As we approach what some regard as “independence day”, it’s tempting to deplore the rise of zero-sum politics: to think that if both remainers and leavers had cared less and compromised more, if Brexit had been an exercise in consensus building rather than a contest in blaming the other side, and if reason had prevailed over passion, perhaps trust in political institutions wouldn’t have plummeted to such an all-time low.

Taken as an isolated phenomenon, Brexit warranted a more compromising stance. But the divisions it entrenched were proxies for far deeper political and cultural conflicts that will take decades to resolve. When citizens strongly disagree about fundamental issues, and are willing to protest about them, there’s a tendency to conclude that anger itself is the problem – and that a return to reasoned deliberation would resolve our political divisions.

Lamenting the absence of moderation on all sides is how champions of liberal democracy have come to terms with our political crisis. It is how they have rationalised not only Brexit but also the rise of authoritarian leaders that defy legal norms, and the advance of the far right across the world. The belief that hot-headed, zero-sum politics could be cooled by reason is why people have criticised the disruptive tactics of climate protesters, or supported “moderate” rather than “extreme” views in the Democratic primary debates, or ranked Labour leadership candidates according to their willingness to compromise.

Centrist commentators treat political divisions as the result of unrestrained emotions and the refusal to see reason. But more concerning than the language of “traitors” and “enemies of the people” are the political and economic circumstances that forged these attitudes in the first place. Zero-sum politics aren’t the cause of our crisis: they’re the symptom.

Blaming the internecine divisions between leave and remain on an unwillingness to compromise mistakes the failures of political institutions for failures of human nature. People are not born moderate or extreme, violent or peaceful, hostile to strangers or sympathetic to them. They can be one thing at one point and another thing at another: red wall voters in one election, blue wall in the next. Their attitudes to compromise depend on their circumstances and commitments, and, crucially, whether political institutions are able to respond to these.

Fundamental disagreements in politics are unavoidable. If we could simply wish them away, we wouldn’t need politics at all. Those who think the current crisis could be resolved through moderate deliberation assume there is some liberal consensus that is both intuitively plausible and universally attractive, if only we could put our passions to one side. Yet there was already something broken in the liberal status quo, long before Britain voted to leave the EU. Liberal societies have entrenched asymmetries of power and inequalities of wealth to a degree that citizens no longer see each other as equals. When some are rich and others are poor, when some are highly articulate and others haven’t completed GCSEs, when some have multiple houses and others are condemned to be homeless, the imperative to patiently listen to the other side is not just unrealistic: it is insulting to those who persistently lose out.

Compromise and moderation aren’t inherently good or bad. Of course, it is preferable when people deliberate as opposed to shouting at each other. It is better if we all seek to persuade our opponents rather than fighting them, and it is more eye-opening when Labour activists also have Tory friends. But for deliberation to work, and for compromise to equate to more than just the stronger side imposing its will, the parties to a debate must have an equal capacity to persuade each other.

Political communities have never been homogenous. In some ways politics has always involved a zero-sum game. The challenge of democratic institutions is to handle these conflicts in ways that allow participation on equal terms. Instead of condemning political excesses, we should reflect on how liberal societies have fuelled them. Instead of striving to eliminate people’s rage against the system, we should ask why it is there in the first place. Rather than beseeching people to compromise at all costs, we should create the conditions that make meaningful compromise possible.

• Lea Ypi is a professor in political theory in the government department at the London School of Economics