Division in the United States: It's Not About Our Rhetoric
“We don’t need a kinder, gentler meanness.” ~ Reverend Dr. William Barber II
The first step to recovery is admitting the problem. However admitting the wrong problem leads us nowhere.
I could only wish that America’s problems were rhetorical. But our rhetoric is not the problem. I don’t know how many ways I can say that the United States of America is in the midst of a serious national identity crisis. And it is the national identity crisis that has always been. The dissonance between our ideals and our present reality is beyond glaring but it is certainly not new and the gap certainly will not narrow with the superficial cure of toning down our rhetoric.
So what is the cure?
The short answer is unity and agreement about our national identity, the ideals that we strive for. The good news is that those ideals have already been established by way of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. The bad news is some very influential people want to impose a different set of ideals.
But we’re supposed to simply agree to disagree like the debate about our ideals is a meaningless game of This or That?
As much as we want to believe that our politics is merely a game of petty squabbles that we can simply detach ourselves from, it is not a game. Nor can we detach ourselves from it. The absence of political violence is not the telltale sign of a healthy democracy. Just because we have managed to live 60 years and 8 months without a presidential assassination does not mean all is well in these United States of America.
All is not well in these United States of America and it’s time for us to stop asking for a band-aid to cover up our gashing wounds, thinking the band-aid itself is the panacea that makes all of this madness instantly disappear.
The ongoing charge of the American people, led by the three co-equal branches of our federal government, as outlined in the Preamble of our Constitution, is to perfect our union. No where in our founding documents does it describe perfecting our union as simply talking nicer to and about each other.
While we have certainly experienced moments of such “perfection” in our 248 year history, what we have ultimately managed to do is perfect our division as a nation. And we just didn’t happen upon this division. Our perfect division is not some phenomenon. Nor is it some coded secret. It’s not a secret at all. But if you happen to be sincerely aloof, taking the slightest dive into our history will reveal that we are most unified when we heed our charge as a nation and we are most divided when we ignore our charge as a nation.
Our perfect division does not come from a failure to civilly communicate. Our perfect division comes from a persistent insistence that liberty and justice are NOT for all. This persistent insistence has quite frankly largely been civilly communicated. Likewise, the resistance to that persistent insistence has largely been civilly communicated. Being civil is not our problem.
My fellow Americans, there is only so long we can remain in this national identity crisis. As much as we should have been able to prevent this moment in history, we have not done so. Instead we have arrived at an inflection point that demands a resolution to this identity crisis one way or the other. Our Constitution allows us to have our say on November 5, 2024.
In the meantime, I’m open to good faith, union perfecting conversations grounded in agreement that the Spirit of America is indeed what is plainly described in our founding documents. Otherwise grounded conversations indeed are the problem. Toned down or not, otherwise grounded conversations only perfect our division.
Onward to perfecting our union and Harmonious Balance, my friends!
Johanna
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