You would almost have to have literally lived under a rock not to know that following his defeat in the 2020 presidential election the then president Donald Trump refused to concede to his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, but instead claimed that he had won and that the election had somehow been rigged against him. In spite of numerous subsequent court challenges by Trump loyalists and other maneuverings by Trump himself, no evidence has ever been brought in support of Trump's claim. Nevertheless, Trump and his MAGA supporters have continued to push what has become known as the "Big Lie" which is that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, is the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Trump's efforts in this regard reached a zenith on January 6, 2021 when he basically sent an armed mob to the Capital in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden as our next President. The resultant violent storming of the Capital by Trump's troops threatened our democracy more than even the War of 1812 did, the last, and only other, time that the Capital has been breached in an attempt to overturn our government.
As I see it, the extreme divisiveness caused by Trump and his Big Lie is a continuing threat to our country and the democracy upon which it stands (divided we fall). Accordingly, we must now strive to put the divisive Trump era behind us and come together as one people. The present essay deals with how we are doing in this regard as of this writing (April & May of 2023). Considering that it has only been a little over two years since the Trump inspired January 6 attack on the Capital, this should be a relatively short essay. But, don't count on it.
There is very little doubt that the divide between the far-right extremists and everyone else has grown deeper since the January 6 insurrection. But not necessarily wider as can be observed by the fact that the majority of office seekers in the 2022 mid-term elections who were Trump loyalists and election deniers (those who deny that Joe Biden was elected President) lost up and down the ballot. What this indicates is that the majority of Americans aren't buying into the Big Lie peddled by Trump and his loyalists. In this regard, it's nice to know that most Americans still make decisions based on evidence, or in this case the lack of, rather than on opinions, rumors, baseless conspiracy theories, and unreliable social media posts. Although in thinking about it, the 2022 election results shouldn't be all that surprising given that Donald Trump lost the popular vote in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. However, he did win the Electoral College in 2016 enabling him to gain the Whitehouse without the support of the majority of the American people. A good reason to do away with the Electoral College, but that's another topic for another time.
However, the far-right extremists, including the MAGA crowd, did make some gains in the 2022 elections, just not as many as they were hoping for. The most noted of these is that the Republicans gained the majority in the US House of Representatives, albeit by a slim margin of 9 seats (222 Republicans v. 213 Democrats).
It could be argued that the Republicans having a slim majority in the House would be beneficial in that it would force them to work with Democrats in a bipartisan manner. Although they have made a few gains in this regard, such as passing several bipartisan bills, their cohesion is hampered by their frequent internal squabbling as exemplified by the fact that on day one it took the Republicans 15 ballots to select Kevin McCarthy to the position of Speaker of the House. In order to get the necessary votes, McCarthy had to make concessions to the far-right extremists who have no interest in uniting even the factions within the Republican party let alone the nation as a whole. Unfortunately, this means that McCarthy is in their debt, a fact that doesn't bode well for the House of Representatives taking steps to unite the country.
Furthermore, there are members of the far-right group that not only have no interest in uniting the factions in our country, but are instead proposing just the opposite. Most notable among these has to be Margery Taylor-Green who wants to widen as well as deepen our divide through her proposal to split the United States into two nations, one composed of all red states and one of all blue states. Her proposal calls for the states to share a common military, but beyond that all states are to govern themselves with their own policies on everything from elections to LGBTQ rights. As nutty and unworkable as this sounds, Green is not the first to propose splitting up of the United States. As recently as 2021 large groups of Southern Republicans as well as groups of Democrats in California and the Northeast stated that they would support regional secession. Of course, there are no all red or all blue states not to mention that we have several purple states, such as Arizona and Georgia. Accordingly, although the proposal to divide up our Country is not likely to see any traction, the fact that lots of people in both major parties think it's a good idea also does not bode well for unifying the people of the United States.
As suggested in the preceding paragraphs, one of our deepest divides is between the election denying MAGA supporters and those who hold that the 2020 presidential election was legitimate, and that Biden clearly won. This division has been fueled by some of the Trump backed candidates who lost in the 2022 mid-term elections and deny their losses in the same manner that Trump continues to deny his. That is, by making accusations of voter fraud in the absence of evidence. Foremost among these are Kristina Karamo who lost her bid for Secretary of State in Michigan, and Kari Lake who lost the Governor's race in Arizona. To make matters worse, Karamo was elected by her fellow Republicans to lead that party in her State signaling that the Michigan Republicans as a group continue to embrace the Big Lie and seemingly have no interest in healing our nation's divide. The situation with Kari Lake is somewhat different in that the Arizona Republicans have signaled that they are ready to move away from her, and have acknowledged the lack of evidence of election fraud in her case. On the other hand, Ms. Lake's situation is worse in that she has taken her accusation that the election was somehow stolen from her on the road campaign style. Not only is this activity continuing to fuel the division among us, but Lake has raised a lot of money doing it. As the media have put it, "election denial is big business".
