What is United about the United States of America: The Ugly, Untold Truth

By Steven Potts

For an individual’s condition to be considered a social, political, rascal, economic, or religious concern, a portion of the population typically agrees these conditions present complications in society and should be reformed.

Today, the United States of America maintains an unrivaled global superiority in terms of economics, military, political influence, technology, and innovation. The reality, in fact, is the United States has never been united on major social, racial, civil ri

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640968455

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What Is United about the

United States of America

The Ugly, Untold Truth

Steven C. Potts

Copyright © 2019 Steven C. Potts

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64096-843-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64096-845-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my mother, Barbara H. Potts, for showering me with her constant love and affection and for always believing in me and telling me to pursue my dreams until my very last breath. I would also like to thank my wife, Jacqueline Coleman-Potts, and my daughter, Stephanie D. Potts, for inspiring, loving me and supporting me throughout my journey of writing this book. It wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of these three women that I hold dear in my life.

Introduction

Today, the United States of America maintains an unrivaled global superiority in terms of economics, military, political influence, technology, and innovation. It is sending rockets in space, unearthing gravitational waves, exporting American culture worldwide, and influencing world dynamics. It is doing all this simultaneously and, in fact, quite successfully.

With the greatest GDP per capita in the world, a military budget that stands four times that of the world’s second biggest spender, and a strong global political influence, there is no denying that America is the world’s supreme power today. However, all of this splendor and the so-called world’s superpower title do little more than putting up an attractive façade over a reality that is much more hideous. This reality questions the very essence of America—the unity—something it is so proud of that it even carries it in its name. In spite of its great historical achievements, America will continue to inch toward a demise that has nothing to do with losing out to its rivals in terms of its military size, economy growth, or innovation mania.

The reality, in fact, is that the United States has never been united on major social, racial, civil rights, economic, religious, political, or moral issues that are important to its citizens, and unfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon. The situation has persisted for the last couple of centuries, since before the Civil War. Although the United States maintains an outer façade of peace and harmony, its soul is beset with an ideological crisis that is gradually transforming into a full-fledged ideological war.

No matter how subliminal and abstract it may seem to some, the war manifests itself in the most vocal and apparent of ways. It has many facets, and at each facet, the situation is equally gruel and unyielding. The freedom that was meant to unite Americans by allowing them to opt for their choice is now providing the very basis of their disintegration into several factions on political, economic, and racial grounds. The crisis of the American ideology engulfs a hesitant indecisiveness over the problem of American values and culture, brand of politics, criminal justice system, and civil rights. In spite of being at the forefront in spearheading modernity in the world, the United States has failed to rid itself of the pre-colonial remnants of racism, sexism, religious and political bigotry, economic and gender inequality and legal discrimination. All these factors add up to make an insurmountable obstacle in the progress of what I would like to refer to as the American soul.

While statistics suggest that America will continue to progress in the more tangible and quantifiable spheres of economy, military, and technology, its soul will continue to rot in its body and fail to keep up with the quickly piling material gains, giving birth to the grand American identity crisis. Despite politicians’ claims that America is a united country, America stands deeply and profoundly divided today.

This book will explore and discuss these divisive issues. Racism, being a prime issue, is embedded in the American cultural mindset; and in spite of it being a richly cosmopolitan state, the notions of racism don’t just linger in the shady backstreets, but prosper and play out vocally in the parliament, and more generally, in the American cultural atmosphere.

The next key issue is religious bigotry. Although there has been a significant shift in the overall religious stance in the region with the synthesis and rise of Atheism, the traditional trends of Christianity continue to linger, incite hatred, and powerfully affect the State’s functions. Likewise, the political ideology stays irrevocably divided between the conservative and liberal schools of thought. There are discrepancies in who gets what based on one’s gender and race.

The economy has so far been unable to live up to the standards of equality upheld and proclaimed by America. Our existing justice system is criminal, allowing mass incarceration of minorities and instituting systematic slavery of blacks and browns that is far worse than what they suffered 400 years ago. The issue of civil rights, in spite of a number of debates on freedom and equality, stands unresolved to this day. American values are disintegrating in the face of the excessive and utilitarian exploitation of the Bible that was done in order to carve leeway for racial discrimination and slavery in the American constitution.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

A Brief History of American Polarization

The history of polarization of the American sociopolitical makeup is as old as U.S. history itself. It is, in fact, one of those undeniable aspects of history as well as present-day realities that have sustained its momentum right from the very start. No wonder the United States of 2017 is as polarized, divided, and partisan as it was back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Heading back to the corridors of American history to highlight and circumscribe the exact centripetal point of American polarization is quite a tedious and exasperating task for the United States, knowing that it is as polarized today as it had been 240 years ago. Having been an extensively diverse nation since forever, the conflict of interest, difference in viewpoints, and a variety of opinions is inevitable for a nation that is home to people hailing from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and origins.

