Our Republic
It needs to be said that, after nearly two hundred forty-four years of existence, our Republic is unwell. One can succumb to the current zeitgeist and blame Donald Trump . That, of course, would be the easiest method. The low-hanging fruit. And this would be true, largely, since he has done more in the last four years of a presidency than any of his predecessors to hasten the illness of our Nation. But the problem also runs deeper than Trump. Evidence indicates a growing divide between Americans (a demonym I will generously apply to my fellow citizens, although it could be more broadly interpreted). A simple chart from Pew Research indicates that it has grown worse since the late 1990s, with a brief reprieve of unity in the early 2000s (perhaps from the events of 9/11). What we can see from a comparison of “politically engaged” Americans in 1994 and 2017 is an erosion of the political center. Charts for the “general public” look si...