Do we need a common enemy to end the political upheaval in the USA? The last president to shake the foundations of our republic during my lifetime was Ronald Reagan. Now enters Donald Trump and I see the whole mess over again except this time on steroids. I fear it has gone too far and can only be salvaged in one of two ways. We either need a common goal or a common enemy to reunite the country. If you found history class to be a good place for daydreaming or writing/texting notes about meaningless drivel to your friends you probably cannot look back on eons of human experience and recount countless times where “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” has united people who hate each other. Hatred is the most important step a person can take to becoming radicalized and once there can justify hurtful and unlawful activities against other people. Greed is also a powerful component to justify aberrant behavior.
There are also many historical examples of diverse peoples uniting toward a common goal. We build things and fix things and create things together for mutual benefit and then slowly go back to hating the same people we were once shoulder to shoulder with.
I would love the government to settle on a goal like our infrastructure issues. Let’s make a goal of getting this country back in shape for working people who use the roads and bridges and need the government to support their livelihood.
Honestly, I think it will take a common enemy. I witnessed the very brief respite from hatred for a few days following the 9/11 attacks. Given this short interlude from severe partisanship it will obviously take a much larger threat, something that really puts our backs to the wall, or the ocean like Sun Tzu wrote about in the Art of War. The feudal tribalism of Democrats, Republican, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, religious extremism, and on and on looking for things that are different between us is clearly divisive. Maybe a big rock falling out of the sky threatening global extinction is what it will take. We are probably too far gone even for that.