While this diversity could have made a unique cynosure on the American persona, the infusion of the political catalysts only added to cumulate the diversity into differences and extended the crevasses of the great American divide. Keeping all notions of freedom and independence of choice aside, the nation had little to choose from when it came to determining and opting for a political ideology.

Being American only means that you can either be a Republican or a Democrat. Political trend setters and the ruling and decisive elements of the political setup have always ensured that the right wing and left wing partisanship prevails, and the two-party monopoly rules over the entire political system.

The American polarization, in historic retrospect, can be reviewed from the final quarter of the nineteenth century, a hundred years after the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. economy was reeling from a tremendous jolt in the form of the Great Depression of 1873. With the unemployment rate hiked up at an alarming 25 percent, the effervescing chaos and uncertainty that was taking a toll on society overshadowed the centenary celebrations of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

What added more to make the overall situation worse and took it to a whole new height was the presidential election that was held in November 1876 which ended up being an electoral tie between the Republican and the Democrat candidates. Both camps were equally determined to make the ball land in their court, accusing the other side of rigging, forgery, and voter suppression. Furthermore, the declaration of Colorado as a state, right at that very time, credited three much-needed votes into the Republican account.

Finally, the decision of the standing committee eventually decided the election in favor of the Republicans and hence started the era of an extremist political partisanship that had little to do with their core ideologies. Later, as the United States progressed amidst the most happening and defining moments of history, the Civil War and the African-American rebellion stirred the societal structure a little bit more, strengthening the extremist ideological stances on both sides of the camp. However, despite everything that could have triggered the extremism of political thoughts, it actually turned out to be a rather close call, even in the presidential election of 1880.

The campaigns, manifestos and agendas majorly revolved around economic reforms and tariff policies, despite the influences of the Civil War and the African-American rebellion. The close contest ended up in favor of the Republicans whose candidate, James Garfield, outclassed his Democrat counterpart by a mere marginal difference of 7,000 votes.

Despite the close call, there were some clear divisions bubbling within the American political structure that could only be identified through the electoral voting trends. The South and the North could clearly be observed drifting apart and away from each other in terms of ideologies and the political sectarian divide.

The divide that was not very evident on national and state levels was, deep down, promoting the great American divide based on extremist ideologies and polarized schools of thought. The overall American electorate could be clearly observed to be segregated between the South and the North in the aftermath of the Civil War. While the Democrats had a more firm hand over the enslaved African-American states, the Republicans were definitely taking the lead in the North and the Midwest.

An overview of the party-wise segregation and analysis of votes clearly indicated that there was a time when the average U.S. citizen was compelled to opt for one of the two political ideologies—to be a Republican or a Democrat. The American society was compelled into landing for either of the two camps, and in this great game in pursuit of power and authority, the two wings strived, consuming every possible resource or element that could do them a favor and expand their nationwide influence.

While the Democrats had a majority of support in the South and of the once-enslaved African-American regions and counties, the implementation of the Fifteenth Amendment and enfranchisement of African-American slaves made it possible for the Republicans to disentangle a few regions and counties of Southern America from the clutches of the Democrats. The trends prevailed, depicting fluctuations and nuances in the electoral divisions through the changing voter behavior at the micro level of electorates. However, both wings managed to sustain their overall influence on state level spheres.

A further analysis of the county-wise distribution of Republicans and Democrats that held areas in the last decades of the nineteenth century notably indicates to the time that can be declared as the one when American society started to divide. This division was not in terms of North and South America, but in the more complex, fundamentalist, and extremist forms of segregation—that of the right and left wings—that was only paving way to erupt as an ultimate clash of ideologies that we get to see in today’s sociopolitical makeup of American society.

The counties, states, regions, and urban, suburban, and rural electorates continued with their changing patterns and inclinations. The Democrats were slowly losing their support in the upper southern counties, and the Republicans were gradually paving their way, breaking into some of the strongest Democrat-held entities.

