It may be difficult for a real-estate mogul like Donald Trump to recognize, but Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is not about slices of war-torn land in eastern Ukraine. It is about Ukraine’s democracy. Putin fears that the Russian people will see that democracy as an enticing alternative to his stultifying autocratic rule. Trump is unlikely to secure a peace deal unless he acts on that reality and changes the cost-benefit analysis behind Putin’s continuing war.

Much of the public analysis of the Alaska summit between Trump and Putin, and the Washington collection of European leaders protecting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from the temperamental Trump, has been replete with red-herring issues. For example, Putin did not invade Ukraine because of feared Nato expansion. The unanimous consent of all Nato members required to admit Ukraine is nowhere on the horizon, especially since article 5 of the Nato treaty would require all Nato members to defend Ukraine from the ongoing Russian incursion.

Ironically, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has strengthened Nato. It encouraged Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. It led Nato members to vow to dramatically increase their defense expenditures to 5% of their gross domestic product. And it has made some Nato members more likely to deploy troops in Ukraine as part of a “reassurance force” to secure a possible peace deal.

Nor did Putin invade to liberate the Ukrainian people from the rule of Zelenskyy, whom he regards as illegitimate and even a “neo-Nazi”. This claim is rich because Zelenskyy was chosen in a free and fair election, while Putin risked only an electoral charade while imprisoning, ultimately lethally, his most charismatic opponent, Alexei Navalny.

And the war is not about Putin’s pining to resurrect the Soviet Union, whose collapse he sees as “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. That logic would endanger the other 13 former Soviet states, three of which – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are Nato members.

Rather, Putin invaded Ukraine to quash its democracy. Unlike the established democracies of Europe, Ukraine looks too much like Russia for Putin to ignore the possibility that Russians will see an alternative future in its accountable, elected government. Like Russia, Ukraine is Slavic and Orthodox. And far from a small statelet, Ukraine, with the second largest population among post-Soviet states after Russia, cannot be ignored.

Putin has long preferred Ukraine as a Kremlin vassal state. The Euromaidan protests of 2013-14, which ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych after he suspended talks for a closer relationship with the European Union, led to Putin’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea and parts of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

Today, Putin’s most controversial demands would enhance the possibility of Kyiv’s renewed subordination. His insistence that Ukraine hand over large portions of Donetsk province – the “land swaps” that Trump casually suggests – would relinquish far more land than Russia has managed to take by force since November 2022, at enormous cost in Russian soldiers’ lives – land that had been home to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

It would also force Ukrainian forces to abandon key defensive lines – Ukraine’s “fortress belt’’ – that stand in the way of Russian seizure of much larger chunks of territory. Comparisons with Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement of Adolf Hitler by sacrificing Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland – a prelude to war – would be inevitable. Putin’s demand that Ukraine disarm would make Russia’s further aggression even easier.

Precluding that possibility is why security guarantees are so important for Ukraine. Given that Putin has a history of ignoring agreements with Ukraine, Kyiv reasonably wants some assurance that the Russian military will not use a lull in the fighting to replenish its diminished forces, rearm and reinvade. The best guarantee would be a European peacekeeping force on the ground, but European governments understandably seek a US backstop to deter Russian attack. Trump’s stated willingness to consider air support for a European force is an important step forward. The Russian government’s insistence on the power to veto any security guarantees raises obvious questions about Putin’s intentions.

For now, Putin seems to see advantage in continuing the war. To avoid angering Trump, he hasn’t outright refused to meet with Zelenskyy but is slow-walking the matter by insisting on time-consuming prior steps. Given that Putin’s quest to undermine Ukraine’s democracy stems from his calculation of what it takes to retain power, the only way to soften his maximalist demands is by making his recalcitrance even more politically costly.

This is where Trump has a role to play. Entering the Alaska summit, Trump had threatened “severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire. The mercurial Trump then seemingly abandoned that threat after a few hours with Putin.

Trump could take various steps that would force Putin to recalibrate the rationale for his war. Trump could increase the supply of arms to Ukraine. He could further use tariffs to deter the sale of oil and gas that prop up the Russian military. He could press European governments to devote to Ukraine’s defense and rebuilding the $300bn of sovereign Russian assets that are now frozen in western accounts.

It is deeply disturbing that matters of war and peace, democracy and autocracy, depend on stroking and flattering the fragile ego of the self-absorbed Trump. But that is the world we live in.

