What would it take to unite the U.S. citizenry?

Good points, wgb. Some issues certainly have to matter to some. The key part of unity that I’m discussing -and I think what davis means too- isn’t about consensus on issues. As you point out, we really do have a consensus on most issues, not just the ones that you mention, but any more that seen too obvious to even notice, such as no slavery, no eating each other, and no mandatory hour where we all pray to the sun while eating pudding. Whatever level of consensus we have, there will always be some small level of disagreement.

I think it’s human nature to focus on these differences, sometimes to the point which dehumanizes the other side. In Henri Tajfel’s experiments of the 70s, participants were willing to spend their own money to punish anonymous others who they were told had guessed a different number of dots in a cluster shown on a screen. It would be hard to find a smaller disagreement than that. I’m not looking for kumbaya. I’m just wanting us to stop assuming that anyone who doesn’t agree that 1.7% of GDP is the right foreign aid budget must be stupid and/or evil.

 

A major part of the problem right is that it's not a disagreement over policy, it's a disagreement over whether criminal and traitorous behavior should be tolerated from the highest elected official in the country.

Wait, it's actually worse : it's about whether the instruments of government power should assist and enable such criminality.

Wait, it's actually WORSE! It's about whether we should all COLLECTIVELY LIE and collectively DENY REALITY in order to further these crimes.

 

Well... maybe not if it was the Noles and UGAG. (Canes).

 

I know what you are saying Jo. There are certainly some vocal extremists out there, and Trump himself has said many of these things.

I still think it is a minority that endorses lying to enable criminal activity. These people get a lot of publicity and end up being our representative models for the other side, but I don’t think they really are representative. Indeed it appears that more than a few believe that Trump is being targeted unfairly. There may be some truth to this in the hush money case, but clearly Trump is responsible for much of it. I do agree with Trump supporters that we actually do not want to get into the habit of prosecuting a former presidents unless the crime is clear and evidenced. This is a somber moment in American history, and going after politicians is always going to seem political to some.

 

You are clearly thoughtful, educated and intelligent.

But this is just too many words. Trump should be incarcerated already. And anyone who can bring themselves to vote for a member of the political party criminal organization that defends him, lies for him, and enables his criminality should strenuously question their loyalty to their country.

 

Thank you for the kind words. I hope to live up to them, as I realize what I’m saying sounds crazy.

I have a friend from UF that’s now a high powered attorney. He was always one of the smartest people that I’ve known. He’s a hardcore conservative. He believes that not only are the Trump cases examples of selective persecution, but that Biden is the real criminal. When asked why no case has been brought against Biden, he will say that Republicans simply aren’t as politically cut throat as Democrats. Now I don’t believe this, and the last part I find preposterous. However, if you were tell me friend that criminal and traitorous behavior should not be tolerated by the highest office, he would hear you saying that Biden should be incarcerated already.

Now what’s the difference between you two? I think it is that your respective views of the evidence do not align. Which one of you is right? To me, there’s only one proper way to answer this: the legal system. Does the legal system have flaws? Of course. Can you actually indict a ham sandwich in NYC? I don’t know, but there is probably some reason why this phrase evolved. So I think it’s proper to have skepticism about judicial actions against political leaders, but at the end of the day, we must accept the decisions of our juries. None of us is free of bias, and yet almost all of us have reasons for our views. Trump supporters are no exception.

 

No, sorry - your friend is not one of the smartest people that you've known. He may have areas of acute intelligence, academic and professional discipline, and the ability to excel at a profession.

But if he can't see the differences between, say, Trump's multi-faceted criminal conspiracy to overturn an election and Biden's.........not doing so, and, well, committing no discernible crimes.........then your friend is an idiot.



Edit : sorry, but not sorry if that rhetoric sounds harsh.

To point, here's a hypothetical : I have a friend who is super intelligent and a high powered engineer. He swears that the Earth is flat.

Is my hypothetical friend smart, despite believing stupid bullshit that runs counter to mountains of identifiable evidence? No, he's not. Only in certain capabilities. And he deserves to be treated as such. Since when do people who believe stupid disprovable bullshit deserve to be considered "smart" ?

 

Don't care about Trump at all but this seems an awful lot like the Clinton Monica L. thing. It wasn't the fact he diddled her that was the crime, it was the lying under oath. That Clinton thing was also a waste of time IMO.

 

I don’t mean to suggest that my friend is smart because he thinks this way. What I am trying to suggest, and there’s a lot evidence for this point, is that even the most intelligent among us are not immune to biased thinking. Even nobel laureate Linus Pauling believed in a crackpot theory about vitamin c. Once Linus Pauling is considered an idiot, the term becomes meaningless.

 

Dictatorship will unite us. People under dictatorships tend to conform or else go to prison, get poisoned, fall from high windows, or disappear. So they necessarily become sheep, and it looks like about half the people in this country are sheep already. The other half had better be prepared to join the flock.