Friends,
I keep hearing that one of America’s biggest problems is we’re “divided and polarized.” For example, New York Times columnist David French: “We’ve known for a long time that America is deeply polarized, and we’ve known the problem is only getting worse.”
This is bulls—. The problem is not that we’re divided and polarized.
The problem is that a significant portion of America is buying Trump’s violent, hateful, lawless crap. Some of those buying it are white supremacists. Others are conservative fundamentalist Christians. Others are xenophobic nationalists.
I feel compassion for those who’ve been seduced into supporting Trump after being brutalized and mistreated for years by employers, big corporations, Wall Street, and America’s oligarchs. As I warned 32 years ago, widening inequalities of wealth, income, and opportunity would eventually persuade some on the losing side to support a demagogue.
But an explanation for why some of Trump’s followers have bought into his neofascism isn’t a justification for them to do so. And it’s certainly no reason for us to put aside our differences and compromise with them.
As you undoubtedly know, Trump has created a violent police state inside America. He is conducting an illegal war abroad. He has usurped the powers of Congress and defied court orders. He is taking bribes. He’s criminally prosecuting his enemies and pardoning his criminal supporters (he has even set up a slush fund to compensate them). He has gotten his Justice Department to immunize him and his family from any future tax audits. He is silencing critics. He is fomenting racism and bigotry.
None of us should fall for the false equivalency between this, and opposition to it. The contest today is not between “right” and “left,” as the two sides have traditionally been understood in America. It’s not even between “Republicans” and “Democrats,” as we’ve defined the two major parties over most of the past century.
No, the contest today is between democracy and authoritarianism. It’s between tolerance and bigotry. Between a multiracial, secular, inclusive society and one that believes in white Christian nationalism. Between the rule of law and neofascism.
The two sides in this contest do not merit equal weight. If we are going to have a decent society, the nation must come down on the former side.
As long as Trump has followers who support his bigotry, racism, corruption, and violence, the nation will remain divided and polarized. That is necessary and proper.
We shouldn’t “reach out, or “meet halfway,” or “find middle ground,” or “split the difference,” or any other of today’s hackneyed expressions for putting aside what divides us and agreeing.
Generations of Americans fought and died for the ideals of democracy, freedom, social justice, the rule of law, and equal opportunity. We have never fully achieved them, but they remain our ideals. Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day to honor those ideals and the memories of those who died for them.
There cannot be, must not be, any compromise with neofascism.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
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