The best piece of advice Democrats have received recently came from Bill Clinton in his speech at the Democratic National Convention.

First, he warned against arrogance: “We’ve seen more than one incident where we lost elections because we got distracted by spurious issues or became overconfident just when we thought we had it all figured out.” Both Clintons know this firsthand.

Second, and relatedly and more importantly, he cautioned against devaluing voters who do not share liberal values.

“I urge you to understand them from their perspective,” said Clinton, who has some experience in reaching out to voters in non-blue states. “I urge you not to disparage them, and when you disagree with them, not to pretend that you don’t have a disagreement. Treat them with respect, and treat them the way you want them to treat you.”

This is very important advice because liberals have tended to act impulsively since 2016, demonizing anyone sympathetic to Trump as a racist and a bigot. This is also politically very unwise because it is difficult to win votes from people you disparage.

It is also morally repugnant to me, especially when it is the educated, successful elite who sneer at disadvantaged, working-class Americans who are being left behind economically and socially, many of whom die young. They deserve sympathy, not insults.

Trump should certainly be condemned, but we should not view the nearly half of Americans who support him in a stereotypical and derogatory way.

Because ILiving in a rural areaMany of my old friends are Trump supporters. One of them is a kind and generous woman who supports Trump because she feels betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican establishments, and she has a point. When factories closed and good union jobs left the area, she became homeless and addicted; four people in her family committed suicide, and she once put a gun to her head. So when someone like Trump speaks to her pain and promisesOf course she will be excited when the factory returns.

Then, when she heard liberals mock her faith — an evangelical church helped her overcome homelessness — or called her “deplorable,” she hardened her stance.

There was also the woman who cut my hair: She had a daughter who was destroyed by drugs, so she quit her job to take care of her grandchildren. The woman who took over my hair had lost her husband to a drug overdose, and she was struggling to help a son who was addicted. She had no great interest in politics and had not followed the Democratic convention; she said she didn’t trust Trump and thought he was an asshole, but she was also mad at the Democrats because food prices were outrageous.

“I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for,” she told me. “Maybe I won’t vote at all.” She is a kind, hard-working person who would benefit if the Democrats win, and the Democrats should fight for her, not attack her for political ideology.

Working Americans have a right to feel betrayed. After 9/11, when nearly 3,000 people died, we launched two wars and spent trillions of dollars on the response. But as Americans die every three or four days from drugs, alcohol and suicide as many as died on 9/11, the country remains unmoved. In many blue-collar communities, the social fabric has unravelled, and people are angry and frustrated.

Since Barack Obama became president, the Democratic Party has increasingly become the party of the educated, often with a condescending attitude toward working-class voters, especially those with religious beliefs.74%of Americans say they believe in God, and only38%of people have a four-year college degree, in this reality,You can’t win elections by being condescending.

Michael Sandel, a renowned philosopher at Harvard UniversitycondemnContempt for the less educatedIt is “the last remaining tolerated prejudice” in the United States. He is right: elites sometimes feel free to display disdain for working-class voters in a way they would never admit to toward other groups.

I worry that the Democratic Party has lost sight of its proud tradition, dating back at least to the days of Roosevelt, of standing up for working Americans.Perhaps it is time for more educated liberals to revisit Roosevelt’s presidency.The famous 1932 speech “The Forgotten Man”,In it he praised the “forgotten people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”

Today, you can’t have a serious conversation about inequality without talking about race, but you can’t have a serious conversation about poverty or opportunity without also considering class (and for many people of color, racial and class disadvantages often overlap).

Harris seems to understand this. She chose as her running mate someone who can impress working-class voters with her rhetoric and policies. She can also say that she hasWorking at McDonald’sher opponent has an inheritance to squander.CanExploiting tenants.

Sure, name calling is fun. But calling someone a “Nazi” probably won’t win over undecided voters any more than Trump supporters calling them “liberal fools” or “the Biden crime family.”

Trump brings out the worst in each of us, no matter our political stance. He fosters hatred among his supporters, and we react in kind.

So let us take a deep breath, summon Roosevelt’s compassion for the forgotten, and follow Clinton’s advice — for the sake of winning elections and for the sake of decency, remember that the best way to get others to listen to us is to listen to them first.