The tweets by former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes musing on the death of Trump and GOP leaders, and similar extreme comments by others raise an important issue: Are the bonds which unite Americans weakening due to the strident attacks on the outcome of the presidential election?
It’s increasingly worrisome that much of the political chattering classes have become obsessed—there is no better word—with their hatred for both Trump and his supporters, those whom the Democrat presidential candidate in 2016 described as “deplorables.”
Their anger differs from the usual political disagreements that have characterized politics in the past. It is not a rejection of policy or actions—such as that which marked centrist and conservative dissent against Obama’s agenda. It is, instead, a cultural hatred of those that don’t subscribe to progressive orthodoxy. In its extremity, it is a rejection of the identity of those whom one disagrees with as fellow citizens of a free republic, merely because of differing views. The trend was crystalized when Hillary Clinton, when asked who she thought of as “the enemy,” responded, not Russia or China, or poverty or discrimination, but “Republicans.”
Labelling countrymen as “enemies” or “deplorables” opens the door to the justification of harsh repressive measures. This trend was becoming apparent during the Obama Administration, when the IRS was used to attack the Tea Party, and when Attorney General Loretta Lynch seriously considered criminally prosecuting those who merely disagreed with the President’s view on climate change.
In the past, even significant transfers of power from one ideology to the other were peaceful. Liberal Jimmy Carter’s replacement with conservative Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush to Barack Obama being salient examples. Of course, there were disagreements and harshness, but nothing approaching what occurred after the 2016 election. The well-coordinated and financed violence that occurred in city streets, the calls to impeach Trump before he was even inaugurated, the commencement of a politically motivated investigation on the most specious and unsubstantiated grounds, and the creation of a false sense of crisis by a partisan media are unprecedented.
The images of Trump’s severed head made popular by comedian Kathy Griffen, and the shoot-up of a Republican sports outing by a left wing fanatic have carved out unwelcome and dire territory in the American political experience.
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The problem extends far beyond vapid Hollywood starlets and hyper-partisan politicos. The actions of oft-overturned Ninth Circuit judges seeking to seize the statutory powers of the presidency, the attempts by career federal bureaucrats to ignore the directives of elected officials, and perhaps most distressingly the very serious discussion of a California secession movement all point to a potential break in intra-national relations not seen since the assault on Fort Sumter.
In many ways, the intensified declarations by a number of city and state governments that they are “sanctuary cities” is similar to the nullification argument of southern states before the outbreak of the Civil War.
The 1832 South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification was issued in response to a federal tariff. The state government simply decided it had the right to ignore federal legislation, in an area of law the Constitution clearly provided to Washington. USHistory.org notes: “As far as South Carolina was concerned, there was no tariff. A line had been drawn. Jackson rightly regarded this … challenge as so serious that he asked Congress to enact legislation permitting him to use federal troops to enforce federal laws…If nullification had been successful, could secession have been far behind?”
The nation was able to pull back from the brink of confrontation in 1832. It did not escape a cataclysm in 1861.
When some states, cities and courts decide to ignore the Constitution, when many political partisans declare that “Trump is not my President,” and when biased media outlets vigorously push a fevered and inaccurate picture of a nation in turmoil, it would appear that America is in danger of moving closer to an ideological 1861 moment.