasizing continuity.[1]

Conservatives, like liberals, are not monolithic, meaning their beliefs are varied and diverse. What one conservative holds most dear may not match what another conservative proclaims as fundamental. However, most conservatives have similar guiding principles that are held in varying degrees as foundational. A partial list of those principles is provided below.

I have prepared this list, culled from a dozen or so conservative websites, in response to plaintive questions many liberal friends have posed to me, such as “Why do conservatives vote against their vested interests” (such as economic, social, etc.) and “What is it that conservatives really believe?” Hopefully, in listing those guiding principles I will have given liberals something to think about, meaning voting behavior involves complex reasoning, not simplistic knee-jerk reactions. For many conservatives, voting for or against a specific ballot measure may be influenced by foundational principles that may not be apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the range of conservative beliefs.

In other words, I urge liberals to see conservatives as complex people, the greater majority of whom are not knuckle-dragging deplorables. If liberals are going to continue to oppose conservatives in the voting booth, at the very least they should try to recognize conservatives’ real-world values rather than the dubious strawmen often created to demonize them.

Note: the following list is not intended to be all-inclusive.

Guiding Conservative Principles

Individual liberty/freedom.

Property rights are paramount; meaning no person is free if they are restricted from owning and possessing property.

Limited government, low taxes, and few business regulations.

Free markets based on capitalism/private enterprise and little government interference.

Personal responsibility trumps government assistance.

Empowerment of the individual to solve problems; rugged individualism; self-help rather than government welfare, meaning government is not the solution to domestic social problems.

Public and private social services are an intentionally corrupt scam to keep minority groups on what is called the Democrat Plantation.

Government should provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals and capitalize on opportunities.

Many if not most government programs/agencies should be privatized to create jobs, generate opportunities, and thus reduce poverty.

“Judicial deference” is highly valued while “judicial activism” is not; meaning the Originalist Theory of constitutional interpretation seeks to determine the intended meaning of the text and does not grant judges free rein to create new rights and powers.

States’ rights are paramount; state control should trump federal control.

Civil institutions (family, voluntary associations, organized religions, etc.) are society’s lifeblood and should be protected from government interference.

The right to life is sacred, meaning abortion and euthanasia are murder while executing convicted criminals is both moral and just.

High rates of religious participation are greatly preferred.

Education is the bedrock of freedom and the gateway to opportunity.

Socialism/communism is evil.

Most Democrats want the U.S. to become much more socialist until government controls nearly everything in our lives.

Right to work/anti-union; unions are socialist creations.

Corporations and corporate executives are more highly valued than unions or blue-collar employees.

National security is the federal government’s first obligation and is necessary to democracy.

Preferential treatment of races by any means is wrong; civil rights are individual rights and do not guarantee equality of outcomes.

Healthcare provided by the government (socialized medicine) means that everyone will get the same low-quality care.

Immigration laws must be enforced: illegal immigrants should be deported.

Gun control laws violate the 2nd Amendment, which is highly prized as inviolate.

A giant conspiracy of local, state, and federal elections officials across the country ignores or denies the existence of massive, wide-scale voter fraud.

At least 10,000 climate scientists around the world are engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to perform demonstrably bad science in order to receive more government grants to do more bad science; although no scientists have yet been able to expose the way that conspiracy has taken control of all climate research in every industrialized country, it’s only a matter of time.

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

Reflection on John Lewis

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those [Jim Crow] days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

John Lewis; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html

Those eloquent words expressed by the dying John Lewis may persuade Americans to recognize the almost unimaginable, daily horrors of state-sponsored Jim Crow terrorism, horrors every black family living in southern, southwestern, and Border states experienced. It may be easy for some to claim we’re not part of that horror, that that was in the past and in locations where we didn’t live, however, as William Faulkner so perceptively wrote in the novel, Requiem for a Nun, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

The power of Faulkner’s observation can be seen in today’s racial turmoil that has given rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and to the drive for the removal of statues and monuments honoring Confederates who were traitors to their country during war and unapologetic advocates of enslaving humans for their personal profit.

