Sunday thought: The problem ISN'T that we're "divided and polarized".
Posted by Sia on May 24, 2026, 8:31 am ADMIN
Sunday thought: The problem ISN'T that we're "divided and polarized".
A Reflection on Memorial Day
Robert Reich - May 24
Friends,
I keep hearing that one of America’s biggest problems is we’re “divided and polarized.” For example, New York Times columnist David French: “We’ve known for a long time that America is deeply polarized, and we’ve known the problem is only getting worse.”
This is bullsh*t. The problem is not that we’re divided and polarized.
The problem is that a significant portion of America is buying Trump’s violent, hateful, lawless crap. Some of those buying it are white supremacists. Others are conservative fundamentalist Christians. Others are xenophobic nationalists.
I feel compassion for those who’ve been seduced into supporting Trump after being brutalized and mistreated for years by employers, big corporations, Wall Street, and America’s oligarchs. As I warned 32 years ago, widening inequalities of wealth, income, and opportunity would eventually persuade some on the losing side to support a demagogue.
But an explanation for why some of Trump’s followers have bought into his neofascism isn’t a justification for them to do so. And it’s certainly no reason for us to put aside our differences and compromise with them.
As you undoubtedly know, Trump has created a violent police state inside America. He is conducting an illegal war abroad. He has usurped the powers of Congress and defied court orders. He is taking bribes. He’s criminally prosecuting his enemies and pardoning his criminal supporters (he has even set up a slush fund to compensate them). He has gotten his Justice Department to immunize him and his family from any future tax audits. He is silencing critics. He is fomenting racism and bigotry.
None of us should fall for the false equivalency between this, and opposition to it. The contest today is not between “right” and “left,” as the two sides have traditionally been understood in America. It’s not even between “Republicans” and “Democrats,” as we’ve defined the two major parties over most of the past century.
No, the contest today is between democracy and authoritarianism. It’s between tolerance and bigotry. Between a multiracial, secular, inclusive society and one that believes in white Christian nationalism. Between the rule of law and neofascism.
The two sides in this contest do not merit equal weight. If we are going to have a decent society, the nation must come down on the former side.
As long as Trump has followers who support his bigotry, racism, corruption, and violence, the nation will remain divided and polarized. That is necessary and proper.
We shouldn’t “reach out, or “meet halfway,” or “find middle ground,” or “split the difference,” or any other of today’s hackneyed expressions for putting aside what divides us and agreeing.
Generations of Americans fought and died for the ideals of democracy, freedom, social justice, the rule of law, and equal opportunity. We have never fully achieved them, but they remain our ideals. Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day to honor those ideals and the memories of those who died for them.
There cannot be, must not be, any compromise with neofascism.
The party of division wants us to think we're divided and polarized
More than a million Americans died in surrender of their last and greatest full measure of devotion, to protect and preserve freedom we too often take for granted. That freedom is under assault once again, but this time from internal threat that neither understands nor respects the right to be free. That means the right to choose.
Limitation of our right to choose comes from leadership and spreads like a plague from courts into legislation and a citizenry deeply concerned about choices made by people with whom they disagree. They have a right to disagree with me. They do not have the right to choose for me. One Memorial Day is not enough.You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
is an effort to keep us 50/50. I've seen it time and again; when one side starts pulling ahead, say Democrats, then CNN will do a bit making Rs look better. When Rs are leading in the polls, FOX has a progressive point of view, suddenly, momentarily.
It appears choreographed. All that really matters is what the Oligarchs pay them to say.
No more letting the DNC choose our candidates for public office. They're not good at it.
Trump IS the divider he falsely claimed Obama had been. Of course Obama tries to unite people. He just pissed off peanut-brain. SAY ‘NO’ TO WAR! RESIST!
His entire point was that the GOP side is flat out wrong and
media attempts to normalize MAGA and suggest there is an equality of valid viewpoints is pure bullsh!t. Treating trump and crew as simply having a different, but valid view IS the problem. NOT that we're divided.
The media has been groomed to look for merit on both sides and to present each view as being equally valid. So the MSM does that even with trump, which is FLAT OUT WRONG.
There is NO validity to trump's agenda or MAGAts. They are NOT traditional Republicans who simply see the solutions to commonly accepted issues from a different POV, which IS a valid pposition. You know, potato/potahto.
They are now a cult that doesn't even begin to present legitimate solutions to actual issues. They don't even recognize the insanity of their entire POV where racism, misogyny, hatred, lawlessness, illegitimate pardons, ignorance in government, religious based laws, demolition of the DOJ & civil government etc. are their right to promote and everyone else is an object of scorn to ridicule, attack, lie about, or prosecute based on the whims of a demented dictator wannabe.
So that is the crux of this topic. Not the always existing routine divisions between sides. They have added pure hatred and lawlessness to that mix and turned political opponents into enemies of the state.
on May 24, 2026, 8:31 am
