Donald Trump is going to be our next President and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Part of what got us here was our refusal to engage with Trump voters in any way beyond demonizing them. Instead of asking them why they actually like Trump, we dismissed them all as racist and sexist because so many racists and sexists were lumped in with them.

Or worse yet, we fell victim to white girl syndrome and stayed quiet so we wouldn’t offend anyone.

Well, we got what we got and Trump’s coming into office with almost half the country supporting him.

Some of the more alarmist among us would have you believe that means almost half the country is racist. I personally would argue that 100% of the country is racist because we all carry prejudices and judgments within us, no matter how many woke buzzwords we tweet a day. No one is perfectly non-racist.

But the larger point I’m trying to make is this: many Trump voters picked him because they believe he’ll make things better economically and they’re sick of the Washington machine — which, like her or not, Hillary Clinton is a product of. Trump voters care more about the economy than they do about social issues, because social issues don’t affect them.

Is that ignorant and self-centered? Sure. But painting them all as a giant racist and sexist monster bloc is going to get us nowhere. Trump voters are sick of being told they’re evil incarnate just because they didn’t support Hillary Clinton, and I don’t blame them.

But here’s what we can do. We can calm down and have an actual conversation with Trump supporters about the horrifically racist and sexist acts being carried out in their candidate’s name all over the country. You can see a list here, but it includes yanking hijabs, threatening people for being black, and swastika graffiti like this from Pennsylvania:

Now, most of the Trump voters I know have protested that they’re not the ones doing this and they shouldn’t be associated with it. But guess what, Trump supporters? You are associated with this. These people helped get Trump elected just as much as you did and you have to sit with that knowledge. You have to understand that certain parts of your ideology and values dovetail with theirs.

But if you say that to a Trump voter, they’ll say they’re not responsible for the violent fringe. To that I’d say, okay, where’s the violent fringe supporting Hillary? And don’t even tell me protestors burning a flag is the same thing as outwardly racist graffiti and hanging a black baby in effigy, because it’s not.

Trump voters insist that they’re not the same as the human shitstains we’re talking about here. It’s kind of like how Muslims say they’re not responsible for ISIS. Of course, neither group is responsible for their most extreme members.

But Republicans have time and time again insisted that Muslims need to be held accountable for religious extremism and that it can only end if people within the Muslim community try to fix it. And I personally believe there’s a lot to be said for that way of thinking — when someone perverts your ideology, that should concern you and you should be taking steps to fix it.

So please let the Trump supporters in your life know that this is their chance to prove they’re not racist. They claim these people don’t speak for them, so what are they going to do to disassociate themselves from these people and prove they have nothing in common with them?

Republicans have repeatedly asked Muslims and other minority groups to do this. I’m personally trying to do the same thing with the apathetic white women who either voted for Trump or enabled him to take office by refusing to take publicly engage with politics.

So now, it’s their turn. Let the Trump supporters in your life know that it’s their turn to hold themselves accountable for the shitty actions of people who hold a similar ideology to them. Trump supporters who claim not to be racist, please prove it and get rid of the racist strain of thinking that’s infecting your party right now. We’re waiting.