A MOST UNCIVIL WAR

In past years, I used to enjoy going on a long weekend with several good buddies to Brookline Michigan to watch NASCAR races. The weekend was largely an excuse to camp out with really good friends, drink far too much beer, eat delicious barbequed food ( expertly prepared and cooked by my buddy Rob, who missed his calling as a professional bbq pit master ), look at pretty girls, listen to good music, and … oh yes … watch some good racing. One of the strange activities for me was to watch, listen to and try to understand many of the NASCAR fans, who were, to say the least, about as different from me and my view of the world as chalk and cheese. A way to pass some time was to stroll among the myriad souvenir vendors, who hawked almost anything with a NASCAR logo on it. Actually,  NASCAR was not necessarily the most popular logo available: more items had Confederate flags and slogans on them than anything else. It became more apparent, as the years went by, that I hadn't just crossed a border into the neighbouring state of Michigan: I had actually travelled into a different universe that was based in a different time, well established in the past. Michigan is a northern state, but the denizens of this environment were as foreign to us as if we had journeyed to Mars.

Most of the t-shirts and other paraphernalia touted a belief that "the South would rise again." This usually had a Confederate flag in the background and some kind of rebel figure, often a skeleton, rising up from a desolation, brandishing a sword or a civil war-era musket. The skull would have a grim expression ( I suppose most skulls do!) and often a bandage on the forehead with faint traces of blood. The message was unmistakable: the previous civil war was merely a lost battle, and that southern grit and determination combined with courage and a will to fight into eternity would ensure complete and utter victory some day. Other t-shirts were not even as subtle as that. Some would feature slogans about how "history will be vindicated", a veiled reference to the notion that the old southern attitudes to human rights, race relations, gender relations, and faith in the old religion would some day be returned to their positions of prominence. I kept telling myself, as I walked through the vendor area, that I was reading too much into it, that this was just harmless redneck fun. But as I listened closely, and conversed with these rednecks during the Obama presidency, and the rise of equality in race, gender, age and ethnicity, I was hearing the true beliefs of many of these people: that the current model of society was unacceptable to them, that there would be a type of semi-biblical reckoning, and that, indeed, the "south would rise again."

It is difficult to say for sure when society became so polarized and disunited: some would suggest it's a phenomenon of the Trump era; others would say it goes further back to the formation of the Tea Party as a more radical branch of the Republicans; others might even suggest it goes further back into the 90's, with the advent of the so-called "Common Sense Revolution" that began in middle America and found its strongest voice in Mike Harris' Ontario; still others can trace the origins of this polarization to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher. It may go even further back to the creation of the "welfare state" in 1930's America under FDR or the implementation of the Beveridge Report in post-war Britain.

Regardless, we find ourselves today mired in a type of tribalism that features the strange aspect of "identity politics", where people now find themselves in one camp or another, with no chance or even no willingness to see the other side or to hear the other ways of doing things. We hear phrases on social media that urge us to "share this" if you agree that so-and-so is an idiot hell-bent in destroying the world as we know it. We are told that we live in "bubbles", which suggest some kind of artificial existence that acknowledges only things we like or want to hear. We are confronted with the phrase "tone-deaf" when opponents refuse to hear our own arguments, but cling to a belief that we ourselves are open to all ideas and thought. One side wants to "lock her up", while the other side claims an association of victimhood by saying "me too" or "black lives matter."

The rhetoric is so intense, so vitriolic, so loud and so unaccepting that there is only one conclusion to be reached about the current state of society: we are at war with our fellow citizens, and the war is getting ugly and so entrenched that an end is not in sight. Consider the following random examples of current trends:

1) Britain is still mired in an almost existential tussle over Brexit. The vote is now two years behind us. Yet the negotiations to bring about the separation proceed at a snail's pace, with the uncertainty weighing down both economies. British people are still unsure what they actually did two years ago and many are hoping somehow that they could get a "do over" because they are so overwhelmed at the enormity of it all. The original vote pitted Briton against Briton and it split down largely rural vs urban, London vs the rest of the country, old vs young, England vs Scotland lines. And, make no mistake, the key issue was not trade or general economics: it was immigration, and who is "let in" and who is "kept out." In modern times, Britain has never been more divided.

2) The Trump era in the United States, from his campaign for president to the present day. There is so much to unpack here, it would take too much time to recap. The most recent battle, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court of the United States, is a good example of the divide the nation is in. But it is in the President himself, his words, his actions, his style, his policies and his complete disregard for civil behavior that endears him to so many Americans who would probably be right at home wandering through the NASCAR vendors' area with me and my equally shocked friends. Much more could be said here.

3) The rise of modern Conservatism in Canada. Since the 1990's, Canada has seen its own variety of Tea Party populism rise to power. Modern Canadian Conservatism, embodied by such people as Stephen Harper, Preston Manning, Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, Jason Kenney, Rob and Doug Ford, Tony Clement, Andrew Scheer and many others, has its roots in evangelical Christianity, rural conservatism, a pro-business agenda, and skepticism in anything scientific, progressive, multicultural or inclusive, which is seen by the right as threatening to their simple, honest and time-tested belief system. The efforts of Doug Ford, current premier of Ontario, and Jason Kenney, possible premier of Alberta, is a naked attempt to undermine the federal government of Justin Trudeau, which they see as a complete and utter failure, despite the public record of some accomplishments by Trudeau. Jurisdiction and propriety do not seem to matter to these right wing leaders and their words and actions, fanned by populist media such as the Sun newspapers and screed-laced on-line sources like Rebel Media, are red meat to their followers.

4) The rise of right-wing, extreme populism in Europe, specifically in Turkey, Poland, Italy, Russia and most interestingly in Ukraine shows a willingness of people to accept simple, phrase-based slogans as truth. In Ukraine, the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution has given rise to groups like Svoboda and s14, which are thinly disguised neo-Nazi groups that challenge the authority of the central government and its efforts to settle the nation down and wage a sensible struggle against pro-Russian aggression in the east of the country and in the Crimean Peninsula. These situations bear watching.

It has always been a truism that "we live in challenging times." No era in history has been without its difficulties and upheavals. But the current situation and all the attendant issues ( climate change, environmental management,  economic disparity, mental health, rampant technology, and relationships between genders, races, ethnicities, belief systems etc. ) can never be solved until we have declared a truce between the factions that are fighting this civil war of ideology.

There is little hope of such a truce ever happening. Instead, we are locked into an ideological war of attrition comparable to the idiocy of trench warfare in World War One. We hope to out-shout the other side, come up with more clever and biting memes on social media, and rally the vote against the hordes on the other side. Our disagreements are evolving into visceral hatred. Peace will only come, it seems, with the utter destruction of the other side.

The south will not rise again. There will only be a ghastly unacceptance of anyone who is against your way of thinking. God help us all.