My brother told me about a series of ‘racial reconciliation’ discussions that his church did, when they were living in Raleigh NC. It was a reasonably liberal church, with a pretty mixed race crowd.

One night, he felt brave enough to admit that one of his coworkers was really racist, used a lot of racist language, said a lot of racist things. My brother admitted he tended to let those things slide unchallenged, but he felt bad about it.

One of the black women in the group told him bluntly that she didn’t know if she could trust him anymore, after hearing that - that, sure, he talked a good game in the church, but when it mattered he’d let that shit go unchallenged.

He realized what he’d been looking for was to be told that it was okay that he’d done that. He wanted absolution from the black people for not having had their backs. And he realized they were right not to give it to him.

I can’t absolve Trump voters. He wasn’t sneaky at all. All of his base character was on display. The idea that somehow Clinton could be worse is ludicrous.