Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in television ad called “Real Reform” claiming Springfield politicians use duct tape solutions to cover up Illinois’ problems.

A billionaire with no political experience decides to run for office as a self-proclaimed “outsider.” Elected by people who are tired of a broken political system that has forgotten them, he quickly runs away from any campaign promises and pursues measures that would hurt the people who elected him. He introduces chaos and dysfunction to the point where members of his own party wonder what he’s doing.

Sound familiar? In Illinois, we didn’t need to see this movie. We wrote the script.

Bruce Rauner, the governor of Illinois since 2015, might not seem like Donald Trump on the surface. He isn’t a preening megalomaniac, and doesn’t get into Twitter feuds with minor celebrities. But he provided the playbook for Trump’s rise, running as a regular, flannel-wearing guy who understood working families and could help them by overturning the political system. He ran as a problem solver.

Illinois has a lot of problems to solve. Unequal school funding means students across the state are at competitive disadvantages. Underfunded pensions threaten the economy and jeopardize the well-being of the people who worked their whole lives depending on them. Social services across the state are crumbling, along with our neglected infrastructure.

To say that Gov. Rauner failed to solve these problems is to minimize the issue. He didn’t even try. Like Trump, he talks about the working class while undercutting unions (the latest version of this is privatizing prison nurses so they can be paid less). He’s threatening to limit abortion rights to placate the far right (despite professing to be pro-choice). He’s even slammed the door on Syrian refugees , betraying any sense of Midwestern decency.

Illinois is in it’s 22nd month without a budget. His proposals have been described as “ laughable ,” which would be true if they weren’t also deadly serious. He wants to “balance the budget” by decimating social services rather than making his fellow billionaires pay their fair share. He refuses to invest in small towns or the urban centers, pitting communities against each other and widening an artificial divide.

(Full disclosure: I am running for governor of Illinois as a progressive Democrat to bring actual balance to our budget, to make it fair to everyone. I’d welcome your help .)

This is textbook Trumpism. Run as a populist; govern as a plutocrat. Donald Trump is signing executive order after executive order to benefit only the wealthy and proposing budgets that will “devastate” his supporters (and nearly everyone else). His economic populism is as much a sham as his steaks and his university.

That’s how Gov. Rauner is governing, or is attempting to. He refuses to back down on his austerity budget, leading to a two-year crisis that is devastating Illinois.

As progressive Democrats, this is our fight. Republicans like Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner and Scott Walker want to destroy government, and they do so by sewing cynicism about what President Obama called the “hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

We shouldn’t run from government; it allows Trump and Rauner to spread the lie that people are better off without it. We need to show government is just the outcome of who we are and what we want, and through progressive ideas we can ensure everyone has the opportunity for a job that pays well and to achieve security for their family.

The country might be stuck with Trump until 2020. But Illinoisans can get rid of our own Trump in 2018. Bruce Rauner is running for reelection , in the same flannel, and has spent another $50 million to do so. He can afford it, but Illinois can’t. If progressives across the country unite, like we did with the Jon Ossoff campaign, we can make the Land of Lincoln a state that once again is run by the people and for the people.