July Fourth: Americans divided over what US stands for on the 246th anniversary
As red, white and blue fireworks burst in air on Monday night, politics may not be at the forefront of most people’s minds.
Yet a fractious partisan age is undeniably penetrating everyone’s lives.
In another example of startling political disruption, an activist Supreme Court, protected behind high metal fences in its marbled Washington chambers, just stripped away the constitutional right of millions of women to have an abortion. The decision validates a half-century campaign by conservative activists, many of whom have sincere moral objections against abortion, which they equate with the murder of an unborn child.
More reasons for gloom
Social tensions are being exacerbated by economic pressure.
Gun crime in cities is recalling a more violent past and every Monday brings a grim accounting of the weekend’s mass shootings.
The shadow of Trump’s violent coup attempt hangs over the country.
A flurry of restrictions on voting in many conservative-led states and the GOP’s refusal to renew voting rights legislation harken back to a poisoned era of racial repression. Liberals who once dreamed of a new Franklin Roosevelt are dissatisfied with the results of their narrow monopoly on political power in Biden’s Washington. But their radicalism also risks alienating the crucial middle ground of voters who ought to be up for grabs as the GOP dives right.
Incredibly, the country is struggling to make enough infant formula to feed its babies — and is having to fly in emergency supplies from abroad — a metaphor if there ever was one for a time when things just don’t seem to be going very well.
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