A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

  Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1858

The last time the United States was this severely polarized, we fought our Civil War. It’s not just that Americans disagree with their political opponents, too many think of the other side as evil and leading to the ultimate demise of the United States itself. A Pew Research Center survey, released on June 12^th, asked some pretty pointed political questions of 10,000 adults, and the results suggest that the U.S. may actually be in the nascent stages of fracturing into new nations with new geographic boundaries, a fate that can only accelerate as climate change issues create high-cost disasters that will exceed a federal response capacity. It’s every man, every region, every ideology for him/itself.

The Pew Results are well-summarized in their chart above.  The survey was polite, choosing words like “well-being,” but the real meaning screams with clarity. You can see it in the new GOP in our House of Representatives, where compromise can cost you an election. Simply put, the views of too many Americans – most facing an economic reset that will cut upward mobility across the throat, continue to plunge our average standard of living and cast a dark shadow over our economic and political future – cast irreconcilable differences. Gun control. Healthcare. Regulation and taxation. Social safety nets. The environment. Social values and perspectives. Religion and government. Immigration. Military and diplomatic involvement overseas. Deficits. Each issue slices like a sharp sword across the American body politic.

BBC News anchor, Katty Kay, writing for Linkedin (June13th), adds her perspective to the above survey results. “This is beyond political polarization, it is suspicion and antipathy on a scale we have never seen before. But if America wants to overcome the challenges it faces, it must also find a way to overcome this antagonism.

“Here are a few more highlights from the Pew poll that show how the gulf is widening:

·         The extremes are growing. The share of Americans who call themselves either consistently conservative or consistently liberal has double over the past 20 years.

·         The dislike is growing. The number of people, on both sides, who say they have very unfavorable views of the other party has more than doubled.

·         People are increasingly hanging out only with people who share their views. They are forming “ideological silos.”

·         People on the political extremes are louder than everyone else and dominate the political process. They vote more and give more money to candidates.

“Interestingly, the polarization doesn’t limit itself to party preference. It is reflected in how Americans live as well – right down to the size of your house and the street you inhabit. Three-quarters of people who describe themselves as consistently conservative would prefer to live in an area where the “the houses are larger and farther apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away.” Some 77% of people who say they are liberal prefer smaller houses and more urban settings. It’s almost comical, it’s so stereotypical, but Pew’s numbers suggest conservatives are indeed more rural/exurban and liberals are more urban/suburban.”

As I have blogged before, American traditionalists – which can definitely be equated with “rural/exurban” white values – are watching as census numbers tell us that the United States is has become a majority of minorities, most of whom have those “urban/suburban” values. They see immigration reform ultimately tipping the balance to a point where even gerrymandering cannot guarantee a stranglehold that gives urban dwellers 5/8 of the voting power of rural traditionalists. They cannot support a government that has betrayed them, allowing minorities to take over and supplant their place in America, and they are experiencing a fairly strong and historically consistent “circling of the wagons, looking for minorities to blame” mantra.

Even though all but the very top of the economic ladder are facing the big economic reset that blackens their hopes for the future, they are fighting a rear-guard action to stop change and de-fund a government that has led to this demise in their power. The have made it really clear that minorities are not welcome to their inside circle, so until their power is overwhelmed by demographic reality, they will continue to elect brick-wall obstructionists for whom “compromise” is fast ticket out of office.

Sooner or later, rural white power will be supplanted by these urban-oriented minorities. When gerrymandering fails, what is the next step? Particularly as a government grapples with costly damage from storm surges/flooding in one region and sustained drought and fires in others.

Does circling the wagons at phase two add the necessity of secession? Is this inevitable? Unless there is a willingness to compromise to find national solutions now, is there really any hope that we can keep the United States together? Add the reality of gun ownership, particularly across the West, Midwest and the South, does this movement become violent or does the federal government simply devolve with too many problems, letting the states figure it out for themselves? Think it might be better idea to find a way to work together and compromise now?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we really better find a path to living together and getting along… or someday, we just won’t!