Meanwhile, on similar patterns, the Republican Party was still struggling to keep up with its strength and influence in the Northeast, including the state of Pennsylvania, due to its hardcore, unwavering, and rather extremist approach toward issues like immigration, industrialization, and growing class conflict. Although Garfield won the race for presidency after a close contest, the results would have been totally different had the Democrats managed to convert just a couple of voters in the state of New York.

The last two decades of the nineteenth century can be considered as the era that illustrated a fundamental blueprint and laid the foundation of the sociopolitical structure of the United States of today. Not only did it turn out to be a defining era of incredible transformations and formation of political beliefs, the evolution of political science as a special discipline of research and study also paved the way for a political system that was, by large, comprised of two polar wings, with little or no scope for a third entity to penetrate.

The conceptual analysis, hypothetical assumptions, and results and inferences that were drawn out of the various studies conducted in the course of the studies of the emerging discipline of political science also contributed to reshape and devise the blueprint for the sociopolitical ideologies of the United States.

While it triggered public interest and enabled the general American public to visualize and develop an understanding of the dynamics and core concepts of the political system, the research studies in this discourse benefitted the two parties in determining the outcomes of their efforts in pursuit of the expansion in the domain of influence and control and increase and decrease in the size of their core electorates and trending patterns of voter behavior toward core issues of national interest. This paved the way for a more systematic, organized, coordinated, and result-oriented approach and eventually improved the quality and efficiency of their political strategies and tactics.

However, with all the pros and trending advancements and improvements in the political makeup of the United States that were taking place at that time, there is still a hideous and less talked about fact about that particular era. It was right then and there that the two political wings realized and actualized the significance of polarization and partisanship—that how important it was to keep the nation divided for their own cause and interest.

This might sound too harsh and bitter, but the two parties realized the significance of each other just in time; it was that they needed the other to maintain their influence. They ascertained and acknowledged the fact at their own ends that, in order to ensure the efficacy of their own set of ideologies, they needed an equal contradiction or else their own viewpoints and advocated beliefs would lose their essence.

The clever minds behind each side of the political chess board of American society realized that it was important to entangle American society in the web-like loops of politics. They actualized how important it was for them to narrow down the scope of politics and deduce the choices in the variety of political ideologies so as to keep them concentrated in two major camps, leaving no space for a third entity to penetrate and make its way into the political arena. A one-party system would turn more into a kingship or monarchy that highly contravened the democratic foundation of the United States. The two-party system was the best choice for both political wings to ensure that they maintain their respective supremacy and keep the power game between two major players.

This might as well be rendered as the undeclared, unwritten, and unspeakable agreement between the two sides. They know their significance for each other. They are well aware of the differences and the importance of maintaining those differences. They know that settling for a mediocre path or a mutually agreeable ground would lead to self-death for both schools of thought, and hence, they continue to adhere to their opposing and contradicting policies, viewpoints and stances in all issues of major and minor interest.

It is this that has divided American citizens into two major groups. The right and left winged ventriloquists and puppet masters continue to play the American public like puppets, constraining their rights, freedoms, and independence and also limiting their scope of rational and logical thought process.

Talking about politics in the United States of today compels you to side with either of the two choices you are offered, even if you do not agree to any of them. The Democrats and the Republicans continue to rule over the United States in tandem and in perfect unison, assured of the fact that, even if they fail to win one election contest, they have a relatively higher probability of grabbing hold of executive power in the next or upcoming tenures. This to and fro swaying of rule and authority from one court to another has, by large, confined the role of the public and has cast a great blow to their freedom of choice.

The ironic story of the great American divide further extended and strengthened its roots as the two parties made full use of anything that could contribute to increasing the intra-societal crevasses, dividing society, and bringing in more power and manipulative control in their hands to rule over the American public.

They used the religious factor to fan the fire of bigotries, racial segregations to ensure that Americans would never look past the shallow discriminatory factors of their ancestral background and skin color, and the tool of sexism to draw segregations and disparities between male and female counterparts, even among those belonging to a similar racial or religious group. Moreover, they utilized the socioeconomic divide to incorporate a class system within society and infused socioeconomic disparities and altered American standards, ethics, and values to suit their respective interests and motives without caring about the fact that this would only tarnish the fine threads of the American soul. It is because of this that the American Dream seems no less than a far-fetched fantasy.

Despite our extraordinary growth, progress, and advancement in technological, economic, and other tangible aspects, and despite holding an unrivalled supremacy on the global horizon, the United States still has to go a long way and has to mend and cure every single aspect, pillar, and element of its society from this carcinogenic menace of polarization.

