The American Civil War Part 2

[BigmanPigman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/opinion/the-american-civil-war-part-ii.html
The nation is deeply divided, with each side seeing the other as “the enemy.”

Sure, we’ve experienced bouts of intense social strife since the American Civil War of 1861. I grew up with the assassination of Martin Luther King and raging street battles over civil rights and Vietnam. And yet this moment feels worse — much less violent, blessedly, but much more broadly divisive. There is a deep breakdown happening between us, between us and our institutions and between us and our president.

This also feels worse than the divisions over Vietnam and civil rights because there were three huge forces holding us together back then that are missing today: a growing middle class, the Cold War and a sane Republican Party. For much of the period after World War II, most Americans were sure that they’d be in the middle class and that their kids would follow. Strong unions, a slower pace of technological change and only limited globalization meant an average worker, with middle skills, could be middle class. There was something called a “high-wage, middle-skilled job.”

In essence, we’ve moved from “partisanship,” which still allowed for political compromises in the end, “to tribalism,” which does not, explained political scientist Norman Ornstein, co-author, with Thomas Mann, of the book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.” In a tribal world it’s rule or die, compromise is a sin, enemies must be crushed and power must be held at all costs.

It would be easy to blame both sides equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, but it is just not true. After the end of the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics were introduced by Newt Gingrich when he came to Congress 40 years ago,” and then perfected by Mitch McConnell during the Barack Obama presidency, when McConnell declared his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate caucus to make Obama fail as a strategy for getting Republicans back in power.

[StevieM]

1. This is a truly terrifying time in American history.

It definitely started going wrong at the time of Gingrich, but there were other people who also behaved horribly back then, like Bob Dole.

I am impressed that you have reached 20,000 posts, BigmanPigman. Congratulations!!!

[BigmanPigman]

2. I DID? I didn't know that.

My tablet is getting a work out.

[Freddie]

3. Tyranny of the minority

Via the EC, the nature of the Senate, and gerrymandering. A rural person’s vote counts more.
And now a hard right-wing SCOTUS for a generation, so even when we get the government back they can nullify any legitimately passed legislation by “finding” something unconstitutional about it.
The majority of Americans are not RWNJs. The majority of Americans do not want this government, yet here we are. We read a lot about this but no one is offering a solution. Perhaps there isn’t one except legally dividing the country.