Reconciling "Us" vs "Them"
“Us versus them” seems like such a timeworn notion. It smacks of paranoia and the embrace of conspiracy theories. It has been used as a sweeping diagnosis of all our societal ills. Nonetheless it may be time to identify the real “them” and the real “us” and define the ongoing struggle between the two.
After Barack Obama’s victory in 2012, a small but powerful minority realized that we were headed toward something frighteningly close to the democracy our founding fathers had crafted for us. Government of the people, by the people and for the people seemed to be once again rearing its ugly head. We had reached a tipping point that was for the wealthy few a call to arms. They got off their well padded asses and organized like never before.
The idea of universal suffrage was problematic because their clique was getting smaller and the unwashed masses were growing in numbers. The apportionment of Senate seats and the Electoral College notwithstanding, everyone had the same vote and that was a danger. Until democracy itself could be defeated, they had to convince large numbers of potential voters to politically align themselves with their social superiors. At the same time they had to put up electoral roadblocks for people they could not influence.
Fortunately for the titans of greed, many of the voters they needed to harvest were incurious, fearful and oblivious to facts. Once they had identified the vulnerabilities of their political prey they could target specific groups with ideological messages tailored like pathogens for specific host receptors. Racism, tribalism, evangelical fervor, financial anxiety and America’s love affair with firearms were fertile fields to cultivate.
Groups like the Koch Brothers network poured some of their largely inherited fortunes into thinly disguised institutions designed to preserve their wealth and enhance the power derived from that wealth. They targeted all levels of government from local to national. They cultivated a judiciary amenable to ruling in favor of their causes and those of the tribes they had enlisted to carry their water to those inconvenient polls.
Acceptance of gay marriage or sensible controls on possession and use of the most lethal weapons were not contrary to their need to amass wealth. They were just the wedges they would use to divide the herd into manageable groups who would vote with them against their own best interests.
Everything was riding on the 2016 election and they were taking no chances. Another term or two of a Democratic presidency would undo all the scheming and subterfuge they had worked so hard on for four years. Putting any real Democrat in the White House risked taking America to the place Obama had led us toward. Early on, they banked on a return to the Bush Dynasty and the money poured into Jeb’s coffers.
The apparent joke candidacy of one Donald J. Trump was met with appropriate skepticism and ridicule. It was unlikely that an obese, amoral clown with bad hair had anything like a prayer. He was the biggest Bozo in the clown car. He had turned his substantial inheritance into a mountain of debt, a tainted brand and a reality TV show. Nonetheless, prominent Republicans felt the need to speak out in firm and concerted opposition to a candidacy that would do their party no good. Trump lacked sufficient wealth to get past the oligarchs’ membership committee. He was potentially a party killing embarrassment. Never Trump” was a safe square to find yourself on, but never doesn’t always mean never.
Trump ran the primary table thanks to what we now know was substantial assistance from Vladimir Putin, a despot in the market for a useful idiot. The idiot part was a given but how useful he would be was yet to be seen. If Putin’s intent was to divide what was then the somewhat United States and foment chaos, his choice was masterful. The general election campaign itself was a very painful dismemberment of civil American society.
Once Trump had secured the nomination, the Never Trumpers faced the reality that it was the election of a completely unfit president or the acceptance that democracy would ultimately be, well, democratic. His victory was unlikely but not impossible. Republicans and their privileged sponsors began to see his redeeming features. He was not an intellectual ideologue and could be easily molded to their purposes with liberal application of ego balm. If he was elected, he would go with their corrupt team roster and judicial draft picks.
Trump could easily be persuaded to destroy institutions that had been the firewalls of democracy. He was peddling a variety of snake oil that contained most of their preferred ingredients: racism, tax cuts, deregulation, closed borders, intolerance, xenophobia and homophobia. Anything Obama had accomplished is his eight years was automatically a target for Trump’s wrecking ball. Areas where government could be beneficial for the general population were to be kindling for the bonfire of tax cuts.
We may never know the full impact of the Russian assault on our electoral process but undoubtedly it was effective. Many Trump voters were persuaded by the Russian misinformation campaign that there was something inherently evil about the only qualified candidate in the race. They were convinced that someone who managed to bleed a billion dollars in red ink in one year was a successful businessman. I have reluctantly talked to some of these people. They aren’t idiots and, except for the ones who bought into Trump’s most hateful messages, they are decent people. They are more “us” than “them” even if they don’t realize it.
We don’t know what the future holds for any of us. Unless Trump’s reign of error ends on its expiration date or sooner, we may all be joining our political opposites in the unemployment lines, bread lines or whatever nightmarish lines the overlords of excess plan for us.
If we come out this with our country intact, we have to once again be the United States. As long as we are seventy percent us and thirty percent them, American greatness will always be in the rear view mirror. We have problems that can only be solved with a national sense of purpose and values we all share. Unless you park your mega yacht next to that of a Russian oligarch or rub elbows with one of them at Gucci’s in a Mediterranean port, your values are more likely those of us than of them.
I don’t want to leave my children and grandchildren a divided nation and a dying planet. I pledge to engage reasonable people I disagree with in hope that someday we will all be “us” and the real “them” will be forever out of power.
