For all their policy differences, progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Never Trump conservatives such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Republican strategist Rick Wilson, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and the Washington Post’s George Will have something in common: a mutual disdain for Donald Trump’s presidency and the bitter, ugly divisions he has encouraged. Another Never Trumper, conservative journalist David French, discusses the United States’ divisions in a September 20 article for his blog and wonders if the country is approaching the point of no return.
One term that never crosses the lips of Trump and his sycophants is “loyal opposition,” which essentially means agreeing to disagree in politics. During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan had strong policy differences with House Speaker Tip O’Neill but recognized him as the loyal opposition — and the two of them, famously, had a very friendly relationship. Trump, on the other hand, denounces anyone who disagrees with him as an enemy of the United States, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
French, in his article, writes that the United States’ bitter divisions have caused him to “fear for the future of our nation” — and his anxiety increased when, on September 18, he learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died.
Our nation really could “split apart,” he warned.
“On Friday afternoon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class,” French writes. “We knew a polarized and divided nation was about to endure yet another sharp escalation in the Culture War, and this escalation could well lead to a cascading series of events that could strain the constitutional and cultural fabric of this nation.”
French adds, “As a conservative, it was easy to disagree with ‘Notorious RBG.’ She was a woman of fierce progressive judicial conviction, but it was hard to disrespect her. Her deep friendship with her near-polar ideological opposite, Justice Antonin Scalia, was the stuff of legend. Her life story was inspirational.”
The conservative journalist goes on to ask, “How much more tension and division can this nation take?,” noting that “fewer and fewer Americans live like Justices Scalia and Ginsburg, with close friends on the other side of the political aisle?”
“Clustering has another consequence: extremism,” French explains. “This is the natural human result of gathering people of like mind.” Too many “partisans,” French argues, cannot see “moral purpose in pluralism.”
“There is a vast difference between a friend who disagrees and an enemy who seeks to dominate,” French argues. “One vision sustains democracy. The other could destroy our republic. As millions of Americans confront both the grief of the loss of a hero while also girding for the divisive cultural battle to come, who will remember the friendship between Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg?”
