Yes. They are Deplorable.

[hueymahl]

37. Great question

How as a nation did we escape slavery? (it took a war)

How as a nation did we escape Jim Crow? (it took brave politicians fighting over decades)

How do we make progress on every other aspect of social justice? (consistently fighting in the courts, the legislature and the court of public opinion)

What do all of these things have in common? None happened until we had sufficiently changed public opinion to allow the election of the leaders to help effect the change.

How does this apply to the current day? At one point, the basket of deplorables was MUCH larger, a vast majority of us. People's minds can be changed, their morality can evolve (see gay marriage for a very recent example). Writing our current basket of deplorables off forever and not attempting to change their minds by whatever means necessary is a recipe for losing.

The original poster to this sub-thread apparently went off the rails at some point based on the number of hides above. But, in my opinion, his original point is valid. We need a little more Don Draper. We need to figure out what motivates them and how to persuade them.

It makes us feel nice and superior to just pigeon hole them as "pure" racists, xenophobes, bigots, idiots and evil. Sure, they currently display aspects of that. And among the Trump voters, there surely are some people that cannot be reached. But most people are a LOT more complicated, and refusing to acknowledge that and use it to our advantage is foolhardy. And a recipe for continued loss.