Are we really more divided than ever? This is a common mantra, currently claimed by some in the Middle and quite a few on the Left. But to make such a claim presumes that, regardless of difficult times in the past, we are indeed more divided than ever, and it presumes that being divided is bad.
One morning, after working an over-night shift, I walked by a man handing out religious literature. He addressed me pleasantly and, after a brief interchange, he gave me his pamphlet and went on his way. I glanced down and read “can we really ever be united?” It was December of 2001. The country was just beginning a long war in Afghanistan and in September of that year there had been what was described as a time of national unity. By December, as I read the title, however, such a period of unity was gone as protesters lined city streets railing against the war. There were regular cries of Arabs and Muslims being harassed for simply being who they were; conspiracy nuts were claiming that the attacks in September were “an inside job” and others claimed that the US was asking to be attacked by either over-reaching, or a disproportionate foreign policies. Plus, there were what would become regular attacks that President Bush was an idiot, a dictator, a war-monger or all of the above.Indeed the religious pamphlet was making a good point. We aren’t united now and we probably hadn’t been united in September 2001 either.
But being viciously divided, polarized, at each other’s throats, or whatever other fun description one can conjure, isn’t new. We only have to look back at the founding of the country or the Civil War to see pretty nasty divisions in the new country. Too far back? There was a President near the turn of the twentieth century who vetoed so many bills he called himself “the watchdog of Congress.” That’s pretty divisive rhetoric.
Even the claim of extraordinary divisiveness of our times must be questioned. President Obama has had two relatively frictionless Supreme Court nominations. This is something no president has been able to accomplish in the last thirty years—can you say Bork? The President’s party passed a health care reform by procedural smoke and mirrors which no other president and Congress have ever used to pass such an unpopular change the federal policy. Yet his party still holds on to power in the Senate.
The claim of fiscal polarization is more specious considering the governmental shut-down that Clinton faced and the hand full that Reagan dealt with. Add to that, the fact that presidents who have had poor performing economies under their watch have universally paid for it—at least since the thirties: Ford lost reelection as did Carter, and Reagan lost battle after battle including power shifts in Congress. So, none of what we’re seeing now is new.
Even the claims of racism are hypocritical, if not right out disingenuous, when one considers the treatment black members of the last administration faced. Specifically Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice faced claims of being House Slaves, Uncle Toms and racial epitaphs I won’t repeat. So, a new found division based on racism is pretty farfetched as well.
But even if there were some palpable new level of division, which as I’ve explained is mostly a bunch of—to paraphrase a divisive president from the past—the stuff Bess Truman spent twenty years attempting to persuade her husband to refer to as manure, it is worth asking if divisiveness is really all that bad?
Perhaps if things had been more divided in times past Woodrow Wilson and FDR would have faced more public criticism for detaining US citizens during World War I and II. Perhaps FDR would have found it more difficult to use patronage to buy congressional seats, while using the IRS as his personal vehicle for political revenge. Perhaps, by means of greater polarization, the wrong-heeded price and salary caps of the 1970’s would have faced public disgust and maybe LBJ wouldn’t have been able to bully his way into the Great Society while pitifully mishandling the war in Southeast Asia.
Ultimately, questioning whether or not a divided country is a bad thing is a fair question. While, claiming that our times are uniquely divided smacks of a method those who aren’t getting their way would use to ease their collective ideological suffering, while wrapping themselves in a self-righteous blanket. Furthermore, sometimes heated, angry, polarized rhetoric is the stuff of better accountability.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
