"[We] can't win people over with shame -- [we] must do it with persuasion...." Amen.

Our country's psychological history had a lot of shame elements in its foundation: sexual, religious, pro-/anti-slavery, pro-/anti-English (Establishment), and the like. "Shame" was the internalized feeling that people didn't "like" you, that what you did was wrong and thus you were worthy of ostracization. This made us conform to certain standards of behavior....

....that is, until the development of "identity politics," which grew out of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Then, leaders of African-Americans, Latin-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, gay/lesbian-Americans, ability-challenged-Americans, all were told to be "proud of who you are," and not to listen to the derogatory comments of those who they claimed oppressed them.

As a result, "identiity politics" led people to stop operating with a broad, socially-accepted sense of shame, and led, instead, to the Balkanization of American politics. The result was that white people, especially the less-educated, less self-aware ones, felt that they were a demographic which was being shunted aside, disregarded, and threatened with cultural, if not physical, extinction.

Hence, the nearly 70 million people who voted for Trump did not do so because they loved the ideas and values of this manic megalomaniacal narcissist; no, this Huckster-in-Chief convinced them---directly or through his surrogates---that he had their backs, that he was their defender, their "knight in shining armor" protecting them against the demographic and cultural challenges facing them and threatening their very way of life.

And, so, over the last four years, this large block of Americans allowed themselves to be hijacked by a fascist because he represented something which was good to them and which---they thought---would push back against the enemy at the gates.

Many of them wanted security---which they conflated with freedom.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --- Benjamin Franklin

We must, somehow, learn to reach out to this large disaffected group of people, those who lack critical thinking abilities, and listen to them, let them know that we do not disregard their concerns and worries, and that they, too, are our brothers and sisters who are part of our Great American Family.

If we fail to engage in that kind of outreach on a disciplined, systemic basis, God help us all.