European leaders have an essential role to play in nudging him in the right direction. They must get Trump to overcome his usual disdain for democratic rule, and admiration for autocrats like Putin, to acknowledge the centrality of defending Ukraine’s democracy for any fair resolution of the Ukraine conflict.

These are counterintuitive steps for the American president. But if he wants to orchestrate an end to the horrible slaughter in Ukraine, he will have to summon the vision to take them.

Have we reached peak Trump? Is it possible that we have arrived at a moment, a mere four months into his second term, when the president’s capacity to do harm is diminishing?

That is undeniably a provocative question. Like any US president, Donald Trump remains immensely powerful. It is early days; he can still cause plenty of damage – and certainly will.

But after an initial flurry of activity when the opposition often seemed deer-in-the-headlights stunned, Trump’s power to daze and paralyze may now be on a downward trajectory. Recognizing that possible shift is important to embolden resistance to his dangerous, would-be autocratic rule.

Trump’s notorious flood-the-zone strategy was initially effective. Before opposition could be mobilized to one outrage, there was another. Entire government agencies were ordered shut. Government employees were dispatched by the tens of thousands. Healthcare, scientific and medical research, foreign aid, government-funded independent media, the quest for a more equitable society were all stopped or stymied.

Many of Trump’s actions followed the classic autocrat’s playbook as he deliberately attacked the checks and balances on his power. Republicans in Congress, prioritizing their own political future over the welfare of the nation, toed the line for fear of a primary challenge. Judges who ruled against him were subjected to intimidation and threats of impeachment. Law firms that sued him, or pursued cases he disliked, faced retaliation. Business leaders sidled up to him hoping to curry favor and avoid retaliation. Some journalists who criticized him were met with defamation suits or restrictions at White House briefings. Universities, as centers of independent thought, saw draconian funding cuts. Plans proceeded to remove the tax-exempt status of some private foundations and civic groups.

Trump made a mark in his first few months in part because the brazenness and velocity of his actions encouraged a save-yourself mentality among many targets. Some law firms, universities and media outlets struck deals with him, hoping to protect themselves at the expense of the rule of law, academic freedom or freedom of the media.

Yet over time, the resistance regrouped. More than 180 judges have ruled against some element of Trump’s program, from his summary dismissal of government employees to his efforts to deport immigrants without due process.

The courts were undoubtedly emboldened by Trump’s tendency to overreach. His senior aides and officials, often chosen for loyalty over competence, have shown little inclination to rein him in. The blatant unconstitutionality of Trump’s resulting actions – rejecting birthright citizenship despite its constitutional foundation, using the power of the government to retaliate against critics despite the first amendment – seem to have encouraged judges to abandon any presumptive deference to executive good faith. Many conservative lawyers are turning on him.

Because of Trump’s excesses, many of the setbacks have come even in the arena that was thought to be his strongest – immigration. The summary deportations of Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s nightmarish mega-prison, under the pretext of a nonexistent “war”, have been stopped. The Tufts University student threatened with deportation evidently because she co-authored an op-ed in a student newspaper that criticized Israel has been freed. So have other foreign students detained for similar pro-Palestinian views.

The former Columbia student and green card holder who led student protests against Israel is still in custody, but his case has highlighted the Trump administration’s absurd claim, needed to circumvent first amendment protection of non-citizens on US soil, that his actions undermined US foreign policy. About half of Americans believe his deportations have “gone too far”.

Trump’s disdain for the rule of law – his disparaging of judges who ruled against him, his refusal to conscientiously abide by judicial rulings – seems to have accomplished a remarkable transformation in the US supreme court, from a presumptive 6-3 majority in Trump’s favor to one that on occasion will rule against him, such as its pronouncement that immigrants cannot be deported without due process.

Many of the lower-court rulings are preliminary rather than decisions on the merits. Most are subject to appeal, and some have been reversed. But they have stymied many Trump initiatives. He has lost momentum.

Harvard, after unsuccessfully trying to placate Trump, responded to ensuing over-the-top demands by suing his administration. Seemingly recognizing that they had overplayed, Trump officials reportedly sought a settlement, evidently hoping to avoid an adverse judicial precedent, as has now occurred in several suits brought by law firms challenging unconstitutional retaliation against them. Trump has upped the ante against Harvard with huge cuts in government funding and a threat to its tax-exempt status, but the courts have at least temporarily stopped his effort to bar the university from enrolling foreign students.