In Lewis’s remarkable deathbed essay, he urged Americans to “. . . study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time.” So, in honor of the life and indomitable spirit of John Lewis, I offer the following brief reflection.

Who Was Edmund Pettus?

Many Southerners might tell you he was the son of a wealthy planter, a lawyer, distinguished citizen of Selma, and a great Alabamian deserving of all sorts of accolades. Some might try to amend that by adding he fought the Civil War to keep slavery alive and well. Others would focus on his years of service as a decorated Confederate general and try to steer you away from the not so edifying fact he was also the Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

Historians, on the other hand, like University of Alabama history professor John Giggie, cite the record of his lifelong love of and support for white supremacy. According to Giggie, “Pettus became for Alabama’s white citizens in the decades after the Civil War, a living testament to the power of whites to sculpt a society modeled after slave society.” Here’s how James W. Flynt, University Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University, assessed Pettus: “His fanaticism is borne of a kind of pro-slavery belief that his civilization cannot be maintained without slavery.”

Edmund Pettus was an unrepentant white supremacist and that’s who the City of Selma proudly named that bridge after.

It was on that bridge in 1965 that hundreds of peaceful civil rights advocates marching to Montgomery were attacked and beaten savagely by white Alabama State Troopers. It turns out that bridge may be renamed after an extraordinarily courageous black man whose skull was fractured in the infamous 1965 melee by the baton of a white State Trooper; that courageous man was John Lewis. Perhaps if that bridge were renamed, Americans might be able to put Edmund Pettus where he belongs in the historical perspective of state-sponsored Jim Crow terrorism and white racism and better understand why John Lewis fought so hard throughout his adult life for the rights guaranteed to all citizens by the U.S. Constitution.

Even if Edmund Pettus’s name is removed from the bridge, no mean feat in a state where such removal is only with the consent of a very conservative legislature, Americans should never forget who he was and what he and his fellow white racists stood for. We also should never forget the violence they unleashed on black Americans like John Lewis with the consent and support of the State of Alabama. Thankfully, we can celebrate the reality that Lewis and thousands of like-minded civil rights activists became the antidote to Jim Crow terrorism and to the poison that infected people like Pettus.

Why I’m Not Capitalizing the “b” in black *

In the past few days, we have been treated to dozens of news media announcing that starting now and in their future publications the word “black” would have the first letter capitalized. Why does it seem that’s a step in the right direction PC-wise? Is it only the righteously “woke” who think so?

My initial reaction was to wonder if those same news outlets are going to capitalize the “w” in white. My second reaction was to wonder why we use those two words to denote a wide range of skin tones that never include any humans who are actually white or black. I should mention that I have traveled to West Africa at least five times and met many dozens of people indigenous to that region and never once saw a truly black person. Yes, in Nigeria where I spent the most time many were darker than the typical Afro-American here. But none were jet black, though I admittedly met only a small fraction of the population. My mother’s side of the family are all proud Irish-Americans, many of whom have very light completions that can be called “peaches and cream” but their skin tones are definitely not white, on the pinkish side maybe but not white. And their hair isn’t “red” either, maybe a shade of orange though to characterize them as “carrot-top” is silly since the top of a carrot is green.

At one time in our history the word “black” was considered offensive. Later, the same stigma was attached to the word “Negro” as “black” became more acceptable. But we don’t use the words “yellow Americans” or “red Americans” to denote race so why do we continue to categorize people as white or black? Why aren’t my wife and I, as well as our children and grandchildren, classified as Euro-Americans? After all, our ancestors on both sides were from Ireland and Germany.

Then what should we think about the phrase, “colored people”? Or, as we now say, people of color, momentarily putting aside the NAACP. I’m thinking about having a block party for all my uncolored neighbors but don’t know how much beer to buy. I mean, who would show up? Aren’t all humans colored? Would only colorless aliens from another planet come to my party? If they did, what in the world would they drink? And if they had no color how would I see them?

