We Are a House Divided

(This article was written on Election Day morning, hours before the polls closed and the results were known.)

In 2021, Jon Grinspan published a book titled, The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915. Sounds rather boorish unless you are a history buff like me. In any case, it has become a bit of a cult classic on Capitol Hill, where legislators on both sides of the aisle are reading it in hopes of finding some common ground and uniting our country.

Or, at the very least, making our differences less mean-spirited and divisive.

As Jonathan Martin wrote in Politico, “The post-World War II political consensus in America is over… the country has returned to post-Civil War politics, when, as the saying went, people ‘voted as they shot’ in the years after the war.”

Long gone are the days when most Americans proudly wore “I Like Ike” buttons or at least respected and supported the man who led the Allies to victory in World War II. And will we ever mourn the passing of a president with as much sadness and solidarity as we did when JFK was tragically assassinated in 1963? How about the pride we all felt when Neil Armstrong took that "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"… can it ever be reclaimed and rekindled?

What Grinspan and Martin are both trying to say is that Americans have not been this politically divided since the Civil War and the years that immediately followed it. So much so that in the year 2024, a candidate’s experience and qualifications are almost deemed inconsequential. The only thing that voters are apparently concerned about – and pay attention to when they fill out their ballots – is party affiliation.

According to Grinspan, “I had a wise politician who was frustrated about his challenges of not being able to run statewide as a Democrat in the South tell me: ‘We don’t have elections anymore, we have a census.’ It doesn’t matter who the party nominates. The candidates are irrelevant. All that matters is the [party] letter after their name. And you just tell me the census data and I’ll tell you the results. That feels a lot like this period too, where you just told me the state and its ethnic and racial makeup, and you could probably tell me the results of the election.”

I experienced this king of political dichotomy when I ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 and 2010. Despite proving that my opponent, a 9-term Democratic incumbent, had stolen campaign funds and used them for his own personal pleasure (such as family vacations in Scotland, Beverly Hills, and Ocean City, NJ), voters returned him to office for a 10th and an 11th term. It didn’t matter to them that he had committed a federal crime… or that he had used his wife as a placeholder on the ticket while he ran for a higher office in case he lost (which he did)… or that under his leadership the City of Camden consistently ranked among the poorest and most dangerous cities in America. The fact that Rob Andrews had a Democratic “D” next to his name was all they cared about.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I haven’t voted for a Democrat in 35 years and when I don’t know anything about the two candidates’ credentials, I always vote for the Republican. But here’s the kicker: I don’t vote for Republican candidates just because of their party affiliation, but rather because I share most – if not all – of the same values.

Because I am staunchly pro-life… and because I support law and order along with a secure border… and because I believe in limited government and lower taxes… and because I don’t think biological men should be competing against biological women and sharing their locker rooms… I vote Republican.

But the saddest part of that statement is this: not too long ago, candidates from both parties would have agreed on at least some of those positions. For instance, can you imagine John F. Kennedy supporting abortion-on-demand throughout a woman’s pregnancy? And do you think for a minute that Harry Truman would have allowed men dressed in female attire to use the women’s restroom? Even a big government proponent like Franklin Roosevelt wanted peace – not riots and looting – in the streets. And yet, today’s Democratic officeholders support such lawless behavior and even raise money to bail out the perpetrators.

So, my fellow Americans, how do we come together and find some common ground? From my vantagepoint, we must first and foremost return to our founding Judeo-Christian principles instead of rebelling against them… if we stand half a chance.

When did we start to think that we were smarter than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin or knew more about how government should operate than James Madison and Alexander Hamilton? And when did we begin believing that God didn’t exist or that we didn’t need His divine providence and protection?

Such arrogance and audacity!

History – and the great men and women who made it – has a lot to teach us today… if only we would listen and learn.

As Abraham Lincoln famously said, referencing Matthew 12:25, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Lincoln made those remarks in 1858, two full years before he was elected president, southern states started to succeed, and the Civil War’s first shot was fired at Fort Sumter.

Lincoln went on to say that “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

And he was right because the Union was preserved… but at a cost of more than 600,000 American lives. If only the two sides, the two warring factions, had been able to come together, to find some common ground, such senseless carnage may have been averted.

Well, my fellow patriots, the same principle applies today. Will the people in America’s heartland find enough commonality with the residents of our urban cities to remain united around our core principles while “agreeing to disagree” on less important issues? Or will we decide that it is impossible to peacefully co-exist, in which case dissolution – or a winner take all national calamity – are our only choices?

Choose well, America, before it is too late.