The vitriol is worse is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the
Palin-induced smarmy 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004.
Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing
bitterness.
It’s almost a civil war. I know families in which close relatives are no
longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider
going out with Republicans, and vice-versa. My email and twitter feeds
contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter.
What’s going on? Yes, we’re divided over issues like the size of
government and whether women should have control over their bodies. But
these aren’t exactly new debates. We’ve been disagreeing over the size
and role of government since Thomas Jefferson squared off with Alexander
Hamilton, and over abortion rights since before Roe v. Wade, almost
forty years ago.
And we’ve had bigger disagreements in the past – over the Vietnam War,
civil rights, communist witch hunts – that didn’t rip us apart like
this.
Maybe it’s that we’re more separated now, geographically and online.
The town where I grew up in the 1950s was a GOP stronghold, but Henry
Wallace, FDR’s left-wing vice president, had retired there quite
happily. Our political disagreements then and there didn’t get in the
way of our friendships. Or even our families — my father voted
Republican and my mother was a Democrat. And we all watched Edward R.
Murrow deliver the news, and then, later, Walter Cronkite. Both men were
the ultimate arbiters of truth.
But now most of us exist in our own political bubbles, left and right. I
live in Berkeley, California – a blue city in a blue state – and rarely
stumble across anyone who isn’t a liberal Democrat (the biggest battles
here are between the moderate left and the far-left). The TV has
hundreds of channels so I can pick what I want to watch and who I want
to hear. And everything I read online confirms everything I believe,
thanks in part to Google’s convenient algorithms.
So when Americans get upset about politics these days we tend to stew in
our own juices, without benefit of anyone we know well and with whom we
disagree — and this makes it almost impossible for us to understand the
other side.
That geographic split also means more Americans are represented in
Congress by people whose political competition comes from primary
challengers – right-wing Republicans in red states and districts,
left-wing Democrats in blue states and districts. And this drives those
who represent us even further apart.
But I think the degree of venom we’re experiencing has deeper roots.
The nation is becoming browner and blacker. Most children born in
California are now minorities. In a few years America as a whole will be
a majority of minorities. Meanwhile, women have been gaining economic
power. Their median wage hasn’t yet caught up with men, but it’s getting
close. And with more women getting college degrees than men, their pay
will surely exceed male pay in a few years. At the same time, men
without college degrees continue to lose economic ground. Adjusted for
inflation, their median wage is lower than it was three decades ago.
In other words, white working-class men have been on the losing end of a
huge demographic and economic shift. That’s made them a tinder-box of
frustration and anger – eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and
other pedlars of petulance, including an increasing number of
Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames.
That hate-mongering and attendant scapegoating – of immigrants, blacks,
gays, women seeking abortions, our government itself – has legitimized
some vitriol and scapegoating on the left as well. I detest what the
Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdock, and Paul Ryan
are doing, and I hate their politics. But in this heated environment I
sometimes have to remind myself I don’t hate them personally.
Not even this degree of divisiveness would have taken root had America
preserved the social solidarity we had two generations ago. The Great
Depression and World War II reminded us we were all in it together. We
had to depend on each other in order to survive. That sense of mutual
dependence transcended our disagreements. My father, a “Rockefeller”
Republican, strongly supported civil rights and voting rights, Medicare
and Medicaid. I remember him saying “we’re all Americans, aren’t we?”
To be sure, we endured 9/11, we’ve gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and we suffered the Great Recession. But these did not not bind us as we
were bound together in the Great Depression and World War II. The
horror of 9/11 did not touch all of us, and the only sacrifice George W.
Bush asked was that we kept shopping. Today’s wars are fought by hired
guns – young people who are paid to do the work most of the rest of us
don’t want our own children to do. And the Great Recession split us
rather than connected us; the rich grew richer, the rest of us, poorer
and less secure.
So we come to the end of a bitter election feeling as if we’re two
nations rather than one. The challenge – not only for our president and
representatives in Washington but for all of us – is to rediscover the
public good.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
Robert Reich,
one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is
Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in
three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor
under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten
most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written
thirteen books, including his latest best-seller,
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations;
Locked in the Cabinet;
Supercapitalism; and his newest,
Beyond Outrage.
