Prejudice is a bad thing, but it’s how our dysfunctional government does (tries to do) business.

Remember those guys wearing T-shirts that read “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat”? That wasn’t a joke or hyperbole. The sentiments were real.

Gone is the idea of a “loyal opposition” in Congress. In today’s world, just being the opposition is enough to make you disloyal in the eyes of the true believers who are ejecting frustrated pragmatists and principle-driven politicians from office at an alarming rate.

Gone are the days when “working across the aisle” — a skill touted by George W. Bush — was seen as a good thing. Now, the people across the aisle are seen as enemies, traitors, and demons. They’re dehumanized the same way we dehumanize enemies in a war, so we can justify hating them, or even wanting to kill them.

Death threats against members of Congress, government officials, and private citizens are shrugged off. An assault on the Oregon State Capitol was largely ignored. A plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan is justified because “people are angry.” An assault on the U.S. Capitol follows, and Donald Trump tells the insurrectionists that he loves them, and to “remember this day forever.” It makes me sick to my stomach just writing that.

Trump understands one thing very well: Hate energizes. Outrage sells. These are the things that motivate donors and mobilize voters. They provide an outlet for people’s fears, and if you can maximize those fears by demonizing “the other,” so much the better. Wonder why so many people went to the polls during this past election. It wasn’t some sudden surge in civic pride from a nation that had been apathetic about voter turnout for decades. It was hatred of Democrats and “socialists” on the one side, a desire to “own the libs,” and fear and loathing of Donald Trump on the other.

Solving problems doesn’t motivate people the way hate does. Hate is easy. Solving problems is hard. It takes time. It takes working together across the aisle, and if you don’t trust the person across the aisle, you stop trying.

So nothing gets done.

And the hate grows, as people on both sides blame a problem-solving process no one ever gave a chance to work.

Instead of believing evidence, people start believing anything that makes the other side look bad. Racism is one expression of this hatred, but it’s far from the only one. Anyone who acts differently is condemned. But it’s not just that. Even if you dare to reach the same conclusion, but to do so through independent thought, you’re ostracized — because there’s a risk you might reach an unacceptable conclusion down the road.

It’s easier to pre-emptively condemn you than risk having a potential “traitor” in their midst. To them, a traitor is someone who doesn’t toe the party line, regardless of the evidence or the consequences. “Thou shalt not wear a mask” becomes a deadly commandment. It’s anathema to be a pro-life Democrat or an anti-Trump Republican.

But these aren’t policy positions, they’re loyalty tests, and they can flip at the drop of a hat. That’s how Republicans went from being emancipators to bigots, and how Democrats went from being segregationists to champions of reparations. It’s how free-trading “conservatives” became protectionists when Trump came along, and how “liberals” traded free-speech areas for safe spaces on college campuses.

These issues once meant something on their own, apart from partisanship or ideology. Now they’re little more than placeholders in envelopes that must be endorsed regardless of what’s stuffed inside them, as long as they have a red “R” or a blue “D” on scrawled on the outside. Those envelopes might as well be empty, for all it matters. It’s style, not substance. It’s the cover, not the book.

Loyalty’s the only true barometer. If Republicans offer stimulus checks, Democrats will oppose them; if Democrats do the same, Republicans will balk.

Demonizing “the other” is all that’s important. It distracts us from the real work we need to do, and it raises money to keep up a pointless fight that no one ever wins. We keep revving an engine stuck in neutral, somehow convinced it won’t overheat and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Our unwillingness to address problems, because we’re so focused on our scapegoats of choice, fuels a sense of grievance and victimhood that fires our hate and outrage even further, until it explodes and destroys everything the generations before us worked to achieve.

This is what happens in a country governed by prejudice, scapegoating, and hate. It happened before, the middle of the 19th century, and it’s happening again now.

Stephen H. Provost is the author of three books on Donald Trump. You can find them on Amazon: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RC7L8X1