So interesting this. I remember an amazing focus group with Van Jones during the 2016 primaries. He had a young man in MAGA hat in the group who expressed the same unclarified hatred towards Clinton. He stopped him mid-way and said respectfully, “Hey man, I know I hear the lock her up thing from so many Trump supporters, but tell me, really, what’s going on in your life that makes you want to support Trump?”

Something about the sincerity in Van’s voice (perhaps he’d pre-interviewed the guy too) helped the young man start talking about some of the things he was afraid of going on at his church, in his life, he just took a 6-foot dive down into what he was feeling. Before long, you could see this guys was being listened to by Van in a way maybe no one had ever listened to him before. Somewhere underneath all that hatred (of Clinton/women/others) in these white men, there’s a lot of vulnerability and insecurity. Feelings that they’ve been told for so long can’t be expressed they don’t even know they are having them or how they might ever put words to them. In short…there’s an important story that hasn’t been written and is harder to write even than the story, these women are telling. It’s the real, INSIDE story of the Trump-supporting men they are in relationships with.

I write about men and Trump and what we need to get beyond patriarch — for women and men on medium and my blog karinswann.life. We’re in an evolutionary moment in our country — something’s getting born…and the mothers among us know, that doesn’t happen without pain.