David Weissman: "I was a Trump Troll"

[Jim Lane]

40. There are lessons here for DU.

I note this excerpt (emphasis added):

During this process, a few high-profile Twitter Trump supporters saw me communicating with (as opposed to bashing) Silverman and other liberals like Andy Lassner and Chelsea Clinton. The Trump train mob turned their vileness toward me, just for talking respectfully to those they thought of as the enemy. I, a U.S. Army war Veteran of 13 years, was being called a traitor to the country. I never realized how hateful this group was until I became the subject of their abuse (which doesn’t make me feel very good). From then on, my eyes were open to the kind of person Trump was — an amoral bully like his base that supported and elected him.

In other words, abusing people doesn't help you win them over. It alienates them.

This point is amplified in the Psychology Today article presented by handmade34 in #5, noting that "we must act in ways that alleviate these effects, and that means making a conscious effort to de-escalate confrontations and curb aggressive attitudes toward those who don’t share our worldviews or national identities."

That's good advice for our dealing with people who voted for Trump, people who didn't bother to vote -- and I'll even go way out on a limb and apply the same principle to that arch-fiend from Hell, Susan Sarandon.