The most recent United States Census officially recognized five racial categories (White American, Black or African American, Native Americans and Alaska Native, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander) as well as people of two or more races. By the way, why aren’t Alaskan Natives simply classified as Native Americans? And what race is a native of Libya or Tunisia according to the Census Bureau? Talk about screwed up.

In my future expositions I’m going to throw out all references to color as designators of race. Euro-American and Afro-American will be my style rather than white and black. As for the terms “colored people” or “people of color” they’re history, no disrespect to the out of step NAACP.


* In terms of full disclosure, my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation were on racial issues in the U.S. and I was co-editor of a book on the Geography of Black America published by Doubleday.

All Lives Matter

All Lives Matter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that mantra since Michael Brown’s killing. When you do hear it it’s typically said by those who are opposed in one way or another to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The question I have for people who identify as sympathetic to the All Lives Matter viewpoint is simple: At what specific time in our history did America become a country where All Lives Matter? That question is not frivolous. Since the colonies were created by European invaders who wrested the land from its previous owners and then tried to enslave them, and when that attempt didn’t work imported Africans forced into slavery for life, it is painfully obvious the colonialists were not All Lives Matter people.

Nor did our Founders believe All Lives Matter when they wrote a Constitution that boldly proclaimed all men are created equal and yet permitted humans to be enslaved for life. Of course, we can’t forget that as early as 1790 our newly formed country proudly proclaimed itself to be for whites only, excluding Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, whose lives evidently didn’t matter, at least not legally.

After the Civil War when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, the federal government intentionally turned its back on the newly freed slaves and allowed the Southern and Border States to construct a state-sponsored system of terrorism we gentrify as Jim Crow, a system that in one form or another quickly spread to nearly all states. The U.S. Supreme Court also turned a blind eye to the painfully obvious fact that millions of blacks were being terrorized, attacked, assaulted, threatened, lynched, thrown into prison for non-existent crimes, and subjugated by the power of the states, local jurisdictions, and the entire white culture. So, until the end of the 20^th Century and later All Lives Matter wasn’t on many Americans’ list of things to value.

How can we ignore actions the federal and state governments took to favor whites and disadvantage blacks, including redlining, creating racially discriminating government-backed mortgage loans and loan guarantees, deed restrictions that prohibited blacks from purchasing houses in white areas, preferential hiring of whites by governments and corporations, ensuring the Social Security program did not cover the vast majority of black Americans, exclusionary zoning that kept blacks out, etc. And we can’t forget the terrible race riots that destroyed black communities across America during which few whites were arrested and still fewer prosecuted: Atlanta, Omaha, Chicago, Tulsa, East St. Louis, Charleston, Little Rock, Rosewood and Ocoee, Florida. That list goes on and on.

Today, we live in a country of segregated cities and schools, a country where millions of black parents have to give “The Talk” to their kids about how to survive encounters with the police.

When did we as a nation turn the corner and suddenly become All Lives Matter supporters? Was it when we passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 and then refused to enforce it from its passing until today? Probably not. Was it when we inaugurated the Affirmative Action program and saw it attacked from the get-go by ardent conservatives who found illegality in every hiring that favored minorities who had been intentionally disadvantaged by federal and state governments for a hundred years? Nope. Let me pose a related aside: Why is it that conservatives so strongly oppose every aspect of Affirmative Action but were silent for many decades as the rights of black Americans were being trampled by every level of government and by the larger white culture? Is it because they enjoyed being favored by “their” governments and their culture but were outraged when that system of favor was modified?

But what I would really like to know is when did we become a country where All Lives Matter?

What Do White Parents Tell Their Children?

On Sunday morning, June 7, 2020, U.S. Attorney General William Barr stated on a national TV news program that he does not believe that the nation’s police force is characterized by systemic racism. That statement echoed sentiments made by other members of President Donald Trump’s administration and led directly to this response.

As parents, do we spell out the words used as racial-ethnic slurs and talk about how painful they are to the objects of that hatred?

As parents, do we talk about making fun of and bullying people who are different in terms of skin color, hair, facial features, sexual orientation, what they wear, where they are from, and religion?

