Nobody truly knows when it began. No doubt it was seen in Antebellum America. One could go back to Europe for a more complete picture. Many immigrated to America in hopes of escaping an aristocratic, political ruling class and ideological distinctions.
AP’s Divided America “Ideology” summarized. “Climate doubters clash with believers. Bathrooms have become battlefields, borders are battlelines. Different ideologies have created deep rifts in voting blocks, often ignoring traditional party divides.”
There is increasingly less middle ground. Both sides have hardened their resolve. Friends for decades have stopped speaking to each other. There is no respect, only marginal contempt. It’s as if the country has balled itself into a tight fist.
Key Ideological Distinctions
As would be expected, energy is the focal point of the debate. America produces mountains of fossil fuels. Many Americans base their livelihoods on the production, sales and distribution of petroleum, natural gas, and coal products. To first be declared “unholy,” and then ultimately banned from use is over the pale.
Americans favoring energy independence see themselves as patriots. Those who oppose it are traitors. In their perception, “climate change activists” are, at best, “misguided.” At worst, they are “Marxist pawns, in cahoots with the CCP, whose aim is to create a “flat world” as described in Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat.”
Patriots recognize Joe Biden’s America as a “unified globalist effort to impoverish America, in favor of a handful of international stakeholder capitalists who are making millions while simultaneously inflicting misery on America’s middle class.” Their eventual impoverishment comes from higher energy prices which impact shipping costs, ultimately leading to higher prices at the retail level.
Infuriated, they cling to a famous proclamation uttered by an Omaha Beach survivor. “The only good Communist is a dead one!” In essence, “I’ll take my $1.87 per gallon gasoline price and you can have your four or five-dollar-a-gallon prices and your Green New Deal B.S.” Most see global warming as “hyperbole.”
For climate change alarmists, patriots are rubes. That they don’t immediately grasp the urgency of a warming planet isn’t surprising. Climate change is a sophisticated topic, likely surpassing their GED mentality. “This issue, more than any, reflects their sheer “smugness.”
Taking a close second is the two-tiered legal system that becomes increasingly evident with each passing day. Americans like fairness. What is unfolding with former President Trump generates an obvious question: “Why were Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden not subjected to the same degree of scrutiny for similar offenses?” When they realize that there are different rules for different sides, they question the very legitimacy of the American legal system. That’s the beginning of the end.
A prime example was Colorado’s recent legislative statement. Facing an overwhelming 55-19 majority against them, Republicans were frustrated that the majority had little time for kitchen table issues such as inflation, housing prices and gasoline prices. Instead, the majority focused on ideological issues such as climate change, diversity, wokism and CRT. In the end, the Republican minority skipped the final session. The conclusion: “What’s the point?”
What’s Next?
Good question! When one side sees their counterparts as “rubes, chumps, deplorables and unredeemable,” and these counterparts describe their adversaries as “sheeple chasing corruption,” you are in civil war land. Some people are responding by voting with their feet, as the Washington Examiner outlined.
“The recent dump of county-level data from the Census Bureau shows that America’s big left-run cities have kept losing population long after the COVID pandemic ended. Los Angeles County, California, for example, has lost 293,000 residents since the last Census, April 1, 2020, and was still losing population at the last estimate. In the same time frame, Cook County Illinois (home to Chicago) lost 166,000. New York City’s five boroughs lost a combined 471,000. San Francisco has lost 66,000 people or 7.6% of its population. Philadelphia County Pennsylvania lost 37,000.”
How many additional people would have fled these locales if they held the financial resources to do such? Nobody knows for certain.
Separation – a Non-Starter?
When Georgia Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested dividing America between red and blue states, she was lambasted by the corporate media. Yet even the reddest and bluest states still have at least 40% of their populace on the opposing side. True, those who can afford it are voluntarily migrating. California, New York and Illinois can attest to it. So can destination states, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.
The question becomes, “What if “red” and “blue” America came to an agreement?”
In a July 2021 University of Virginia poll, 41% of Biden supporters (as well as 52% of Trump voters) were at least somewhat in agreement with the idea “that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”
In that survey, two very different groups were open to such an action: those living in conservative southern states, who wanted to avoid liberal dictates from the national government, and people on the west coast and in the Northeast who favored enacting legislation favored by liberal voters.
Next question: “What about those who could not afford to relocate?” Here is an idea worth noting. “Money could be temporarily diverted from overseas ventures in favor of establishing relocation grants for those seeking immigration.
