America was not split by Trump

Julia Nikolayeva, lawyer (USA)

For a while, it seemed to me that America was split by Trump. Now I think differently - the appearance of Trump was a signal of an imminent split.

Any society is traditionally divided into those who think progressively, sometimes ahead of their time, and those who seek to preserve the old, familiar way of life, seeing in it a guarantee of stability and order. Thanks to the former, who were once called democrats, society is moving forward, thanks to the latter, formerly called conservatives, it manages to adapt to this movement. No one is better or worse, especially since some cannot exist without others, because development is always a competition of opinions. The smaller the gap between these poles, the calmer, but slower, the development takes place. With an increase in the gap, the rate of development increases, but the amplitude of oscillations also increases. At such moments, revolutions or their softened counterparts sometimes occur.

The more prosperous segments of the population are usually conservatively inclined, fearing to lose their well-being as a result of too intensive changes, that is, the aristocracy, oligarchy and the well-to-do part of the plebs. The development of political and social institutions is supported by only a small part of them, the most progressive, and, as a rule, the most enlightened, not holding on to their property. Most of the democratic forces are people who have complaints about the existing system and want to change this system. There is also the so-called "middle class", not too rich, but not at all poor, existing comfortably, but without corrupting luxury - the healthiest part of society, which adjoins one or another purely out of sincere convictions. The wider the middle class stratum, the healthier the society. So it was in Athens, and in the Roman Empire, the Age of Enlightenment walked in the same manner across Europe, American democracy developed according to the same principle, and Russia, with all the peculiarities of its path, did not escape this pattern.

In the modern world, the concepts of "conservatives" and "democrats" have acquired a slightly different meaning. This is not only about financial or any other personal well-being, this is partly about the concepts of a more moral order - justice, humanism, inclusiveness. Let's call it mentality. So in America, a sharp contrast of mentality between the states is very progressive, technological, dynamic in every sense, mostly densely populated, mostly along the coasts, stuffed with universities and other educational movement, and the states representing good old America, today are already archaic and conservative. They were quite modern at the end of the 19th and even the first half of the 20th century and see loyalty to the true, pristine traditions of the United States in preserving the traditions of those times. While their opponents consider the true spirit of America to be constant progress, that is, movement, and in everything - in science, technology, politics, society, human rights - and consider all these areas to be interconnected.

As a result, some rushed forward too quickly, while the latter turned out to be more reactionary than ever. At the same time, the shock-absorbing layer in the person of the middle class, which provides relative stability, sharply thinned, and an incredibly huge mental rift was revealed between the poles. Some take money from the police in order to give it to BLM and offer to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves, others continue the traditions of the Ku Klus Klan, cultivating common everyday racism in themselves and their children. Some set up tents for the homeless, each costing a budget of $ 5,000 a month, while others deprive the homeless of the right to mental health care. Some make common, sexless toilets and transform gender sports for transgender people, so as not to hurt the feelings of LGBT people, others want to ban same-sex marriage and adoption by such couples of children. Some freeze eggs to allow children to reproduce at a convenient time for parents, while others prohibit abortion. The polarity is off the charts, and that's okay. This is always the case when new fundamental questions are raised. And no matter how critical the conflict of opinions may seem, it will be resolved correctly. Because there is public discussion, there are elections, and there is a court. And if one thing fails, the rest will fix it. So everything will be fine.

Original is here.