The United States of America, the greatest nation in the history of humanity, is no longer one country. Oh, we're still one country in the governmental sense; we all still send our representatives to the same place, we all vote for the same presidential candidates, we all live under the same Constitution.
But we're not united. Not completely. On this day, with a historic peace deal signed in the Middle East, a deal that has the potential to reshape that troubled region (if it holds), the nation whose leader was the primary architect of that deal is troubled by serious divisions. These divisions are political, they are social, they are ideological, and they may be irreconcilable.
A recent, thought-provoking piece by Joel Kotkin at City Journal lays out some interesting insights.
The late Charlie Kirk may have been best known for his conservative politics, but those politics also resonated with traditional values, religious faith, and family life—one side of a critical divide in our society. Life and value choices, even more than ideology, increasingly define how people vote, what they believe, and where they live.
For years, the United States has been evolving into two different countries. One is dominated by often childless, urban renters, many of them college graduates or poor minorities. This America is concentrated in core cities and college towns.
The other America exists in an almost parallel universe—largely suburban, exurban, small town, and rural—but where family, faith, and children constitute the common threads of everyday life. This America was receptive to Kirk’s traditionalist message.
The question this provokes is an alarming one: How much longer can these two disparate views of America co-exist as one nation?
A nation is a "large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own." That's a pretty good definition. There is an argument to be made, though, that while the United States remains "associated with a particular territory," we are growing away from being "...sufficiently conscious of its unity." The thing is, we are not united, and the two primary sides are growing apart. Mr. Kotkin puts it this way:
The first America has become a haven for a significant number of postmodernist progressives who largely reject the customary pillars of society such as religion, marriage, and family. Theirs is not a rebellion of peasants and laborers, as occurred from medieval times and on through the early progressive era, but instead an uprising mostly of the urban professional classes.
And then, the other side:
Charlie Kirk, a young married man with two kids, epitomized a very different vision—one that appeals to young men, who appear to have become somewhat more socially conservative (and not just in the U.S.). The Right’s recent gains among men extend across ethnicities. Married women have also shifted rightward—and become happier.
The divide between the two Americas on marriage, family, and religion has profound political implications. Democrats fare best in places that have far fewer children. Conservatives dominate rural, exurban, and small-town environments, where people are far more likely to embrace both religion and childrearing. As big-city birth rates plunge, the highest rates are now found in markets with fewer than 250,000 residents, according to an analysis of American Community Survey data by demographer Wendell Cox.
This is where the traditional values adherents, mostly to the right of center, have a huge advantage. As the saying goes, the future belongs to those who show up for it, and the political left, the neoliberals, the socialists, seem to be opting out. But they have control of the school systems, from K-12 through postgraduate studies, and they are using these as indoctrination camps. And, we are forced to admit, many of the young generations from the traditional-values side of things attend these schools, particularly the universities, and a number greater than zero are converted, assimilated, absorbed into the ranks of the socialist left.
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We could possibly overcome these divides. We are, after all, somewhat dependent on each other, and one would be inclined to think that the major urban areas are more heavily reliant on the outlying communities: For food, for water, for electricity, for most manufactured goods. The problem with a modern major city is that it could be starved into submission in a matter of weeks, simply by cutting the supplies of foodstuffs and water into the city. It wouldn't even have to be cut off completely; 50 percent would do.
It isn't the right, though, in those outlying areas, that are becoming increasingly accepting of violence in the name of politics. A Network Contagion Research Institute survey, done last April, revealed that 55 percent of left-of-center respondents agreed that it was "at least somewhat justified" to assassinate President Donald Trump. 48 percent said the same for Elon Musk. Roughly 15 percent replied that the assassination of President Trump was "completely justified."
A quick look at a 2024 presidential election map, by precinct, paints a vivid picture: President Trump overwhelmingly won the rural areas, suburbs, and exurbs. Kamala Harris carried the cities. This is another sign of this growing divide.
Can this gap be bridged? If so, how? I would posit it this way: When one side is increasingly in favor of violence to further a political agenda - in a word, terrorism - then we're probably past the point where reconciliation is possible, unless that reconciliation is imposed by more powerful forces. (See: Gaza.) But what the increasingly-violent left doesn't seem to understand is that their side isn't the side with the self-reliance, the skills, the abilities, and the experience to survive without the other side; the right is.
And, more to the point, the right owns the vast majority of the privately-owned firearms in the country.
Let's hope it never comes to this. But a quick look at events in places like Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, well, it's not too encouraging. And New York City is poised to elect a socialist mayor. That won't end well for the Big Apple.
We do live in interesting times. Let's just hope this is no more than the turning of the corner, from "weak people make hard times" to the "hard times make tough people" phase.
