Story highlights Ben Mallicote: Liberals are too quick to vilify all Trump supporters

Over the next four years, liberals should try to appeal to the majority of Trump voters through reason and decency

Ben Mallicote is an attorney and an alumnus of the University of Tennessee. He writes about faith, politics, and where the two intersect at www.benmallicote.com. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) We are too quick to vilify those on the opposite side of the political aisle. I am firmly opposed to Donald Trump, but because of where I live, I know a lot of good and decent people who voted for him. If I feel the urge to disparage Trump supporters as a group, I have to reconcile that urge with what I know about the Trump voters with whom I work, eat and pray.

Ben Mallicote

There are unquestionably people who voted for Trump for ugly reasons, and those folks are probably beyond persuasion (at least by me), but I've decided I'm going to spend the next four years trying to persuade the good and decent people; to appeal to their reason and the "better angels of their nature."

Persuading them means addressing the motivations they've expressed, not the motivations we might ascribe to them based on the worst and loudest people on their side. That's what I tried to do with a piece I posted last week on Facebook, and later on my website . It ended up getting a lot of attention on the internet, and a version of it is reprinted below.

Surprisingly, the most common criticism I've gotten from the piece has not been from those on the right saying I'm a "libtard snowflake," but from those on the left who think I should have said, "You voted for Trump because you're a fascist," or the like. While it's surely true of some Trump voters, it's grossly unfair as a blanket criticism of all Trump voters. Such hot language rightfully alienates decent people, and cuts off any opportunity we might have had to change their minds.

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Contrary to the social media headlines, we shouldn't aim to DESTROY or EVISCERATE or ANNIHILATE the other side; we must persuade them to consider a different perspective. That's not easy, but it's necessary.

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