Activist group Showing Up for Racial Justice even created a Thanksgiving Discussion Guide last year that actually encouraged people to bring up the issue of race with Trump-supporting family members: “Sometimes the first place to start is at home, with the people we are closest to.” It then offered a hotline in case the conversation went awry.

Following the presidential election, there were tons of articles that claimed that what we needed to do was talk to one another “in order to heal,” as one piece in the Washington Post put it.

Seriously?

Note that the right hasn’t embraced this dialogue of “healing” and starting conversations” with those with opposing views. Have you ever wondered why there aren’t pieces in Breitbart, Fox News or InfoWars about how Trumpsters need to embrace their family lefty? There aren’t any because they don’t care. And they have no interest whatsoever in healing anything.

This all leads me to wonder whether one of the biggest problems the left might have today is that we spend more time trying to understand a racist, sexist, xenophobic bigot and the people who like him than we spend actually fighting for progressive politics. The mere idea that the problem here is that we aren’t reaching out and hugging Trump supporters suggests that the problem is something we can control. It implies that if we were only more understanding, more compassionate, better listeners, we could make this right. And it is a notion that is completely idiotic.