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A lot of Americans are certainly being duped by right-wing propaganda. Distinguishing between the right-wing propaganda that dominates the airwaves and what is actually right-wing are two different things, which I think you fairly note. There are many people, including members of my extended family and many others who I'd consider generally "good" people, but duped and led astray — no doubt. I too have met these same people who cited the same points you did. But man, at this point if they haven't changed, I have very little hope that they ever will. These aren't centrists; these are largely red-hats through and through.

Like I said, this is how fascism rises to power. it hinges on the gullible and ignorant, not as I said the dyed-in-the-wool believers. They Thought They Were Free is a great book that examines this. That 1940s, "Don't be a Sucker" video illustrated this well, too.

I think it's reasonable to say that Obama was a progressive at heart, but conservative because a large swath of the country leans conservative, no thanks to right-wing talk radio, the influence of church, and Fox News (we can discuss modern influences like Russia's foreign influence operation, Bannon & Breitbart, Joe Rogan, etc. and their effect today of course). The thing is, people believe right-wing talking points: (a) unions bad, (b) the rich earned it, (c) immigrants are bad, etc. Meanwhile many people publicly espouse "moderate" views but if among trusted acquaintances on a back patio, they show their true colors. So while I still to this day believe Obama is a progressive at heart, he felt one could not force too rapid of progress for a country still skewed to the right. I find that slightly different than those who were outright duped by thinking Trump was some sort of leader of blue collar worker when anyone with a brain could see from history he was anything but.

There is a drastic difference between evil people and stupid people, and knowing that is both important for keeping your sanity in a country that elected him, but also politically important for knowing that we’re not just a few votes away from the majority of Americans wanting a fascism.

I think there's somewhat of a difference as to origin of beliefs, but I don't know if there's much in the outcome or even the capacity to move these people. I'd be more likely to fully buy that argument if this was still midway through Trump's first term. For instance, after all has been said and done by Trump over the years. Scandal after scandal. Lie after lie. From grabbing women by the pussy, racist comments toward Mexico, Trump University fraud, or even the very first lie of his Presidency: the size of his inauguration... To catastrophic response to COVID, the damning 2 impeachments and even more compelling 91 criminal charges across 4 Grand Jury indictments... All of this is public record. All these losers know what Trump is, and yet they still continue to vote for him. Don't count on a large number of them simply being innocently gullible. At what point do you simply conclude, "They just don't care, do they?"

After all, even after showing his true colors and saturating the national media spotlight for 4 years, he came away with 11 million more votes. If people are that ignorant, then I regret to think there's little hope for the vast majority of them and they are just as complicit in the outcome. Willful ignorance at best. Still, so incredibly dangerous. And after nearly 8 years of trying to get through to these people how bad Trump is, how much progress have we actually made among those who already fell for the cult?

Here's where I hope we can find common ground: Every year there is a new batch of citizens who enter the political fold for one reason or another — whether that's coming of age and finally taking an interest in civics, or someone who has had some major issue personally impact them. Generally there are a lot of the middle-ground "enlightened centrist," fence-sitters who have yet to fully commit to a side. These are the people we must reach out to. They're the ones not too far gone and too isolated among right-wing echo-chambers to catch before they're gone (great allegory for this in The Matrix / Plato's Cave). As we're pursuing these fence-sitters, we must also energize the left by actually committing to progressive policy that we know works. Time and again, we shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to water down our policies in order to appeal to voters whom we'll never get on the right anyway — only to disenfranchise the most active part of the left and water down our policies to such an extent that it backfires when implemented.