Has our nation always been this divided?

During the 2000 election, my eyes were opened. I have since become a political junkie and am on DU all the time. I am aware of what the rw and media have done to Clinton, but before that, were we so divided? It seems to be your side or mine. My way or the highway. Has there ever been an administration that had the support of both parties? I apologize ahead of time for this seemingly naive post. Just want to know what other DUers think. :)

was in the decade leading up to the Civil War. It's fully possible we're on the road to an equivalent crisis.

Churches were used at that time, too, to espouse extreme causes. The "Beecher Bibles" (guns sent to Kansas in boxes marked Bibles and used in the Border War) springs to mind.

the division is profound. Equally (maybe more?) important is that more and more people are speaking of violence as a foregone conclusion.

Such things advance by degrees, the pressure building, until some (ahem) trigger event occurs. At that juncture, bad things happen and the situation spirals out of control.

I think we will see that come to pass - possibly soon. And I hope with ever fiber of my being that I'm wrong.

...I think that there have always been differences of opinion but I think that it is more divisive now than it was then. I think that maybe it started with Reagan, letting the fundies, evangelicals and neocons out of the woodwork. I think that fractured things a lot more.

and I never saw it so divided. When Nixon was being impeached it was very upsetting but not this bad.

I lived through the Vietnam years, and while it was divided, I don't think it was that bad.

My mom is a lifelong Republican in her 70's who hates Bush. She is also a former schoolteacher with extensive ties to the community where she lives in N. Fort Worth. She has been going to the same Baptist Church for 40 years. She's stopped going because members of her Sunday school class say nasty things to her about her political beliefs. The right wing is using these churches to demonize the Democrats, and she's never seen this before. She considers it the most dangerous thing she's seen in her long lifetime. She's sad, angry and confused.

They are deliberately speaking the language of hate to demonize everyone that disagrees with them. They do this with other countries, in the Congress with their enemies.

It's an infection of the entire body politic, this hatred.

Grover Norquist said that bipartisanship was like date rape.

They don't want compromise or fairness. They want unilateral, unquestioned control. And they destroy anyone or anything who gets in the way.

influence in politics.

He can't keep his mouth shut about all the evil plans he and his fellow GOPpers have cooked up, but it just really doesn't matter because nobody pays attention anyways.

_____ Yes

_____ No

pretty badly too. She's the local treasurer.

n/t

Something that will come back to haunt them, I hope. Using the hate and fear of some Americans against other Americans to win elections is one of the most disgusting political strategies of all time. The politics of division, fear and hate. Truly a page out of the Nazi campaign manual.

I keep wondering when America will wake up and reject these appeals to their baser nature...but I'm not holding my breathe.

Looking on the bright side, however, now that they are using Gay marriage, what is there left beyond that? They keep running on hate, and winning elections, but society keeps moving in a progressive direction, in an historic sense. Eventually, the Supreme Court will decide in favor of Gays...and then what? Even this issue has'nt galvanized much support for the GOP. I think it has fallen flat with most Americans. All the problems we have, and you want me to vote for you because you don't like Gays? Is that all you got? Give me a break!

But to answer your question, yes, this administration is the most recent one to enjoy the support of both parties...after 911, and they blew it for personal gain.

The country always unites when there is percieved peril...which is why Bushco wants to run as a 'wartime president'.

Bush and "The War on Terror" are no longer one in the same.

here and there around the world, there probably would'nt even be a 'War on Terrorism'...because there would be no terrorists.

We have troops in 120 out of 194 nations on this planet...now I wonder why we are sometimes hated?

And usually, the only reason our forces are in place, is to bodyguard American corporate interests-against the interests of the people living there! And it does'nt help our people much either, IMHO.

am not sure that I an articulate it very well, but in the 50's and 60's (and even before) the white power structure divided and conquered the white folks and the black folks. The folks we deride as rednecks in the South actually had more in common with black folks than they did the Bourbons who ran the State. So they set about making sure that those two groups didn't unite agains the aristocrats.

Fast forward to 1980 and Philadelphia MS. Sixteen miles and 17 years from the place where three civil rights workers were brutally murdered, Ronald Reagan came to the Neshoba County Fair and told the gathered that he was for state's rights. Reagan sent a signal through coded language to all reactionaries in the South that he was for them. Haley Barbour, now governor of Mississippi, was the one responsible for getting Reagan down to Mississippi, I believe.

