"my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart"

First I would like to address Robin's question: "How is it that we fall so 'in love' with our favorite ways of seeing the world that we can't imagine things any other way.  Nor can we imagine how anybody could possibly see things differently.  How CAN they believe this shit?"

I took a freshman writing class first semester and one of the best lessons I learned in that class is how to make an argument.  Our assignment was to write an argumentative paper and we practiced in class with a lot of prompts and debates. When we were frustrated that we weren't getting our point in our opponent's head, our professor explained you can't make someone believe/agree with your argument unless you relate to their values. This is why gun control, abortion, and any other controversial topic divide us to such an extent. No one wants kids to die in school shootings, but the people that are "pro guns" consider themselves "pro freedom". The people that are "anti-guns" consider themselves "pro children". The values don't align, because the first group highly values their freedom, and the second group is willing to sacrifice some of their freedom if it means the chance of less death. No one is "pro abortion", but people are "pro choice" (interesting, however, that the same people arguing for freedom with gun control are against women having freedom with their bodies but that's an argument for another day). No one is "anti freedom", but the pro-lifers value either their religious reasons or other values above a woman's right to decide. If values do not align, facts and anecdotes arguing for one side won't do anything. My professor put it like this: "You can tell someone to work out and eat well because it's healthy, but that won't do anything. You need to address their values, tell them if they don't work out and eat well they will eventually die of heart disease, they won't have as good of quality of life, their sex won't be as good, anything that they value, attack it." (I know I put quotes around this but I don't have a direct quote from him, this is paraphrasing from my flawed memory). 

Long story short, the reason we fall 'in love' with our favorite ways of seeing the world, the reason we tend to surround ourselves with people who think the same way, the reason it's challenging to get along with someone who has different political views, is the importance of VALUES. 

Here's one of my favorite (and by favorite I mean one of the most blatant examples of his arrogance) tweets by our President. 

First I would like to point out, that if Barack Obama had tweeted this, American's would not have let it slide. Even liberals would have asked each other "What the fuck?" Trump's tweet is absolute bullshit. "Very successful businessman"? He went bankrupt six times. Now, the answer to the "how can we believe this bullshit?" question is multifaceted. First, there are the people that see this and agree that Hillary is "crooked", they believe that Trump is a successful business man, they believe that he IS a stable genius. These are the people that align their values with what Trump portrays, the people that want the wall, the people who claim undocumented immigrants are "taking their jobs", and the people who want their access to military grade guns. Trump's radical facade speaks to them, these are the true Trump supporters. Then there is the other side of the spectrum, the liberals who hate Trump (like me, if you haven't noticed) who believe Trump truly thinks these things about himself. I will always believe Donald Trump is an ignorant man, but there is a reason he tweets the thing he does, there is a reason liberals are called Snowflakes. Trump, Tomi Lahren, the twitter bots, are all sharing Alt-Right bullshit all over social media to upset the left, further polarizing us. They know our values don't align, and they use it to their advantage. 

Okay, so my mini rant is over. I don't know what to do about this, but my main point is to be aware of how you align your values during an argument. Those people that politically rant on Facebook aren't looking to have their opinion changed, but if you sit down and have a real conversation with someone and you are aware of their values, you might have a chance at opening their mind a bit.

And lastly, don't be a hypocrite. Make sure you're open to having your mind be expanded as well, new perspectives on life can only make you a more well rounded person.