As parents, do we have to tell them that the police force as an institution does not look out for our best interests or our well-being?

As parents, do we lay out in excruciating detail what to do if and when they have an encounter with law enforcement since those interactions can lead to injury or death?

As parents, do we tell our children that death can result from police encounters even when black-brown people who comply with instructions to raise their hands, to not resist, be prone on the ground, begging to take a breath?

Why is it that black parents have to have talks exactly like the ones listed above to be sure their kids survive the world around them and particularly survive police encounters and white parents don’t?

Why is it white parents and other white officials (AG Barr in particular) don’t understand what black parents living in every part of the U.S. are saying out loud and in every kind of public forum about what they have to do to protect their kids from harm at the hands of the police? Are we purposely blind and deaf or do we discredit their testimony, as Barr does, and call them liars?

George Floyd died at the hands of police who were sworn to protect and serve the public. How is it that some Americans can sit back and not be part of changing that horrific reality? Now is the time to act. Either black lives matter in this country or our Constitution is meaningless.

On Protesting, Looting, and Violence

Some years ago, a group of angry Massachusetts residents decided to raid several American transporters because of perceived socioeconomic inequities and as a result destroyed cargo that today would be valued at around two million dollars. The government’s official reaction was to pass and enforce onerous laws whose sole purpose was to punish the looters, discourage violence against private property, and show the American public who was boss. 

Were the violent acts of the looters and protesters in destroying private property morally wrong in and of themselves and was the government right in suppressing the violence to maintain public order and keep private property free from wanton destruction?

The situation described above is the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

NEWS FLASH

A recent national poll found that 44 percent of respondents who self-identified as Republicans believe that Bill Gates was plotting to use a coronavirus vaccine to implant microchips in our bodies. You’ve got to remember that those people may be your friends and neighbors and are probably going to vote in the coming national election. Yeah, scary thought.

https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-spreading-on-the-right-may-hamper-vaccine-efforts-152843610.html?campaign_id=93&emc=edit_fb_20200603&instance_id=19051&nl=frank-bruni&regi_id=69101849&segment_id=29978&te=1&user_id=703304aa2d007027e5576f260f40793b

Reflection in Pandemic Times

In these pandemic times, if we had eyes that functioned, what would they see? Would they see people protesting against public health measures put in place to protect everyone from illness, the collapse of our healthcare system, and possibly death? Would they see first responders and medical professionals in desperate need of artificially constrained supplies of PPE? Would they see what has been touted for decades as the WORLD’S BEST healthcare system falling flat on its face when confronted with a novel coronavirus it had known about for many weeks yet failed miserably to take appropriate steps? Would they see their only means of livelihood disappearing simply because people who chose to live in cities are dying at unacceptable rates while they prospered in their lower density rural and quasi-rural landscapes and yet were forced by dictatorial politicians to be unemployed? Would they see their freedoms taken from them by unconstitutional acts of the same officials? Would they see the damage done by covid-19 has been exacerbated by an incompetent government response, constraints on our civil liberties, and an escalating geopolitical war with China? Would they see that South Korea kicked our ass in “flattening the curve” while the CDC and the FDA sat around and choked the chicken? Or would they see the Trump Administration reacting swiftly and confidently to control the threat of a global pandemic?

It may be that another interpretation of what has transpired should be considered. Perhaps none of what is being “seen” depends on our vaunted organs of vision. Rather it may be that what is seen depends on the observers’ previously adopted ideological point of view and not on their eyes. I believe many hardline conservatives are predisposed to see one thing regarding the pandemic while people on the left are predisposed to see another. I believe what was seen depends in large measure on the filters positioned in front of our supposedly sighted organs, our eyes. I believe that it wasn’t the eyes that were in action but the filters we are loath to acknowledge and even more unwilling to understand.

