海角大神

The vitriol is worse is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarmy 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness.聽

It鈥檚 almost a civil war. I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won鈥檛 even consider going out with Republicans, and vice-versa. My email and twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn鈥檛 share with my granddaughter.聽

What鈥檚 going on? Yes, we鈥檙e divided over issues like the size of government and whether women should have control over their bodies. But these aren鈥檛 exactly new debates. We鈥檝e been disagreeing over the size and role of government since Thomas Jefferson squared off with Alexander Hamilton, and over abortion rights since before Roe v. Wade, almost forty years ago.聽

And we鈥檝e had bigger disagreements in the past 鈥� over the Vietnam War, civil rights, communist witch hunts 鈥� that didn鈥檛 rip us apart like this.聽
Maybe it鈥檚 that we鈥檙e more separated now, geographically and online.

The town where I grew up in the 1950s was a GOP stronghold, but Henry Wallace, FDR鈥檚 left-wing vice president, had retired there quite happily. Our political disagreements then and there didn鈥檛 get in the way of our friendships. Or even our families 鈥� my father voted Republican and my mother was a Democrat. And we all watched Edward R. Murrow deliver the news, and then, later, Walter Cronkite. Both men were the ultimate arbiters of truth.聽

But now most of us exist in our own political bubbles, left and right. I live in Berkeley, California 鈥� a blue city in a blue state 鈥� and rarely stumble across anyone who isn鈥檛 a liberal Democrat (the biggest battles here are between the moderate left and the far-left). The TV has hundreds of channels so I can pick what I want to watch and who I want to hear. And everything I read online confirms everything I believe, thanks in part to Google鈥檚 convenient algorithms.

So when Americans get upset about politics these days we tend to stew in our own juices, without benefit of anyone we know well and with whom we disagree 鈥� and this makes it almost impossible for us to understand the other side.聽

That geographic split also means more Americans are represented in Congress by people whose political competition comes from primary challengers 鈥� right-wing Republicans in red states and districts, left-wing Democrats in blue states and districts. And this drives those who represent us even further apart.聽

But I think the degree of venom we鈥檙e experiencing has deeper roots.聽

The nation is becoming browner and blacker. Most children born in California are now minorities. In a few years America as a whole will be a majority of minorities. Meanwhile, women have been gaining economic power. Their median wage hasn鈥檛 yet caught up with men, but it鈥檚 getting close. And with more women getting college degrees than men, their pay will surely exceed male pay in a few years. At the same time, men without college degrees continue to lose economic ground. Adjusted for inflation, their median wage is lower than it was three decades ago.聽

In other words, white working-class men have been on the losing end of a huge demographic and economic shift. That鈥檚 made them a tinder-box of frustration and anger 鈥� eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other pedlars of petulance, including an increasing number of Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames.聽

That hate-mongering and attendant scapegoating 鈥� of immigrants, blacks, gays, women seeking abortions, our government itself 鈥� has legitimized some vitriol and scapegoating on the left as well. I detest what the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdock, and Paul Ryan are doing, and I hate their politics. But in this heated environment I sometimes have to remind myself I don鈥檛 hate them personally.聽

Not even this degree of divisiveness would have taken root had America preserved the social solidarity we had two generations ago. The Great Depression and World War II reminded us we were all in it together. We had to depend on each other in order to survive. That sense of mutual dependence transcended our disagreements. My father, a 鈥淩ockefeller鈥� Republican, strongly supported civil rights and voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid. I remember him saying 鈥渨e鈥檙e all Americans, aren鈥檛 we?鈥�

To be sure, we endured 9/11, we鈥檝e gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we suffered the Great Recession. But these did not not bind us as we were bound together in the Great Depression and World War II. The horror of 9/11 did not touch all of us, and the only sacrifice George W. Bush asked was that we kept shopping. Today鈥檚 wars are fought by hired guns 鈥� young people who are paid to do the work most of the rest of us don鈥檛 want our own children to do. And the Great Recession split us rather than connected us; the rich grew richer, the rest of us, poorer and less secure.聽

So we come to the end of a bitter election feeling as if we鈥檙e two nations rather than one. The challenge 鈥� not only for our president and representatives in Washington but for all of us 鈥� is to rediscover the public good.