The dividing lines are so deep and keep getting deeper. Violent 'protests' seem to be applauded rather than disparaged and criminally prosecuted. It seems like things said against Prez Trump are OK no matter how inflammatory they may be. People just shrug and say it's the American way.
People can debate differences of opinion but resorting to physically fighting each other as is happening more often is not acceptable at all. People seem to be encouraged to pick a side. There is no compromise with the other side which is what we should have. This or that and nothing else will do. People won't even listen to other possibilities.
A lot of people don't like Trump and that's OK. It doesn't matter whoever gets elected there will be large numbers of people who will not like the results. The answer is to set about using the very tools that we have to manage the change that we desire instead of trying to hurt anybody who disagrees with us.
People are just becoming so frustrated with their lives that they seem to crave some violence as an outlet. They don't seem to realize what that violence will be like when it's in their own laps.
I certainly wouldn't want another civil war. I'd imagine that anyone who has made a serious study of our last civil war, or of modern civil wars elsewhere (e.g., Syria) would say the same. There would be no winners in such a conflict.
Still, I'm not convinced that violent protests are a growing problem. I'd need to see numbers on that to be convinced. We've had violent demonstrations on a pretty regular basis as far back as I can recall. Seattle in 1999 was quite violent, with 600 arrests and $20 million in damages. NYC in 1977 was far, far worse, in term of damages -- it would have a price tag of around $1.2 billion in today's dollars. People forget about Cincinnati in 2001, but it was rough, too: $3.6 million in damage, and nearly 1000 arrested. LA in 1992 was an order of magnitude worse, with over 10,000 arrested. There were also the Occupy protests that, though remarkably peaceful on the part of the demonstrators, involved a lot of unprovoked violence by authorities. And if you go back before my time, there are a series of very violent protests in the 1960s: Watts in '65, Detroit and Newark in '67, and Chicago in '68.
That said, I suppose that even if there's not yet a clear pattern of worsening, there may be in the future. After all, twice since 2000 the American people chose one candidate to be their president and had the other candidate installed instead. People get violent when they feel non-violent paths for the redress of their grievances have been foreclosed. Since the party that got screwed in each of those elections is the party that is favored by the very people who have the least to lose in our society (the poor, minorities, and young people), we're definitely playing with fire, as a nation. What happens to a dream deferred? Does it explode?
