Fairness - The Commentary

Of course we want to believe that everyone means what they say. We’d love to believe that more educating and presentations of the facts convinces people. We think that explaining ourselves over and over again and spending a lot of energy to understand the right-wing and their beliefs (religious or not) will help us get along. We might even be invested in the idea that showing them how much we care about their views – even claiming we “respect” their irrational and bigoted views – will win them over. And when these things don’t work, we blame ourselves, our lack of listening skills, our lack of empathy, our neglect to spend enough time, or our failure to articulate clearly what we mean. We treat ourselves as the guilty party in the debates and actually, though we’d never admit it to ourselves, end up looking down on right-wingers and their dupes in our explanations - as if they’re helpless victims of ignorance, misinformation or illogic, not capable actors who make choices and cling to