The truth is few people are genuinely reflective about their condition in life or about the different filters that affect them in so many ways. Ever since Socrates/Plato uttered that famous dictum—The unexamined life is not worth living—some 2,400 years ago, it does little good to rail against that so very human a failure. Human reality is what it is and nothing we can do will change that. People who are reluctant/unwilling/unable to examine their lives and puzzle about how and why they might understand what is going on around them are the rule rather than the exception. Railing against armed people who hoist Confederate flags while protesting transgressions against their liberties regarding covid-19 guidelines is very much like railing against the weather. Nothing will be changed by either course of action. It is far better to try to communicate with those whose filters are not brightly colored by one and only one ideology than to try to reason with an ideologue. Forget it. It doesn’t work now and never will. Don't waste your time.

The best thing we can do is to put the famous dictum originated by Socrates/Plato to good effect in our own lives. It is critical to recognize the proposal that we all should reflect on how closely our ideals and behaviors coincide is not elitist but a way to live with a clear conscience even if our actions do not always sync seamlessly with our ideals. After all, no human is perfect; we are all flawed. We don’t have to drink the hemlock if our political ideals are not always mirrored in our every action.

Reflection is a journey, a way of life, not a destination that can be achieved. But it is a journey that is highly recommended, especially if you are trying to make sense of American politics in these pandemic times featuring crowds of armed,  marginalized folks waving Confederate flags who strongly prefer continued covid-19 suffering and death in the general population to their own unemployment.  

The Constitution Be Damned: FINALLY!!!

Yes, Trump's authority is ABSOLUTE. Yes, all of us commie/pinko/liberals and the dumb-shit Democrat governors are nothing but toilet paper The Donald uses to wipe his ass with. Yes, YES, and more YES. 

It's exactly why all the deplorable right-wing nuts voted for him in the first place. The country now has its KING, its DICTATOR, its MESSIAH to take us to the Promised Land where arch-conservative judges and justices rule with iron fists, a land free from corporate-destroying governmental regulations, a land free from immigrants and brown skin welfare cheats, a land where the President not longer has to hide his true ambitions. 

Thanks to the pandemic effects of CV-19, Trump finally has America exactly where he wants: in his democracy-killing python grip. He isn't going to let go without an epic struggle at the ballot box. Fasten your seat belts, folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride all the way to November. 

Critical National 2020 Elections

For the last year, nearly everything I've read about the coming national elections has been about how to defeat Trump and why that goal is so important. Perhaps that's a reflection of my leftist politics since it indicates I haven't paid much attention to articles extolling Trump's presidency (gag) and pumping up his re-election chances (super gag).

If you sit back and think about what has happened these past three plus years, it might be that the election of Democratic candidates for the Senate is at the very least as critical as kicking Trump back to New York City. I write that because of his many judicial, Supreme Court, Cabinet, and regulatory agency appointments. Unlike his Cabinet and agency appointments, judges and justices serve for life and Trump has appointed a ton of right-wingers to those positions. Some of those appointees will be with us for up to 40 and more years.

But even if Trump would be re-elected, God forbid, a Senate controlled by Democrats will limit his ability to appoint the worst of the conservative lot to the bench and to other prominent positions. And if you don't agree with that idea, simply consider Trump's recent announcement of his desire to appoint one of his White House attorneys as the Inspector General overseeing the two trillion-dollar covid-19 slush fund just passed by Congress. If that doesn’t give you pause, I’m not sure what would.

What I'd like you to consider is volunteering to work in the campaigns of Democratic candidates for the Senate. Yes, things right now prohibit such activities or constrain them drastically. But the current situation will not last forever. Plus, campaign contributions do not require you to leave the house or shake hands with potential voters, infected or not. I have no specific candidates in mind, only that they have the potential of defeating the sitting Republican Senator in whatever state you live.

Perhaps, during this period of extended time off from our "normal" lives, you might take time to consider how you could respond to this vital national issue. The last thing I want is for people to be so focused on defeating Trump that we lose the many battles for the Senate and have that rat bastard Mitch McConnell to deal with again.

Please think about what I'm proposing. I’m convinced electing Democratic candidates to the Senate is critical to our nation's future and that we all should be involved in trying to make a difference in this matter.

