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Tonight @ 9pm ET on @CNN, in my latest special report, "The Divided States of America: What Is Tearing Us Apart?", I'll examine our deeply divided political climate.
Some conclusions I've drawn ...
Some conclusions I've drawn ...
The bitter divide btwn Democrats & Republicans keeps getting worse: Even after the storming of the Capitol, after Biden’s inauguration, 75% of Republicans still believe Trump actually won the ’20 election.
How did we get here? It’s a long and fascinating story …
We were polarized before but often WITHIN not BETWEEN parties. In the 1950s, the US faced a problem that's now hard to imagine: The two parties were not polarized enough!
We were polarized before but often WITHIN not BETWEEN parties. In the 1950s, the US faced a problem that's now hard to imagine: The two parties were not polarized enough!
There were too many liberals in the GOP & too many conservatives (Dixiecrats) in the Democratic Party.
It was race that sorted them, in a 10yr civil war in the South over civil rights & school integration, culminating in 1964 and 1965.
It was race that sorted them, in a 10yr civil war in the South over civil rights & school integration, culminating in 1964 and 1965.
But there are other factors. The culture/class divide. It's not just about economics; it's about a way of life, kinds of work, social values, & cultural choices.
The US may be one country, but it includes two different worlds. Where you live & whether you went to college largely determine which one you live in.
As @JoanCWilliams says, “When people talk about the degree divide, that’s really the class divide. Having a college degree, that’s actually the strongest proxy for who is in the professional managerial elite.”
Geography & economics are part of the story. '20 Biden counties accounted for 71% of the US economy. Trump counties, 29%. Educated/urban versus less educated/rural. Sarah Palin versus Hillary Clinton.
Our politics have followed this sorting: In 1976, 1/4 of Americans lived in a county that went for one pres. candidate or another in a landslide. The other 3/4 lived in counties that were less overwhelmingly partisan.
By 2020, 58% of Americans lived in a landslide county.
By 2020, 58% of Americans lived in a landslide county.
A key cause of the animosity: the Republicans turn politics into war. Who started that? Newt Gingrich—the original mastermind, so to speak, behind today’s mayhem.
Another mastermind: Roger Ailes. He created Fox as a vehicle that blurred news and opinion, facts and falsehoods.
For many white, working-class voters, Trump seemed a messiah. As @JaneMayerNYer says, he didn't really do much for them, but he knew how to exploit them. He used resentment vs. elites & hammered home cultural issues like no one before
US radicalization may not be as bad as Middle East radicalization that fueled al Qaeda & ISIS, but the mechanism of radicalization is the same: fear of losing what you have, of an ongoing march of history changing your country, of the replacement of your ppl & their way of life
Common spaces may help solve our “Big Sort,” as Bill Bishop called it. National service is one possible venue.
A final thought: We often talk policy, but this may be a personal challenge, up to all of us to imagine ourselves in other ppl's shoes & to treat others as we would like them to treat us.
It won’t end polarization tomorrow, but it could begin to heal some of the wounds.
It won’t end polarization tomorrow, but it could begin to heal some of the wounds.
