Will Politics Get Better… or Worse? We’re About to Find Out.

The central question of the relationship between Donald Trump and the virulent strain of populism that has raged in our country has been frequently raised and never conclusively answered: is Trump a symptom of these passions or the cause of them?

Was the soon-to-be-former president an instigator of the anti-establishment anger that has characterized our recent history or the product of it? Did he just happen across the landscape at the right time to benefit from the same resentments that led to Brexit in the United Kingdom, the Golden Dawn uprising in Greece and similar movements sweeping across the European continent in Poland, Hungary, Germany, Italy and other counties? Or did he astutely recognize the political potential in these emotions and purposefully capitalize on them?

Could Trump-ism have existed without Trump? And will it survive without him?

We’re about to find out.

When Trump leaves office on January 20, after a flagrantly atypical and unprecedentedly raucous transition period, the populist resentments and rages that now characterize American public debate will not disappear. We are a more confrontational country, a sharper-edged and shriller nation, a less tolerant society than we used to be. Loyal partisans from both parties will leap to condemn their opponents for this deterioration, but the truth is that there is more than enough blame and shame to go around.

Joe Biden has spent the weeks since his election became official arguing that the American people are still capable of unifying to confront a horrific series of common threats. There are sizable numbers of voters in both parties who are hopeful that he’s right and no shortage of others who dismiss him as hopelessly naive.

Can Biden’s collaborative instincts, his memories of a less-divided country and a time-weathered affability provide him with the skills to stitch us back together? Or will he end up with tread marks on his back when hardened ideologues in both parties stampede past his calls for unity back to their more familiar hyper-polarized turf?

We’re about to find out.

Will the Republicans standing with Trump as he fights to the very bitter end stay loyal to him even once he is out of office? Will his most committed supporters maintain their fervor and demand that GOP elected officials continue the scorched-earth politics they have practiced since Trump’s election? Will progressive activists allow Biden to attempt to govern from the center, or will they insist that congressional Democrats withhold votes from compromise legislation and hold out for more ideologically pure alternatives?

Will Senator Mitch McConnell find issues on which he can work with Biden? Will Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to navigate the challenges of a painfully-thin House majority? Will Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kevin McCarthy incite their party’s ideological bases toward further political brutality, or will they leverage their hard-earned grassroots credibility to convince skeptics that an occasional truce can be tolerated? How many members on both sides will spend the next two years looking nervously over their shoulders for possible primary challenges, and how many will decide that winning a primary is of little use if it marginalizes you in a general election?

The truth is that we have no idea what’s coming next. We have no way of guessing whether the country’s political divisions will further deepen or whether past historical cycles of balkanization followed by reconciliation can be repeated today — an era in which every one of us is empowered with technological tools that allow us to ignore, mock or threaten those who dare to disagree with us.

The truth is that we have no idea what’s coming next.

American history is filled with examples of hate-filled combatants realizing that the only way to move forward is to set aside their mutual contempt and animosity — even grudgingly and temporarily — to meet a moment that requires something better. Do the rest of us, who have worked so hard to isolate ourselves from the other half of the country that votes for the wrong people, have it in ourselves to take those same steps forward, at least for a short time until we’re back on track?

Or will we continue to convince ourselves that because we’re right and the other side is wrong, because we are smart and good and they are stupid and evil, that no such ceasefire is possible?

We’re about to find out.

Dan Schnur teaches political communications at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the weekly webinar “Politics in the Time of Coronavirus” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall.