Anger Divides America Blocking New Thinking

WASHINGTON: It’s been 23 days since a young man clutching a state-of-the-art semiautomatic pistol strode into a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket parking lot and fired 31 bullets into a small group of Americans meeting with their Congresswoman.

The headlines and 24/7 newscasts, blaring word of the grievous wounding of Representative Gabrielle Giffords along with a dozen others and the killing of six are fading. There’s little new, after all, about gun violence in the United States: More than 10,000 homicides are committed with firearms in the country every year.

Still, the Tucson carnage shook the public. For days afterward, Arizonans flocked to the parking lot, held hands with strangers and shed tears. Prayer vigils were organized around the country. In Washington, politicians postponed scheduled debate on health-care reform bound to be rancorous.

President Barack Obama traveled to Tucson and delivered the most touching, effective speech of his first two years in office: “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Two weeks later, in his State of the Union address, he hammered home the theme: “Tucson reminded us that no matter who we are or where we come from, each of us is a part of something greater — something more consequential than party or political preference.”

Responding to Obama’s earlier appeal, many senators and representatives at the speech literally crossed the aisle that normally separates Democrats and Republicans and sat with their opponents. It was a gesture, but an effective one.

Incivility is merely the commonplace expression of a deeper malaise — the ongoing destruction of America by Americans who hold their own narrow self-concern above the broad interests of the country. The American experiment has reached a time when the nation is in decline at home and abroad. Much of the world is fully aware of this. Americans vaguely sense it, but are unwilling or incapable of facing the truth. Instead, what they see and hear, both from the far right and the far left, are uncontrolled outbursts of fear and frustration. 

Conservatives deeply fear that the America they think they remember is being snatched from them — the real Americans — by the others. Ultra-conservative radio and TV hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Glen Beck frighten audiences day in and day out. Right-wing icon Sarah Palin lay down the parameters of this viewpoint in a speech more than two years ago when she praised small towns and the presumed politically conservative religious fundamentalists and gun owners who live in them as "the real America."

Liberals are no less honestly frightened that conservatives want to drag the nation back to a darker, more debased time. Those on the far left are egged on each day by their own lineup of talk-show hosts, among them the provocative Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and Keith Olbermann, who recently left the network. While they do not encourage listeners to take up arms, they are divisive.

Those on the right who decry Obama as a “Socialist” and a “Nazi” are no less enraged by his policies than were liberal opponents who dismissed former President George W. Bush as a “village idiot” and “war monger.”

Conservatives and liberals have good reason to be afraid. But neither knows what to do other than to scream at each other. Some lash out in physical violence. If Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was too addled to adhere to a clear political ideology, there can be little doubt that the Wild West atmosphere of Arizona, with its wide-open gun-carrying laws and strong anti-immigrant legislation encouraged his actions.

All of this is depressingly predictable. Far less certain is what, if anything, can anyone do to pull Americans back from the precipice. There are few signs that elected representatives are sufficiently courageous to stand up to the extremists on either half of the divide — to lead. Leadership in today’s America would require politicians to reject narrow partisan demands for the sake of compromises that serve the interests of national unity. But, cowards and power-seekers, most politicians support the views of the “base” of their parties: the most active in funding absurdly overspent campaigns and getting them re-elected. On the far right, this means “starving the beast” of government through tax-reduction and on the far left, endlessly increasing unaffordable “entitlements.” When President Obama attempts to bridge the gap, both sides condemn him.

If the United States is to regain the elements of national life that people around the world long admired and sought to emulate, the solution must lie between these warring extremes. The vast majority of Americans in the broad center of politics and human values must, at long last, stand up and demand that their leaders halt the drive to the abyss. Now. 

This appeal is to those who, for reasons that shift with the times, opt to hang back while the extremes dominate public debate and action. This so-called silent majority today comprises those preoccupied or ambivalent about the great issues of the day: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries; the needs of 46 million Americans — 15 percent of the population — without health insurance.

In November 1969, President Richard M. Nixon popularized the term when he called on “the great silent majority of my fellow Americans” to support US objectives in Vietnam. He appealed to middle-class whites who consciously avoided angry street demonstrations against the war that fragmented the nation. Nixon’s speech succeeded in rallying support, suggesting North Vietnam could not defeat the United States, “Only Americans can do that…”

Americans are as divided now as they were in 1969. Today, however, the separating factors are more numerous and further beyond US control. Most troubling in this prolonged economic crisis is persistent unemployment. In the 1960s and 1970s, Americans felt threatened by the Soviet Union’s armed power, yet little justifiable worry about their economic clout.

Today there is China.

As made clear during the US-China summit at the White House between Obama and President Hu Jintao, China is rapidly eroding America’s economic preeminence. 

The great irony is not that China is moving up despite America, but because of America. US policies have handed over US jobs to China. Individually, Americans rely on cheap Chinese goods to feed out-of-control spending habits. And, as a government, the US relies on Chinese lending for the same reason.

In the State of the Union speech, Obama challenged Americans to “out-innovate, out-educate and out-build” China and other fast-rising nations. Unfortunately, he stopped short of daring them to cut back their reliance on foreign imports and credit.

The deafening silence of the majority must end. The future of the United States lies not with those on the fringes, but with its greatest source of strength — the center. Thinking Americans must rise to the challenge, or be complicit in hastening the day when the American dream becomes a nightmare.