THE ROOTS OF HYPER-POLARIZATION

The roots of hyper-polarization

By Robert Knight - - Sunday, September 23, 2018

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Just when you think things couldn’t be more upside down, Hillary Clinton declares that only one side is to blame for the vast cultural divide in America.

“There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about ‘both sides,’” she writes in an Atlantic essay adapted from the paperback edition of her book “What Happened.”

“But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem.” 

She places blame solely on the Republican Party for “increasing radicalism and irresponsibility” including “decades” of “demonizing Democrats” and “debasing norms.”

It’s a relief to know that the Democratic standard bearer from 2016 still thinks there is such a thing as a “norm” other than the name of the guy at the Cheers bar in Boston.

So, which side has been “debasing norms?” 

The “progressive” movement has radically redefined marriage, made gender a state of mind while ignoring biology, turned preference for English as a unifying common language into a mark of bigotry, and worked to make socialism instead of market capitalism the driving force in the economy.

Which side wants to flood the nation with millions of illegal immigrants and then deploy multiculturalism to supersede American traditions? 

Which side calls for complete government seizure of health care, “free” college tuition, confiscatory taxation and redistribution, and the ongoing normalization of obscenity and even late-term abortion?

As far as “demonizing,” no one can hold a candle to “progressives,” who play the “hate” and “racist” card over the slightest disagreement.

Sigmund Freud identified this propensity as “projection,” defined by Britannica as when “unwanted feelings are displaced onto another person A common form of projection occurs when an individual, threatened by his own angry feelings, accuses another of harboring hostile thoughts.”

Tactically, it means accusing others of what you yourself are doing, in sharp contrast to Jesus’ admonition to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The left’s Antifa movement is Exhibit A. 

Ostensibly formed to fight fascism, Antifa is the closest thing to fascist brownshirts that we have in America, with black-masked mobs violently shutting down conservative speakers and whipping up murderous resentment against police officers.

“Hyperpolarization now extends beyond politics into nearly every part of our culture,” Mrs. Clinton laments. 

Well, who might bear the most responsibility? 

Leftist strategist Saul Alinsky, whom she lauded in her Wellesley College thesis, advised in his “Rules for Radicals” book to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” 

Democrats are following that to the letter in the Brett Kavanaugh nomination battle.

Hillary goes on to accuse the Trump administration of “incompetence” and that “our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege.” Traditions? 

Like turning U.S. Supreme Court-nominee hearings into star chambers?

“We debate freely and disagree forcefully. 

It’s part of what distinguishes us from authoritarian societies, where dissent is forbidden,” Mrs. Clinton writes.

 “But we’re held together by deep ‘bonds of affection,’ as Abraham Lincoln said, and by the shared belief that out of our fractious melting pot comes a unified whole that’s stronger than the sum of our parts.”

Very nice, except that for decades, the left has trashed the “melting pot” and encouraged people to split into identity groups according to race, sex, age, sexual preference, language and ethnicity in order to stoke resentment-based voting blocs. 

Sen. Mazie Keiko Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, played her gender card last Tuesday, telling all — not some — American men to “shut up and step up.”

Back to Hillary: “It’s hard to ignore the racial subtext of virtually everything Trump says.”

For eight years, the Obama administration and its allies engaged in constant race-baiting, including lectures from Attorney General Eric Holder, who opined that Americans didn’t talk enough about race and who let the New Black Panthers get away with voter intimidation. 

Far from healing America’s racial divisions, the Obama administration made them much worse.

“From day one, [Donald Trump’s] administration has undermined civil rights that previous generations fought to secure and defend. 

There have been high-profile edicts like the Muslim travel ban and the barring of transgender Americans from serving in the military.”

Right. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. marched to make sure Corporal Klinger would someday serve comfortably in the frock of his choice and that we have no control over who enters the country.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton laments that “[m]assive economic inequality and corporate monopoly power are antidemocratic and corrode the American way of life.”

Aside from making more than $240 million since Bill Clinton left office in 2001, the Clintons have amassed $2 billion in the Clinton Foundation, much of it coming from foreign sources that benefited from Mrs. Clinton’s actions while secretary of State, as amply documented in Peter Schwiezer’s book, “Clinton Cash.”

“Now we must do all we can to save our democracy and heal our body politic.”

She’s right about that. 

“Deplorables” need to go to the polls in great numbers to deny the left its projected final victory over American restoration.

• Robert Knight is a contributor to The Washington Times. His latest book is “A Strong Constitution: What Would America Look Like If We Followed the Law?” (djkm.org, 2018).

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/sep/23/its-the-democrats-who-project-authority-but-debase/