06/28/2017
Dr. Michael Hart has a piece in American Renaissance, asking
What Can Be Done About Political Polarization?His suggested solution is a peaceful division of United States into (roughly speaking ) "Red" and "Blue" America.Michael Hart, American Renaissance, June 28, 2017
There is only one long-term solution.
Many people have written about the extreme political polarization in the United States today. However, few people have suggested any way to end it — or at least reduce it to normal, manageable levels — other than saying that the other side should be more reasonable. On this subject, there are three questions we should consider:
How extreme is today’s political polarization?
- How extreme is the political polarization today?
- If it is worse than in the past, why did it become so bad?
- What, if anything, can be done to end it?
Angry feelings between “liberals” and “conservatives” or between Democrats and Republicans have always been commonplace, but there have been periods when they were more intense than usual. Two such periods were the Vietnam War (roughly 1960-1975) and the McCarthy era (roughly 1950-1954).
I lived through both periods, and it seems to me that polarization is more extreme today. I have asked others who lived through those times, and they agree that divisions have never been sharper.
In 1952, at the height of McCarthy era, a Republican Dwight Eisenhower was elected president. Those who had supported his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, were disappointed, but they accepted the results without protest. In contrast, when Donald Trump won the general election there were immediate calls for members of the Electoral College to ignore the will of the voters and vote against him. The addresses of various electors were printed, together with physical threats against them; no prominent Democratic politician publicly denounced these threats. Calls for Donald Trump to be impeached started shortly after the election, even before he had taken office.
The protests against the Vietnam War were both intense and widespread. However, there were never open suggestions that the presidents prosecuting the war should be assassinated. Yet recently, a prominent TV “humorist” posted an image of herself holding up President Trump’s severed head. Kathy Griffin is hardly alone. Madonna, Snoop Dogg, and Robert De Niro are among at least a dozen leftist celebrities who have fantasized about killing or attacking the President. [More]
See more in his book Restoring America, published by us here at VDARE.com, or read Michael Hart’s RESTORING AMERICA — The Introduction.
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