"One nation, under God, indivisible..." HAH!

On the Glorious Fourth of July, it's our custom to post something patriotic - three cheers for the red, white and blue! - along with salutations and best wishes to all our American friends and readers. One of the best things we ever posted was this fine video of God Bless America, as sung by the inimitable Kate Smith. Let's hear it again!

   

I always thought that should be the American national anthem. Much easier to sing than The Star-spangled Banner. Makes one want to go out vanquish the foes of freedom, democracy and the American Way of Life! 

But since God Bless America invokes the Deity, it is no longer politically correct. The secular humanists, atheists and radicals have banished God from America's schools, courthouses, and even hospoitals. I expect an amendment to the Constitution to to delete all references to the Almighty, any time now.

And what, pray [Watch it! Ed.] tell, is the American Way of Life nowadays? Do we really believe that life in places like Chicago, San Francisco and Portland is "as good as it gets"? 

From where I sit, the Excited States of America looks to be tearing itself apart. Americans are at each other's throats, figuratively and literally. In spite of Sleepy Joe's promise to reunite America, the country is more  divided now than at any time since 1865.

Americans are separated by race, place and politics. Lines are drawn between them by the politicians and other "elites", with partisans convinced that the other side is the enemy. More than a century ago, Henry Adams defined politics as "the systematic organization of hatreds." That's no less true today.

In The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008, Bill Bishop writes: "There are no cross-cutting issues, places or policies. So there is always conflict. And the ‘other’ is always clearly identifiable."

Note that The Big Sort was published in 2008. You remember 2008, dontcha? That was the year the Prez was elected on a promise to bring all Americans together. That America could elect a black (oops, "Black") man, whose accomplishments amounted to little more than being able to count up to 3 and recite from memory nearly all 26 letters of the alphabet, proved once and for all that the US of A had become "post-racial". Right? LMWAO.

Also worth reading: "It Took Decades for America to Become This Divided", on the Governing website, 23/12/20. Subhead: "Political polarization has become so familiar and entrenched that we barely think how it came about. The backstory is more than a half-century long [more like a century-and-a-half. Walt], involving race, media and a diverging economy." 

What is to be done? I regret to say that my view of the future of the US of A is not a rosy one. The victory of North over South in the Civil War really settled nothing. The same war, over race and the clash between liberal and conservative lifestyles broke out again a century later, and is being fought today, in various ways and various venues, across the length and breadth of the country. 

The physical division of the United States into two groupings -- let's say red states vs blue states -- is now expressly forbidden by the Constitution, and looks to be impractical to the point of impossibility. But when push comes to shove -- as it already has in places like Portland -- I know where I stand. How about you?!

Further reading: Walt's not the only one feeling pessimistic about the future of the US of A. Check out "Enjoy July 4 this Sunday. It might be the last one" by Paul Craig Roberts, 1/7/21.