Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cute, but your glib dismissal of this viewpoint is partly why Trump won. Here's a little explanation of how people work: if a person holds a belief or fear, and one person demonizes then for it while another validates it, the person is going to be drawn to the validator. It's the same reason why gay pride has soared over the last few decades; as a gay person, would you rather listen to a person saying "you're perfect…
I generally agree with you but the seemingly unaware irony of people up in arms for accusations made against someone for what they did behind closed doors got the better of me. I appreciate that this is a nuanced situation and my personal feeling is the best thing to do is apply tolerance equally to everyone as long as you can (ie, tolerating peoples intolerant beliefs as a way to teach them more tolerance) and I can…
Yeah, that's the truth, and it absolutely sucks. The conservative news coterie will give endless coverage of these incidents, priming millions to despise these people and their viewpoints. It only takes a small handful of people to ruin things for everybody, but this is also true of a few loudmouthed, asshole bigots on the right convincing the left that this is the majority view. This is why I preach the whole thing about listening, negotiation, etc. - it doesn't just apply to those of us on the left, there's absolutely a need for the right to listen thoughtfully as well.
I even feel this way about incidents that I am deeply, personally affected by. Climate change scares the shit out of me (look through my comment history if you need examples), so much so that I have struggled with depression and existential crises solely over this. Unless a hot war takes us out first, I'm firmly convinced that, if anything destroys humanity, this will be it. I'm afraid to have children, and terrified that the meaning I derive from life will be snatched away by stubbornness, greed, stupidity and laziness, which is heartbreaking. And yet, in spite of all that, when I watched a video of coal miners protesting environmental regulation that would take away jobs, I felt sorry for them, and angry at the climate change counter-protesters who were obnoxiously shoving signs in their face and shouting at them. Knowing that this will only make them hate liberals and environmentalists even more makes this sort of thing unacceptable. The best way to get what you want isn't shoving it down somebody else's throat unless you genuinely have the power to do so and enforce it permanently. In a two-party democracy, neither side has that power, necessitating consensus.