In the United States of America today, one can turn on the T.V and seemingly within seconds of changing the channel to the news, anchors and guests are talking about the deep and terrible divide among the nation. When debates come to life on this topic, no one debates that the divide exists, but what is the source of this divide? Many argue that it is President Trump, while others argue that it is Republicans in general, and others Democrats in general. This might seem very straight forward question to answer until blame also goes to specifically Liberals, Conservatives, white men, the police, social justice warriors, minorities, illegal immigrants, and on and on and on. So if no one yet everyone is the problem, where do we begin to solve this dire question?

Before beginning, I need to express a few things. For starters, I have kept up with many of the major conflicts, groups, and people “involved” with the American divide due to genuine concern. Because of everything that has come from “The Divide,” foremost the breaking of the law across the country as well as the infringement upon unalienable rights, it’d be an understatement to say that I am a bit ticked off. I ask this question because despite my close tabs and opinion on the issue, I have yet tried to objectively answer the question. Finally, I have a more conservative mindset, meaning that throughout this article if any criticism comes to more progressive ideas and policies, you have been warned. So, let’s begin.

Now if one was to go to Google as I have, and look up “the source of american political division,” there is a very common denominator, President Donald J. Trump. It would be a lie to say that he has not shaken up the political establishment, angered the opposing Democrats, and gets ranging opinions from the American people due to his previous action and language. I have always tried to have a more optimistic view of the President for reasons I expressed earlier, but once again, we cannot deny the facts. And that includes this; Donald Trump has been blamed for just about everything. Is this an exaggeration? Well…

As a more recent example of finger pointing, October 27, 2018, in Pittsburgh, the Tree Of Life Synagogue was attacked leaving eleven dead to an Anti-Semitic shooter. Within the first few days of the shooting, this showed as a major headline in the Washington Post, “Shooting victim’s family shuns President Trump in Pittsburgh as top officials decline to join him.” This might not sound so bad until the reason given is, “And yet President Trump visited this grief-stricken city Tuesday, amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday’s massacre inside a synagogue.” Now other than the fact that his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren is apparently Jewish as well as a Pro-Israel policy within the administration, this reaction to this tragedy sounds absurd due to this tune being played so much by the media with every major and sometimes minor crime and incident. Furthermore, by all accounts, the shooter was crazy, Anti-Trump, and did this all on his own accord. And yet The New York Post, MSNBC, and CNN would then put up articles and/or give airtime to this idea as well as many other tragedies that the President is blamed for by his opposition. So in conclusion to this question, the President has not helped the problem, but as Harvard Graduate, editor n’ chief of the Daily Wire, and conservative critic of the President, Ben Shapiro put it on his show, The Ben Shapiro Show, “Whether you agree with him or not, President Trump is not the beginning and the end of all things good or bad, despite what the media wants you to believe.”

So, if we cannot solely blame the President for all of this ruckus the last two years, how about his opposition? Let’s direct our attention to his Democratic critics and fellow politicians to determine their role in the divide. Well, once again, they haven’t helped, for the most part. Do they grandstand, yes. Do they trade verbal blows with the President and other Republicans, yes. Are they solely responsible for attacks on the people and from the people, no, because then the standards established before would become void. But there is some traction when we get to people like Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who many times have publicly said to her supporters to harass Trump supporters and Republicans. But other than the few blemishes, that's about it. The same goes for his Republican critics and fellow politicians such as Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, who have both publicly traded blows with the President.

Now it would be wrong of me to not mention this before I continue: I am well aware that some Trump supporters have taken it too far with words, protests, violence, etc. But, it is no where close to observations of the American Left and violent opposers of President Donald Trump. Ever since election night in 2016, there has been daily protests over two years later. Within this time we have also seen the rise in groups that over time have become more active and/or more violent, such as Antifa. For example, November 7, 2018, conservative opinion show host, Tucker Carlson, had an Antifa group attack his house, attempting to break in while his wife was home, as they also vandalized his home and threatened his family due to things he’d said on his FOX News show (NBC News). Tucker Carlson isn’t the only one to be attacked: Congressmen and women, Senators, actors, and regular people are yelled out of restaurants and stores due to them being conservative, saying something controversial, or like in George Lopez’s case after he got into fisticuffs with a Trump supporter after being harassed at a Hooters by the supporter, for being liberal (FOX News). With all of these groups, we seem to see an over-reaction from everyone, trying to call out each others problems and BS. So where do we go from here?

