The last time the United States was this polarized, we started shooting at each other. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed (a full 2% of the population perished). The Union won; the rebels were crushed. Slavery ended. Today, the Constitution still does not provide any mechanism for secession. People today still wave Confederate flags and tout the “nobility” of an army hell-bent on destroying the country. As noted in the Civil War, as the South tried to justify a breakaway, there has never been a “compact” between the federal government and states when they join the Union, not even the Republic of Texas.
Even assuming there were a way to sever ties between a state and the federal government, exactly how would we deal with: the national debt, accrued Social Security and Medicare obligations, nuclear weapons and our military assets/personnel, the currency, trade agreements and treaties with other nations, enforcement of criminal and civil laws for existing contracts and convictions, etc., etc.?
But the schisms run deep. We have two rather distinct and absolutely incompatible philosophies of governance living under one national roof. In overly general terms, we have a white-dominated, rural/religious values movement vs a more diversely powered faction with strong secular/urban leanings. There are lots of people in the middle, but the battling between the above is deeply pronounced and profoundly divisive. The former, MAGA labeled faction, is strong on faith, generally lower on education and science. The latter is more heavily influenced by science and personal liberty, usually resentful of people who threaten their personal choices. To achieve rural/religious supremacy, the MAGA faction is willing to end democratic majority rule.
Just listening to the Supreme Court on February 8th seemed to suggest a feeling across the justices, an out-and-out fear, that they could provoke a civil war by following the plain language of section 3 (the insurrection disqualification clause) of the 14th Amendment, an interpretation which any knowledgeable understanding of contextual history would make even more evident. Pretending that allowing a single state to decide an election, for example, would be bad law did not stop the court in 2000 when it allowed Florida’s voting tabulation in Bush vs Gore to determine the presidency.
These alternative views of America are measurably divergent, as illustrated by a national attitudinal survey conducted by Pew Research Center from Jan. 16 to Jan. 21 among 5,140 adults, published on February 1st. The above chart from that survey shows the left/right skew in how Americans from differing parties view the listed institutions.
The irony in those results is that both factions held banks, financial institutions and large corporations in deep disregard and distrust. Yet the MAGA right continues to fight for more deregulation and tax cuts for those same institutions, arguing for fewer benefits to average Americans to keep those taxes for the rich low. The Trump-era 2017 corporate tax rate reduction (from 35% down to 21%) failed to create the promised high-paying jobs and added trillions to the national deficit. MAGA wants more of that.
Many scholars have opined that unless voters can agree on underlying facts, which is a big ask for people who instead rely on their religious beliefs or outsource their opinions to fact-averse leaders, elections lose their significance… or meaning. Looking at passionate believers among pizza-gate, Taylor Swift as a Pentagon operative, the deep state axioms of Q-Anon and the belief that that Donald Trump was ordained by God to rule the United States, it’s easy to see why election deniers form a massive slice of our constituency. It is also why an election, literally putting democracy itself effectively on the ballot, is so tenuous.
As Republicans attempt to impeach Joe Biden, call for his “poor memory” (on par with Donald Trump’s) to result in a 25th Amendment removal from office, and attempt to impeach homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, Congressional viability is itself very much in doubt as this Congress has passed only 10% (or less) of bills when compared to other recent congressional sessions. This dysfunction – a supercharged disconnect mired in angry passion from well-armed adherents – is sufficient to scare even the US Supreme Court from even a most logical and necessary conclusion… because that decision might alienate Trump and his base.
I’m Peter Dekom, and we live in most interesting times… that just might see the end of the United States as a functioning democracy as it transitions to autocracy.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment