The latest issue of The Atlantic is entitled “How to Stop a Civil War.” As you can imagine, it is dedicated to describing the red/blue divide in America and discussing ways in which it can be healed. Two articles in particular are noteworthy:
1. In “How America Ends,” Yoni Applebaum finds a disturbing analogy to America in 1850. His thesis is that when a group that has been politically and socially dominant perceives it has no future in the democratic process due to cultural and demographic change, it lashes out violently to protect its privileges. Frankly, this article sounds a great deal like some of my posts about the reactionary problem over the last few months, and I agree with it.
2. By contrast, in “Against Reconciliation,” Adam Serwer argues that the correct historical analogy is to Reconstruction, and contends that it would be a mistake for the left to eschew smashmouth politics in favor of civility. The problem with his analogy, of course, is that the left hasn’t won the new Civil War; Donald Trump is our president, after all. Serwer essentially is arguing that there can be no compromise on the woke agenda at a time when it doesn’t command anything like majority support in this country. That is a recipe for electoral disaster in 2020 and for years thereafter.
If I could give some unsolicited advice for the wokeness crowd, it would be to show some patience. Their enemies are going to die of old age in the next ten to twenty years. Is it really worth running the risk of triggering a violent conflict in this country to try to impose your will today when power is going to fall into your hands in the foreseeable future without one? Particularly when you might well lose? After all, it’s the right that has the guns, not the left.