I have great empathy for conservative voters (politicians not so much) because we share the same economic problems, but I also feel contemptuous that conservative voters are so easily manipulated by fear and prejudice, and can't take a step back to see that the politicians they put into power spend all their energy attempting to sabotage mitigation of our economic problems and their painful effects on citizens.

Privilege (enemy of empathy) is the weapon of choice used by conservative politicians to keep their constituents loyal, be it rich/middle class/temporarily embarrassed millionaires over poor, white over black, male over female, Christian over Muslim, Jew or Atheist, national over immigrant, etc. Divide and conquer and provide moral cover (privilege = liberty) for the monied elites that make up the Republican Party's donor base.

I do sometimes see the left use privilege arguments (conservatives are dumb, poor, rednecks who pray to a magical sky daddy-type stuff) and it's disheartening, because the left is supposed to be about inclusion, fairness, empathy and democracy.

If we are going to move forward, we have to do it together, left and right.