There are a whole lot of things to disagree about in America today. We align on our sides, from voting rights to Covid . We\u2019re right, they\u2019re wrong, and they must be idiots to think the way they do. Polarization is the watchword of American politics, and life, in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was an eighth grade American History teacher back in the 1980\u2019s (forty years ago!!), one of the key concepts I taught my students was that polarization led to the Civil War. America was divided, riven by the issues surrounding enslavement. There was no turning back. All of the \u201ctricks\u201d of the legislators, from Henry Clay\u2019s Missouri Compromise to Stephen Douglas\u2019s Kansas-Nebraska Act, were unable to resolve the issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in \u201cthe day\u201d, my kids didn\u2019t quite get it. How could America be so divided, that Virginians would fight Pennsylvanians, and Missourians fight among themselves? Why did best friends like Winfield Scott Hancock and Lew Armistead lead armies into battle against each other? It just didn\u2019t seem possible, even after Vietnam, and Watergate, that Americans couldn\u2019t find some common purpose. It wasn\u2019t just the \u201cpathos\u201d of brother versus brother. There was the sheer waste of lives, blood and treasure over what seemed in hindsight to be an inevitable outcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kids in class today would get the division just fine.\u00a0\u00a0They would feel right at home with the hate of the 1850\u2019s, the justification of \u201cmy side is the right\u201d and \u201cyou\u2019re in the wrong\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Look at today\u2019s arguments pitting \u201cfreedom\u201d against public health, and you\u2019ll get the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not predicting another civil war (but I\u2019m not discounting that possibility anymore either).\u00a0\u00a0And while I certainly have a \u201cside\u201d on the issues of today, the purpose of this essay is to examine\u00a0\u00a0how we got here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ohio is in the throes of another \u201cgerrymandering\u201d debate. The majority Republican State Supreme Court just turned down its own Republican plan as being too partisan and ignoring the expressed desires of the people. But as a national issue, gerrymandering has significantly contributed to our national division. That\u2019s not an issue of blame, just fact. We\u2019ve divided ourselves in a way to encourage more division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How does that work? Gerrymandering for political gain is simply drawing the district maps so that one political party or the other is guaranteed a win. Take Ohio\u2019s 4th Congressional District, carefully etched into the countryside by the Republican controlled 2011 re-districting. It goes from the outskirts of Dayton east to the edges of Columbus, up north to near Toledo, then again east almost to Cleveland. It is the tenth most Republican district in the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when a Republican runs for Congress in the 4th, they know that winning the primary election is a guarantee of winning the Congressional seat.\u00a0\u00a0Primary voting turnout is notoriously low compared to general election voting. Only the most \u201cmotivated\u201d voters show up, the Base.\u00a0\u00a0And the most motivated are usually those more extreme voters, the ones who are \u201cfired up\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Gerrymandering has put the power to select legislators in the hands of those few extremists, not intentionally, but practically.\u00a0\u00a0And to keep getting re-elected, the legislator must continue to pander to that Base, the few that vote in the primary, versus the many who vote in the general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Multiply that by the sixteen districts in Ohio. And then add many of the states in the Union, both Republican and Democrat. Gerrymandering fills the Congress (and the state legislatures) with members who have little to gain in compromise, in \u201cmaking sausage\u201d. Instead, their personal interest to remain in office pushes them to the extremes, to non-negotiable stands. Look at Jim Jordan from Ohio\u2019s 4th, or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from New York\u2019s 14th. To what common purpose could those two work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1996, Media mogul Rupert Murdock hired Republican campaign consultant Roger Ailes to set up a new kind of \u201cnews\u201d channel.\u00a0\u00a0It would represent the \u201cconservative\u201d view, despite its promise of \u201cfair and balanced\u201d news.\u00a0\u00a0Ailes, who campaigned for Nixon, Reagan and HW Bush, did a remarkable job of creating\u00a0Fox<\/em>, a news source for \u201cthe right” and\u00a0\u00a0the supposed counter-balance for\u00a0CNN<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0But to have an effective strategy to gain \u201cthe right\u201d viewer, Ailes needed a better b\u00eate noire, an opposing network that was more obviously \u201cleft\u201d than\u00a0CNN<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Microsoft and General Electric came together to create MSNBC<\/em> about the same time as Fox<\/em>, Ailes had what he needed. The market was calling for a \u201cleft\u201d news source to counter-balance Fox<\/em>, and MSNBC<\/em> slid that direction to pick up viewers. Ultimately both Fox <\/em>and MSNBC <\/em>eclipsed the older CNN<\/em>, and both served to further divide the viewing public. Today there is \u201ca balance\u201d: Fox<\/em> has a little more than half of the cable viewing share, MSNBC<\/em> and CNN<\/em> split the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the expansion of cable broadcasts, other networks have tried to gain shares by outflanking Fox<\/em> to the right. Newsmax<\/em> and OANN<\/em> joined the right, challenging Fox<\/em> to skew even more. But Fox <\/em>found the ultimate viewer enhancer, a political candidate who was already a television \u201cstar\u201d (created by NBC<\/em> oddly enough) who became the President of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s really all about money, not politics.