While lawyers and pundits (and Donald Trump) keep fighting, it has been pretty easy for news consumers to see the big picture after the 2020 elections: America is as divided in 2020 as it was in 2016.
After four years of apocalyptic rhetoric on both sides, a few thousand votes in several key zip codes could have swung the White House race. Republicans — strong in down-ballot races — gained ground in the U.S. House and held the high ground in most state races. The fact that control of the U.S. Senate will come down to a two-seat election in Georgia was a new wrinkle, but the divisions there there are oh so familiar.
How many op-ed words have a read, in the past week, trying to describe the nature of this divide? I’m scared to make a guess.
Most people can spot the blue urban coasts vs. red heartland divide. Then again, there are blotches of red in most blue states and bright-blue cities in the reddest of red states (hello friends in the People’s Republic of Austin, Texas). Location, location, location.
However, it’s easy to see evidence of America’s battles over religious liberty and sexual liberation, along with the many specific political battles linked to that divide. Joe Biden rode a surge of votes from the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated and urban singles, while Republicans (including Trump) were the choice of Americans (keep your eye on Hispanics) who most frequently attend worship services. The “pew gap” remains a reality in American politics.
Everyone can see that, right?
Maybe not. Out of all of the news coverage and analysis that I read, one specific USA Today feature stood out as a perfect summary of the tone-deaf state of far too many members of the American chattering classes. The headline on this news piece, which was not labeled “analysis,” stated: “A close presidential election deepens the nation's divide. How do we live together now?”
The word “soul” made it into the lede — #HURRAH) — but that was that, in terms of attention to the role that religious faith plays in American life. The divide, you seem, has something to do with “morality,” but not religion. Here’s the overture:
During the presidential campaign, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden referred to the 2020 election as a fight for the “soul” of America. If this week has showed anything, it's that the country is still painfully divided on what America is and what it should become.
Now voters on either side of the political aisle must do what for some feels impossible: co-exist. Live and work together, sometimes sit down for dinners together, send their children to schools together. All while feeling confounded about how the other voted as they did.
"Moral convictions and moral outrage are so central to our identity," said David Pizarro, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who studies moral reasoning, judgment and emotion.
"Unlike any of our other beliefs, it's a non-starter to ask people to change that, to say, 'Oh, this thing that you deeply, firmly believe as right and true, just look past that when you're dealing with people who are opposed to you.' That just seems wrong. It seems like it's contrary to what it means to have a moral view."
So what is this all about? The answers that journalists hear, of course, tend to depend on the experts that they consult.
The goal is to find people of authority, people who understand America in all its complexity. We need people who deal with real things, real information, real life. That’s what journalists need to do in order to help ordinary Americans find “healing.”
Let’s see. Who is available to be interviewed in California, New York and the bright-blue zones in states like Virginia?
Experts in psychology, political science and morality say political polarization isn't just divisive, it's toxic, impacting people socially, emotionally and physically. Healing, if that's what the nation desires, will take patience and attention to wounds both personal and societal.
"Part of this is how do we deal with it in our own functioning, in our own bodies in our own minds and souls," said Saul Levine, professor emeritus in psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, whose research focused on intense belief systems and the capacity for compassion. "Part B, which is equally or more important, is how do we deal with it as a society?"
All though the piece, politics is — #DUH — the final lens through which truth is seen.
Politics is what people are fighting about, even if that isn’t how some of them describe their beliefs and the conflicts linked to them.
Readers keep encountering summary passage such as this one:
Part of what Americans are grappling with is the tension between embracing civility and refusing to tolerate what they view as injustice. Holding fast to moral values while seeking national unity is a difficult cognitive task. Experts say it's important to pause and reflect, to feel the frustration, fear and anger, but to weigh how best to express it. For individual mental health and for the collective health of society, it may be more useful to channel emotion into action.
So, in the end, how many experts and wise voices from religious institutions or movement were featured in this article about pain, morality, civility, tolerance and healing? How many came from campuses or research organizations that focus on religious faith and history, as part of their work? How many pastors and theologians were consulted? How about experts on the role religious faith has played in American history?
The answer, of course, is ZERO.
Real answers, you see, are found in the study of subjects that are real. Listen to Kevin Smith, a political scientists who studies, readers are told, “the biology and psychology of political attitudes and behavior.”
"The biggest driver of the polarized mind is fear ... the fear of insignificance, of feeling put down and not counted to the point where it almost feels like one is going to die, as a kind of death anxiety, fear of being wiped away," he said. "People will do everything they can, including becoming extreme and destructive themselves, to avoid that."
In a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse nation, the country cannot effectively operate without unifying values. Among some communities, however, the sense of betrayal is so profound that dialogue seems fruitless.
So when ordinary Americans talk about life-and-death moral issues, the conflicts that sear their souls, they talk about politics, biology, psychology and technology, as opposed to, well, you know — religious beliefs and traditions?
Oh, and America is growing more diverse “racially, ethnically and culturally” and that is that?
When a Latino “none” who voted for the Democrats argues with his-her-their evangelical Latino parents who swung over to vote Republican, these painful discussions about “morality” are rooted in political theory, biology and psychology? Right? The same thing is true in a divided home in the Atlanta suburbs and other front-line locations in America’s culture wars?
“Right,” according to the worldview that shaped this USA Today “news” report.
All the experts agree. At least the experts who matter agree on that, the experts who focus on real life for USA Today. And there is no chance that this faith-free point of view — with its failure to “get” the role that religion plays in the real lives of real people in large parts of the real America — has anything to do with the divisions in American life getting worse and worse.
Again: Politics is real. Religious faith is not real. All the real experts agree.