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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2018)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager PRO-CON ARE AMERICANS MORE DIVIDED NOW THAN IN THE PAST? AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi Smoke rises from burning buildings in downtown Washington, D.C., on April 5, 1968 in the wake of looting and burning after the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Troops were ordered into the downtown area. AP Photo/Dozier Mobley A building burns in Washington, D.C. on April 5, 1968. AP Photo/Bob Schutz A pedestrian is waved away by a National Guard soldier wearing a gas mask near 7th and K streets in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 1968. The bayonets on the rifles are sheathed. PRO: Unprecedented division is conquering our national politics CON: US had much deeper divisions in the early 1970s WASHINGTON — The United States and protests now. political landscape is more divided than it has The deep division, partisanship and distrust been since the Vietnam and civil rights era of the Nixon and Watergate era echoes eerily in some 50 years ago and in many ways is even the questions about Trump and his campaign’s more polarized. potential involvement with a hostile Russian The style and content of Donald Trump’s government. presidency is a major factor in this division and As a result we now live in a nation where our country is suffering as a result. each and every morsel of information is filtered Division is nothing new in politics or in through the lens of our divisions. personal life. Since the formative years of our Anything that contradicts the established nation, differences existed and infiltrated our view of our tribe is immediately cast aside or earliest political debates. even labeled “fake” to feed our tribalism and Each one of us is divided in simple or per- division. haps complex ways in our most basic life func- Along the way, Trump tweets away, fuel- tions too. At school, at work, in our neighbor- ing this division. He creates confusion while hoods we take sides and defend our speaking to his tribe while stirring positions. We divide ourselves into anger from those tribes organized tribes in many aspects of our lives. against him, furthering the divide. There are those in private and pub- And we largely play our role as the lic life who seek to gain power and faithfully divided. Democrats and lib- erals recoil at every turn. Republicans profit, though, from our natural incli- nation to tribalism. We must under- and conservatives cheer or, in the most DON stand this and should tread carefully, repulsive moments, remain silent in KUSLER but most of us do not. approval. Citizen, candidate, and now Pres- The division even exists within ident Trump has spent a life adhering to the tribes. Conservatives are split between the “divide and conquer” philosophy in his busi- Trump loyalists and those who, even in their fre- ness and now in his politics. quent silence, find Trump’s tactics distasteful. By breaking up and dividing folks to con- Progressives are divided between the more solidate his power and scatter the power of his moderate and more liberal wings. These sub- adversaries, President Trump is playing a dan- divisions are making it even more difficult to gerous game with our democratic society. rally against those seeking to divide us. The lists of Trump tactics and topics on this Open and honest debate of our differences strategy are long. Race, economic status, gen- great and small can actually be an empower- der, political party, social issues and so on have ing process. At different points in our history we have come out of periods of deep division all been on his menu and often in ugly ways. The division spills out into our voting, our stronger, while in others we have come out social media feeds, and perhaps most notably weaker from the fight. into how Congress is conducting the people’s Time will tell how we as a nation move for- ward from our current division. What do we do business. As I write this, immigrant families continue to break the trend and refuse to be conquered? to be divided, U.S. senators are bickering over Only when we begin to listen, question, Supreme Court nomination proceedings, elec- seek understanding and break down the walls tions are being conducted, and it’s all done of prejudice that are impeding us will we take under the shadow of the divisions that Trump the first steps in a more positive direction. seeks to exploit. Don Kusler is national director of Ameri- The marches, protests and riots of Vietnam cans for Democratic Action (ADA), a progres- and civil rights era have given way to marches sive advocacy organization. NEW YORK — Today, our country is an’s place in society and social justice for divided along a number of different fault minorities were decried as undermining lines — the primary one being for or against democracy. The hippies preached “Give peace a President Donald Trump. And many of the policies of the Trump administration are chance” and “All you need is love.” The “establishment” responded with “America, equally contentious. But our country had much deeper love it or leave it.” There was not a great divisions from 1968 to 1974, when it deal of middle ground, and many a family seemed the country was at war with gathering descended into acrimony. The talk itself. Yet the “radical movements” of the among the young was not about “resistance” Woodstock generation shaped where we are — it was about “revolution.” And of course, there was the president today. The era of race relations exploded in — Richard Nixon — who fed the flames of open civil rebellion after the murder of Dr. division for his own political gain. “Tricky Dick” harnessed the power of the Martin Luther King. Soldiers patrolled the government — the FBI, the justice streets of Detroit, Newark and other and police departments — to cre- American cities to restore order. ate enemy lists and conduct illegal The war in Vietnam was deeply break-ins, surveillance and harass- unpopular and millions of people ment. It was all done in the name of protested in anti-war marches. When “law and order.” President Richard Nixon ordered the And in 1972, Nixon won a land- invasion of Cambodia in 1970, the PETER slide election, guaranteeing four nation exploded in protests. RUSH more years of upheaval. Armed National But the country did not Guard troops killed and come apart. Watergate wounded unarmed stu- happened and our gov- dent protesters at Kent ernment’s checks and bal- State and Jackson State ances worked. universities. Students If you look back at across the nation went on the radical ideas of the strike, closing the univer- sity system and many sec- late 1960s that divided ondary schools. our nation, many of them have become main- On the cultural side, stream today. The country the country was divided moved on. between the generations. Our country may be While the anti-war anger divided right now, but helped propel the move- ment, issues such as mari- what we can learn from this particular history les- juana, long hair, women’s son is that there is hope lib and social justice were for the future. vehemently argued from Peter Rush is the both sides. author of “Wild Word,” a Radical movements — today’s domestic terrorists — such as newly released novel set against the backdrop the Weather Underground took on the gov- of America’s protest era in the early 1970s, ernment with violence and bombings. and CEO of Kellen, a nonprofit organization New ideas about the environment, a wom- management firm. If you look back at the radical ideas of the late 1960s that divided our nation, many of them have become mainstream today. The country moved on.
