Friday, September 21, 2018

The answer lies within each of us.

Victor Davis Hanson writes in the Washington Times,
...Tribalism is the new American norm. Gender, sexual orientation, religion, race and ethnicity are now essential, not incidental, to who we are.

Americans scramble to divide into victimized blocs. Hyphenated and newly accented names serve as advertisements that particular groups have unique affiliations beyond their shared Americanism.

America is often the target of unrealistic criticism — as if it is suddenly toxic because it is not perfect. Few appreciate that the far worse alternatives abroad are rife with racism, sexism, civil strife, corruption and poverty unimaginable in the United States.

The last few elections added to the growing abyss.

The old Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton is now trending into a radical democratic socialist party. Meanwhile, the old Republican Party is mostly gone, replaced by tea party movements and the new Donald Trump base.

Former President Barack Obama came into office from Congress with the most left-wing voting record in the Senate. Donald Trump was elected as the first president without either prior military or political experience.

Mr. Obama issued dozens of controversial “pen and phone” executive orders, bypassing Congress. And President Trump is systematically overturning them — doing so with similar executive orders.

Will America keep dividing and soon resort to open violence, as happened in 1861? Or will Americans reunite and bind up our wounds, as we did following the upheavals of the 1930s Great Depression or after the protests of the 1960s?

The answer lies within each of us.

Every day we will either treat each other as fellow Americans, with far more uniting than dividing us, or we will continue on the present path that eventually ends in something like a hate-filled Iraq, Rwanda or the Balkans.
Read more here.

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