Anyway, Reagan came down South to undercut Carter's support for President. Remember, in 1976 the South went for Carter and Reagan used the tried and true method of dividing and conquering the folks in the South.

Also in 1980, you saw the rise of the moral majority with Falwell and others. The Republicans developed a strategy of finding the wedge issues and using the blue collar and fundy churches to get the message out to support Reagan.

Anyway, that's how we are divided, in my opinion.

I am no political scientist, but if someone wants to either correct anything I have said or amplify it. Go to it.

I have a friend in her sixties and she says this is the most divided we have ever been.

The sad thing is that people like Colin Powell and Condi Rice only help the Republicans continue to divided this country along racial lines. I ain't got much use for them.

If we were to have a civil war? Any suggestions or reasons for choice?

(44 and thinking retirement...uh I mean second career)

1850's?

I started another thread regarding this. This article addresses your question, maybe not on how long we've been divided, but on how divided.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28755-2004Mar27?language=printer

The difference in the past is that Liberal were united back in the 60s and served as a balancing force against conservatives. As the Liberal party lost power and gave in to business influences, the deterrences were also lost. The raping of America has become the norm.

okay 47. I've never seen it this bad. I've been run off the road for having a Green Party sticker on my car in 2003, right before we as a nation started dropping bombs on Iraq.

A great book that will surpise you at how well it describes today's
issues written 100 years ago by jack london "the iron heel". After
reading that, i have no doubt that we've been fighting this battle
for centuries, and even now, have not even come as far as the
american-french revolution.

throughout its history. The difference today is that it is divided into relatively equal "sides" with democrats and republicans each representing about 25% of the adult population. Add to each side another 7% of left and right wing peoples, and you are at 32% each side. That leaves slightly more than 1/3rd the population, who are disenfranchised, do not care, ignorant, or who have fleeting poltical concerns. In the past, there were serious divisions, but the "sides" were rarely equal in size. Add to this the "instant communications" and the number of issues that the left & right wings are opposed on, and it seems greater than in the past.

During this phase, the divide has grown significantly since Reagan's election. The Republican cross-breeding with the religious right has been the most divisive force. Most hard core Repugs are on a crusade and it's religious in one form or another. That doesn't make for comity or comedy.

out there like Fox and talk radio and years of saturation. Also, it's preventing the people from having any overall views of world affairs.

...and Mass Media in general, makes just about everyone aware of how divided we really are.

Before we were limited to our immediate neighbors, co-workers, family, radio and newspapers. So every nasty Conservative act didn't make it to our door. Now every stinking aggregious law, lie and policy make sit into our head; Into almost everyone's head it seems.

So the answer is bothe Yes and No.

The basic conflict has always been there but only recently has everyone (Not allbut much more than ever before) been made aware of it.

what varies is the level of civility displayed. we seem to be moving into less civil times unfortunately.

1861-1865. Thems were some uncivil times.

but I was referring to the general tone of public discourse.

I remember the Vietnam war protests, Kent State etc.. but I didn't feel the hatred between opposing sides that I feel now.

The divisiveness then was bad, but there are some differences now.

The use of religion as a political tool is something new. It started with Jerry Falwell and his type - they got Reagan elected in 1980 and they've been on a roll ever since. Electing W was a huge gain for them, but they aren't nearly done with their plans yet. They want to recreate the country in an evangelical Christian model. They hate most of what the Constitution says. The Christian Right in the U.S. is very similar to the Taliban in their beliefs.

The other difference is that the "news" media are currently a disgrace. They don't report the news - they manufacture entertainment and spin. It's disgusting. We desperately need an independent press again in this country.

If America is to stay free, we've got to get the Church folks to wake up. Most of the people are voting against their own economic interests by voting for Republicans; however, abortion, guns and the doggone Pledge of Allegiance seem to work fine to keep their eyes off the economic and healthcare prize.

It's really sad. They're going to hurt a lot by having corporatists taking over the White House and hijacking their religion. Jesus wouldn't be too happy with what the folks in power are doing in his name.

The "moneychangers in the Temple" come to mind......

I have been reading Marx lately. He says as capitalist society goes forward, the lines between capitalists and workers become more defined, and things become more polarized. He also says culture is borne out of the economy, although many "Marxists" began feeling culture had more autonomy than they had thought beforehand after World War II - they still see culture coming out of the relations of the economy more than most people though.