Chapter 2

An Overview of the Causes of Polarization

Over a period, the United States has strengthened its magnitude of polarity in politics, barely leaving room or scope for a moderate or mediocre pathway or choice. The right and left wings have put in their best efforts to strengthen the extremity of their ideologies. This has only resulted in a political sphere where the freedom of choice left for a common American citizen is little.

The right wing camp held by the Conservatives and the GOP, or the Republican Party, has opted for a more fundamentalist and conventionalist stance on core societal and state level issues. Their ideologies and set of beliefs, viewpoints, and political strategies are often triggered and influenced by hardcore religious, ethical, or moral conventions and norms. Their ideal voter segment is overwhelmingly white and relatively old, with staunch and unwavering beliefs, conventional ethics, and the vision of an ideal United States which is Christian and White.

Similarly, the Democratic National Convention (DNC), or the Liberals as they are more commonly known, is the proponent of a more secular, progressive, and modernized approach toward core issues on societal or state level. Their ideal voter is the American youth or millennial having a progressive, less religious, and liberal approach toward freedom and a growing concern toward contemporary issues related to health, economic decline, racial injustice, and wealth accumulation in the upper 2 percent niche of the population.

Their ideologies, beliefs, statures, and stances contravene each other. This contradiction and difference of opinion is the prime reason that they have managed to sustain their influence in their respective camps for not just a couple of years or decades, but for centuries. Absolutely aware of the power of these polarized poles, the right and the left wings of American politics know that, in order to maintain their own power and influence, they need an opposing ideology so that both camps can get along in perfect tandem and share a two-party monopoly in the world of American politics.

What are the prime causes, factors, and elements that have actually contributed to strengthen this partisanship in the sphere of politics, equally benefitting the right and the left wing poles? What is it that has blocked all pathways for a third entity with a mediocre set of beliefs to penetrate and compete head to head in the ring of politics? It is important to analyze this aspect to understand the roots of partisanship that have extended their reach beyond the political domain and have spread their tertiary offshoots into other societal spheres in the process.

The current complicatedly weaved knits and knots of partisan politics stem from a variety of factors that have influenced and triggered the political bipolar extremity in their own domain. Their cumulated result is what we get to see in the present age face of American politics.

The previous chapter provided an insight into the history and background of American politics. This chapter will take the case further to find the core causes and influential factors that contributed to the evolution of an extremely polarized two-party system in the United States. The implications of the bipolar and partisan politics on the American state and society will be discussed in the chapter about political divide as we proceed.

Influential Elements and Catalysts

Contributing to American Political Partisanship

The Close Congressional Imbalance

The electorates have become increasingly competitive, and usually, the congressional strength resides in a close contest between the ruling party and the opposition. The two-part factor has provided the respective right and left wing camps with an additional power to increase and even imitate their influence, even in the areas where they don’t stand in majority.

The electoral politics runs on the prime notion that makes both political entities imitate their majority, even if they don’t have it, for if they portrayed themselves as a minority, they will eventually become a minority. Hence, the American elections generally end up in a close run and the least magnitude of difference in the count of electoral votes and congressional mind. This maintains an electoral balance, creating a congressional equilibrium.

This further results into an almost equal power and influence within the Congress, and hence, each bill, reform, or national issue under discussion in the Congress sessions are heavily influenced by the Liberal and Conservative opinions and their respective political stances.

Regional Realignment

A significant and massive transition can be observed in the post-1954 era—after the endorsement of the Civil Rights Act in 1964—with a gradual transition of power and influence, for Liberals and Conservatives alike. In the aftermath of the Civil Bill of Rights, the structure and composition of Democrats went under a significant change in terms of voter inclination and electoral influence.

Similarly, the Southern Republicans went through a transition of state-level party control, taking it from the hands of business elites and accumulating it in the evangelical camp. Meanwhile, the Civil Rights Act made its due contribution to enhance the polarity of opinions and thus increasing the partisanship and extremity of opinion and aptitudes. Not just in the South, but in the entire United States.

Socioeconomic Inequality and the Money Factor

The socioeconomic inequality, particularly income inequality, has turned to be a noteworthy cause of polarization in American society. American society has become extremely unequal in terms of income and wealth distribution, particularly after the era of relative equality that we observed during the decades of the 1940 and 1980.

The correlation is factually explained through a U-Curve of inequality and the U-Curve of polarization. A close observation of both these curves, in tandem, indicates similar patterns of fluctuating highs and lows. This depicts a direct relationship between income inequality and polarization.

