“…the strongest predictor for people’s support of Donald Trump and the Republicans is their level of education.”

Correlation is not causation. Rural areas tend to have lower education levels, and rural areas were where the Trump support was. Perhaps rural values align better with what Trump’s message was, versus Hillary’s?

My take on 2016 was that the Democrats failed to nominate someone who spoke to the values of a wide range of people, and instead picked an urbanite who has a well documented history of insincerity.

What is interesting is that Hillary won the popular vote, because states like New York and California have so many people; but Trump and the Republicans in general won most states — it was a Republican sweep. That tells me that the less populous states reject what the urban states are selling. Rural states care about their borders. They want gradual cultural change — not radical and rapid change due to a deluge of immigration.

I personally don’t like Trump, and did not vote for him — I could not bring myself to vote for either candidate (and I usually vote). But I also see that the parties have become the Left and the Right, and are diverging more and more, and that is paralyzing our system. Each time one side wins, it merely undoes what the prior side accomplished, so we get nowhere.

All the name calling (“XYZ-phobe”, “XYZ-doubter”, “fascist”, “racist”, “liberal”, “gun grabber”) — these labels, and the failure to listen to the legitimate concerns of the other side, are poisoning our country.