His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio
commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding
editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s
group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at
www.robertreich.org. Published on Tuesday, November 6, 2012 by RobertReich.org We the People, and the New American Civil War by Robert Reich The vitriol is worse is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarmy 2008. Worse than the swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness. It’s almost a civil war. I know families in which close relatives are no longer speaking. A dating service says Democrats won’t even consider going out with Republicans, and vice-versa. My email and twitter feeds contain messages from strangers I wouldn’t share with my granddaughter. What’s going on? Yes, we’re divided over issues like the size of government and whether women should have control over their bodies. But these aren’t exactly new debates. We’ve been disagreeing over the size and role of government since Thomas Jefferson squared off with Alexander Hamilton, and over abortion rights since before Roe v. Wade, almost forty years ago. And we’ve had bigger disagreements in the past – over the Vietnam War, civil rights, communist witch hunts – that didn’t rip us apart like this. Maybe it’s that we’re more separated now, geographically and online. The town where I grew up in the 1950s was a GOP stronghold, but Henry Wallace, FDR’s left-wing vice president, had retired there quite happily. Our political disagreements then and there didn’t get in the way of our friendships. Or even our families — my father voted Republican and my mother was a Democrat. And we all watched Edward R. Murrow deliver the news, and then, later, Walter Cronkite. Both men were the ultimate arbiters of truth. But now most of us exist in our own political bubbles, left and right. I live in Berkeley, California – a blue city in a blue state – and rarely stumble across anyone who isn’t a liberal Democrat (the biggest battles here are between the moderate left and the far-left). The TV has hundreds of channels so I can pick what I want to watch and who I want to hear. And everything I read online confirms everything I believe, thanks in part to Google’s convenient algorithms. So when Americans get upset about politics these days we tend to stew in our own juices, without benefit of anyone we know well and with whom we disagree — and this makes it almost impossible for us to understand the other side. That geographic split also means more Americans are represented in Congress by people whose political competition comes from primary challengers – right-wing Republicans in red states and districts, left-wing Democrats in blue states and districts. And this drives those who represent us even further apart. But I think the degree of venom we’re experiencing has deeper roots. The nation is becoming browner and blacker. Most children born in California are now minorities. In a few years America as a whole will be a majority of minorities. Meanwhile, women have been gaining economic power. Their median wage hasn’t yet caught up with men, but it’s getting close. And with more women getting college degrees than men, their pay will surely exceed male pay in a few years. At the same time, men without college degrees continue to lose economic ground. Adjusted for inflation, their median wage is lower than it was three decades ago. In other words, white working-class men have been on the losing end of a huge demographic and economic shift. That’s made them a tinder-box of frustration and anger – eagerly ignited by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other pedlars of petulance, including an increasing number of Republicans who have gained political power by fanning the flames. That hate-mongering and attendant scapegoating – of immigrants, blacks, gays, women seeking abortions, our government itself – has legitimized some vitriol and scapegoating on the left as well. I detest what the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rupert Murdock, and Paul Ryan are doing, and I hate their politics. But in this heated environment I sometimes have to remind myself I don’t hate them personally. Not even this degree of divisiveness would have taken root had America preserved the social solidarity we had two generations ago. The Great Depression and World War II reminded us we were all in it together. We had to depend on each other in order to survive. That sense of mutual dependence transcended our disagreements. My father, a “Rockefeller” Republican, strongly supported civil rights and voting rights, Medicare and Medicaid. I remember him saying “we’re all Americans, aren’t we?” To be sure, we endured 9/11, we’ve gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we suffered the Great Recession. But these did not not bind us as we were bound together in the Great Depression and World War II. The horror of 9/11 did not touch all of us, and the only sacrifice George W. Bush asked was that we kept shopping. Today’s wars are fought by hired guns – young people who are paid to do the work most of the rest of us don’t want our own children to do. And the Great Recession split us rather than connected us; the rich grew richer, the rest of us, poorer and less secure. So we come to the end of a bitter election feeling as if we’re two nations rather than one. The challenge – not only for our president and representatives in Washington but for all of us – is to rediscover the public good. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License Robert Reich Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future; The Work of Nations; Locked in the Cabinet; Supercapitalism; and his newest, Beyond Outrage. His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
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