Harvard’s belated, yet important, leadership – a stark contrast with Columbia’s unsuccessful appeasement – has galvanized other universities toward a collective defense. Law firms also have begun to band together, although many of the biggest ones still seem more concerned with preserving their considerable incomes than upholding their professional obligation to defend the rule of law. Private foundations are now consulting about how best to deter threats to their tax-exempt status.

Although public protests have been fewer than during Trump’s first presidential term, his public approval has plummeted. Elon Musk, once seemingly omnipresent as a Trump hatchet man, has retreated as people turn on Tesla and his other companies.

Trump’s foreign policy, a domain where presidential latitude is broad, has done no better at forcing acquiescence. Trump’s erratic and arbitrary tariff policies have managed to shake consumer confidence and threaten inflation while slowing the economy and panicking the bond market.

Trump’s instinct to trust Putin not to use a ceasefire to rearm and reinvade Ukraine has run aground on Putin’s persistent maximalist demands. Contrary to Trump’s real-estate instincts, Putin’s aim is not gaining a chunk of territory in eastern Ukraine but crushing its democracy so it will no longer serve as a model for Russians. That has led Trump, evidently more comfortable putting pressure on Ukrainian victims than his autocratic buddy in the Kremlin, to disengage from his mediating role. He has criticized Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian cities while imposing no consequences and refusing to authorize new US arms for Ukraine.

Trump’s initial proposal for ending the war in Gaza – “solving” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by expelling the Palestinians – was eagerly taken up by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, but stymied by the plan’s blatant criminality and the refusal of even aid-dependent Egypt and Jordan to go along. Even Trump has come to recognize that Netanyahu is now the main obstacle to peace because of his determination to continue the war to preserve his far-right governing coalition and avoid prison on pending corruption charges.

Successful resistance in places like Brazil and Poland provide Americans with certain lessons that they seem to be learning:

Trump’s attacks on the restraints on his power should be viewed not in isolation, but as part of a deliberate scheme to build an autocracy. Each step matters. He is attacking not just big law or Ivy League universities but democracy.

Early opposition is important because resistance becomes harder over time as checks on presidential authority weaken.

The temptation to save one’s own skin should be resisted because it plays into the autocratic strategy of divide-and-conquer. A collective defense works best.

Appeasement may seem like a way to calm the bully, but bullies see it as weakness, an invitation to demand more.

These lessons will be important because Trump will inevitably issue new executive orders designed to advance his agenda and provoke opposition despair. Project 2025, his unacknowledged guidebook, had about 900 pages of ideas. He undoubtedly will concoct new “emergencies” to justify extraordinary powers, having already declared eight. He could even spark a constitutional crisis by openly flouting a judicial order – a possibility that JD Vance has advanced.

But the deluge of wild ideas – invading Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, making Canada the 51st state – are losing their shock value, whether as assertions of executive power or diversions from Trump’s limited actual accomplishments. And Trump’s seeming belief that he can spin reality through endless repetition of falsehoods is bumping up against significant parts of the media that continue to spotlight facts and the public’s refusal to accept imposition of a post-truth world.

Trump can still cause significant damage by legislation, such as threatened limits to Medicaid and food stamps, reaffirmation of Musk’s slash-and-burn budgetary cuts, or large taxes on university endowments, but that route is more difficult than signing an executive order. The Republicans’ razor-thin congressional majority requires either holding together virtually the entire Republican caucus despite its limited but real ideological diversity or reaching out to Democrats who so far have maintained a united front of opposition. Both will, to some extent, be moderating influences.

And it won’t be long before Republican attention turns from legislation to the threat of an electoral drubbing in the 2026 midterm elections, hints of which were already apparent in the election of a Democratic Wisconsin supreme court justice and the diminished votes to fill two safe Republican seats in Congress.

I recognize it may be foolhardy to pronounce peak Trump. The president will never cease to amaze with his disdain for decency and democracy. But something real has happened in the time since he returned to the White House. The checks and balances of US democracy have proved remarkably resilient. The shock and awe of his early days has given way to a grinding of gears, a political program that, because of widespread resistance, is becoming more sound than fury.

This is no time for despair. Resignation is wrong. Resistance is working. We must keep it up.

It seems paradoxical to look to Donald Trump to save the Palestinians, yet no recent American president has been better placed to insist that the Israeli government stop its extraordinary repression and brutality. Trump so far has largely given Israel carte blanche to continue its genocide in Gaza, but Benjamin Netanyahu would be remiss to count on the fickle and self-serving American president. And there may be a way to turn Trump around.

