Commentary
It’s time to consider how the profound divide in American public life is going to be narrowed back to the civil resolution of differences.
American public discourse appeared to be proceeding quite normally, as demonstrated by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama as only the second trio of consecutive two-term presidents in American history; the previous one—Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—was 200 years ago, and Monroe’s reelection was uncontested.
The apparent serenity of American public life was interrupted by Donald Trump, who detected, as a populist (notwithstanding being a billionaire), that there was an ever-increasing number of disgruntled working and lower middle class people whose real disposable income wasn’t rising, who suffered from globalist trade and immigration practices, and were disparaged by Hillary Clinton’s reference to half of Trump’s followers as “a basket of deplorables” and candidate Obama’s snide reference to people overly preoccupied with firearms and religion (this from someone who spent 20 years in the church-pew of the fire-breathing racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright)….