Is America More Divided Than It Used To Be?

Last night I started reading The Divider, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book about Trump and it took me only to the sixth paragraph to hit this sentence: “America on the eve of his [Trump’s] ascendance was more fractured than at any other time in generations.”

The entire book then becomes an explanation of how Trump tried to exploit those divisions for his own ends, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

I have been hearing and reading for the last seven or eight years about how this country has never been so divided. I get this now-unquestioned narrative from both sides, and I really can’t figure out what it means.

And I can’t figure out the so-called divisions of this country because as far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist except in the minds and editorializing activities of the Fake News.

Let’ start with race. Know when this country was really divided over race? When blacks were lynched in the South on a regular basis, and nobody gave a good goddamn.

Know when the country was divided over gender? When The New York Times had separate classified ads for men and women to make sure that no woman ever applied for a man’s job.

Know when the United States was divided over religion? When my 5th-grade teacher told me I had to…