During a summer break in college I had an internship in New York City. This would ordinarily be unremarkable except for my circumstance. I was raised in a small town of about 25,000 in Western Colorado. Before going to New York I had never been east of the St. Croix River. When I arrived in New York City, after a brief stopover in Elizabeth, NJ, I realized that I was in a foreign country. Or at least I felt that way. My initial visit to a NYC deli was my first clue. I walked in to order a sandwich. I made the mistake of waiting longer than 30 seconds to place my order. The person behind the counter summarily dismissed me and moved on the next customer. It took me a couple of deli visits to realize that the proprietor wasn’t being rude, I was just too slow. New Yorkers move a different pace than we do out West. I learned quickly the meaning behind the term “a New York second.”
I tell this story to make the point that people across the U.S. are different. We experience a myriad of cultural differences across many parts of our country. Culturally, political, socially, skin color etc. we are different. Maybe different from any other culture in the world. The U.S. is the only non-third world country that continues to struggle with its identity. We are a country of immigrants made up of people from all over the world. Most other countries share pretty much the same background, language and cultural experience. You cannot go to a city of any size in America without seeing people from different countries like Asia, Middle East, South America, Mexico, South Africa and others. But even though we may look different and speak differently we are still Americans. We share common interests and for the most part want the same things for America. And yet I continue to hear over-and-over again how divided our country is. This caused me to wonder. How divided are we?
Part of the reason we are led to believe we are so different is that the mainstream media continues to hyper-ventilate over this falsehood. Most of the MSM is made of ivy league educated elites. Few have ever held a position outside of a studio. Their understanding of real world problems is almost non-existent and they come from a post-modern secularist point of view. Even if Donald Trump no longer occupies the White House their progressive narrative is not likely to go away. Once the President leaves office, if in fact he is determined to have been defeated, the media is going to need some other obsession to keep them employed. Division may be their last remaining mantra. But if you really look at the U.S. I think the media is wrong.
Given the data to date on the presidential election it looks like approximately 150 million people voted. Seventy-six million voted for Joe Biden and Seventy-two million for President Trump. So the population is pretty evenly divided. As I discussed in one of my last newsletters 29% of the people who voted for Joe Biden said they actually voted against President Donald Trump. From a political perspective this reflects that those people did not vote against current policies, they just wanted a different candidate. Those statistics would indicate that, given a more attractive conservative candidate, the liberal/progressive platform of Joe Biden would have been soundly rejected. Additionally, Joe Biden may take over a presidency that has its own challenges. Not only will the Republicans probably retain control of the Senate, but Democrats took a drubbing in the House. With one-third of the House up for re-election 2022 it creates real angst for those 135 representatives.
The bottom line is that from a policy perspective America maybe more conservative than the election results would indicate. This election may not be a good indicator of where the country really stands on significant policy issues. Americans have overwhelmingly rejected Socialism, open borders, de-funding police, out-sourcing of jobs and a week military. Seventy-six percent of the American public say they are at least somewhat patriotic. Abortion might be the most divisive issue we face, yet according to a January 2020 Marist Poll, 75% of respondents “want abortions limited”. Beyond that the country is evenly split between pro-life and pro-choice.
There are three significant challenges that face America over the next two years. None of them are political: 1.) Combating a media that is hostile to conservative values; 2.) Neutralizing the impact of Social Media that is focused on their own power; 3.) Turning the tide of secularism that is eroding our Christian Worldview.
I believe that Americans share more values than the progressive media would want us to believe. But we need to guard against the “informational cascade” of the media. In his paper “The Blind Leading the Blind,” David Hirshleifer describes a process of informational cascades and how beliefs can spread through a population. Because it is costly in time and effort to master evidence involved in a variety of issues, most people base their beliefs on what others believe rather than on primary evidence, on the assumption that others are better informed. A kind of “group think”. As likeminded people surround each other, the more resistant they are to discrediting information. Our challenge is to interrogate every message that comes from the media and overtly respond to untruths.
Social Media presents its own challenges. The recent Senate Judicial Committee investigation into Twitter, Facebook and Google (Alphabet) revealed startling information regarding the ubiquitous intrusion into our lives that they represent. That combined with the ability to censor, at will, any content they find objectionable makes them a real threat to our right of free speech. These companies have their own ideology that does not fit with traditional American values. In your own defense you might consider closing your Facebook and Twitter accounts and migrating to Rumble and Parler. They are much more transparent and conservative friendly,
One of the major concerns in American is its slow digression from its Christian foundation to that of secularism and the erosion of our Christian Worldview. Europe is a consequence of that deterioration. It is a continent adrift that has not only lost its Christian foundation but is losing its culture. If we allow that to happen in the U.S. we will end up looking more like Europe and less like America.
