Part of a series: Building an Us Without a Them.

My friend asked me at Snarf’s Sandwiches, “I wonder if there’s some breaking point when someone is gonna stand up and put an end to this.” My response was, “I wouldn’t hope for a savior. I don’t think there’s any easy way out, because Trump is the incarnation of the easy way out.”

Democracy is a hard thing to do. It is painful. It entails permanent dissatisfaction and compromise that leaves no one perfectly happy. The most tempting thing to do when building a democratic consensus is to quit and say, “This is where it stops. These are the people who agree with me, and everyone else will just suffer the consequences of our decision.” Trump’s policies are predicated on appealing to these isolating motives that demand individuals create walls, exclude, and attack scapegoats. At their best, these motives are grounded in love for an existing community: a desire to protect certain American workers from new competition or a religious group from contradictory ideas. At their worst, they prey on a fear-driven tribal mentality: “kill or be killed.” The policies that cater to these forces attribute problems within our nation to an “other,” which the policies may seek to remove. This approach is often short-sighted, although it may seem immediately appealing because it requires minimal tolerance, empathy, and nuanced decision-making. Some examples of Trump’s othering, short-sighted representations of current issues in America:

• Drug abuse is a symptom of cartels (which can be bombed), not economic disenfranchisement or lack of public health resources. 
• Crime is high because of illegal immigrants (who can be deported), not record-high wealth inequality or lack of social capital.
• Political violence, most importantly, is manufactured by the radical left (which can be silenced or persecuted), not by an attention economy that profits from anger and engagement.

When democracy is too daunting, simple autocratic solutions begin to look more tempting. And Trump is what happens when we give in to this temptation; safeguards to protect political minorities are disregarded, and space for the opposition contracts.

The left cannot fall into the same trap by designating the “radical right” as the scapegoat and hoping the problems they present will disappear once they are vanquished. There can be no quick and easy fix to Trump’s autocratic push. The answer to reactionary right-wing autocracy cannot be reactionary left-wing autocracy; there can be no “Trump for the left.” An authoritarian Democrat will only breed more animosity, leading to the same enemy-driven politics we currently suffer from.

From a policy perspective, if we on the left understand that the problems we’re facing as a nation are not simple, then we must resist the temptation of politically short-sighted solutions. We cannot keep hoping the next president will use executive orders to get us back onto the right trajectory, and we can’t erode judicial authority by packing the courts with a narrow House majority. Such a simple solution will only bring about more cases of the majority hijacking independent government branches to repress the minority. And eventually, that majoritarian overreach will blow right back in our faces when the institutions that used to hold together the rule of law are no longer there. There needs to be a geographically diverse movement that wins the legislature and creates new laws that protect all people (even conservatives) from Executive overreach.

Trump’s intentionally divisive rhetoric has been cited as a leading cause of political violence and polarization, which are existential issues for most Americans. No matter who is using them, Trump’s methods are not going to bring us into a better future. That will require surmounting endemic problems—mass unemployment, fossil fuel pollution, and distrust of government—that cannot be solved with short-sighted politics or by trading partisan blows every four years. It will take time to build back the power of unions, disentangle universities from the Executive Branch, and recover lost progress on climate change. But progress will only last if it is pursued the hard way: by growing grassroots support, building coalitions, and creating inclusive policies that use the government not as a weapon, but as a tool for solving the problems we cannot solve in isolation.

This is not a call for passivity. This is a call for a resistance aimed at re-establishing a sustainable democracy that pits people against problems instead of against each other—an us without a them. We cannot get there by throwing the safety of our political opponents to the wayside. With the very process of representative elections under threat, this may feel like fighting with our hands behind our backs, but this is the only way to break the cycle and institute lasting reforms.

Robespierre’s Reign of Terror is a shining example of exactly what we must avoid: reclaiming political power just to persecute our enemies. His disregard for his opponents’ rights to liberty and justice led to the violent Thermidorian Reaction, which neglected his rights just as flagrantly as he did the Monarch’s. Abraham Lincoln’s post-Civil War policies model our difficult task. Rather than seeking retribution after the Civil War, he chose amnesty to “bind up the nation’s wounds.” He could’ve used a wartime victory to effect a rapid progressive policy, but chose instead the long-sustained push of Reconstruction (which entails its own criticisms, but undeniably brought us the 14th, 15th, and 16th amendments). Winning and then lending a hand to your enemy may not be satisfying or fair, but it will bring us closer to lasting peace, equality, and freedom.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865