America is adrift from a rise of “Fisters”, that is to say “America Fisters“.

An “Aryan fist” is used by white supremacists such as neo-Nazis globally and the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. For example, the right-wing terrorist mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik saluted with a raised fist in court in Oslo in 2012.

The return of the “America First” ideology—a nativist hate group of the 1800s, better known as the KKK—has abruptly created a federal leadership vacuum swarming with raised fists. The contemporary usage has once again raised concerns about its inherently nationalist rhetoric. Critics argue that the slogan implicitly positions some Americans as more authentically “American” than others, intentionally weaponizing the labels of African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, Muslim American… anything that would acknowledge both a race, religion or cultural heritage with an American identity. Framing of “America” having to be first, then labeling non-whites of America as always second, drives historical hierarchies to deny America embracing the truth of multicultural composition.

As their always divisive rhetoric gains ground like it’s 1836 again (eve of Andrew Jackson’s moral and economic collapse sending America into depression and then Civil War), we’re witnessing the same destructive patterns that periodically threaten American unity. Over a century after General Grant destroyed them on the battle field, and next destroyed them at the voting booth as President Grant, we can clearly see Trump is bringing the KKK back.

But there’s a modern counterforce hidden in plain sight, which should be familiar to most people today—Fred Rogers. Not just the digestible Daniel Tiger most remember spun out of his era of troubled times, but also the deeply principled American hero as community-builder detailed in Michael Long’s “Peaceful Neighbor.” Rogers wasn’t creating mere entertainment; he was using entertainment as a vessel to offer a clear superior outcome.

“Only people who take the time to see our work can begin to understand the depth of it.” This is the invitation of Peaceful Neighbor, to see and understand Rogers’s convictions and their expression through his program. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, it turns out, is far from sappy, sentimental, and shallow; it’s a sharp political response to a civil and political society poised to kill.

While the old white supremacist nativists exploit fear of the other and destroy anything diverting from their fictional vision of self, Rogers long ago demonstrated how to build genuine connection across necessary and fruitful differences.