The Blue States vs. Red States Meme Used By Trump Is making Us A "House Divided Against Itself" That Cannot Stand

Red States vs. Blue States.  Blue States vs. Red states.  Though that national dichotomy was already here before the political arrival of one Donald J. Trump on the scene it was a political dynamic he would seize upon to use as an advantage at the expense of what we had built as a nation after 151 post Civil War years of pain, crisis, and incredibly hard work that remains to this day still unfinished.  He used it like a sledge hammer to divide and drive wedges in the electorate in an attempt to add just enough to his grievance filled devoted base to prevail in 2016.  Now we find ourselves dealing with an even more exacerbated political dichotomy he used the first time due to a global pandemic to engineer another four year term to continue with an agenda of division, strife and a plan to deconstruct our federalist system while he continues to settle political scores.

Now the idea that our country is defined as a confederation of blue and red states that must somehow link together in league with other politically like minded entities to overcome the other  because they aren’t the “right kind” of Americans is being used by Trump at the expense of enough consensus government to hold our federalist system together.  There is now no doubt we have reached a point where the reasons for today’s political dichotomy smacks of some of the same reasons used by the southern states beginning in 1860 to file articles of secession in their state legislatures as a preamble to the Civil War.  Trump is exacerbating these differences in ways many of us felt was unimaginable at this point in our history.

On a late and lazy summer Wednesday afternoon at 5:00 pm on June 16^th, 1858 in the Illinois state house Abraham Lincoln found himself standing before the State Republican convention as he started a speech that would rock the political electorate at its very core:

“….If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.  We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.  Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.  In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.  A house divided against itself cannot stand."  

Once he finished it would not only rocket him into the national spot light as a Presidential candidate for 1860, it would define what it meant to be a nation so fraught with a political crisis of division that it threatened to disintegrate beyond repair before our eyes if steps weren’t taken to bring it back together.  Of course we know what followed:  a Civil War that would kill 600,000 Americans by its end as a horribly tragic first step on the way to repairing what was.

We now find ourselves with a President who is not only trying to avoid that crisis of division but instead is relying on it as a road map to victory at the expense of the very fabric that makes us a beacon to the world.  Using the power of his office to punish those states that don’t align with his political goals is a dangerous precedent to use at this point in our history after such a long, hard road after 1865.

The founding fathers took great pains to make us a more unified entity after the failures of the Articles of Confederation that was leading to a division of states similar to what we are seeing today where one state is pitted against another at the expense of a national entity as opposed to a confederation of regions with their own ideas of political, social and economic policy.  Their idea was something called a Constitution that began with these words: 

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." 

“We the people” meaning we, as Americans are tasked with this call to make a more perfect union for one and all.  THIS one statement made us and defined who we are:  Americans.  It wasn’t perfect, as it took a Civil War to realize the true meaning of this sentiment.  But it was something we aspired to and was STILL working on until the present, what John F. Kennedy called, the “responsible officer of government” set out to destroy it.  Lincoln also once said, “……“the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present….we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”  The time to “think anew, and act anew” is here.  It’s a time worn adage that every general election for the President of the United States is always called the ‘most important election in our history.’  This time it isn’t just rhetoric, it’s real.  Real enough that any sane citizen can see the fabric of our nation is starting to come undone.  That’s how important the coming general election for 2020 is. 

If we don’t take steps to repair what Trump has done we will find ourselves where Lincoln found himself on that fateful trip from Springfield, Illinois to Washington, D.C. to prepare for his oath of office.  There is still time but here is precious little left.  If Trump finds his way to being the “responsible officer of government” again I’m not sure time won’t have run out.