It is crucial to understand people who don’t share your views. But understanding needs to move in all directions, and right now, it’s lopsided. Trump wins, liberals are told we must understand Trump supporters. Trump loses, liberals are told we must understand Trump supporters.

Yes of course let’s understand Trump supporters! But we should be just as curious about the voters who drove Biden to victory, and the voters who cast millions more ballots for Hillary but were stuck with four years of minority rule.

So much of it comes down to whose votes, voices and experiences we consider authentically American -- over and over again, it’s white people, and mostly men. Which is why even on the left, “working class” is pronounced with a silent “white” and suggests coal miners, not nannies.

Now that Trump has lost, the calls for empathy and understanding go the same way they went in 2016. And look, yes, let’s extend empathy and understanding! But it’s only demanded of one side, and only extended to the other. No wonder people are frustrated.

There’s also a huge difference between how liberals talk about conservatives vs how conservatives talk about liberals. You can find cases of individuals being awful on Twitter, but in terms of elected officials and other prominent folks? Right-wing hostility is so much nastier.

Can liberals be condescending? Yes! “I think my views and my way of life are better than yours” is... very common across the political spectrum. But it’s rare to see a prominent Dem speak about actually wanting to hurt conservatives, or that their motivation is “screw you.”

That’s a fundamental difference. As deep as the divides on the left are, most folks want to see progress and betterment. We differ on what we think that means and how we get there, but the motivation is not “I want to hurt conservatives because I hate and resent them.”

So many of us resent Trump voters? Yes! Do we think they have bad views and many of them are actually bad people? Yes! Do we gloat when we win? Also yes! But do we want to see Biden put forward policies aimed at improving their lives AND ours? Yes. That’s the difference.