E Pur Si Muove
Shortly prior to the recent US presidential election, I worked next to a nice, smart young man from California who went to a well-known progressive university in the bay area.  Politics was very rarely discussed at work, but in the weeks before the election, there was some cross talk in the isles.<p>He trusted me enough to message me privately that he was planning to vote for Trump.  At that time, I was quite anxious about the thought of a Trump presidency, but I&#x27;m pretty far along the open-minded scale, so we chatted about it privately a bit.<p>My co-worker asked me to not speak about his position and to not let anyone else know about it, because he feared that his &#x27;out of place&#x27; political views would, in his words, &#x27;indirectly limit his career options.&#x27;<p>Why he supported Trump is pretty irrelevant, but I found his opinion reasonable, though I disagreed with his overall choice.<p>You know what?  I agreed with his concern at the time, and I still agree with it.  Consciously and otherwise, I think that quite a few of the fine progressive folk that we find ourselves surrounded by here in the bay area would hold such an opinion against him in important ways.<p>I think that a pretty big chunk of Trump&#x27;s votes came from people who would otherwise not have voted for him...but did so because they sensed, correctly, that their thoughts, ideas and voices were being marginalized (and demonized) by progressives.<p>At this point, I can&#x27;t imagine a path forward that has much of a chance of bearing fruit.