Today’s America: Unrelenting Demagoguery and Profiles in Cowardice

What are we, American citizens with little voice in the body politic other than the ability to vote, to think of events in today’s Washington? Especially, what are we to think about the actions and postures of Republican Senators regarding the impeachment of President Trump? Those questions are difficult, even gut-wrenchingly difficult, because we are all well-schooled in the powerful and seductive myths of America the Exceptional, America the Beautiful, America the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free. Yet, what we see happening in Washington gives the lie to those comforting myths.

I’m not interested in re-hashing the well-established facts about what President Trump did to merit impeachment. Without question, statements from his own mouth clearly establish his involvement in various nefarious acts. What I’m concerned about is the state of America as a political institution after three years of Trump’s unrelenting demagoguery and GOP Congressional profiles in cowardice as they turned sightless eyes to presidential perfidy.

If the authors of our founding documents and the famous Federalist Papers saw the effects of mindless partisanship and mind-numbingly brutal demagoguery, it was through a glass darkly. If they had been able to see clearly what their political system was capable of, they would have blanched at the thought of a Donald Trump aided by elected GOP sycophants and hastened to revise what they had written.

But that never happened. We are stuck with their blindness and with a political institution that seems to value partisanship over truth and factual reality. What to do? The situation is far from hopeless. Our eyes should be focused on unseating the Demagogue-In-Chief and as many of his GOP ass-kissers as we can and electing people who believe in the rule of law and in the People rather than in corporations.

The problem is a great many conservatives actively dislike or even detest Trump for the blatant asshole he is but will vote for him because he is appointing conservative judges/justices, is coming down hard on immigrants, and is reducing the regulatory duties of federal agencies; here you better be thinking clean air and clean water among many others. Those folks will never see the light of reason; we must ignore them and appeal to people who do. It will come down to one thing only: supporting and voting for a Democratic candidate who has a real chance to win in November.

If we want to change the current reality, all of us, and that means ALL OF US, have to get active in the coming political process. And that means NOW.

Ignoring the Deplorables

Remember when Hillary Clinton made that now infamous statement in a New York City campaign rally about half of Trump’s supporters belonging in a “basket of deplorables”? Here’s another important section of that statement about those supporters:

"They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he [Trump] has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America."

I don’t know about you but I instantly cringed when I heard Clinton’s speech despite agreeing with her characterization. My reaction was purely political; I strongly suspected it would damage Clinton and her campaign and felt she would have been better off if she had never said anything remotely like it.

But, from today’s perspective of seeing Trump as President for three years, you have to ask yourself: was Clinton wrong in her assessment? Are many of his supporters white nationalists, racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, and right wing-nuts who are militantly anti-immigration? Obviously.

The question you should be asking yourself is, so what? What I mean is, if you are a student of American history you should not be surprised by Clinton’s characterization since it is right on target. Come on, slavery is a dark stain on our vaunted political system. You think slave owners and those Northern bankers and manufacturers who supported them weren’t racists? Immigrant Germans, Irish, Italians, Jews and many others in succeeding waves were reviled and treated like vermin by white Americans. Japanese, Chinese, East Asians, and others were denied the right of citizenship because they were not white. Women were denied the vote for nearly a hundred and fifty years and the Equal Rights Amendment still has very little chance of passing. African-Americans were systematically terrorized by state and local governments during Jim Crow while the federal government and judiciary turned their blind eyes elsewhere while favoring white Americans.

My point is simple. A substantial proportion of Americans have always been white nationalists, racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, and right wing-nuts who are militantly anti-immigration. If Democrats are to be successful in defeating that rapscallion Trump, we have to stop looking at those deplorables and instead remember the other basket of people in Hillary Clinton’s statement at that rally in New York City:

"But . . . that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but — he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

It’s that other basket Democrats/liberals must focus on, not the deplorables whose minds are made up and most likely won’t be changed. My great fear is that the present leading presidential candidates have not fully grasped what I believe is the most salient point in this election: appealing to the liberal base will bring the same results as in 2016. And that spells disaster for this country.