Gabriel Hillel: Open give-and-take is what democracy is all about
Donald Trump and his Republican followers began testing the limits of democracy as a workable system of governance on the national and international levels from the time he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. To get the kinds of support he wanted, Trump viciously branded dissenters so he could make them fearful for daring to disagree with him. Trump deliberately created a frightening “us or them” choice and it worked to the extent that people who wanted to be in the circle of the presidency gave up their own identities to be accepted by him. In Gainesville, four years ago, we knew that demo...