This can conveniently be understood by the increasing accumulation of wealth at the upper niche of the socioeconomic system that paves the way for the influx of money factor in politics. In the specific and closely observed context of states, regions, and counties, states with a higher magnitude of unequal income distribution depict extreme patterns of polarization—extreme Republican and extreme Democrats—and lose their respective moderates.

This might have been caused by the Republican’s funding of its more extreme candidates at the state level, which triggered the extremity of opinions and inclinations and thus segregated the state citizens accordingly.

Increasing Media Influence

The media and broadcasting corporations have managed to exercise a significant influence over the sphere of news and information broadcast and has been shamelessly utilizing its power and capacity to reach out to the masses, not with an intent to inform the public about proceedings, news, and happenings, but to manipulate the general American mindset and transform and influence an overall viewpoint that would complement their own predetermined goals and interest.

The power of the media was realized by the two parties, and so its influence in American politics started gaining momentum after the 1960s. Before that new information was less of an issue. The political entities started consuming the strength of the media and its massive reach deep down to the grassroots level. They slowly categorized the institution of the media and broadcasting corporation into right and left wing entities and influenced them with their respective political camps. The American media of today is visibly divided along Liberal and Conservative lines and acts as the right hand of their guardian political entity.

The Internal Party Factors

Apart from the electoral, state level, and primary level partisanships, and the factors adding to the overall political polarization in the United States, certain intra-party affairs too have been fostering intense polarization. For instance, the change of party rule and command, the opposing camp’s agenda and manifesto, internal and external party pressures, and gerrymandering also contribute their share in influencing the opinion, ideology, and political stance of the two parties and thus extend the crevasses and differences of opinion between the polar political entities.

Bottom Line

Polarized system of politics, with two parties ruling the entire political game, is not actually a problem in its entirety. Many developed and well-established nations and states like the United Kingdom have a polarized, two-party political system. Polarization of politics is not a structural discrepancy or a constitutional or legislative issue. Keeping negotiations and conciliatory channels open, a two-party system can be run at an optimum functionality and can harvest benefits of national interest.

However, the U.S. polarization of politics is powered by the constitutional extremist separations of powers along with multiple veto controls. This amalgam has only cumulated the intensity of the polarization, creating an atmosphere of extremely polarized opinions, leaving little to no room for dialogue, conciliations, or negotiations. The resultant is a complex and compact system of two poles, with deadlock over core issues like economy, commerce, defense, law and order, internal affairs, international relations, and other matters of national interest.

Besides the external factors, the problem lies within the parties and their internal systems as well. The influence they hold on elections, electoral reforms, and their use of gerrymandering to pursue their objectives, outclass the opponent, and prepare a fertile ground for themselves are ugly realities of the American political system.

In addition to that, the role of the media too is highly questionable for fanning the fire of extreme opinions and flourishing a negative environment with little or no tolerance for the others’ opinion. The circulation of money in the political corridors, invested with an intention to reap significant political gains and the accumulation of wealth at the upper economic levels, are also factors that have been contributing to the extremity of partisanship.

The influence of business elites and political donors and funders has also shifted the accumulation of actual power from the hands of the common voter into the clutches of corporations and business tycoons. The public financing of elections may turn out to be a significant means to free and liberate the general elections and the political system from the clutches of corporations.

Polarization of the American politics is not an issue that emerged all of a sudden to take a toll over the political, legislative, and constitutional affairs overnight. It is the resultant and cumulated effect of a variety of factors and elements that have traumatized the American version of two-party politics and thus needs a multidimensional approach to mend and restore the system to its optimally beneficial state. What we need is to step out of this dilemma of a self-acquired negligence.

Polarization is now a well-grounded reality of our society, and while it is okay for a nation as diverse as the United States to have a polarized setup, we must not let it get the better of us. Heated debates, personal accusations, false claims, allegations, and consuming all efforts to overrule the other pole would lead to no progressivism. It will only make us dwell in a closed circle, manipulated by the bipolar monopoly.

Chapter 3

The Racial Divide

Racism runs deep in the American sociocultural makeup. It’s not anything like the emerging threat of transatlantic terrorist regimes—it’s much older, more threatening, and more alive. It breathes within us and has victimized more people than any terrorist regime in the entire human history. The origin of racism in the United States can be traced back to the colonial and slavery era. While it is said that America today is a post-racial society, the sad fact is that, although slightly changed in its forms, racism continues to flourish in its liberal form today. In spite of the ban imposed in the twentieth century on formal racial discrimination in