The “other” is the fuel that drives ideas of American society, that feeds American identity. If we are committed to discerning, then defeating, the contemporary logic of racism, we must separate it from its ties to democracy itself. In order to be true patriots, we must become disloyal to chronically prejudiced views of American society that persist in our rather ignoble Trumpian moment. We earn the politicians we deserve, inherit the systems we admire and find useful, no matter our protests to the contrary.
