I am sure you had the idea that all decisions are based on fear and everyone fears so everyone makes decisions for the same reasons and wrote this article to prove your original idea based on your own experience with fear and decision making. The title says as much. I can tell you “I am not the same as a Trump supporter”, very few people actually are anymore.

There are people that are not driven 100% by their fear emotion. Doing the right thing in spite of fear is called “courage”. The opposite of courage is cowardice. These people are moral and ethical cowards.

What you are doing is trying to justify, explain and ultimately apologize for the worst people in society tat are doing and saying things that are harmful to others and ultimately themselves in the long run. They need no more empathy to understand their motivations than a virus that ultimately kills it host does.

The understanding is implicit. These people are drawn to Trump because he is a reflection of who exactly who they are, what they respect and who they wish they were if not for their own cowardice. They still live in the cave that the rest of use left millions of years ago and want to drag everyone else back into the darkness. No I reject the entire argument that we are all the same.

They say he is courageous and brave because “he says what people(they) are thinking”, regardless of how objectively factually incorrect, it is what they believe to be true and thus it is. This is their own “politically correct” way of saying, “I can not wait until I can be a racist/bigot/misogynist in public again and not get called out for it.” When white men no matter how poor and uneducated had it better than any woman or non-white man that was better educated or more financially accomplished, that is what “Make America Great Again” means to them.

They know they are selfish, antisocial, bigots, bullies and hatemongers. They are told constantly by the world around them and they willfully ignore it. In many cases flaunt their ignorance as a virtue even, most of the time accompanied by a religious quote of some sort and are proud of it.

These people need no empathy to understand them, especially by the people that have been the target of their “fear” their entire lives. Why? They will never change their minds, no argument will ever sway them, it will just do the opposite, it will just act as more “proof” they are right to reject whatever your “liberal” argument is.

These people are being trivialized every generation. Their numbers are dwindling every year. Their children and children’s children are rejecting their beliefs more and more every generation.

We still have to be vigilant and call them out and expose them for what they are and shine a light on those that hide in the darkest parts of society.