Thanks for a very polite and rational answer.

I hope you're right. I hung out in America for decades hoping we could lure back people. But they just got nastier and nastier and their beliefs more and more horrifying.

I'm an English Socialist now living in the Netherlands, so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but this gives me some detachment.

Your average American progressive or Democrat has seen their every single hope stymied for generations now. And the people who are doing it have gone all out to be hateful and dishonest, and to elect public figures who distill the hatefulness and amplify it.

And they have every reason to believe things are going to be even worse in the future.

Asking the "left" such as it is in the US to make nice with the very architects of their misfortunes!, with people who will tell horrible lies right to their face which they will have to swallow and ignore is too much to ask. Only a few people with infinite optimism and patience will ever do that.

Finally, who are these non-horrible leaders on the right? Where are they? People like Trump, DeSantis, Cruz, Carlson, Boebert, Greene go out of their way to be as awful as they can in every possible situation and the result is that they are wildly popular.

"By their fruits you will recognize them." Could it be that these monstrous leaders are not an accident but reflect the values of their constituents?

Anyway, thanks for a good discussion, and if you ever make it to Amsterdam, I'll buy you a meal and we can talk about a better world.