I recently received an email from someone who had read “The Longest Road”, the book I published several years ago describing an overland voyage Leslie and I made from Key West, Florida, to Deadhorse, Alaska, on the Arctic Ocean. The purpose of that 16,000-mile round trip had been to hear from ordinary Americans what they thought held so vast and diverse a nation together. My email correspondent wrote that he and his wife recently traveled 25,000 miles around the country seeking to discover what divides us.
I think his quest may be closer to the right track than mine was. In the past week or so, police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot an unarmed black man seven times in the back. Inevitably, protests erupted, and some were marred by spasms of looting and arson. Then, only a few days ago, a 17-year-old self-styled vigilante armed with an assault rifle shot two protestors to death and wounded a third. This past Saturday night, the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon, which have gone on for three months and have often turned violent, escalated into a deadly clash between the left and the right. A counter-protestor belonging to a right-wing group called “The Patriot Prayer” was fatally shot, apparently by a leftist gunman.
What unites us? Less and less, it seems. We now hate one another enough to kill one another for…What? I will not be shocked, surprised, or astonished if I, though I’m now 79, live long enough to see the start of a second American civil war. And if that comes to pass (I pray it doesn’t), it won’t be anything like the first one, with armies fighting armies. It will more closely resemble the fational, chaotic bloodshed in Syria.
I invite anyone who reads this post to answer the question posed above: For what? All views will be respected, so long as they are expressed rationally and with civility.
Phil, the crazy fringes, at both ends, are still an infinitesimal small percentage of the total population, which on balance is made up of good decent folks.
I recently listened to your “The Longest Road” book on Audio. I listened to it because me and my other half are finally retiring, selling the house, buying a toy-hauler and hitting the road in 2022. Sticking to the west and doing loops around with the seasons. I hope to do as you did….talking to people all over (well not the east coast not enough BLM land or dispersed camping there), I cant wait to hear what America has to say.
Even when I go to the grocery store I get into long conversations (masked & 6′ apart Lol!). Love listening to the pulse of America. Everyone seems to have a story and still want to smile. Were down here not far from where your Crossers book took place. Not much going on here. Anyway, we do have the Bug-out bag (always have) and carry when traveling. Not sure this answers any questions but boy I sure loved that Longest Road book! Yep, got the dirt bikes, Kayaks and ATV ready for adventure way out from the urban concrete jungles~
Thank you and thanks for the opportunity to express my views which I don’t often verbalize. I live in a small, rural community in a deep red state where the favorite male headgear is a red MAGA cap. In the interest of maintaining neighborhood harmony, I tend my plants and MMOB
10 years law enforcement, retired, proud to conceal carry. /*/*/*/ 10 African-Americans per year will be killed or wounded by police in arrests that became uncooperative. 5 or 6 white individuals same thing. A small sub-set of our population believes, “The Laws Don’t Apply to Me”. Evading police they may be high on animal tranquilizers and/or alcohol. They just beat up their girlfriend, or put a knife to her throat? Doesn’t matter. Tazer has no impact. And it isn’t the job of the police to volunteer to be stabbed or shot by the accused. I don’t see that this has any way of changing for at least one, possibly two, generations.
In the past decade, Americans have acquired a powder-keg mentality and with it, depressing despair. Life stopped being OK and we don’t know how to fix it. Where did that come from and what caused it? In my opinion: wage disparity, government dysfunction and old, deeply ingrained racism.
(1) Wage disparity percentage differences between worker and top management grew from single digits in the 1950s to several 1,000s now. ‘Enough’ is never enough for the few at the top and it’s OK to get more any way possible in spite of any disadvantage to the country and fellow citizens. Having enough isn’t OK. We have to have more than.
(2) Government dysfunction: there are many examples but two prime: openly ignoring our Constitution and its intent which began doggedly when Mitch McConnell decided he had the authority to negate President Obama’s Constitutional rights as President and Congress allowed it to happen. Our government lost it’s balance and never regained it.
The Electoral College is mandated by our Constitution (basis in racism but that’s another story) but democracy and intent lost out when state politicians made changes in how an individual’s vote is counted. The ‘winner take all’ aspect erases any hint of democracy/one man-one vote and tells many voters that their vote really does not count so why bother.
(3) Many Americans mistakenly believed that race issues in this country were solved in the 1960s but not so. They were merely buried, pushed underground where they festered and grew like an infection that scabbed over before healing. The election and service of a black man as President whose 8-year term was successful in spite of overwhelming opposition further intensified the infection but it remained mostly hidden. Then along comes a man who is not only openly loud and proud of being racist, bigoted and misogynistic but who is given fame, power and accolades because of it. Trump told us who and what he was well before the election and we still gave him the job. Scab is off! Society says it’s good to be all that and and it’s OK to finally let it all out.
Somehow the ‘rightness’ of living is not there anymore and we don’t know how to handle it. Doing the right thing is old fashioned. American pride is tarnished and we aren’t sure it will come back. So we’ve gone a little mad.
At 87, I feel I’m more of an observer of life than a participant. I’ve lived through the good, the bad and the indifferent and survived with deteriorated body but fairly intact brain. I’m about done with this life and ready to see what adventure comes next. However, I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and wonder about what kind of America they will have.
Your brain, Bee, appears to be more intact than some 27 year olds I know.
Yes.. Lunacy runs strong in the USA… and with hundreds of millions of guns floating around… a virulant internet spreading misinformation and foreign actors imbedded in the highest office of the land seeking our destruction , ” sectarian ” violence on a national level is the next logical step… no matter who wins the White House…
I go out and walk three miles in the morning through a coastal southern community – (and here it is still a community) – in which I know that five out of six voters I see do not vote as I do, and this much you can see as if tattooed on their foreheads from fifty feet away. And I do hate that sumbich Trump, but many of the men I see are construction, tradesmen, and maintenance and landscaping guys, and I’ve done that kind of work a lot. And many of the women I see are bank tellers and real estate agents and waitresses, where the work is often boring, poor-paying and frustrating, even degrading, and many are trapped in their situations by poor choices and bad luck and overwhelming obligation. When you look at them like that, it doesn’t seem to matter much how they vote. To believe in this livin’ is just a hard way to go.
I’m not certain that I can answer the question anymore. At 67, normally living alone, I know my fears of guerrilla-style civil unrest won’t allow me to put up political yard signs for fear of retribution with Confederate flags being paraded almost daily. I know my home is now armed with the addition of security cameras, a 9mm & a shotgun for the same reasons. I know my son & I are accumulating items for a bug-out escape if needed. I believe the answer lies in political pedagogy & hubris at the expense of national dialogue for one reason only: 4 more years.