Ripped Apart

Two extremes now rip apart our country. Each fuels the other in a deadly symbiosis, providing the other with its perfect boogeyman, without which it would deflate to impotence.

But we are not as safe as this comic view suggests. While each side fuels the other, they will grow stronger, each transforming into something quite like the specter that the other side had feared.

While dangerous, this dynamic has a double weakness. Neuter either side and the other will lose its source of power. This would be a simple task if both sides were not blinded to this weakness. Instead, both are transfixed by the boogeyman projected by the other side. Attacking that non-existent creature only convinces one’s opponents you dangerously mad, adding to the vicious cycle.

The way to break this feud is only obvious from the outside. The Hatfields can’t stop it by attacking the McCoys, neither can the McCoys stop it be attacking the Hatfields. The only hope is for one or both sides to hold back. But what could be more frightening? This calls for real courage, but not foolhardiness. To stop attacking does not mean to stop defending.

Having always been on the “left,” in the sense of MLK, not Robespierre, my job is to expose our extreme for its ever-so-well-intentioned tendencies toward societal suicide. No revolution leads to the promised land. No lesson of political history is more ancient or more oft forgotten.