We have a problem in America—and it’s not the partisan divide. After the 2020 national election, an opinion piece in the Washington Post summarized the thinking of several political scholars who called it “political sectarianism,” suggesting something more substantial than “partisanship.”
But political sectarianism can be misleading if it expresses “both-sideism” rather than which political party has strayed from policy differences to a position of “tear the house down” Congressional actions.
There are several ways to examine the partisan divide. One is to investigate how the country is sharply divided on political views, more sharply than at any time in recent history. Another is to see how the public is sharply divided on social issues.
And then, there is the naïve assumption that too many people hold that individuals just happened to have arrived at different points of view on many issues. It is this latter view that I will address.
What people tend to know is often what they have been told to know. And the Republican propaganda machine has been very good at getting people to know their “truths.”
Over the past year, the PBS series “America at the Crossroads” has been problematic because it treats Democrats and Republicans as equal partisans. Treating them as equal partners in this bad situation is like calling the Social Democratic Party and the Nazi Party similar partisans in Germany in the early 1930s.
Yes, Democrats and Republicans differ on issues—economics and taxation, community and social responsibility, individual rights, etc.
While these partisan differences still exist and perhaps to a greater degree, there are additional differences between the parties, differences that many of us characterize as dangerous for the future of our form of government.
For example, while Democrats have retained their positions on the abovementioned issues, Republicans have gone much more extreme on theirs, including especially anti-civil rights and anti-democracy. Republicans have gutted the most important civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act and they have effectively abolished affirmative action.
But perhaps more importantly, they are pushing democracy to its limits, if not further, both locally and nationally. See Tennessee, where the state legislature expelled two African American legislators for participating in a peaceful protest for gun control. The ACLU notes that since 2021, ten states have enacted anti-critical race theory (CRT) laws that attack “our First Amendment rights to read, learn, and discuss vital topics in schools.” And at least two dozen additional anti-CRT laws have been introduced in state legislatures. Then, look at the increased gerrymandering in the states, producing a disproportionate share of local and national Republican legislators.
Nationally, Republicans and associated right-wingers support these anti-democratic actions in the states. However, perhaps more significantly, they supported the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, which attempted to disrupt regular national democratic processes and bring about a coup.
Further, The New York Times and other sources report that “Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government…reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.” This is blatant authoritarianism, openly espoused.
Borrowing from several top scholars and a former secretary of state, Robert Reich argues that Trump and his allies are worse than authoritarians. They are fascists.
The PBS Newshour is practicing irresponsible journalism to treat the authoritarianism/fascism pushed by the Republicans as just a partisan difference from the Democrats. We are not comparing apples and apples here. Perhaps it is more like comparing the A-bomb to the bombs that preceded it.
Further, implying that this is a two-sided partisan issue is dangerous. It means First Amendment-type support for destroying democracy in America.