I think the gulf might just be too big.
Four years ago, after the bruising presidential election that elected Donald Trump, I had a fair amount of hope that the people of the United States would find a way to heal their differences.
My wife Leslie and I had been travelling through a large part of the western U.S. during the 2016 election and, though we were shaken by the fact that politics there was so divisive that the topic of the presidential election didn’t even come up public places, it seemed like a calm, generally tolerant part of the world.
The day after the election, I wrote a column that said, in part, “through all the states, even in the poorest towns, it’s hard to overstate the openness and generosity of the average American — right down to the woman in the Casper, Wyoming, Walmart pitching discounted windows, who, when we refused her coupons, saying we were from Canada, gushed, ‘You’re so lucky.’
“Maybe they can put it all back together afterwards. Maybe with the campaign over, people on different sides can talk to one another about something new. I hope so.”
I’m not so hopeful anymore.
Make no mistake: America is showing us a path not to take.
Why? Because neither side even bothers to listen to the other. Neither side even listens to the other side’s broadcaster-of-choice — broadcasters who don’t seem to be bothered by delivering diametrically opposed reports on the same events, tailored to suit the opinions and biases of their own particular audience.
One side believes the other side are bigots and idiots — or worse. The other side believes they’re trying to save America from deep-state trickery and conspiracy — or worse.
No one stops to think that scores of people voted Republican because of the overwhelming amount of news and information that they saw and believed — some accurate, some inaccurate, some hopelessly torqued by speed, sloppiness and deliberate falsehoods.
That they, in fact, voted just the way scores of people voted Democrat because of the news and information they consumed that presented a completely different world to them — a world that was equally accurate, inaccurate and hopelessly torqued by speed, sloppiness and, yes, deliberate falsehoods.
People vote a particular way because they believe something — they believe that they are doing the right thing — and not because they are evil or stupid or are members of some elites or, saints preserve us, an international cabal of child-molesters.
That doesn’t matter, because there isn’t any middle ground anymore.
There’s no middle ground, because middle ground doesn’t serve the politicians or the media who report on them, because conflict changes minds, shifts votes, sells advertising and delivers power into the hands of people who want it. And no one seems to be immune.
Make no mistake: America is showing us a path not to take.
And let me be perfectly, absolutely clear here.
Both sides — both sides — are showing us a path not to take.
Overall, I am more hopeful than many people I know. I hide it under the mantle of the job I’ve chosen to do for many years — the editorial world of the constant devil’s advocate — but the very reason I write about failings and mistakes and wrong turns is because I believe in the goodness of the vast majority of people to understand what is right.
I believe that people honestly want to be better — if I didn’t, there would be no reason for me to do the job that I do.
But regardless of who wins the U.S. presidential election, I am afraid I see a great hole looming.
And a chasm no one’s willing to cross.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.
