'It's real fear': clash of two Americas could get worse before it gets better | US news... - 0 views
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“There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America,” Barack Obama said in 2004.
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Both Democrats preached one nation, but the 2020 presidential election has exacerbated fractures of American society: a profound polarisation
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few are under any illusions that a Biden win on Tuesday would drain the poison overnight. Trump and Trumpism would persist, perhaps in an even more raw and angry form
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“That division and hatred and fear and frustration and anger are not just going to disappear the day after the election,” said Leon Panetta
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division and divisiveness have been defining hallmarks of the Trump era: female v male, Black v white, young v old, liberal v conservative, urban v rural, Hollywood v heartland, college-educated v blue collar, pro-choice v anti-abortion, “elite” v “deplorable”, instinct v science, hipster v hunter.
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Democrats have thrived in cities with young and diverse populations while Republicans command support from older white voters in small towns and rural areas.
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To be in Washington on inauguration day in January 2017 was to see two irreconcilable political tribes circling each other warily, mostly keeping their distance but occasionally crossing bitter words.
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“In fact, it’s reached the point that when you meet somebody, you can immediately size them up as a ‘Trump voter’ or a ‘Biden voter.’ That kind of easy stereotyping leads us to see the other party as distant and different.
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the apocalyptic language has created “a perilous moment – the idea that if the other side wins, we’re in for it”.
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Republicans’ “America versus socialism” framing seeks to portray Biden as a Trojan horse of a radical left that would raise taxes, take away guns and enable abortion on demand.
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“There’s fear. It’s real fear. And I understand if you’re not a conservative it’s hard to be empathetic and it seems like an exaggeration. But like the same kind of fear on the left that Trump is a unique threat to the country, there’s a real fear on the right, especially I would say from Christians, of what the country would look like under a Democratic president.”
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Trump appeared to understand that, with each election cycle, Republicans have to work harder and harder to turn out a shrinking base of white conservative voters if they hope to preserve what is effectively minority rule.
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“We are at a hinge moment in American history in terms of demographic change in the country and I think that’s what is fuelling a lot of the divides. It goes beyond politics. It goes to this fundamental question of American identity.
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Whereas white Christians made up 54% of the population when Barack Obama was first running for president in 2008, they now make up only 44%.
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“But I think this sense of ownership of the culture and the country by white Protestant Christians in particular has been so strong in American culture, it is part of the sense of loss, the sense of disruption that you feel so much on the conservative side of politics as these demographics are changing.
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“I come from the supposedly ‘Trump communities’ and I know the people in those communities do not want it to be easy to steal elections,”