Anyhow, how good of an analyst and prognosticator he was is subject to debate. There has been a shift in the US economy from the early 1970's to present period from the mid 1940's to late 1960's period however. In the earlier period, there was large economic growth every year, which was shared across all income levels. In the latter period, growth has been slow, with the top quintile gaining enormously, and the lower quintiles actually losing

I too belong to a church where left of center is not the norm-there is a deep seeded antagonism for the left-these are good people all be it so wrong politically-I think things really got so bad in the Clinton era-i didn't appreciate his personal conduct but was shocked at the way it was mined and exposed at such costs to our institutions-the whole impeachment ken Starr fiasco made me confident that the GOP couldn't beat him in the election or ideas so they took him down personally-it reminded me of ancient roman senate prosecutions that heralded the fall of the republic-there are very few throw back republicans who can disagree but remain civil-i really don't know where we are headed-but one thing is for sure-we democrats need to win the presidency in 2004 if the country has any chance of undoing the last 4 years.

source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0327-11.htm


<snip>

The political atmosphere in Washington, D.C., changed dramatically after Bush took office, said Rockefeller, who has served in the Senate since 1985. “Republicans fell totally in line since Bush came into office. They have a loyalty I have never seen before.

“They are true believers. It started with Newt Gingrich in 1994. Nothing gets in their way. Facts don’t get in their way.

“And three chairmen of major committees were told by Dick Cheney not to investigate anything in the administration.”

<snip>


Rockefeller also made 2 devastating points about what bush has done to the country ... he said that "Bush administration tax cuts could put the nation in a deficit for the next 50 years." ... he also said that "only about five percent of the insurgents in Iraq are coming across the borders into the country. Most of them are homegrown.”

The Solid South had no Republican Party in it for 50 years. That's pretty divided at least there.

The conservowacks have always been mad, seen themselves as the put-upon underdogs who are the 'real' Americans. They were united in their hatred of Bill Clinton, and this resulted in their victories in Congress in 1994 and the eventual impeachment of Clinton.

Since 2000, the liberal side has been equally angry and equally united. The two political bases despise each other.

This is in current time, and I don't think it's quite possible to compare previous eras, because of the speed of the newscycle, the immediacy of the coverage, the blanket-like character of the coverage, and the work we've had to do to expose the whorish nature of the corporate media because of concentration of ownership like we've never seen before.

If there are any parallels in history to this time, the are foreign, and unmentionable for fear of being branded an extremist conspiracy nut wackjob. JMHO.

Colin Powell and Condi Rice don't have a large fan base in the Balck Community. In fact, most view them as sell outs.

The devide is real polarized due to the RW Christian & Neocon takeover of the Republican Party. Most Paleo-Conservatives disdain Bushco.

You guys probably aren't old enough to remember. Families were torn apart by it.

It's hard to believe this is the "United" States of America.

You know, I can't even possibly imagine four more years of bu$h - I really can't even imagine it.

"Don't make a move or the chimp gets it"

haves v. have-nots, with a few people sprinkled out of context

I`ve always been aware to a certain degree of politics.What really turned me was the 2000 election.I do however remember I cried the day they impeached Clinton.It was mainly because I saw all chances of any good Clinton could have done additionally wasted.I saw how that whole deal ruined basically everyone it touched.Republican and Democrat.I think I knew at that time our country and the relations between the parties were going to be at each other throats for generations to come.
After 2000 debacle though I became active.I volunteered for campaigns.I was more likely to vote straight ticket from dog catcher on up .
I was very very pissed off.The thought of another repuke pres to elect more zealots to the court system just made my head want to implode.
I really think the repukes thought we were going to take all this.I`m glad Dean came along and showed.Yeah liberals can get pissed off too.In your face kind of pissed off.
I feel dems tried to have intellectual discourse with repukes and keeping it on a policy based not personality based forum.For years this doesn't work.The lies ,hatred,and down right dirty tricks have been very effective for the repukes.Doing the right thing and knowing you have the best interest for the country doesn't seem to work anymore either.It seems who can come up with the basest most lethal lie and make it stick is the key to winning elections.Repukes are in the minority .By over 20 million voters.Its time to call them on the carpet and play the game back harder nastier and more ruthless.At least we all know right is on our side.