The reason for optimism is that there is real opportunity for the American public to come together on significant policy issues based upon our shared values. This will take someone who can re-calibrate the Republican Party. It will require someone with a real presence, a candidate who doesn’t pander to the “swamp’ and one who truly understands the issues relating to minorities and the dwindling middle class. Bottom line, it will need to be someone who can retain the base, continue building support with minorities and do a better job appealing to suburban women.
The challenge is for conservatives to remain committed to the values that unite us and resist those that are not part of the country’s foundation.
Divided America? Hmmm. . .
There is one division in America, one rather substantial, that does catch my attention. It was clearly seen, not only in the 2020 election, but in every presidential election since 1964. In 1961, the 23rd amendment to the Constitution gave the residents of Washington, DC the ability to vote in presidential elections, garnering them 3 electoral votes. Since that time DC residents have always voted for the Democratic Party's candidate. The highest DC percentage total any Republican has gotten is Richard Nixon's 21.5% in 1972 when he swamped George McGovern nationwide.
Since that time, Republican candidates, though winning nationwide, still get clobbered in every DC contest, seeing their DC percentages consistently fall into the single digits. The lowest point was Trump in 2016 at 4.1% of the vote. He actually improved on that in 2020's election, attracting 5.5% of the DC voters.
The reason this catches my attention is this schism is at the heart of why we are told by the trendsetters, tastemakers, East Coast elites and certainly the dominant news providers that, in ways subtle and blatant, Democrats are normally spot on and Republicans clearly out of touch.
One example is how the party's VP candidates are either lionized or savaged, particularly when they are announced. Witness: Gore (Boy Scout stability), Edwards (so good looking), Biden (experienced), Ferraro (1st woman) or Harris (mega-grievance groups) versus Quayle (Bozo), Cheney (Darth Vader and gravitas to light weight Bush), Pence (the sap who'd run with Trump) or Ryan (not a whole lot of experience). And to this very day, Sarah Palin holds a special place in media bashing hell. In Obama's recent 750-page tome, he takes time to remind us just how out of her league she was.
Overlooking Tara Reid, exalting Christine Ford, Florida's chads needed the Supreme Court intervention, Pennsylvania's vote count is accurate let's move on, if Hillary doesn't mind, why should we, Colin Powell sent email via a personal computer so it's okay, Ronald Reagan's just an actor but Obama's "The One" and on and on the comparisons go from the Inside-the-Beltway crowd, AKA The Swamp.
The larger point, however, is something that should concern all Americans of whatever political stripe. Presumably most Americans are voting for good governance, policies and programs. But when the denizens of DC are of one mind that is aligned exclusively with the Democrat Party, it puts any Republican administration at a significant disadvantage in implementing their platform's planks. The four-year hounding of Donald Trump is just the most egregious example that created a large roadblock for any reasonable progress in this country. And if progress is made, the hounding continues to drown out any successful narrative.
Certainly we do get different policies/programs as administrations change, but those in Washington DC are a position to implement, influence, delay, deny or thwart that administration's actions. In most cases, their approach in their duties to our country is of one mind, that is, grow government and hew to the Democrat Party's line. Even Obama, in his recent memoir, moaned at how hidebound the State Department was in his efforts to implement foreign policy, though no one seemed to get in the way of sending pallets of cold, hard cash to Iran,
In Nancy Pelosi's one moment of truth, "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it," she tells us that we are really governed by an administrative state, a state that is exclusively in the pocket of the Democrat Party, in word and deed. Couple DC's single mindedness with the concentration of media and entertainment in New York City and Los Angeles, that is equally like minded, and we are fed all the necessary promotion of the Democrat's agenda, willingly and enthusiastically.
Yes, we are a divided nation where the division is clearly and consistently seen inside the Beltway. It takes a masterful politician with a real mandate from the rest of the country to bridge that chasm. Trump tried. The Empire fought back.
Wow! Someone actually read my post and responded. You are exactly correct, but we will have to eat this elephant one bite at a time. Keeping the Senate and taking back the House in 2022 might slow the administrative state. Then if we can get a congress whose average age is under 75 we might make some legislative progress. Keep reading and keep responding. Thanks again.