Reading @slatestarcodex's newest piece on @ezraklein's book on polarization, they miss the most obvious cause of polarization: that America is two* distinct nations with differing values ruled by the same government, which we can generally call Amerikaners and Cosmopolitans.

Post-bellum the two nations of Dixie and Yankee united as Americans, a uniting propped up by foreign wars against Spaniards and Huns and rapid techno-economic growth.

Starting from the mid-60s or so, this began to unravel...

Starting in the 60's you had a small minority, generally confined to college campuses that thought of themselves as Citizens of the World rather than Americans.

Over time this grew and now you have an alliance of urbanites, international capitalists, lefties, liberals, etc.

This alliance of Cosmopolitans do not think of America as a nation-stage tied to a particular people, but as either a part of an international order.

They have US citizenship but do not think of themselves as Americans as a nation, people-group.

The Cosmopolitans allied with Blacks, who have a somewhat reasonable antipathy to America and hispanics who are Latin American and not American.

Amerikaners are the people who believe America is an actual nation tied to a people.

The idea of an American nation and the idea of the US as a constituent part of an international order are incompatible and directly opposed.

As the Cosmopolitans have risen and have conquered basically every seat of power in the US, polarization is inevitable.

Amerikaners and Cosmopolitans have directly opposing ideas of what America is and what it should be.

This is what created and maintains polarization. Either one nation has to conquer the other and force it to submit, or the two nations have go their separate ways.

* I say two, but there are at least 4 current existant nations in tbe US. Two of the others being Blacks and Hispanics.

Amerikaners are the large plurality of the US. Cosmopolitans make up the difference by having Blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants as clients.

Some hispanics are not part of the Hispanic nation and instead join, or at least ally with, the Amerikaners.