(“Has America Already Undergone a Soft Breakup?”)
We are today as the images we see during an address by the President to Congress: one side sitting in absolute sullen silence in response to some remark of intended import while, across the aisle, there is almost manic cheering. Throw in an occasional “you lie” for good measure and you have, in microcosm, the way most of us view the person and the party on the other side of the chasm, the great divide that separates wheat from chaff.
I feel that we have been living in a version of this universe for a very long time, only now exacerbated and exaggerated by the presence of one particularly triggering individual. Yet I hold out the hope, however faint and unrealistic it may be, that when this burr in our saddle is no longer poking and prodding, the temperature in the water can be turned from boil to something slightly less distressing.
This has never been a nation of “from many we are one”, and never will be. That dream is not reality. But if we can just be something less than our worst selves to those we now glower at, maybe divorce is not inevitable.
For today, we fire shots unabated across the bow at each other. And continue to shoot looks across the aisle.
This is deathly serious.