RE: United States or Divided States?
Yes. I will.
And I'll simply say "welcome to humanity".
I think we (myself not excluded) tend to focus on what's directly in front of us, and we lose perspective that way. I believe that, in truth, if we could all go into each other's homes and have real, thought-out discussions about the topics we seem so divided on, that what we'd find is that the truth of our opinions is anything but black and white.
And I think, sometimes, our opinions as politically divided groups of people are often projected as black and white because it's the easiest, simplest way to communicate information. And on a personal basis, I think we may see the issues presented as more black and white because, maybe, we don't always have ways of articulating our views so that they aren't presented that way.
Debate should be nuanced. Ideally, when in its best form, it is. But we don't debate anymore. We fight. We name-call, and we shout and we slander and we play the "whattaboutism" game and it's entirely not productive. It's not conducive to creating true change.
We're proud, all of us. We're proud of being proud. And we're all afraid to admit that we may be wrong. And I think we're living in a time when a lot of us are very much wrong. Our two main political parties have been exposed as being corrupt to their core. And I think rather than acknowledge that and work on that, and do the self-reflection, self-criticism it takes to work on that, we naturally find it easier to point our fingers at whatever easiest and most timely scapegoat we can find. And this applies to every single one of us. It's no one's fault. It's everyone's fault. We have to change the way we have political discourse. It's not working the way we're doing it.
And with that said, I think the news skews our view of what's truly going on. I've already said that, but I'm saying it again. We need to turn off our TV's and go talk to each other. That's the only way we're going to have any truly realistic view of what's going on (and especially what other people think). I don't think it's as bad as we think it is. I think it's our tone. Our tone has gone negative and cynical and we've let the bar drop to a level that's created this reality. And the good news is (there's never good news on the TV) but in reality we can change it.
We will disagree. You bring up a great point. It is how we interact with each other in those disagreements that will show how we move forward.
Media is definitely playing on a real divide that exists. We need to return to the conversation with voices that seek reason and hearts that are willing to admit when we are wrong.
Thanks for adding to the conversation.