A ‘chronic civil war’ is raging on in US

I had not rung my sister-in-law Martha for several months but when I arrived in Oregon, I called her to see how she is doing. Which is fine. But she is deeply upset about the state of “America,” the United States of, that is. “People used to get along, even like each other,” she said. “Now they hate each other.” Indeed, they do. When I told my daughter what she said, Marya observed, “It’s a silent civil war.” No I responded, “It’s a chronic civil war.” It’s certainly not silent or even low key. Martha complained, “You can’t say anything to anybody.” Rational discussion is not a possibility unless you are among like-minded people. Among the opposing camps, there is no dialogue, no attempt at understanding other points of view.

There are myriad reasons for the current state of affairs. White male grievance is a major factor.

While they remain the majority, whites are alarmed by the fall in their household worth and largely blame this on the influx of Hispanics, Asians, and others. Whites do not register the fact that they are in a far better financial situation than Blacks or Hispanics but blame demographic diversity for what they see as undermining their position. White women now attend university in greater numbers than White men and earn more degrees than their male counterparts.

The number of White men in prisons has increased sharply although Black and Hispanic men are more likely to be incarcerated. Mortality rates for middle-aged White men have increased due to suicides, drug overdoses, opiods, and alcohol. However, their life expectancy is longer than that of Black and Hispanic men.

Their sense of grievance is misdirected. The society has evolved. Big Money dominates the economy, finance, production of goods, and politicians at all levels. The Republican party, which used to be moderate and ready to partner Democrats in legislation serving the population, has changed into a regressive, conservative tool of unscrupulous interests and politicians. The richest one per cent holds nearly one-third of the country’s wealth, while the lowest 50 per cent holds 2.6 per cent. Furthermore wealthy companies and individuals pay far less tax than the middle class and even the poor.

To make matters worse, the wealth of the one per cent ballooned by $6.5 trillion last year thanks to rising stock prices and soaring financial markets. Inequality drives more inequality. The share of wealth held by 90 per cent of the population declined from 30.5 per cent to 30.2 per cent.

Uneducated White men, in particular, are pessimistic. They see their incomes stagnate, face job insecurity, and find fewer prospects as the multitude of “good jobs” they used to fill have disappeared. Meanwhile, due to legislation opening up opportunities for women, Black and Hispanic workers, their situations have improved, making them optimistic.

They have reasons for optimism. Women, Blacks and Hispanics have become highly visible in politics, law offices, on university campuses, in high-tech firms, and as television anchors and re- porters. The growing community of uneducated white men witnesses these changes and wonders what is happening to a country where all positions of influence were formerly occupied by White men, the colonial masters. The rest accepted being ruled by this “elite” which covered a broad spectrum of backgrounds in the White majority. White men could relate to these figures but not to the new, well-educated elite which steered into the limelight women, Blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Asians. Many of them reached their objectives via university education which resentful White men did not or could not access.

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 gave hope to liberal Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and other “people of colour” that the deepening of divisions within the society could be halted, at least, and, perhaps, even reversed. Although Obama did not adopt policies favouring the Black community and deported illegal Hispanic migrants, grievance-driven White men were not only resentful over his victory but also fearful. Donald Trump took advantage of their grievances and fears to propel himself into the White House in 2016 and is looking at a return in 2024.

Trump has not only exploited resentments and fears but deliberately stoked hatred and violence.

He continues to do this as well as claim the 2020 election was “stolen” by President Joe Biden who has tried to promote bipartisanship in Congress and state legislatures to meet the challenges posed by crumbling US infrastructure, economic inequality, and climate change but has, more often than not, been met by Republican obstructionism at the urging of Trump.

He and the Republicans are prepared to wage war on Biden and the Democrats by denying them progress on their agenda for the first two years of his presidency. In the weeks before the November 8th mid-term election they are stepping up their claim that Biden has been a failed president because he has not delivered benefits to the “American people.” He has, in fact, but not as many or as sweeping as he sought and planned for due to Republican opposition. Democrats have, so far, largely failed to make this clear to independents and doubting Republicans in order to secure their votes for Democratic candidates running for all the seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. If the Republicans take control of the House and the Senate, Biden will become a lame-duck president for the two final years of his first term in office.

In response to Trump’s meddling in primary elections to choose loyal Republican candidates to run in the national election next month, anti-Trump Republicans are calling on voters from their party to cast their ballots for Democrats in states which could go either way. “What’s different now is it’s not just Trump,” Sarah Longwell told The Washington Post. “As people watched it go beyond Trump, and the entire party descend into this madness this cycle, there’s a lot more willingness from Republicans to stand up and speak out against individual candidates they find abhorrent.” She is an anti-Trump Republican strategist who runs the Republican Accountability Project which is spending $20 million in the coming national, state, and local elections. A second group, the Lincoln Project, founded to oppose Trump in the 2020 election, is doing the same thing.

In this perilous time of Trump, the man behind the current phase of the civil war, it must not be forgotten that Abraham Lincoln, the greatest US president who waged war to preserve the unity of the country, was a moderate Republican.