If we needed any more reminders, Donald Trump’s election has reinforced the lesson :

 Reason, the characteristic that supposedly distinguishes Man from the rest of God’s creatures, doesn’t stand a chance when opposed by emotion.

You may consider that this is because of genetic instinct or conditioned reaction; the explanation hardly matters. It’s the effects that count. In the face of consensus that the world has slowly been making some progress toward a greater degree of cooperation since 1945, a couple of stupid slogans have easily upset the applecart. The chants of “Build that wall!”, “Assassinate the bitch!”, and “Put her in jail!” that distinguished Trump’s rallies were demonstrations of unbridled resentment and anger, without the slightest nod to logic. And they won easily.

So we have now, at least in America, embarked on a “yuge” retrograde epicycle. We are going to try to renege on hundreds or maybe even thousands of years of painstaking progress in order to stoke the ego of a buffoon who believes that civilization is merely a matter of crowning winners and sneering at losers. Outright KKK epithets are going to replace dog-whistle whispers in refutation of pointy-headed academic consideration of facts. Vote-getting lies are going to be acceptable as legitimate political currency, so long as they work. Nielsen ratings are going to replace the numbers formerly supplied to legislators by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Threats of “fire and fury” are going to replace thousands of State Department employees so that Mr. Tillerson will be able to point to “significant” payroll savings and provide a protected route through the minefield of career diplomats currently undermining the Twitter decision-making of his humorless and constantly furious boss.

Will this prove fatal to our 230-year-old experiment with democracy? Or will sanity reassert itself as the shouters and haters start to see the results of their victory? Will they come to understand the connection between their vanishing health insurance, their diminished social security, their doubled Walmart prices, and their loss of power in the gig economy as the Donald continues to focus on his ever-thinning comb-over and his ever-waxing belly? Or will they just conjure up new scapegoats — Chinese or North Koreans or Muslims (or black or brown or LGBT people) — and chant all the louder?

Only time will tell. But short of prayer and fist clenching what should the rest of us be doing? Can we, each one of us, swallow his or her anger and make it a personal point to reach out to one of the shouters and try to start a conversation? Is it possible to reach the part of their cortexes where thoughtfulness is located and attempt to explain that shouting not only relieves personal stress, but that it has community consequences, some of them decidedly unpleasant? (Yes, I have tried. I have only one Trump supporting friend. I asked her about it. What reaction did I get?)

 “I still think we needed shaking up. Trump shakes the tree. He may not drain the swamp, but it’s a start. Let’s see where we go from here.”

 OK, let’s see. But in the meantime we have to resist the Tillersons and the Bannons and the Kushners over every bit of the ground they covet. Open our doors to refugees and immigrants. Refuse tax relief to the one percent without meaningful concessions on steps to mitigate planet warming. Rescue our conned students from deadening debt. Retain every last provision of Dodd-Frank and deny every request from the Pentagon for more preparations for war. The threat is not from “out there”; it is from “in here”. Morality counts. The Bible counts. Charity counts. If American is to be Great again, it must lead by example. Trying to lead by muscle only gives the Kim Jong Uns the advantage. We are weak when it comes to weighing the future of the planet against temporary attempts at coercion. We will give in when the red lines are crossed. That’s our humanity talking; not our bluster. We may not be able to influence Trump by our example, but we can still reach his supporters. Fortunately there is a time limit to his reign. We need to hold the fort until the cavalry comes in sight.

Who do you know who voted for him? Reach out. There is power in one-on-one that goes beyond chanting and cursing. The message is that we are all in this together. That’s the key word : together. Even Kim Jong Un.