"Our society is becoming more vulnerable by the day to hate on both the left and the right. Beset by a pandemic that has devasted communities, unsettled everyday life, and cost millions of jobs, people are on edge, ever more likely to blame the Other, whether it's Jews, immigrants, Blacks, Asians, Latinx, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community—you name it. Deepening economic inequality magnifies the tension, as does inadequate health care, excessive levels of personal debt, and stresses caused by once-in-a-century natural disasters that now occur every year. In this environment, with hatred seething around us, the arrival of another demagogue—one smarter and more disciplined than Donald Trump—is all it would take to produce an explosion of violence, mass death, and the destruction of our society and democracy."