While it is possible to reestablish trust, this will require all sides to agree on some basic principles. We no longer agree on the principles: freedom of the press, rule of law, due process, etc. The polarization we are now seeing in the US and several other nations is fundamentally a clash between those that do not share a commitment to democratic values and institutions and those that do. While not all Trump supporters hate democracy and not everyone on the opposite side loves it, broadly speaking undemocratic vs. democratic now defines the polarization we’re experiencing. It will be impossible in this scenario to foster trust. We are currently in a position where one side of that divide must lose and the other win — it will either be democracy or authoritarianism. There’s no compromising our way out of it by agreeing to a little more authoritarianism, just as there was no compromising on slavery prior to the Civil War. Sometimes the values at stake are too fundamental to allow for compromise.