Mark Twain once observed, “The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.”
That observation is as true today as it was when he made it more than a century ago. A divided America is nothing new.
Yet, many of the Democratic Party candidates running for president say that they can bring America together. As campaign promises go that one is about as empty as the Detroit Lions’ trophy case. Uniting this nation is as likely as uniting opposing magnetic poles.
Other than after something like a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 attack, there isn’t going to be any great kumbaya reconciliation among Americans anytime soon. There are just too many people unwilling to compromise their calcified belief systems, and without compromise there can be no accord.
America’s cavernous cultural divide is organized around the simplistic ideological dichotomy of left versus right — against which all issues are evaluated. Adamant adherents of either embrace their beliefs with religious fervor and defend them with irrational zeal.
There isn’t much original thinking, objective analysis or re-examination by these true believers. They respond to opposing views, contradictory facts or troubling questions with stock recitations from their handbooks — amply sprinkled with hackneyed name-calling against those who disagree with them.
Changing such minds is as futile as changing petrified wood into a living tree.
Given this reality, it is time to disengage from fruitless debate, and abandon efforts to convince and convert these people. Instead, focus on America’s general welfare.
There are values and principles that all reasonable, decent Americans hold in common. Among these are truth, honesty, impartial justice, compassion, fundamental civil rights, personal freedom and the rule of law.
While both sides of the ideological divide claim to support these, that consensus quickly deteriorates with the details. Is science truth when it finds climate change results from human activity? Does personal freedom include a woman’s right to abortion? Is discrimination based on religious beliefs a civil right? Is owning an arsenal a civil right? Is drug use a personal freedom? Is health care a right or just another market commodity available to those who can afford it?
Between America’s two tribes of true believers there is bitter disagreement over such questions, and little chance of compromise.
So, when President Donald Trump announces in his State of the Union address that it is time for Americans to come together, what he really means is that it is time for all those Americans who disagree with him to surrender and submit. Most of the Republican Party has already done that, and an emboldened Trump has shown little inclination to compromise on anything or mitigate his abhorrent behavior.
“Let Trump be Trump” means he can continue to be unethical, dishonest, intellectually indigent, venal, dangerously impulsive, massively mendacious, viciously vindictive and conduct the U.S. presidency with the crude demeanor of a schoolyard bully, repeatedly abusing the power of the office.
For Trump, the Constitution is more an irritating impediment to his personal ambition than it is America’s founding law he has sworn to uphold.
Trump is clearly unfit for the office he holds. He would be just as unfit if he were a Democrat and behaved as he has. His administration is one of the most corrupt and clumsy in U.S. history.
Americans who share the aforementioned common values and honor the rule of law can’t understand how any American can continue to support a man who so blatantly does not.
Trump is the apotheosis of America’s right-wing wack-nuttery. His base supporters are angry and apprehensive. They fear the inexorable demographic, cultural and economic changes swirling about them.
Trump is what they have been yearning for. A wrecking ball who will demolish all their perceived antagonists and villains — the greedy globalists, the “deep state,” the “fake news media” (aka the enemy of the people), immigrants, non-Christians, intellectuals, climate Cassandras, welfare leeches, gun grabbers, socialists and all ideological infidels conveniently categorized as the “libtards.”
Hillary Clinton made a campaign mistake when she referred to these people as “deplorables,” but she was accurate nonetheless. They are that, and they are mostly irredeemable. Ignorance can be remedied with knowledge, but belief is more difficult to correct because it is the illusion of knowledge and is fact resistant.
This year’s national election will determine the arc of American history. Do we remain a vigorous republic or continue the concentration of power in the presidency? Trump has starkly demonstrated the danger of the latter.
The crucial question Americans must answer is do they want to give such a man another four years in the presidency? Given the asinine anachronism of the Electoral College, the crucial question for Democrats to answer is who among their flock of candidates has broad enough appeal to defeat Trump.
For the majority of rational, principled, ideologically agnostic Americans, that candidate could be just about anybody. Nevertheless, the Democrats better chose their candidate wisely.
While Trump and the corrupted Republican Party are running roughshod over the nation right now, there are equally deplorable elements lurking on the left side of the cultural divide with their own inflexible beliefs, enemies list and loony conspiracy theories. Swinging political power to them would not restore compromise in governing or secure the Constitution.
Exchanging cancer for polio does not cure our ailing republic.
— Randy Alcorn is a Santa Barbara political observer. Contact him at randyaalcorn@gmail.com, or click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.