Someone on CNN claimed that if Kamala Harris wins the election, that it would be unprecedented.
I have no doubt that we are in an unprecedented situation in America in 2024.
Less than 30% of voters think America is headed in the right direction.
Never has the party of the incumbent president won with those kind of numbers.
And yet, I can't imagine any Democrat feeling good about the direction America is headed, and I can't imagine any of those Democrats voting for Trump over Kamala Harris.
Trump's Presidency is unprecedented.
But it will not lead to another civil war.
Bruce Springsteen says that American society is divided on civil war levels.
Thing is, the American Civil War was not caused by a divided society.
It was caused by a specific political issue.
A specific political issue that we spent decades trying to resolve peacefully before we gave in to war.
We may have a divided society.
But there is no political issue that divides us like the issue of slavery once did.
And even if there were, we spent decades trying to resolve that issue peacefully before we gave in- reluctantly- to war.
Not merely a couple of decades, either.
The Missouri Compramise was over 40 years before the outbreak of war.
This toxic divide did not exist 30 years ago, let alone 40.
Let alone being something we have tried to resolve for 40 years.
And keep in mind: this was a political issue, not a divide in society.
This was a political issue for which we could find no way of resolving save for war.
This was a very real political issue, which we tried to solve.
America right now got a bad case of depression, ran out of mental energy, saw criminals crash an airplane into a building, and went into a 25-year sulk to throw a hissy fit.
America is not going to war over a 25-year sulk.
Not with thousands upon thousands of neighborhoods, workplaces and Starbucks's where R's and D's coexist just fine.
Not with a democratic process in which we can work these things out, even if it takes decades.
There are lots of ways we can help heal the divide in society.
None of them involve war.
We only turned to war in 1861 because we had a problem which we could not solve any other way, which could be, and was, resolved through war.
There is no such issue today.
Quite the opposite.
The discourse and discussion of a functional Democracy, and the popular culture that America is so good at, are the ideal ways of working to resolve this divide.
People know that these things give a far better hope of resolving our current social divide than war.
That is why America is not in danger of falling into civil war.
Not to mention that America's Democracy is far less fragile than it was in 1860.
We have much deeper roots now- in no small part through surviving the American Civil War.
And remember- we worked on trying to solve the slavery issue for over 40 years before war broke out.
If it takes another 40 years to heal the divide in American society, we will work on it for 40 years.
I doubt it would take much longer than that.
And this divide will heal.
Germans and Jews live peacefully together in Paris and London. There was a much bigger divide between Germans and Jews in 1944.
America will heal.
Paris has healed from far worse than this.
Berlin, Belgium, Amsterdam have healed from far worse than this.
America will heal.
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. One thing that will help is if we try to understand where the other side is coming from. Especially for the side that is in less pain right now to try to understand. Which is why I recommend for any of my fellow Democrats to read J D Vance's book to try to understand where people like him are coming from. Because we Democrats are in less pain than they are. Whatever pain we have, their pain is even worse. Also, remember what we have in common. Both sides are in pain right now. Both sides wish the election was over. Perhaps we can unite behind that! And, if nothing else, we can all get together over a beer and try to be friends anyway! Perhaps after the election is over, we can all get together over a beer or a coke and celebrate that the stressful election is over, no matter who won!