By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.comÂ
INDIANAPOLIS – Somehow, it’s appropriate that President Donald Trump marked his first anniversary in the Oval Office by presiding, enraged and ineffectual, over the collapse of government.
The same turbulent forces that fueled Trump’s rise made the shutdown of the federal government inevitable. The divisions and distrust that he discerned and exploited in his march to the White House are the same dynamics that make our unruly land almost impossible to govern.
This is not a partisan or an ideological criticism.
Anyone with eyes, ears and an observant nature can see we are a country split, fragmented, even close to shattered along cultural, regional, racial, religious, ethnic and ideological lines. At this moment, we are less a nation than a collection of jousting tribes trying to occupy the same geographic space.
I hear on a regular basis from readers who disagree with things I have written. These criticisms come from, for lack of better terms, both left and right. (In such a chaotic time, the points on the ideological compass spin wildly, which is why the terms “conservative†and “liberal†have lost most, if not all, of their traditional meanings.)
When I submit to the temptation to respond to these notes – a habit I’m trying to curtail – by pointing out facts that undermine or at least should modify my critics’ arguments, the reaction inevitably takes one of three forms.
My correspondents either ignore the inconvenient facts, deny their truth without offering refuting evidence or argue that the real issue is that people on the other side have done even worse.
This is not just anecdotal.
Surveys from the Pew Center and other researchers reveal a disturbing and increasing number of Americans react to information that contradicts their beliefs in a distressing way. Instead of re-examining and altering or modifying their beliefs based on new evidence, they deny the validity of the facts and cling to their beliefs even more devoutly.
Contrary information strengthens rather than undercuts our biases and prejudices.
This is troubling on at least three counts.
The first is that it indicates that education will not bridge the chasms that divide us. If learning more does not alter the way we think but instead reinforces our differences, then marshaling evidence just compounds the problem.
The second reason this trend is cause for worry is that our nation’s system of government and philosophic underpinnings are products of the age of reason. The founders placed their faith in the pursuit of truth to liberate humanity. Without this organizing faith to unite us, we Americans – people of many faiths, heritages, races and beliefs – find ourselves subject to the same angry divisions that have plagued humanity for millennia.
The last reason is the most immediate. If there is no shared factual underpinning to our discussions, then we cannot talk or negotiate with each other.
The shutdown and the blame game accompanying it are all the evidence we need to prove this. Both sides cannot yield because they listen to and hear only those voices that agree with and reinforce their views and priorities. They argue and negotiate in echo chambers, hearing only the sound of their own contentions.
Consider the circularity of the arguments each side advances.
Republicans charge that Democrats hold the nation hostage to protect the “dreamers,†those young undocumented immigrants. Democrats contend that it is Republicans who hold the nation hostage, so they can punish innocent young people.
The identities of both victims and villains are determined by which side of the partisan divide the observer stands. We hear only what we want to hear when pondering the nature of the crime.
It’s tempting – and far too easy – to blame President Trump for this breakdown in national coherence and effectiveness, but the truth is he is more a product, rather than an architect, of the increasingly irrational age in which we live.
He is, in fact, a near-perfect manifestation of these choleric times. That’s why his tweets resemble howls into the winds that rage all around him, winds he is powerless to quiet or still.
His fury feeds on frustration, because he is ensnared by the whirlwind that swirls unchecked in an ugly and destructive age.
As are the rest of us.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits†WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
