Divisive America, A Problem? - Hardly, Clash Not Compromise Has Been History's And Darwin's Lesson

A recent article in a national newsmagazine bemoaned the fact that the country had reverted to what the writer saw as a tribally primitive land, ruled by pettiness, outrageous shamanistic claims, and a bullying righteousness.  

Of course he took the Right to task for returning America to such a Paleolithic place - they are the ones who, ignorant, indulgent, and credulous, are responsible for democracy dying in darkness.  Locked in their squirrel-hunting, bass boat woodsheds, they see nothing but drying coonskins and rat shit, come out to vote for an idolater, a brutish clown, and go back in. 

Yes, the country is divided along party, cultural and political lines; and yes the clashes are often untamed, certainly intemperate, and as ad hominem and barbaric, but no more than the good ol' days of Early America.  In the election between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson one of Adams' handbills accused Jackson of being a cannibal, that after massacring over 500 Indians one evening, “the blood thirsty Jackson began again to show his cannibal propensities, by ordering his Bowman to dress a dozen of these Indian bodies for his breakfast, which he devoured without leaving even a fragment.” 

A supporter of Adams named Charles Hammond, in an editorial in the Cincinnati Gazette, wrote (and emphasis is his), “General Jackson’s mother was a COMMON PROSTITUTE brought to this country by British soldiers. She afterwards married a MULATTO MAN, with whom she had several children, of which General JACKSON IS ONE!!!”

Anyone who has paid even scant attention to modern American politics knows that nothing has changed.  Campaigns have been smarmy, nasty affairs straight out of barrooms, brothels, and poolhalls. The Left's witch hunting of Donald Trump - the lawfare, charges from buggery to treachery, attempts to derail, upset, discombobulate his campaign were right out of the American playbook. 

So, has the country sunk into infamy - a country with no respect for law, the judicial process, fair play, and respect? Of course not, since it has always been this way, the barmy nastiness sometimes couched in irony and innuendo, but only steps away from the bare-knuckle affairs far more common in political history. 

Are we more divided than ever? Perhaps yes, but so what?  History shows only that the clash of civilizations, societies, and cultures is permanent; and that one side will always prevail.  Along the way civilization - art, literature, science, and its darker corollaries - will be spread until thwarted.  Napoleon met his Waterloo.  Eventually Genghis Khan's Mongol-Turkic successors were turned back.  Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded, Robespierre ran amok and was silenced, the Russian Revolution introduced the world to Communism and after infecting much of it, was itself overthrown, discredited and dismissed. 

Pressure builds up until revolution breaks out.  The French and Russian Revolutions did not happen overnight.  It took years of oppression and frustration for the populace to finally act.  The American Revolution was no different, and only a casus belli, The Boston Tea Party, finally caused it to erupt. 

America today is no different.  After four year of the Left’s hectoring, shaming, dismissively arrogant assumptions of right, a coalition of Americans have had enough.  Tired of being called 'garbage' and 'deplorables', tossed aside like trash, given no more respect than curbside litter, they revolted.  

They were not the prognathous-jawed, thick-foreheaded Neanderthals assumed by the righteous Left.  They wanted no part or the Godless, transvestite, black idolatrous, socialist vision foisted upon them.  Nor did they want the received wisdom and arrogated authority of official Washington, Right or Left. 

It is right to be divisive, for that is how fundamental structural change happens - revolution.  It is Darwinism at its most obvious.  Political philosophy is no different than a newt's eye or a salamander's webbing.  The conflict between an originalist, nativist, fundamentalist Right and a fantastical progressivist Left is normal and expected.  The air must be cleared.  The Right will no longer knuckle under to the presumptuous and arrogant demands of the Left.  

Ronald Reagan began the movement, and Republican presidents followed suit.  The neo-socialist welfare state of FDR was questioned and challenged.  The Left was still old fashioned, labor-oriented, community organizing, and communitarian.  It gave a good fight, ruled now and again, but never had it coalesced into the bolus of viral political animus of today.  

The Right wasn't just wrong, they were dead wrong; and evil besides.  Donald Trump was not just a populist trouble maker, a bombastic showman, and a vaudevillian.  He was the spawn of the devil and should be treated as such. 

And so the divisions and divisiveness of the country increased and quite naturally so.  It was a matter of principle, long held, historic, and permanent said the Right.  It was a matter of moral vision, said the Left, a New Age vision of equality which brooked no opposition.  An existential moment. 

The resounding victory of Donald Trump in 2024 was the first explosive step toward redressing the imbalance.  It was not - as progressives rightly observed - simply an electoral victory but a cultural one.  Gone would be the old pillars of power - the bloated bureaucracy, the notional righteousness of the ruling elite, the internationalist, environmentalist, faux communitarian ethos of the Left; and in their place would be a proudly nationalistic government.  Gone would be any trace of fabulist sexuality, the idolatry of racial identity, the inclusiveness of slums and dysfunction, and the myth of wealth equality. 

The Left is flummoxed, discombobulated, and gobsmacked.  They don't know what hit them.  The juggernaut was supposed to be on their watch.  Utopia was supposed to be at hand; and now, licking their wounds, headed back to the kennel, they are dazed and confused. 

They have nothing to go on but the old, tired, vindictive howls of 'Racist! Misogynist! Homophobe!', and will need to get their heads together and come up with something, anything to rid the capital of this....this scourge!

They probably will figure something out, but not until it's too late.  At the same time, pendulums being what they are, as much as conservatives may hope for an unbridled future ad perpetuam, it won't be.  So these four years must be truly upsetting - the wrecking crew is already in place, and on Day One the demolition will begin.  There will be little left of the progressive agenda after four years if the crew does their job quickly, thoroughly, and well.  

It will be a major polar shift - away from official Washington to the states and their residents.  A radical populism the country has never seen. 

So while the Left is still wondering wha' happened? the new Administration will not stop until 'Mission Accomplished' - that ironically naive pronouncement by George Bush which will now be realized.