The State Of Our Political Divide

Conventional wisdom holds that Republicans and Democrats are united in their desired outcomes for the country but divided on the best policies and actions for getting there.

For the good of the country, it’s time to dispel that notion.

Our political divide can be summarized with this simple metaphor: Democrats would like to drive the bus over the cliff. Republicans would like to drive the bus away from the cliff.

The fact that this is now our current situation is testimony to the success of the Leftists. Turn back the clock 50 years or so, and neither Republicans nor most Democrats wanted to get the bus anywhere near the cliff — despite both parties supporting some legislation and international behavior here and there that took us in that direction anyway.

How did we get here? In 2008, Barack Obama told us that we were five days away from “fundamentally transforming” the country. Perhaps more voters should have asked themselves, “Does someone really love something that he wants to fundamentally transform?”As has always been the case with radical Leftists in the United States, their chief goal is to destroy the existing cultures, traditions, institutions, and economic and governmental systems so they can build a socialist utopia from the ashes.

They start with sowing chaos by any means necessary, with hopes of graduating to complete revolution. In previous attempts, the seed for the chaos and revolution has been socioeconomic and class-based, pitting a far larger population of the impoverished against a much smaller population of the wealthy. Historically, their challenge in the United States has been that the middle class is too numerous, upwardly mobile, and content to entertain the push for jealousy, resentment, and unrest.

Taking notes from Herbert Marcuse, the father of the new Left, Obama chose a different tack, substituting racial identity for socio-economic class as the dividing influence. Gallup found in the pre-Obama era that some 70% of respondents believed that racial relations between blacks and whites were “very good” or “somewhat good.” By 2015, that number had plummeted to 47%.

In his excellent piece, How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening, Zach Goldberg used extensive research to demonstrate a proactive effort from the media that correlated with Obama’s second term to normalize a new vocabulary regarding racial identity and oppression.

Between 2011 and 2019, use of the terms racists, racist, and racism by The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, increased over 700% and just under 1,000%, respectively. He notes that the phrase “white supremacy” rarely appeared in any media until 2015, but that by 2019, the Times and the Post respectively were using that phrase 17 to 18 times more frequently than they were in 2014.

He found similar massive jumps in usage of the phrases “systemic racism, white privilege, unconscious bias, diversity and inclusion, and whiteness” across mainstream media. As Arthur Brooks said, the president ran on optimism and unity but governed on pessimism and division.

In 2011, with Obama’s Executive Order 13583 — Establishing a Coordinated Government-Wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce — DEI language, metrics, and policies were officially cemented across federal agencies.

This was the divisive launching pad that the radical Left had long awaited, and, as Christopher Rufo observed, like a Trojan Horse, these once fringe ideas quickly became embedded in K-12 and higher education school curricula, HR departments, our military, and boardrooms. In the following years, Democrats allowed their party to be taken over more and more completely by radical Leftists. Judging by their leadership, proposed legislation, policies, and rhetoric, the Democratic Party is now officially a radical Leftist party.

The result is that Democrats — whether most of them recognize it or not — have become a party of chaos and revolution that supports obstruction and destruction. Immediately after President Donald Trump assumed office, the Democrats adopted the theme word “resist,” and that is exactly what they have been doing to stifle every positive move the Trump administration attempts to make. Lawfare and judge shopping are occurring at record numbers, with rogue district and federal judges issuing nationwide injunctions.

Is this assessment too harsh to apply to all Democrats? Strictly speaking, yes, of course. There are plenty of non-extremist, traditional Democrats who shake their heads about what has happened to their party and country. These folks do not wish to drive the bus over the cliff.

However, as long as they continue to vote for the radical Leftist leaders — including people like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, AOC, Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, Hakeem Jeffries, and Ilhan Omar — and cling to the “always vote blue no matter who” dictum, they are, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from the radical Left ruling class. And their votes are helping move the bus closer to the precipice.

Too many conservatives have yet to grasp the significance of this fact. They argue fervently about a given Democrat policy — say, open borders — explaining with data, anecdotes, and logic why it is an unfair, dangerous, and destructive thing for America. Their belief is that Democrats have not thought of these arguments or seen this data, or thought through the logic of what they are supporting. Put bluntly, they cling to the old-fashioned belief that we are two parties connected by intention and differing only in methodology.

Au contraire. The radical Leftists understand very well the damage created from such policies, and that damage is precisely their end goal. Perhaps the message needs to be delivered as if speaking to a three-year-old — “Yes, they’re doing it on purpose!”

That vile truth is what too many Americans have been too slow to recognize. Yes, they want to destroy the family unit, churches and religion, patriotism, American energy independence, free speech, the middle class, our military readiness, educational excellence, individual financial independence, the constitution, and the country as we know it.

Virtually every disastrous policy supported by the Democrats — from the Affordable Care Act to DEI, defunding police, to the Green New Deal, open borders to student loan forgiveness, cashless bail to transgender ideology and beyond — has been enacted to inflict some measure of damage to one or more of the country’s fundamental systems, or to simply bring about chaos and move the bus closer to the cliff. Leftists have been quite successful in their overall mission. That bus is arguably closer than it has been since World War II.

This divide also explains the knee-jerk opposition to anything proposed by President Trump or the Republicans. They know that if Trump or the Republicans are proposing or opposing something, it is no doubt intended to move the bus further away from the cliff; therefore, they don’t need to think about their response, no matter how ludicrous — they hold the opposite view.

Mutilating the genitalia of 12-year-olds with gender dysphoria? Sending the FBI after parents who complain about school policies at school board meetings? Letting arsonists and murderers out of jail? They support all of that. Sending an MS13 gangster, wife-beater, child-trafficker, and illegal immigrant back to El Salvador? Destroying the nuclear capabilities of the world’s largest sponsors of terror for the last 30 years? They oppose all of that.

The radical Left is now synonymous with the Democratic Party, and Democrats are pursuing what radical Leftists have always pursued — chaos and revolution.

Accordingly, they are supporting all policies that will promote that and opposing those that would support or enhance the existing governmental structure. The media are dominantly controlled by or are themselves the radical Left — and push narratives that align with those views. Further, they aggressively censor competing, conservative narratives. Google helped confirm this with their announcement this week.

The best way to defeat all of them is to continue educating voters about who they are, ensure fair elections, and defeat the Leftists at the polls. The sooner that traditional Democrats and many conservatives can understand the new state of our political divide, the faster we can defeat the radical Leftists and get away from the cliff. Once this has been accomplished, instead of putting all of our energy and resources toward unwinding and fending off the Leftist policies meant to destroy us, perhaps we can begin to put them toward more positive and productive initiatives.

Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for STARRS.US. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California, and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.