At this point in my research, my search for objectivity has lead me to examining the past instead of simply looking at the present. Looking backwards, I can make a new definite opinion: we are over-politicizing just about everything. From aforementioned tragedies to eliminating all of the different “-isms” of the world, we seem to say that it is about politics nowadays. As a reaction to major issues, we now look to politics to be the judge, jury, and executioner on social issues and tragies. We can look back to the 60s and 70s, when before this time, trust in the government hung around the 70% and 80%, with most of the nation feeling that the nation’s logistics and economy would be handled with little to no issue; while social issues were to be changed by the people. So that basically, the government would do it’s thing, the people would do it’s thing in a very symbiotic way.  It was a very black and white situation the nation was in, limiting reliance on the government due to the people having a strong belief that everything could be worked out. But this all changed due to the Vietnam War and Watergate, with the percentage dropping to an average of 30%, and would max out at 60% with President George W. Bush right after 9/11, and bottom out with a shocking 15% with President Obama after the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Which today, the trust percentage sits just above at 18% with President Trump (People-Press). So, what does this have to do with over-politicization?

If the hippie and progressive movement from the 60s was any consolation, the people felt as if they no longer had control of the nation’s government, and that personal goals and improper morals had come in the way of proper governing, and that the lives people had been placed on the back burner. Despite the rising and falling of public opinion of the government, the previous barrier of politics and society had been broken down. Social issues should be taken more seriously by the government, and politics should be taken more seriously by the people. According to The Heritage Foundation, the idea that the Progressive Era and movement promoted was that the government was to be primarily liable for and needed to fulfil basic human needs, from financial support to civil rights. So after this barrier was destroyed, many things would begin to happen; Martin Luther King Jr’s Civil Rights movement would lead to the ratification of the 23 Amendment, as well as the emergence large focus on the racism and sexism in America with a large focus on social justice throughout the nation.  So if everything was supposed to be hunky dory after this point, how are we here now with a society that can’t agree on basic American values?

Well, as this trend continued, there was yet another reaction. American society began to make politics an integral part of American culture and how we see other people. Today and in recent history, this is most prevalent, with yet another People-Press poll showing some surprising results about how Republicans and Democrats see each other as people through the lens of politics. The most damning is probably the poll about what the opposing parties say about each other, with people of both parties saying that the people in the opposite party is closed-minded, dishonest, immoral, and even unintelligent and lazy in percentages ranging from 70% to 18% in these examples alone. It seems now that we are getting traction on answering the main question, as now we can look at the election that spells it all out.

The 2016 Election is the most defined reaction to the progressive movement in politics that there has ever been. After government trust had gone down the drain, there seems to be a very defined reaction by career politicians in order to be elected, likeability. This became a huge focal point of the election of Presidents, especially as radio and televised debates, speeches, and reporting became more accessible and more common. This is because no-longer could Presidential candidates rely on experience and politics alone with some social aspects, now they had to be morally right and well-liked with some political experience. This probably became most evident after the Monica Lewinsky Scandal with President Bill Clinton and how it affected the rest of his political career as he could be smeared by opposition for his mistakes in office. The smearing strategy is probably most well-defined just a few years ago with the 2016 Election. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in order to make it past the Primaries, used social focuses and smearing to increase likeability, or to at the very least, make themselves out as the better person. Hillary Clinton focused on being the First Female President, while Donald Trump focused on “cleaning up the swamp” and “Making America Great Again.” When the two came to blows in the final race, the debates seemingly turned into Wrestlemania, with both candidates hyped up on T.V to be throwdowns of mudslinging. The highroading was probably the greatest as it had ever been, with past actions of both coming back during the course of the election to bite the candidates in the behind. This invested the people more into politics and politicians more into social issues across the spectrum that still continues today even after the end of this election.

So, do we have the answer? Maybe, but let's first round everything out and see for sure. The deep social and political divide seems to be from the merging of the societal and political identities taking a toll on the nation as it’s reactions changes it effect on our nation and world. As technology, issues with the government, and national tragies increases and/or evolved, so did the entirety of the spectrum, grounding the people more and more into politics as it became more important, and politicians has become more and more concerned not just with social issues, but public perception, arguably making them more self conscious and self concerned than before the movement. When heading back to the beginning of article, we can find that past years in the US has made the most drastic changes to this system with the biggest being President Donald Trump. Dropping in, the President doesn’t seem to fit this newer political mold set by previous Presidents due to him being a hard right candidate with no filter, and that being his public perception. This took about half the nation with him and the other going even further left with his Democratic opposition and equally as radical politicians, separating the nation even more and creating the modern day divide that we talk about so much.

In closing, here’s how I now see it. There is a massive divide with a bridge connecting both sides. Even though it has taken some damage over time and has been repaired more than a few times, it is still there. But once again, it is under attack, with almost everyone having a sledge in their hands, including myself, destroying that bridge. There’s always a point when it collapses like it had once before during the Civil War, the questions now for us as a nation is this: when is that breaking point, and how can we begin to fix it? If it was up to me, we should stop trying to answer what I just tackled, and answer these before someone decides to drop the sledge, and blow the bridge sky high.