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Description
Imagine that you were a factory worker living in a Midwestern town. Perhaps in Ohio or Michigan, maybe Wisconsin. You worked hard at your union job alongside people of several different races and backgrounds. It paid well. You judged people based on their deeds, not the color of their skin or any other external quality. If people were honest and hardworking, you liked them, and if not, no. You are a white man, but you don't judge people based on their race, creed, or origin.

You and your wife made enough money for a house, two cars, and had plenty of cash left over to raise two children. You weren't rich, but you made ends meet and had some money to save. You were and still are religious, with roots in the US going back at least a century, perhaps more. You consider yourself to be patriotic, decent, and on the whole, those are words which describe you and your town pretty well.

Then things began to change. Your town's factory shut down. You had to take a job at a store which paid a fraction of your previous wages. Many people left your town, the tax base withered, and your infrastructure crumbled. The schools got worse. Crime went up. You legitimately feared for your children's safety and security. You were forced to send them to a school you didn't want them to go to because of actual fears about violence, but when you complained, they called you a racist. They called you a lot of things, in fact. When you complained about outsourcing, they called you a xenophobe. When you took offense to violent minority gangs, they called you a racist. When you bought a firearm for protection and continued to go to church, they mocked you, saying that you "clung to guns and religion."

"They" happened to be the democratic party. The same people whose economic policies helped close down your factory, ruin your schools, and insulted you for objecting to the abuse you suffered through. Calling mostly decent people "deplorable" only got them to hate the democrats. Pandering to immigrant communities while ignoring the plight of the population who was already there was sure to backfire sooner or later. It just did.

Description
Imagine that you were a factory worker living in a Midwestern town. Perhaps in Ohio or Michigan, maybe Wisconsin. You worked hard at your union job alongside people of several different races and backgrounds. It paid well. You judged people based on their deeds, not the color of their skin or any other external quality. If people were honest and hardworking, you liked them, and if not, no. You are a white man, but you don't judge people based on their race, creed, or origin.

You and your wife made enough money for a house, two cars, and had plenty of cash left over to raise two children. You weren't rich, but you made ends meet and had some money to save. You were and still are religious, with roots in the US going back at least a century, perhaps more. You consider yourself to be patriotic, decent, and on the whole, those are words which describe you and your town pretty well.

Then things began to change. Your town's factory shut down. You had to take a job at a store which paid a fraction of your previous wages. Many people left your town, the tax base withered, and your infrastructure crumbled. The schools got worse. Crime went up. You legitimately feared for your children's safety and security. You were forced to send them to a school you didn't want them to go to because of actual fears about violence, but when you complained, they called you a racist. They called you a lot of things, in fact. When you complained about outsourcing, they called you a xenophobe. When you took offense to violent minority gangs, they called you a racist. When you bought a firearm for protection and continued to go to church, they mocked you, saying that you "clung to guns and religion."

"They" happened to be the democratic party. The same people whose economic policies helped close down your factory, ruin your schools, and insulted you for objecting to the abuse you suffered through. Calling mostly decent people "deplorable" only got them to hate the democrats. Pandering to immigrant communities while ignoring the plight of the population who was already there was sure to backfire sooner or later. It just did.