I am making the assertion that "it's because of both sides" is actually part of the problem. I don't believe that a reasonable person would look at the 2016 candidates and conclude that they showed hostility equally. I believe that one side is weaponizing that instinct to draw compromises. You're certainly correct that a Republican would write a similar story about Hillary Clinton, but I can only leave it to your judgment about whether that argument has equal merit.
You're absolutely right that we can't stand each other, but if they're insistent on not standing me regardless of what I do, it does not improve the situation for me alone to grow ever more accommodating. I understand the impulse to do so, and engaged it for many years. I've come to believe that it has only allowed the problem to worsen, because it allows increasingly irrational people to demand more and more. I believe that 2016 marks a turning point where no reasonable observer could disagree that one side's irrational people are in charge, and that's not true for the other.
So I disagree with your assertion that it's not one side or the other, and the ability of the other side to claim it's me shouldn't be taken at face value. Neither should my argument, of course. But the existence of two opposite arguments doesn't make them equal. That's specious, and if you want to come to a deeper understanding, you should suspend the hypothesis that both sides are equally wrong. Maybe you'll come to it again through a different path, and if so you should try to convince me.
Sure, they wanted the Supreme Court stacked with conservatives, a hardline stance against China, a protectionist trade agenda focused on domestic manufacturing ... we've heard the apologetics. But if you're in one of the demographics that have spent the last four years living in fear and dread of what the social and political consequences of Trumpism and alt-right populism might represent, all you know is that those reasonable Republicans are willing to pay for their agenda with your safety, freedom and sometimes blood. They may not hate you as much as the extremists, but they'll tolerate the extremists all the same to get what they want.
That doesn't make them look sympathetic. The extremist elements that Trump's candidacy and presidency brought to the surface had been simmering in the Republican party for years, and they did nothing about it. There was no grassroots push within the Conservative movement or the Republican party to disavow the alt-right or white supremacist agenda working its way into the body politic, and far from separating their policy positions from Trump's poisonous beliefs and rhetoric, Republicans embraced them because to do otherwise - to even admit their house was in disorder - would be a show of weakness to the enemy.
And they still won't admit they made a mistake. The GOP would rather stand behind the woman who believes in Jewish Space Lasers and the QAnon agenda than risk loosing Trumpists in 2024 and finding a new, less insane direction for the party. Enough is enough already. Republicans can't have their cake and eat it too, they can't burn their bridges and cross them again, they can't ask for reason, tolerance and sympathy while doubling down on their support for the least reasonable, least tolerant and least sympathetic Republican since Nixon.
If you're expecting to convince people, it sounds like you're putting in the wrong effort. The goal of a conversation is understanding, not agreement.
"Here, let us rationally discuss the issues, but regardless of what you say I'm going to go back and vote for [their candidate]" is exactly how a conversation ought to go. If your expectation is different, it's not them. It's you.
If I fly to Japan, my goal is to understand Japanese culture. My goal isn't to Americanize it. And vice-versa. It's no different here. You're not going to successfully impose your values on other people.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles" - Sun Tzu
I'm not as optimistic as Sun Tzu about my ability to win simply by understanding. Perhaps it works in a physical combat, where every human being has a physical limit that can be overcome. In a political system, there are no limits: a vote is a vote, and if they wish to vote in ways that harm me, I cannot change that by any effort, regardless of what I understand.
If efforts to demonize me are sufficiently effective, nothing I understand will help me. And I believe we've reached that point. I can only implore people to understand me, and failing that, protect myself as best I can. That includes not wasting time on dinners with people who wish me harm. I will not enjoy them. Nor will it produce anything of value.
I haven't flown anywhere. It's as incumbent on them to adapt to me as it is for me to adapt to them. This is my country too, and if they're treating me as a hostile foreigner trying to impose his ways on them, it will not end well.
Much of this "culture war" is actually a difference in values, so I seek out what my friends values are. Sometimes I feel like I'd like to offer counterpoints, sometimes I don't but its not such a big deal for me that I can't hang out with conservatives OR liberals.