A more recent signal that division among the Republican party continues to fuel the more general division among us is that the 2023 gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was missing some big names among the moderate branch of the party, such as Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence. Also missing were a few ultra right-wing types, such as Ron DeSantis who, as I understand it, simply didn't want to waste his time with a CPAC gathering dominated by Trump supporters, and with Trump himself being the main speaker. In other words, the 2023 CPAC turned out to be no more than a you've seen one, you've seen them all MAGA rally.
Several recent and ongoing actions of our government, while holding promise of lessening our division, at present seem to be having mixed effects. Foremost among the promise to lessen has been the hearings of the House of Representatives Select Committee on the January 6 Attack which began on June 9, 2022 and finished with a final report on December 22, 2022. During this interval more than 1000 witnesses testified before the committee either in closed door or televised public sessions. The vast majority of these individuals were Republicans many of whom were directly associated with Donald Trump. In addition, a few of the witnesses had participated in the January 6 attack on the Capital, while several others were members of the Capital Police Force who had physically battled the attackers. The bottom line of these hearings is that they showed that the attack on the Capital was not the spontaneous act of a mob, but rather a planned and organized violent insurrection of which Trump himself was in on. While this convinced many Trump supporters to cease their support, for others it caused them to entrench themselves further into Trumpism.
Although the Jan 6 Committee was dissolved after the Republicans took over the House, it continues its work in providing documents and transcripts to the Department of Justice. Armed with this information the DOJ is presently conducting multiple probes involving former President Donald Trump. What will become of these is anyone's guess, but it at least continues to shed light on the insurrection. However, it's too soon to tell if these hearings and investigations will in anyway serve to heal the division among us, but they most certainly could help. We'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.
A recent (as of this writing) action of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy will no doubt muddy gains that the Jan 6 Committee has made in bring out the truth about the insurrection. It turns out that McCarthy handed over video recordings of the attack to Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host known to spread lies and misinformation on his "news" show. Carlson, with McCarthy's approval, aired only the non-violent portions of the videos, small though they were, claiming that the Jan 6 events were nothing more than a spirited but otherwise peaceful protest, which we all know were anything but peaceful. Hopefully, the fact that this action enraged sensible Republicans as well as Democrats may end up being a uniting factor.
While Carlson's airing of selected video segments of the Jan 6 insurrection was going on, Fox News was being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for falsely claiming that Dominion had rigged their voting machines in favor of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Recently, Fox News settled the case out of court to the tune of 787.5 million dollars. To no one's surprise, Tucker Carlson played a major role in spreading the lies and misinformation upon which Dominion based its case. This action, along with Carlson's selected airing of the Jan 6 insurrection were probably factors in him getting fired from Fox news. However, an article in the May 5, 2023 edition of This Week magazine indicated that Carlson's dismissal had more to do with his all too frequent insults of public figures, in particular women, along with his "venomous attacks" on Fox management. Regardless, to put a positive spin on this, perhaps Fox News has come to realize that spreading lies, misinformation and throwing undeserved insults at people, including Fox personnel, may not be all that helpful to their bottom line in spite of the fact that heretofore it has kept their ratings up.
On a related topic, an ongoing action of government regarding the January 6 attack is the continued arrest and prosecution of the participants. As of this writing over 1000 of the rioters have been arrested and charged, of which close to half have entered guilty pleas. Of these close to 200 have been incarcerated with the longest sentence so far being 10 years. Most likely more and longer sentences are to come as the ring-leaders are brought to justice. On this note, the FBI is continuing to review recordings of the attack and asking the public for help in identifying additional participants who may have committed crimes. While this action of the FBI will ultimately help in healing our nation, as of now it is probably continuing to foster our divide as many Trump supporters, as well as Trump himself, feel that none of the Jan 6 participants should be charged with anything.
A related legal thrust that is tending to keep us divided is the investigation of Trump's various legal misdeeds, one of which has resulted in an indictment. This being that before the 2016 election Trump paid hush money to a porn star that he had an affair with. It is not the hush payment itself that is illegal but rather Trump's falsification of records in an attempt to cover it up. Regardless of how this turns out, Donald Trump has become the first president in American history to be indited for a crime. And there are additional state as well as federal inditements in the works. As expected, Trump's present and potential legal woes are keeping us divided between the MAGA Trump supporting crowd, who are standing by their man, and those who feel that it's high time that the law got after this guy.
