The Polarization of America

The last 25 years have been a period of increasing polarization politically in America. The rich have been getting richer and the distance between them and the poor and middle class has widened greatly.

The Republican party seems to be dying. The right wing is getting meaner, nastier, and more dishonest. The hope that compromise between the right and the left might be possible seems increasingly unrealistic.

Taking a longer term view though, there have been many eras in America’s short lifespan where there was extreme polarization. I knew my maternal grandmother quite well, and she remembered the immediate aftermath of the American civil war. She had very intense opinions about it.

The current level of political polarization in America is fairly minor when compared with the intensity of feelings in the 1930’s and the early 1970’s.

After the chicanery of Reagan and the two Bushes continually reducing taxation on the wealthy, it is entirely appropriate for people to be upset by the massive corruption and what has generally been happening in the American political situation.

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