Chasm Politics

The last time this nation was so coarsely polarized led to our Civil War. There is no middle anymore, and with economic strains and natural disasters looming, the United States is tearing itself apart from the inside. We don’t need 9/11 bombers targeting our skyscrapers or Taliban fighters dreaming of smuggling and then detonating a nuclear device or two in strategic locations around the United States. We are imploding within our own country.

Writing for the June 6^th Los Angeles Times, David Horsey notes: “When it comes to American politics, the stark distinctions are actually increasing. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, the ideological gap between [Vermont’s “democratic socialist” U.S. Senator] Bernie Sanders and, say, South Carolina’s [conservative Republican] Sen. Jim DeMint is the same gaping chasm that separates most American voters. Over the last 25 years, on issues that once had strong support in both the Republican and Democratic parties, there is now little common ground, according to the Pew poll. Immigration, the social safety net, environmental protection and, especially, the role of government all have become deeply partisan areas of debate.

“Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP have become much more uniformly conservative – distrustful of government, environmental regulations, social services and generous immigration policies. Democrats and independents who lean left have completely opposite views. Only a tiny sliver of independent voters is ideologically untethered and that is because most of them pay scant attention to politics… Republicans are overwhelmingly white and right wing. Democrats are a party of racial minorities and white moderates and liberals…

“There is a 180-degree difference in perspective between the Boston and Charleston memorials. One celebrates men who fought for change, liberation and the authority of the federal government; the other commemorates those who resisted big government and disruption of a traditional way of life. Now, a century and a half after Americans slaughtered each other by the tens of thousands, a similar philosophical divide defines American politics. No longer blue versus gray or North versus South, it is blue states versus red states. It is Vermont and Massachusetts versus South Carolina and Kansas. It is San Francisco versus Birmingham, Ala., and Seattle versus Dallas…

“We will have an election in November, but no matter who wins, nearly half the electorate will feel the country has been stolen from them. Regional differences are tolerable and charming, but political differences can run so deep that the people on the other side begin to look less like countrymen than like enemies.”

Is there potential for reconciliation? As long as Americans are scared, uncertain of their future and sensing that desperate policies are the only possible salvation – measures defined by their passionate commitments to the “correct” ideologies espoused above and perhaps even by a hope of divine intervention – the answer is, unfortunately, a resounding “no.”

If by some miracle, economic stability and more significant growth (read: hope) reappear and linger for more than a fleeting moment, that commonality that used to define the American spirit, that political willingness to compromise to enable democracy to flourish, may return. But if the middle class vaporizes and haves and have-nots become the new definition of America, expect the polarization to continue… and the wondrous experiment in democracy called “America” to unravel. Perhaps we should redefine patriotism as willingness to compromise… but then perhaps there won’t be many folks who fit into that category anymore.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am digging deep and reaching high to find that commonality that might just bring us back together as Americans.