Most US presidents have stuck with the Israeli government regardless of its atrocities because the political fallout of deviating was too high. Any pressure on Israel would be sure to trigger outrage from Christian evangelicals (Israel’s largest group of supporters in the US) and the conservative segment of American Jews represented by the lobbying group Aipac.

Trump is less susceptible to such pressure because there is no major political figure to his right. Israel’s supporters can complain, but they have no place to turn.

Trump has already used that latitude to differ from the Israeli prime minister on a range of issues. He lifted sanctions on the interim Syrian authorities when Netanyahu preferred a crippled neighbor. He struck a deal with Houthi forces in Yemen to stop attacking shipping without insisting on an end to attacks on Israel. He authorized direct negotiations with Hamas, which Netanyahu considered anathema, and initially pursued negotiations with Iran while Netanyahu preferred immediate bombing. He visited the Arab Gulf states without stopping in Israel. And he put pressure on Netanyahu twice to agree to temporary ceasefires in Gaza.

In other respects, Trump has supported the Netanyahu government. He authorized renewed delivery of the 2,000-pound bombs that Joe Biden had suspended because Israel was using them to decimate Palestinian neighborhoods. He vetoed a UN security council call for an unconditional ceasefire. He imposed sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC) prosecutor for charging Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant with the war crime of starving and depriving Palestinian civilians. He also sanctioned two ICC judges for affirming the charges, and a UN special rapporteur for accurately reporting on and denouncing Israel’s genocide.

But Netanyahu could find it perilous to count on Trump. Despite the periodic shows of mutual support, there seems to be no love lost between the two men. Moreover, Trump’s mood changes with the weather. He can turn on a dime with barely a blush. His loyalty is foremost to himself. His only lodestar is his political or financial self-interest.

There are plenty of reasons for the transactional Trump to sour on Netanyahu. While Trump bellyaches about the funds spent to defend Ukraine’s democracy from Vladimir Putin’s invasion, the US government has sent more than $22bn to Israel to sustain its war in Gaza, with no end in sight (more than $300bn since Israel’s founding in 1948). Netanyahu seems to treat an open spigot from Washington as an entitlement, but Trump can easily develop an allergy to such enormous expenditures.

Then there is Trump’s ego. Netanyahu’s pronouncement during his White House visit this month that he had nominated Trump for a Nobel peace prize was cringe-worthy in its pandering, especially from a man whose willingness to relentlessly kill Palestinian civilians as a vehicle to retain power and avoid pending corruption charges is the main obstacle to a ceasefire.

But Trump seems genuinely to want a Nobel peace prize. That won’t happen by underwriting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which Trump initially proposed and Netanyahu’s far-right ministers, who are capable of collapsing his governing coalition, are demanding. Nor will it come from sequestering Palestinians in a “concentration camp”, as former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert describes the proposal of the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, to confine Palestinians on the ruins of a corner of Gaza.

Trump would deserve accolades for truly ending the conflict and enabling the rebuilding of Gaza. But the conflict is unlikely to truly end, and the Gulf Arab states will be reluctant to pony up the billions needed for reconstruction, for a mere return to the apartheid that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territory. A Nobel-worthy end to the conflict would be a Palestinian state living side-by-side with an Israeli one.

Netanyahu has devoted his career to avoiding that possibility. The massive settlement enterprise is designed to preclude it. But because none of the alternatives – mass expulsion, endless apartheid or equal rights in a single state – is morally or politically viable, a Palestinian state is the best option.

It is difficult to imagine Trump pushing for a Palestinian state. He has appointed an ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, whose vision for a state is to put it anywhere but in Palestine. But if Trump’s quest for accolades, his bid for the history books, takes priority in his mind, which is entirely possible, we should not discount this turn of events.

Trump turned on Putin last week when he proclaimed: “We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” That describes Netanyahu to a T.

Why does Trump let Netanyahu keep playing him the way Putin did? How can Trump proclaim himself the Master Negotiator when he can’t manage to use his enormous leverage over Netanyahu to get him to stop bombing and starving Palestinian civilians? Is Trump not sophisticated enough to move from real-estate deals to international negotiations?

I’m sure that Trump would hate to be asked these questions. The sycophants around him won’t. Others can and should. Trump’s fragile ego, his insatiable need for praise, may be the Palestinians’ best chance of turning him in a constructive direction.

Donald Trump intends to leave Russia and Ukraine to organize a meeting between their leaders without directly playing a role for now, according to administration officials familiar with the situation, taking a step back from the negotiations to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The next stage in Trump’s eyes to end the war in Ukraine remains a bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, the officials said.

