Americans Of a feather, Flocking Together

AMERICA'S POLITICAL POLARIZATION is widely known, written about, and discussed. Liberals discuss it with liberals, conservatives with conservatives. If we are fortunate, the twain never meet. Heaven helps us when they do. Heaven forbid that we should ever engage in political disagreements with civility. Not in the land of the yuge and terrific Trump. We all know about our little ideological bubbles, wherein we select only the information sources and friends which conform to our preexisting biases and beliefs, precluding any attempt at intellectual expansion. Then, there's gerrymandering, a long and venerable American political tradition, in which congressional districts are drawn and redrawn by whatever party is currently in power so as to herd us all into districts of like minded voters, as a means of keeping incumbents incumbent. The most fascinating aspect to this is that, as is now becoming evident, we Americans not only try to hang out with people who reinforce our beliefs, we actually try to buy and build houses and rent apartments in locations so we can live in communities where other fellow travelers live. Kansas City is full of conservatives, and Boulder is full of liberals. America's cities tend to be liberal, America's small towns and rural areas tend to be conservative, and the trend is intensifying. Texas is plain old right wing, and California is the land of the dreamy, idealistic liberal, at the top of which smiles Governor moonbeam. Any student of American history, particularly the Civil War, fully understands that when America polarizes, it doesn't fool around. The process has not run its course, and will play itself out, in its own way, no matter who we elect as President. We can only hope that conservatives are always welcome in Austin, Texas, and that liberals are always welcome in the rest of the state. The world already has enough refugees.