Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Sciences has argued for years that the American identity is a permanent state of civil war. We were lulled into believing a different reality because we are the children of the post WWII era .Until the 1960s there was a brief time when our civil war impulses were turned outward .
"Today, two righteous paths are gridlocked in opposition. Both perceive themselves as champions of national renewal, of cleansing corrupted ideals, and of truly fulfilling America’s promise. Both fervently believe that they alone own virtue. Yet the banners of each course are absolutist mirrors of one another, pro and contra, all or nothing. Moreover, lightning rod issues, as in the 1770s and 1850s, make the space between battle lines a no man’s land, forcing majority moderates and compromising fence-sitters to choose or be called out as willing collaborators with the other. "