Trump has told advisers in recent days that he intends to host a trilateral meeting with the two leaders only after they have met first, although whether that initial conference takes place remains unclear and Trump does not intend to become involved in that effort.

In a phone interview with talk show host Mark Levin on WABC on Tuesday, Trump also said he thought it would be better for Putin and Zelenskyy to meet without him in the first instance. “I just want to see what happens at the meeting. So they’re in the process of setting it up and we’re going to see what happens.”

Trump’s reluctance to push Putin and Zelenskyy to a meeting comes as he has acknowledged in recent days that ending the war in Ukraine has been more difficult than he had anticipated, after saying on the campaign trail last year he could achieve it in 24 hours.

He has since sought a quick peace agreement after his deadline for Russia to end the war expired this month and said after his meetings with Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House on Monday that he had initiated steps for a bilateral meeting.

A senior administration official characterized the situation as Trump taking a “wait-and-see approach” to whether a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting could be scheduled. But there have been few tangible signs in recent days of progress and the White House does not have a shortlist of locations where the meeting could take place.

The White House said in a statement that “Trump and his national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukranian officials towards a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war… It is not in the national interest to further negotiate these issues publicly.”

After the meetings at the White House, Trump spoke to Putin on a call that lasted around 40 minutes. Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, later said the two leaders agreed that more senior negotiators would be appointed for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine.

That statement signaled that a bilateral meeting could remain some way off, even as the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, expressed optimism it could happen within two weeks and Putin has rejected previous attempts by Zelenskyy to meet face-to-face since the start of the war.

At a news conference on Monday night after the White House meetings, Zelenskyy said that the European leaders’ meeting with Trump centered on security guarantees for Ukraine in any peace agreement to ensure Russia did not resume its invasion.

Trump offered to contribute to security guarantees, but has since ruled out deploying American troops to be part of a military force on the ground in Ukraine. Any US assistance is expected to come in the form of intelligence sharing or possibly US air support.

Previously, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, had said on CNN’s “state of the union” after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska that Putin agreed the US could offer Ukraine a security guarantee that resembled Nato’s Article 5 collective self-defense mandate.

“We were able to win the following concession: that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in Nato,” Witkoff said.

But Putin’s acceptance of Nato-like security guarantees may not be as straightforward. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has also suggested that Russia should be one of the security guarantors for Ukraine – a proposal the White House has privately scoffed at, one official said.

“The Ukrainian side proposed, and our delegation at that time agreed, to work out security guarantees that would involve all permanent members of the UN security council – that is, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom,” Lavrov said.

After the White House meetings, Zelenskyy also outlined a plan to purchase $90bn in American weapons through Europe to win security guarantees, and for the US to buy drones from Ukraine. It was not immediately clear whether that was part of the Ukraine weapons deal Trump announced last month.

The common wisdom today holds that autocracy is ascendant, democracy in decline. The reality is more complicated. In country after country in recent years, people living under autocracy have taken to the streets, often at great risk, to demand accountable government. Turkey and Serbia are the latest examples, but we have seen similar popular uprisings from Hong Kong to Nicaragua . Ironically, it is in established democracies that the trend toward autocracy has been most pronounced.

Donald Trump’s victory in November has given rise to much soul-searching among progressives. How could a plurality of U.S. voters embrace a man who seems to relish the persecution of disfavored minorities, from transgender people to Black Americans to immigrants? As I reflect on this dangerous moment, I have come to appreciate that the identity politics of many progressives has made it easier for Trump to pursue his agenda of intolerance.

Donald Trump’s victory in November has given rise to much soul-searching among progressives. How could a plurality of U.S. voters embrace a man who seems to relish the persecution of disfavored minorities, from transgender people to Black Americans to immigrants? As I reflect on this dangerous moment, I have come to appreciate that the identity politics of many progressives has made it easier for Trump to pursue his agenda of intolerance.

The common wisdom today holds that autocracy is ascendant, democracy in decline. The reality is more complicated. In country after country in recent years, people living under autocracy have taken to the streets, often at great risk, to demand accountable government. Turkey and Serbia are the latest examples, but we have seen similar popular uprisings from Hong Kong to Nicaragua. Ironically, it is in established democracies that the trend toward autocracy has been most pronounced.

