Category | Op Ed

It’s time to end this ‘Great American Divide’

Published on October 20, 2009 by Joel Mendelson

In this, the final year of the first decade of the 21st Century, a shocking revelation has plagued my mind: the United States is doomed. Call it fear and loathing, but no folks, this is real. Somehow, someway, we’ve forgotten how to work together, hand-in-hand, and put our differences aside. This country of freedom and liberty has turned into multiple versions of the United States, a country where when one side gets in power, “no” is the only word that comes from the opposition.

A dangerous trend has begun that rather than proposing compromise and alternative options, those in disagreement with the Obama administration would rather see the collapse of this far from perfect union, than promoting meaningful debate on the issues.

A president still only in his first year in the White House is attacked by his opponents, claiming that health care will be his “Waterloo” and this is a chance to break him. Honestly, other than having a fundamental disagreement on the president’s handling, what has this president done that is that divisive? We elect a pragmatist in this country and what we get from the other side isn’t opposition, it’s pure anger.

Outbursts from Congressman Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, during the president’s address to a Joint Session in September has earned Wilson an estimated 2.7 million dollars in campaign contributions. We have corruption running amok in the halls of Congress from Charlie Rangel, a Democrat from New York, who failed to pay his taxes, to Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, who had an affair with a staffer, yet our disagreements consistently remain partisan. These issues run far deeper than what the Democrats or Republicans are attempting to do as a party, it’s about those we trust to represent the American people. Yet we are blinded by argument.

This divisiveness on the streets of our nation’s capital has led to divisiveness in the streets of the United States, with few able to actually have a decent debate on the issues, settling for a yelling match in which little is actually settled. In our lack of substantive debate we are failing to realize that this our time to sink or swim as a country. The 20th Century is gone and if we don’t prepare ourselves for the true challenges of the 21st Century, the United States may struggle to exit this century as we did the last.

So through this editorial, I am calling for a meaningful debate on the issues that are affecting us, from the wars, to health care, to the economy, to the environment and our ever-struggling primary and secondary school systems. It is time we put the sword down, embraced our differences and actually made a difference in this country. While we hardly see eye-to-eye on these crucial issues, if we fail to come together and use our differing opinions to tackle these budding crises, we can avert a collapse of the country we all love so dearly.

As a supporter of President Obama, I am just as American and patriotic as those who decry him as a socialist. We’ve lost touch with the notion that we should embrace the varying political ideologies in this great country and stop the useless bickering; it is getting us nowhere.

Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, independents and even anarchists (well maybe not anarchists, they wouldn’t want to join anything), let’s take this opportunity to work for the one thing we can all agree on, a more perfect union. It won’t come overnight, as the damage and struggles this country had faced just in this decade alone has the potential to set us back for years, we must work together.

Call me as naïve as the man in the White House who ran on the platform that we could achieve our goals as one nation, not your America and my America, one America. Let’s end this great American divide once and for all, and explain to each other why we have our beliefs and how these ideas, from all parties, can be used for good, and end this fundamental disagreement. It’s time we pick up the pieces of liberty and freedom and work together to build a country in which we are all proud to be Americans. One nation, one America, it can happen, so let’s get to work.