The divide tearing America apart just hit a new extreme: conservative

The word "polarization" was being used to describe the United States' political environment long before Donald Trump launched the MAGA movement with his 2016 campaign. During the 2004 presidential election, quite a few political journalists stressed that liberal and progressive urban Americans and rural Republicans were living in two different worlds. And 12 years before that, during his 1992 presidential campaign, paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan (a major influence on Trump and MAGA) said the U.S. was in the middle of a "culture war."

But Never Trump conservative David French, in his March 15 column for the New York Times, argues that the United States' political polarization is entering an even more dangerous phase than before.

"Does anyone think a healthy nation with a healthy political culture would elect a man like Donald Trump not once, but twice?," French comments. "The eternal return of President Trump is a sign of our national sickness, and a recent Pew Research Center study shows us exactly what that sickness is. We despise each other, and demagogues rise when hatred increases. It's as predictable as night following day."

French continues, "In a 25-country survey, which included a cross section of European, Asian, African and American nations, the United States was the only country in which a majority of adults surveyed said that the morality and ethics of their fellow citizens were either bad or somewhat bad. Even countries torn apart by violence and civil strife — countries such as Nigeria and Mexico — had higher views of their fellow citizens."

Big chunks of the U.S. population, French warns, don't review their political opponents as the loyal opposition — they see them as flat-out evil.

"If you're a Republican or a Democrat," French argues, "the best way to imagine the other side's view of you is to simply mirror your own attitude. They despise you with the same intensity that you despise them. They view you with the same sense of threat and alarm that you view them…. American hatred is growing so great that partisans, perversely enough, often view kindness and tolerance from political opponents as a threat…. Civility itself is a questionable value. It's a version of 'respectability politics' when the times call for direct, aggressive action against your evil political opponents. This approach is profoundly dangerous to our republic."

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