Support Trump Supporters

We need to stop calling each other "liars," "evil" or "stupid." It is perfectly possible to be good, smart and honest while also being misinformed or just plain mistaken.

Trump supporters KNEW he was flawed when they voted for him. When he acts out like a three year old, or when details about his depraved personal life come to light, or when he lies like a professional con man, they are NOT surprised. They knew he was flawed, but they preferred this to Hillary Clinton because she was politics as usual. Were any of us content with the status quo in 2016?

And frankly my problem with Trump is he is too much like politics as usual. Considering that Hillary would have been facing exactly the same congress, I remain unconvinced that Hillary's presidency would have policy wise been much different from Trump's. The difference is she would have been quieter about it, and her decisions less questioned, and all the processes less transparent.

Trump spends vasts amounts of time and energy lambasting the Republicans. He is every bit as hostile towards them now as he was during the primaries. When it comes to practical policy, when he is faced with a progressive congress, he might sign off on very progressive policies.

Defeating Trump in 2020 is completely impractical. He has dominated headlines - intentionally and successfully on a God-like level - since he became president. Bad press is better than no press, and thinking that Trump will hang himself is a mistake Hillary will never be able to make again.

People who care about making this world a better place should be learning from Elon Musk. When it comes to really saving the world and improving all our lives, few are making the kind of progress he is. But he didn't fight against Trump, he recognized that we are living in a populist world (something Democrats in the primaries would have been well served by in 2016,) and did all he could to educate Trump and help Trump make better decisions.

More importantly we need to recognize that most people on the far left and far right agree strongly some of the most important issues:

• The far right wants to see the end of government picking winners and losers in the economy. 
• The far left wants to see an end to money dominating elections through lobbyists. 

Those two sentences are describing exactly the same phenomenon. The same is true on many of the the other issues facing the USA at this time.