NY Times columnist calls out his fellow liberals: Stop ‘stereotyping and belittling’ Trump supporters
New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof urged liberals to find empathy with former President Trump’s supporters in a new column.
The author admitted that Democratic voters have been prone to demonize Trump voters since 2016 and advised them to relinquish that impulse so that they can build bridges with their political opposition. Kristof also said that demeaning these voters is beneath educated liberals, especially when many of Trump’s supporters are "disadvantaged, working-class Americans."
"It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young," he wrote in the Saturday piece.
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The journalist approvingly cited Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention where the former president told Democrats how to treat people in red states: "I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you."
Kristof implored his side to recognize that Trump supporters "deserve empathy, not insults."
"By all means denounce Trump, but don’t stereotype and belittle the nearly half of Americans who have sided with him," he said.
The columnist then went to describe his multiple Trump-supporting friends, characterizing their decisions to back the former president as not so irrational.
"Since I live in a rural area, many of my old friends are Trump supporters. One, a good and generous woman, backs Trump because she feels betrayed by the