In spite of his legal jeopardy, or perhaps because of it, Trump wants to be elected President in 2024, and at present the majority of Republicans are supportive of this as indicated by presidential poles that have Trump well ahead of other potential Republican candidates. As odd as it may seem, the US Constitution does not prohibit someone indited for a crime, or even convicted of one, from taking public office, including the presidency. In thinking about it, this omission is not surprising given that our founding fathers couldn't have imagined someone like Donald Trump ever being elected President of the United States. But in 2016 it happened, and the fact that it could happen again in 2024 is keeping the division between Trump supporters and everyone else going full tilt, and it will probably get worse as election season progresses and the attack adds start flying from both major political parties.
Just as our founding fathers couldn't have imagined a Donald Trump when they thought of criteria for the Presidency, they couldn't possibly have imagined today's rapid fire automatic weapons when they drafted the 2nd amendment to our constitution. This "omission" has resulted in yet another division in our society between those who hold that any gun law or restriction is an infringement on their 2nd amendment right, and those who want legislative restrictions on the sale, possession and use of firearms. For years this battle has been fostered by the National Rifle Association (NRA) who has been painfully successful in blocking attempts by government to enact gun laws aimed at addressing the pervasive gun violence that has become a unique American phenomenon which includes gun violence being the leading cause of death in American youth under 18 years of age. And it's continuing to get worse. In just the fast few weeks fatal gun violence has progressed from the everyday (literally) occurrence of mass shootings to people being shot over innocent and harmless mistakes, such as a young boy going to the wrong house looking for his brother, a lady accidently driving into the wrong driveway and a cheerleader in her cheerleader outfit approaching the wrong car. In spite of the cry for more sensible national gun laws, proposed by President Biden and favored by the majority of Americans, the Republican led House of Representatives continues to not act, and the division between strict hard core 2nd amendment advocates and just about everyone else continues to deepen.
Mention of the ongoing 2nd amendment/gun violence controversy points out that we have divisions among us other than those of a strictly political nature. The most recent of these, as of this writing, is the overturning by the US Supreme Court of Roe v. Wade, the Court's 1973 ruling that made abortion legal in the United States. Actually, what the original ruling did was to eliminate the ability of individual states to restrict abortion. The overturning of the 1973 decision essentially gave that ability back to the states the result of which is now a hodgepodge of state laws with some states allowing unrestricted abortion while other states ban it altogether with yet a third set of states falling somewhere in between. Not only has this intensified battles between the Right to Life and the Freedom of Choice camps, it is also pitting state governments against each other with some states that have banned abortion, like Missouri, threatening to restrict abortion access in neighboring Freedom of Choice states. Of course, they can't because one state can't impose its laws on another, but that hasn't stopped them from trying.
To wrap this up (it's already longer than I had intended), while there are a few hopeful signs that American citizens may be coming together as one indivisible nation, on balance there are just too many and too deep of differences between us to make this a reality anytime soon. It is not just that we have groups with differences of opinion, we've always had that, but is the nature of how our differences are manifested that is keeping us apart. Whereas at one time there was an agree to disagree attitude in which debates and arguments occurred in a civil and respectful manner, we just don't see that much anymore. Instead of civility, we have way too much vitriol, hatred and even violence between opposing individuals and groups. Even with groups who are civil when it comes to interacting with others, there is often a "we're right and you're wrong" attitude. The term currently used to describe close nit groups who stick to a common set of values without much consideration of the views of others is "tribalism". In this context, our basic problem is that we have too many individual tribes and not enough folks seeking common unity among us.
However, that may be changing for the better as exemplified by a growing number of Americans who don't identify with any political party. These are the independents who at present make up the largest number of registered voters nationwide, and, as indicated, their numbers are growing. These are the folks who tend to weigh issues and vote for the candidate who they consider would be best for the Nation independent of political, or tribal, affiliation. In addition, independents tend to be open minded and respectful of the opinions of others that they may not agree with (agree to disagree). However, independent thinking and open mindedness are not limited to political independents. Many registered Republicans and Democrats have the same mindset. My prediction, or rather hope, is that independents, registered or not and including elected officials, will eventually grow large enough to neutralize present day self-centered tribes. At that point we should have a decent chance to once again become the United States of America.
Daniel Richardson
Payson and Tempe, AZ