By Rachel Avraham
The turbulent political climate in the United States has been increasing lately. As we get closer to the American election day, the political winds are stormier. In turbulent times like the current one, the question arises, did the Americans really finish with the Civil War in 1865?
Of course, there is no war on the streets of America; it is not a physical war. But in the war over America’s character, will you be more conservative or more liberal? Although the weapons have decreased and are no longer in use between the political parties, the ideological differences are still strong and make it difficult for the American people to step forward. So, did the American Civil War end, or has it simply changed into a war with a different character from the original civil war?
The American Civil War that took place between 1861-1865 was about the constitution and the rule of law. The northern states were against slavery while the southern states were in favor of slavery. At that time, the conservatives, represented by the Republican Party, were the ones who thought that a person should not be another person’s property and that all people are equal to each other. This was a new thought in those years, and this thought took many years to assimilate into people’s minds. It is the same with other thoughts that came later, such as the thought that the United States has nothing to look for on the other side of the world and there is no reason to send American soldiers to fight for other nations. This thought also ignited many controversies in American society in the 1960s, regarding of course the Vietnam War.
American society over the years has tended to be divided into conservatives and liberals. The conservatives today, usually more religious or traditional than the liberals, see no reason to change world orders that work on the ground. For example, if according to religion it is forbidden to perform abortions and this is how we have lived until today, why should our country America, whose slogan is “In God we trust”, approve by law the performance of abortions?
The liberals, on the other hand, are more open to the ideas of change, to ideas that are not drawn from the New Testament, less religious or traditional in general. As far as the liberals are concerned, why should a woman in her 20s living in the 21st century take into account the laws written several thousand years ago that it is forbidden to kill and therefore not to abort the fetus of an unplanned pregnancy?
Every few months in America a certain topic comes up on the public agenda that drives society crazy and raises questions about civil war. Once it was the murder of George Floyd that drove the African American population crazy and made them go out to protest, loot, and vandalize the streets of America. In 2022, the US Supreme Court ruled that each state can decide for itself whether it authorizes women to have abortions. The same case that drove the United States crazy for a long time and ignited the historic debate on the question of abortion, moral or immoral.
Which side’s morality is the most correct? Another event that brought America to a boil, right before exploding, is the case of the barbed wire fences that the Texas National Guard placed on the federal border with Mexico, contrary to the position of the Biden administration. The same story raised the tone between Republicans and Democrats, and raised fears of a clash between the Texas National Guard and the Republican state of Texas and the federal forces in the United States led by the Democratic Biden administration. In the end, the peace is always maintained because Americans don’t want to get into a kinetic civil war with each other.
Trump’s arrival in American politics only agitated the political winds more. Trump, a smart and slick Republican politician, knows how to annoy his opponents and how to please his supporters. He is a man who has many question marks around him, but what is certain is that the Republicans will flock to the polls in droves. Trump knows how to take advantage of political opportunities for himself and knows how to turn every story between conservatives and liberals into a story in which
Trump came out as the winner. The Democrats have no logical response to Trump’s rational policies. Therefore Democrats descend into identity politics, which only divides, not unifies.
So, is the United States still in a civil war? Yes, but it is a cultured civil war. The American nation is still one nation, in all its shades. Indeed, American society is divided, therefore Americans need to know how to listen to each other, accommodate each other, and accept different and opposing opinions. Hopefully a decisive Trump victory will discredit racist identity politics for a very long time. Otherwise unfortunately, a kinetic American Civil War could flare up for a second time, whether the Americans want it or not.
