Many people in the United States who have been passively watching violent protests in cities and relentless attacks on the country and its founders are showing signs of pushing back.
Just ask Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. After crabbing from a dock on the Chesapeake Bay last weekend, he pulled out a book. A boater motored up and asked what he was reading.
“It’s about the country’s founding,” he said. The boater yelled back, “That’s what the young people should be reading these days,” said Gonzalez, the author of the upcoming book The Plot to Change America.
“People are starting to understand this,” said Gonzalez, adding, “We’re woke to the ‘woke.’ America is finally waking up.”
Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, sees the same thing happening, and he thinks it highlights the difference between President Trump’s law and order stand and Democrat Joe Biden’s encouragement of protests.
“What we’re seeing in these big cities is so egregious that I think it could be that wake-up call that brings this whole election back into a much tighter situation,” Braun said. “That could really be the difference."
The division in the nation, begun long before Trump’s election, but now fueled by it, has some worrying of a second civil war.
Pollster Jeremy Zogby, the son of and partner with Democratic pollster John Zogby, has just finished a national survey that found a remarkable 31% of likely voters feel the country is heading for war. More believe states will break away.
“The hysteria that followed the election of Trump and the rage that ensued following the death of George Floyd, with the backdrop of 50 million unemployed, foreshadows the possibility for a lot of pent-up resentment to spill over,” he said.
He doesn’t see civil war, but he also doesn’t envision an end to the political division. “While it is highly unlikely that one half of the country will be engaged in a full-scale war with the other half — either geographically or in terms of party identification — it is, however, entirely within the realm of possibility that the 50 states will not remain united under Washington, D.C., a decade or more from now,” he wrote in the latest Main St./K St. IntelligenSEER from John Zogby Strategies.
Braun also doesn’t believe the division will result in war or secession. In fact, he thinks a lot of the fighting is among the politically active, not the general population.
“I don’t think we’re there,” he said. Instead, he added, “You’ve got the Hatfields and the McCoys, in essence, on any policy.”
Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James took an optimistic approach to the nation’s division, explaining that it helps to reveal extremism and could nudge people into seeking solutions instead of further division.
“Americans should be concerned about the relentless attempts to divide our country. There will always be people who wish our country ill, but the vast majority of Americans don’t buy what they’re selling,” James told us.
“As an optimist, I think the extremists have actually provided us an opportunity. They have shown us what their ultimate version of America would look like, and it's downright frightening. Americans of all stripes should reject their agendas and instead unite around the principles that made this country exceptional: freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and a strong civil society. Now is a time we need to be building a generation of solutionists who believe in the good of America and seize this moment to lead, encouraging people to step up and advance ideas that will make life better for all Americans. Division does not have to be our destiny,” she added.
When the protests began, many initially held back their criticism, even when violence broke out. But that has changed. Conservative leaders, including top radio host Mark Levin, have spoken out for law and order in defending the country.
And polls have begun to show support for Trump’s moves to use federal agents to control the chaos, possibly a key factor in his improving approval ratings and helping to make the 2020 race neck-and-neck between the president and Biden.
Said Gonzalez, “We need to stand up.”
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