A House Divided
A brief exploration of the socio-political division and shifting populace interactions America is currently experiencing. This is the second instalment in a series of micro-articles written for and published in the Lakewood Observer. Published date: 08/08/18.
The run up to the election in 2016 marked a paradigm shift in the collective psyche of the American people — like a chasmic rift between continents, the polarisation has driven a mountainous divide between neighbours, families and friends — even right here in Lakewood. Disagreeable facts have become fake news, and where debate once sufficed instead often we find vitriol-filled words hurled across barricades that only serve to help reinforce our divide.
The Trump presidency alone, however, cannot explain the fundamental manner in which citizens have changed their interactions and discourse with one another. While certainly easy to point to, the factors contributing to our current situation are so broad and complex that to blame the ‘Trump Train’ for the wreck we find ourselves in is to give the conductor far too much credit. Though more apparent as of late, the Left-Right divide has permeated our populace and politics for generations, fed by absolutist rhetoric and an oft-dogmatic media that has long blurred the line between opinion and fact.
By many accounts, we’re sailing in troubled waters. In the era of ‘America First’ many feel a cyclical unease, unsure what fresh insanity the daily news will bring. For the first time in recent memory periodicals are using the words ‘Civil War’ and ‘Constitutional Crisis’ outside of historical context, and there’s an increasing general awareness of the gravity and ludicrousness of living in a world in which our international diplomacy is being handled — if we can call it that — not at summits or council meetings but on Twitter.
But more than anything else it is the engineered socio-political polarisation of the United States that has drawn the country onto a knife’s edge, and I believe it is now clearer than ever that apathetic observation is no longer an option. Though spoken centuries ago, the words ring as true now as they did then; “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”, and we are seeing — in real time — just how true that statement is. Here’s another: “A house that has but two sides is easily divided.”
Democratic social systems only work when all sides have democratic intentions, and although the cowboy-style, no-damns-given ‘America First’ policy of the Trump administration may not entirely suffice to explain the stark and growing post-election division of the American people, their callous disregard for human dignity (“Womp womp.”) and twisted virtue signalling (“I really don’t care. Do U?”) seems to be doing a hell of a job of aggravating the situation.
What answers there are to this entrenched division remains to be seen, but certainly the answer can no longer be a laissez-faire attitude towards our governance, at a national but perhaps more importantly at a local level. The Boomer generation’s political ‘changing of the guard’ is fast approaching, and whoever replaces them will be navigating this country through extremely delicate and difficult times. Perhaps it’s time for you to take up the mantle. Yes, I mean you — out there — sitting in Lakewood reading this. You, who have lamented over the state of the nation, her partisan government; her disconnected people. You, who still dare to believe that individuals can make a difference in the world. If you will not be for yourself, who will be? For as de Maistre said; “In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” Perhaps we don’t deserve better, but surely we can do better.
