Interesting article from a conservative slant, but no less accurate. I think though the silence of moderate repubs, and the interest groups that benefit from the policies of the current climate are a bigger factor in this time of cultural conflicts, but leave it to humans to ratchet up any perceived advantage they can. Is hate and fear driving lawmakers to play the games they do with the rules? Or is it plain greed? Probably both.

What drives me nuts is the dufus behind a podium at the WH spouting hate and division like he is at a campaign rally dispensing red meat to his base. I don't think he ever came out of campaign mode, and with him on the ballot this time, it's on steroids. His jacked up rhetoric and LIES are what divides us, and not enough cool heads on either side to balance his circus.

Can't give him personally all the blame because obviously past events have been headed down the path that makes such a fellow not just possible but inevitable.

takes 2 to tangle . Out west Antifa is beating on people;using pepper spray on them and hitting them with milkshakes laced with quick dry cement . Reminds me of Weimar Germany where left and right wing socialists battled in the streets . Vlahos is a professor at John Hopkins and the Naval War College . His main thesis is that every nation has a sacred narrative . Ours according the Vlahos is civil conflict. We were born out of those rare times of national unity. He is correct in saying we just projected out identity to external enemies . He says it ended in the 1970s .But I would argue that the fractures began to manifest in the 1950s ;and that by the mid 60s the battle lines were being drawn.

I do agree with that even through the unpopular Nam war, hippies, free love, sex drugs and rock and roll, it was always cops knocking heads, on campuses and in the inner city. Through it all though, for MANY, it's been that way for generations even while others were celebrating, buying homes, and building suburbia. That's the part the good scholar leaves out. Your good old days was not so good, just more of the same, and in sneakier ways, with the same battlelines we have had since the civil war. Darn near by the same people, places, and things.

The struggle continues.