That willingness to abandon democracy can be traced to two primary causes: the disillusionment of some people with the democratic system, and the demagoguery of autocratic politicians. The disenchantment is found in people who believe that democratic government is leaving them behind. They feel that they are stagnating economically amid growing inequality, that they are not served, heard, or even respected by governing officials. It only makes matters worse when democratic governance is paralyzed by today’s increasingly divisive politics. The answer to this politics of despair lies in part in better governance and in promoting policies that are seen to respond to, and serve, all members of society.

That is easier said than done, but it is not as if autocrats govern any better. As they undermine the checks and balances on their power, autocrats typically deliver for themselves (and their cronies) more than for the people of their country. But they avoid outrage from their supporters because they excel at covering up their self-serving policies—at changing the subject—by scapegoating disfavored minorities. The rhetoric, often couched in terms of restoring “traditional” values, varies from country to country, but the strategy is similar: A country’s problems are blamed on immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people, wokeism, feminism, or whatever excuse appeals to the conservative base and its autocratically inspired quest for the supposedly halcyon days of the past.

This is a cynical anti-rights strategy. Power is pursued by targeting for persecution the people who are often society’s most vulnerable.

The classic if reflexive response of human rights activists has been to stress that none of our rights are guaranteed unless all of our rights are secure. That was the insight of Pastor Martin Niemöller, who famously said, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist…” It is the logic behind the Kantian injunction to treat others as you would want them to treat you.

But autocratic politicians do not accept that syllogism. By portraying segments of society as threats to the community rather than members of it, autocrats seek to justify depriving them of their rights, assuming not only that mistreating these supposed outsiders will not affect the rights of people still deemed on the inside, but that this mistreatment is necessary to protect them. The autocratic response reflects the often-neglected premise of the liberal vision—that is, its dependence on a shared sense of community.

Ironically, the identity politics that has come to define much of progressive thought these days has facilitated this autocratic sleight of hand by neglecting, or even undermining, the national community. Progressives have tended to promote the rights of interest groups, particularly people who are seen to have historically suffered discrimination and persecution.

The impulse to defend the downtrodden is admirable, but the way it has been carried out comes at a cost. If progressive politics can be reduced to the promotion of a collection of disfavored interest groups, it is easier for the autocrat to carve out selected groups for demonization. Autocrats simply portray their priority interest groups as the ones that progressives are neglecting—typically, members of a country’s working-class ethnic majority—and claim that the demonized groups are the cause of the priority group’s malaise. In the United States, white working class men were especially sympathetic to Trump’s appeal, although they were far from the only ones.

An alternative approach would be for progressives to speak in terms of a national community; to stress the rights of all people who live in the nation. This would not mean ignoring the rights of the downtrodden, but it would require a different rhetoric that promotes their rights as members of a national community rather than as mere interest groups among others.

To speak of a national community does not require nationalism. The aim is not to promote an aggressive pursuit of national interests against other nations. There is no need to invade Greenland. Rather, the point is to shift the public conversation away from identity politics. Progressives would speak less about a coalition of interest groups and more about a nation of rights bearers. In the United States, they would stress that the American dream should be available to everyone in the country, that no one should be left behind.

That is not to ignore the defense of rights abroad, where concern for a common humanity is often essential. But in the domestic context, that basic empathy can and should be supplemented by a shared understanding of the national community.

Depriving autocrats of the easy target of identity politics would make it easier to challenge their scapegoating as a ploy to divert attention from how poorly they usually govern. In the United States, Trump’s attacks on immigrants or transgender people have little if anything to do with the bread-and-butter issues that motivate many of the people who feel left behind, but he has greater success with this rhetorical deceit because progressives’ focus on identity politics is so easily caricatured. Trump’s notorious campaign ad—that his opponent, Kamala Harris, was for “they/them” while Trump was for “you”—illustrated the problem.

When I led Human Rights Watch, I saw this dilemma at a global level. On the one hand, I created a series of programs devoted to people who had traditionally been neglected by the human rights movement, such as LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. I wanted them included. On the other hand, I bridled at the tendency of some staff members to talk about general rights issues by listing all of these disfavored groups rather than speaking simply of the rights of everyone. I erased the lists whenever I had the chance because I saw them as undermining the essential view that all people have rights by virtue simply of their humanity.

Some people do indeed face historical discrimination, and a targeted response is required. But progressives cannot allow themselves to be reduced to the defenders of a series of special interests, however disadvantaged. The best antidote to the autocratic dodge is for progressives to recapture the defense of everyone in a nation—to embrace and defend a national community of rights bearers.