Similarly, if I had spent much time in Libya, I might consider holding my nose and voting for the candidate who didn't work hard to create that situation. (Again, I will grant that situation was going wrong without our involvement, but we're good at making things worse.)

I voted for Clinton because I agree with most of her policies, and think she's immensely qualified, but I keep hearing "if you voted for Trump, that means you didn't consider his statements disqualifying" But it doesn't--it could just mean you think the other candidate had stuff that was more disqualifying.

It's not absurd to consider bombing people worse than saying sexist and racist shit. It seems like a lot of Trump voters thought Trump's worst aspects were "just talk".

There wasn't an option for "Clinton without the interventionism" on the ballot. Similarly, there's no "Trump without the sexism/racism" option.

I will grant that most of them didn't have "Clinton bombed Libya" as their justification for their Trump vote. Abortion, though, I think is a real reason for a lot of religious people.

I don't think my vote for Clinton should be taken to mean I'm okay with the positions she pushed for in North Africa and the Middle East, and that means also not declaring Trump voters were necessarily okay with his crap either.

I have a friend who grew up in a country that was the subject of a rather messy US intervention back when he lived there. He's socially liberal on almost every level, but voted without hesitation for Trump. His explicit reasoning was that he found Trump less likely to start lasting, Iraq/Libya style interventions, and believed the death toll of such an action would outweigh literally everything else.

There wasn't really much to argue there. It's not as though he considered Trump's comments acceptable, it's not like he didn't understand the importance of protections for trans people, he just saw everything else as smaller than tens (or hundreds) of thousands dead and millions displaced. I couldn't really disagree; honestly I'm frightened by the indifference of much of the left to our trail of destruction abroad.

The only question dividing our votes was what decisions we expected Trump and Clinton to make on foreign wars. It really was the biggest issue going for both of us.

I didn't vote for Trump, but I know a lot of people that did.

Abortion is actually a huge part of it. To the point that I'm wondering why Trump-voter-haters think the election was just about xenophobia or something.

There was also a non-trivial portion of the right who expected things like the Damore firing and voted for the person least likely to contribute to that future. They think that the Pope himself could easily become a persona non grata at Google or certain parts of the national bureaucracy.

That seems like a false dichotomy. There were third party candidates. Plus, you can always choose not to vote.

I've voted third-party a number of times, but that's because I've lived in unflippable states and I'm playing the long game. If you care about the short-term results that are this specific election and are in a state where it can change the results, voting third-party is the wrong choice. Not voting is an even more wrong choice--"both are bad and I'd like us to have better choices in the future" can best be achieved by voting third-party. "Both are bad, so I'll let other people decide" seems less likely to influence future elections, and it's obviously not the right way to effect this election. The one economic principle I always cite rings true here: Rational people think on the margin.

People who think abortion is infanticide saw an opportunity to fill the Supreme Court with justices who might ban abortion. Given their goals, not voting would have been a worse decision than voting for Trump was.

No?

But that was her policy - the "no fly zone" that could only be implemented by shooting down Russian jets, or perhaps people have forgotten.

In contrast Trump wanted to make peace with Russia.

So maybe I can assume anyone who didn't vote Trump has a racist hatred of Russians.

knock the crap out of them …. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees

You didn't vote for Trump over the correct level of import taxes.

Or maybe you didn't vote for, but voted against (I hear some studies say this is the primary way people vote, btw.)?

Or maybe you had some other reason? I could invent plenty more. The point being, judging someone by the sole data point of their choice in the voting booth, without knowing reasons for it, is one of the most stupid kind of thinking imaginable. In fact, in less emotionally charged contexts, people generally don't show that kind of stupidity.

I'd call that holding them accountable and I only know how they voted because they told me. Also, I'd put hating people for the color of their skin, the sexuality, their religion, ... as much much stupider.

You only get to do that after you understand their reasons, which you can then judge.

> and I only know how they voted because they told me

It doesn't work like that. People don't generally run around, telling everyone who they voted for. It usually comes up in conversations, where the person who divulges their choice don't expect to get hated for it.

> Also, I'd put hating people for the color of their skin, the sexuality, their religion, ... as much much stupider.

I agree with that (maybe not with the much much part, because to me it seems to be a similar kind of stupidity; different flavours of the same bug in thinking). This doesn't invalidate my point though. People should not do either of those things.

Your conversation example is basically saying that even understanding your reasons that I'm supposed to give you a pass because ... because what?

As for stupider, the color of your skin or your sexuality aren't choices. Whether you voted for Trump is. Holding someone accountable for their choices isn't stupid. Hating them for their race, sexuality, ... is.

Your equivocation isn't getting anywhere.

I judge actions, in context, but I avoid doing even that if I don't know a lot about the actions and the context.

Yes, you do. This is equivocation.