\u00a0\u00a0I learned that at a very early age.\u00a0\u00a0My Dad, a \u201cRockefeller Republican\u201d back in the 1960\u2019s, put a very liberal Phil Donahue on television in Dayton.\u00a0\u00a0Donahue and Dad didn\u2019t agree on politics, but they both knew a good thing when they had one.\u00a0\u00a0By the end, the Donahue Show <\/em>was in every television market in the country, all 210 of them, and lasted twenty-six years.\u00a0\u00a0It was about money and success, not politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now in the past two decades, there is an entirely different source of information. Mass use of the internet and social media has allowed everyone to \u201csilo\u201d their information. They get what they \u201cwant to hear\u201d, with little alternative or criticism. The infamous \u201calgorithms\u201d of Facebook (and Google, and Twitter, and, and, and\u2026) constantly pour gas on our fires of ideology. That\u2019s all about money as well. Social media is monetized by \u201cclicks\u201d, by the number of people who view a particular site. And nothing drives \u201cclicks\u201d like outrage. From a financial standpoint, the more outrage \u2013 the more clicks \u2013 the more money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And so the wedges polarizing us are pounded in deeper by the unseen mathematical forces that keep appealing to our emotions. It isn\u2019t \u201clove\u201d that drives us to the next site or the next message \u2013 it\u2019s negative. Hate, anger, and indignation are the powers that make social media the place for profit. Tired of hating McConnell \u2013 move onto Manchin!! Tired of hammering Biden \u2013 try despising Fauci!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201ctheory of revolution\u201d postulates that people don\u2019t \u201crevolt\u201d when they are at their lowest.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, they \u201crevolt\u201d when their lives improve, or they see \u201chope\u201d for the future, and then that improvement and hope is dashed.\u00a0\u00a0The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States might be one example of this.\u00a0\u00a0For a significant number of Americans, the election of a progressive Black man as President was a \u201cbridge too far\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0They were shocked, both by his politics and his race, especially after the conservative administration of George W Bush following “Republican Lite” Bill Clinton.\u00a0\u00a0That shock soon became organizational anger, and the \u201cTea Party\u201d movement began.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t all \u201cracist\u201d, but it was definitely encouraged by the racial issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should it be any surprise that their ultimate response was the election of the diametric opposite t0 Obama, an opulently rich White man who voiced \u201cTea Party\u201d like views, and had the support of the \u201cright\u2019s\u201d media?\u00a0\u00a0Especially when the alternative choice was another ground breaking candidate, a woman for President? And with Trump\u2019s election there was a predictable progressive response to that \u201coutrage”, from Inauguration day on, culminating in the elections of 2018 and 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enter Joe Biden, quite literally a man \u201cof the middle\u201d. And for many, there was hope that his electoral success would bring our nation to a \u201cmiddle\u201d where common purpose could again be the driving principle. But Biden ran into the realities of 2021-22 American politics. We are polarized by all the other forces in our lives \u2013 politics, healthcare, media; the phones we spend so much time on (my daily average an incredibly low 2 hour and 17 minutes this week). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an environment where magnifying failure is so much more profitable than touting success, and where much of the \u201cmiddle\u201d has been wedged to the sides, it\u2019s no surprise that Biden is struggling.\u00a0\u00a0Look at the Senate of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0They can\u2019t even manage to reaffirm the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965.\u00a0\u00a0The no-brainer of a decade ago is now controversial.\u00a0\u00a0Even some Democrats don\u2019t support it (or at least, won\u2019t support a means to pass it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish I had a \u201cgood answer\u201d for what we need to do to \u201cfix\u201d all this. But to start, we must at least recognize where it began, and why it continues. My bet: when the money can be made by fixing rather than dividing, we might be on our way to a common good: Capitalism at its finest. I\u2019ll hold my breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Profit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Revolution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Middle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n