Democracy breaks down when you demonize people with different opinions instead of figuring out on why they believe what they’re believing and on which topics you can find consensus. When you assume to know everything about a person by where they put a cross in an election you give up on trying to convince them of your convictions. You can’t have a functioning society if you let the identity politics propaganda win. If you believe that roughly half of your country is a raping, lynching mob beyond reason you might as well stop elections and proceed to civil war.