It is no secret that we, in America, are as divided as we have ever been since the civil war. We may already be in another civil war. The next few months will show us whether all the FBI alerts for domestic terrorism are backed by serious people rather than people more like Trump, all talk. The great partisan divide will continue nevertheless until we address the issues that have created this gap.
It has taken us several decades to find ourselves on the two sides of this great divide. We will not close this gap overnight. Even if we act with the same determination and vision as when building the interstate highway system, it will likely take a decade or more. If we wait to start, however, the chasm will continue to grow until real shooting in the streets finally breaks out.
Four of the last 5 Presidents (Biden, Obama, Bush, and Clinton) ran for office promising to bring us together. The divide was greater at the end of each administration than at its beginning (Obama, Bush, Clinton). Obviously, none of these men seriously knew how to bring us together because they all have the same idea of what “bringing us together” is: Asking the other side to help and then further shutting them out when they don’t. This kind of action only addresses the symptom not the cause(s). Trump isn’t mentioned here because he was out there with a wedge and a sledgehammer willfully making the divide worse.
This division we are experiencing is a complex thing. I am sure I do not know more than a few causes out of many. The white majority has been declining since the 1960’s. By 2045 whites will officially no longer be more that 50% of the population. That cause of division cannot be changed. To do #1 (see list in picture), addresses a symptom. To do #2 (see list in picture) addresses our divide at the causal level. Here are a few more things we need to do to begin to heal the soul of this nation.
Redistricting
Redistricting is a process that takes place every ten years following the national census whereby each individual state reapportions their congressional districts based on its new population figures. Population increases in some places and decreases in others. That determines the number of representatives that get elected and sent to Washington from each state. State legislatures have been gerrymandering legislative districts since the word ‘gerrymander’ was coined in the early 1800’s. Gerrymandering is drawing congressional district lines to produce a permanent majority of representatives from the ruling party at both the state and federal level. In over 260 of the 435 congressional contests every two years, candidates run unopposed by someone from the other party, the result of gerrymandering. In these districts the primary decides who wins the election. In left candidate only districts the array of candidates covers the spectrum from liberal to communist and in right candidate only districts the gamut is from conservative to fascist. In both instances the primary candidate needs to be balanced between moderate and radical, not between conservative and liberal. Unopposed liberals position themselves further to the left to get elected, unopposed conservative candidates to the right. This tends to eliminate moderate candidates and skew the politics toward the radical over time. This serves to further widen the gap by allowing elected representatives to pick their constituents, exactly opposite of what it should be.
In 2010 the Republicans captured 32 state governments and proceeded to gerrymander themselves into a permanent majority. There have been a number of lawsuits launched and decided on this topic. According to Common Cause nine states have instituted ‘non-partisan’ boards to manage redistricting. In the remaining 41 states the party in charge does the redistricting. Partisan redistricting only divides us further. This problem must be solved if we are to begin to heal the rift in America.
The Fairness Act
Prior to 1987 the FCC in regulated news programming using the Fairness Doctrine which required TV and radio broadcasters to give equal time to all sides of a political or social issue. In 1987 congress tried to put that requirement into law. President Reagan vetoed the bill. Since the doctrine did not apply to cable TV, when Fox News came along in the 90’s, there was no such requirement. They didn’t provide equal time for all sides. Other news outlets followed their lead.
Now the public could get ‘news’ that only expressed their point of view. As a result we began to silo into one camp or another. The news, just like our districts, in order to reach more and more viewers on their end of the political spectrum, needed to position themselves further from the center widening the divide.
If we enact a Fairness Act that requires ALL purveyors of news to provide equal time for all sides of any issue, once again news from the other end of the political spectrum will get into each news silo, each information bubble. Hearing all sides of an issue tends to moderate one’s position. This will reduce the gap further.
Anonymity/Transparency
Anonymity is rarely used for positive or charitable purposes. Remaining anonymous is generally associated with hiding while doing something illegal, immoral, or downright despicable.
Being anonymous covers the wide spectrum from posting fake photos on a dating app to Russians anonymously running radically different political sites to whip up anger, fear, and animosity for ‘the other side’ and further divide us. Between ‘fake dating pics’ and fake sites designed to divide are internet trolls, buying and selling guns illegally, human trafficking, child porn, phishing for personal IDs, cyber bullying, blaming innocent people for things they did not do, moneyed interests avoiding taxes or influencing an election with misleading ads and commercials… This anonymity is another wedge dividing us. It is an enormous factor in our distrust of one another.
The opposite of anonymity is transparency. In order to bring us closer together we need to dismantle anonymity and build transparency. Here are a number of things we can do to reduce opacity and increase clarity.
All charities and super PACs should be required to disclose all donors. All websites, Facebook accounts, Twitter (including bots) accounts should be accompanied by a real picture and name of the person responsible for its operation. All corporate entities should list names of real people who operate them. If they are owned by other corporations (i.e., shell companies), they should be traceable back to the originators, officers, participants.
Let’s make GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) spend some of the billions they have accumulated in profits during this pandemic to make sure no one on any of their platforms is anonymous. While we’re at it lets include the new titans: Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Parler, etc. The owner/operator/account holder’s actual picture, name, and state (or country of origin) should appear on every page of each and every one of their accounts. Every post should be accompanied with this same information. “Q” would have to reveal himself/herself.
This is not a breach of our right to free speech. You may still say whatever you want to say any time you want to say it, but now, you would have to be responsible for the utterance and deal with the consequences.
All these things will help knit us back together. By fixing redistricting we increase the power of the voter to change what is wrong. By enacting fairness in news media we more completely inform voters to aid them in choosing representatives. By erasing anonymity we ferret out wrong doing, shady dealing, and misinformation making it easier to see what is really happening around us. All these things will allow us to really see each other better. That’s a good thing, right?