And their ongoing pursuit of domestic political power continues to create incentives for them to pick at the same scabs and stoke the very same tensions as adversaries who seek to destabilize the U.S. by pitting its citizens against one another.

Unlike the Russians, their desired end is not to divide Americans.

But if the share of today’s whites who regard black NFL players as uppity ingrates significantly shrinks; if fear of Muslim immigrants wanes; if native-born Americans bear less animosity toward undocumented Mexican immigrants, regardless of their views on border security or illegal immigration; then all of those wins for American unity would be blows to the political prospects of Trump, Pence, the GOP in the 2018 midterms, and the foreign adversaries who want to weaken the United States.

Thus, they divide Americans as a means to an end, and the GOP as a whole is implicated. The deal with the devil that Republicans made by embracing a charlatan birther, sticking with him through a bigoted campaign, and propelling him to a victory that thrilled the likes of Richard Spencer has a clause that does ongoing harm to our country: One of America’s two political parties now benefits politically, in the short term, from the polarization of the country along racial and ethnic lines, just as surely as the Republican Party of 1968 and 1972 benefited from that era’s tumult and division.

Not all or even most Trump supporters are racists or authoritarians, but the 2018 midterms will go better for the GOP if turnout among racists and authoritarians is strong, and it will go poorly for the party if anti-authoritarians turn out in record numbers. That is the unenviable incentive structure that Trumpism creates.

So next time Trump takes to Twitter to needlessly elevate a polarizing issue to the forefront of American public discourse from his divisive, often juvenile bully pulpit, don’t imagine that any retweets from Russian troll accounts suggest collusion.

Rather, the awful truth is that stoking whatever divisions most polarize American citizens just happens to be in the political interests of both our president and of the foreign actors who want to see America weakened by demagoguery and infighting.

Trump doesn’t want to weaken America. He simply hungers for power and attention, and as has been the case his whole life, if others must suffer negative consequences so he can feed his appetites, he’ll proceed, whether with malice or by deceiving himself about the nature of his own actions.

For as long as it lasts, Trumpism will retard America’s ability to be great.