Nope not an iota of sympathy. The numpties who voted Trump thinking he was fibbing about his intentions and those who voted "with their consciences" for 3rd parties and now regret it will find their own way to voting Democrat in 2018.
Breath is wasted on other Trump voters - some openly back the bigotry, greed, militarism, fake Christianity and snuggling with Russia to the hilt. Others will accept the lot so long as it gets the result close to their heart (e.g. abortion and contraception banned, black and brown people out of my neighbourhood, evangelical Christian values everywhere, etc.). They may say they don't like the bigotry, but most are fine with it in reality.
When the shit hits the fan for them, and it will, they will just blame something other than the government they support, because that is what they have always done. There will be no epiphany moments.
Courting Trumpers will involve compromise - big compromise, to persuade enough of them to switch sides. Democrats could probably get enough if they agreed to ban abortion, but would alienate most of their own support base.
The focus has to be on the people who didn't vote - either because they didn't think it was important, thought each was as bad as the other, or were literally prevented by voter suppression efforts. That really is the only hope there is for turning this clusterfuck around, and that's only if the whole system isn't undermined so there won't be anything like genuine democratic elections in 2018.
The town hall meetings are giving me a bit of hope.
- only local outlets including an interview with a man who was badly injured in the incident. The two men the shooter said were "Middle Eastern" were workers for Garmin, originally from India.
