I think that there are answers out there, many coming from Stephen Kotkin, a man who destroyed his eye sight studying Stalin, who is an expert on the collapse of the Soviet Union, and who is trying to reboot the American diplomatic service.
He talks about how we in the west must stop demonizing each other. We have the ability to solve our problems, but our political parties make it impossible to get the right people on our ballots. (In Canada I just join all the parties and vote within them, since a vote within is worth 50 votes without).
Kotkin is non-partisan, and we should all take notice of what he says. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul1gsIdlJFs transcripts: https://www.hoover.org/research/5-questions-stephen-kotkin-1