America Great again!

[John V]

I didn't say they were stupid OR evil.  First of all, "uneducated" is not synonymous with "stupid."  Second of all, there is quite a difference between being afraid, and being evil.  What I said was that willful ignorance won out.  Ignorance by itself is just a lack of knowledge.  That's all.  We are all ignorant in certain areas and subjects in life.  It's not inherently an insult.  willful ignorance, on the other hand, is a completely different animal.

OK, you said that "Baseless irrational fear, and willful ignorance won out over intellect, reason, and critical thinking skills," and that you're embarrassed by it.

What would you expect a Trump voter to take away from that?

I disagree that all it would take is a little bit of empathy.  Empathy is a great place to start, sure, but it's futile if the person you are engaging with refuses to acknowledge facts simply on the basis that those facts contradict their feelings about a certain topic.

If you first validate the person's feelings, they may listen to you about (your view of) the facts.  

To be fair, I shouldn't lump ALL Trump supporters together.  It's hypocritical of me, and If I gave that impression, I'm sorry.  But, I think it's perfectly fair to say, based on what just went down here in this country, that fear mongering works.

I disagree, as the left engaged in fear mongering, but Trump won. Trump and the nuclear codes was brought up throughout the campaign. A few days ago The Atlantic ran a piece basically saying that if Trump wins, we'll have nuclear war with North Korea. That's fear mongering. I'm sure it worked on some people, but not on enough.