Last night, I was having a conversation with Vicki and the topic of Jane Fonda came up. Vicki will never forgive Jane for visiting Vietnam during the war, and I understand why she feels this way. This is one area in which we disagree. But we are usually closer in our views than one might think. And this got me thinking: When did the first seeds for today's social polarization get sown?
One could say that some of the seeds were down when the 13 colonies separated from Great Britain, "Free State" vs. "Slave State". But the United States was starting to address this issue shortly after WW2 ended, when the McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" started the dysfunction which has resulted in today's extreme political polarization.
The 1950's was an era where the cracks in the "American Ideal" started to show. The "Red Scare" triggered people to coerce pledges of loyalty from the populace. This was an era where "Under God" was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, as a way to differentiate American values from the "Commies" in the USSR. The Space Race started in the 1950's, and we were primed for the unrest of the 1960's.
Why is this so important?
The first of the "Baby Boomers" were starting to go to college around 1964. There, they learned to question authority - something that simply wasn't done in the 1950's. At this time, the Civil Rights Movement started to gain popular awareness, as well as the war in Vietnam. Thousands of Americans were losing their lives in an unpopular war, and American youth questioned why we needed to fight this war. This is the time when conservatives started saying "America, love it or leave it." And many draft-age men did just that, moving to Canada as political exiles. Liberals demanded equal rights for women and for minorities, threatening the forced political stability achieved in the 1950's. So, when Jane Fonda visited Vietnam (which I consider a mistake of youth, and nothing more), it was an event which solidified the divide between Liberals and Conservatives in America.
Opportunist politicians such as Richard Nixon took advantage of the growing divide, making sure that tools being used to address segregation were de fanged, making it much harder to provide Blacks and Latinos equal opportunities in education. Although Nixon is often given credit for ending the war in Vietnam, he was responsible for making it impossible for LBJ to get a peace treaty signed on his watch. This was the time where the GOP started to "flip the south" from Blue to Red, while the Democrats were flipping northern GOP enclaves to Democratic strongholds.
America's great divide.
If one looks at a political map of the USA, one will see that most of the "Union" states from the Civil War are run by Democrats, and that the "Confederate" states are run by Republicans. Most of the other states are controlled by Republicans, as they are rural and have fewer opportunities for people than the coastal (blue) states. Opportunist politicians have demonized the opposition, and have made the Rural/Urban divide much worse than it used to be. Since "conservatives" tend to desire order imposed by higher authorities, they get incensed when "liberals" focus on the rights of individuals.
Social identity in the USA is often defined by the political party one is affiliated with. In my case, a woman I dated called me a fascist when she found out that I am still a registered republican. (I haven't voted for anyone in the GOP for years, as the party has become radicalized and I have moved towards the center. In an earlier decade, I'd have been identified as a "Goldwater Republican." Today, I would be labeled left of center.
So what can we do?
There will always be people who are seduced by the propaganda coming from one side or the other. A thinking person has to keep one's sanity by challenging the messages being sent by a biased media. Liberals should question MSNBC, while Conservatives should challenge Fox, Newsmax, OAN and other bastions of conservative misinformation. When most people are polled about their beliefs, they are more centrist than one might think. But, when political identity comes into play, people act against their own best interests.
When America works right, people are able to look out for their own selfish interests. If tribal affiliation comes into play, people start marching to the drummers from their tribes - and everything starts breaking down. So, I advise people to fact check both sides without paying any attention to their tribe's "opinion outlets" and then coming to a position of their own. If they do this, they might find that their tribe's leaders are betraying them, and that they would be best served by voting the bastards out....
