Can our modern ‘house divided’ remain one nation?

Debating Stephen Douglas over slavery, Abraham Lincoln said a house divided cannot stand. In 2018, we also are a house divided and must ask whether the terrible biblical saying Lincoln quoted applies to us. Can we endure as a united country?

We thought our politics couldn’t get any crazier, but the political divide and the breakdown in trust became even deeper after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, we were permitted to disagree about who was telling the truth. No longer. This time you’re “complicit with evil” if you don’t believe his accusers and oppose Kavanaugh, said Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

Moral outrage has become the basic currency of political debate, with Hillary Clinton telling her supporters, “You cannot be civil,” and former Attorney General Eric Holder advising, “When they go low, we kick them.” So have we, as a story in The Washington Post says, hit rock bottom with no clear path up?…

When our political leaders tell us the Constitution is illegitimate, that we’re a hair’s breath from fascism, that’s how a civil war begins. Is it impossible to imagine? When polled, 31 percent of likely voters think that there will be a second Civil War within the next five years. That’s made secession look attractive, and nearly two-fifths of Americans tell pollsters they want to secede.

We’ve not seen anything like this since the 1850s. As for what happens next, who knows?