On Sunday, a New York Times article suggested that many Americans “are rethinking whether they want to celebrate Independence Day.” The piece quoted a YouGov survey saying that only 56 percent of American adults planned to participate in festivities. The article was full of stories of liberals who proclaimed that recent Supreme Court decisions, as well as the systemic racism allegedly exposed by the Black Lives Matter movement, made them not want to celebrate their country anymore.
The idea that a holiday honoring the founding of our great nation should become a political football was one of the saddest things I’ve seen.
As a country, we are increasingly fragmenting. We’re losing sight of our commonalities, and instead of one nation we’re starting to look like two very different tribes that barely interact. Democrats shop at Whole Foods; Republicans shop at Chick-fil-A. Republicans buy trucks; Democrats buy Priuses. Blue-collar workers are more likely to support Trump, while people with advanced degrees lean overwhelmingly Democrat.
We’re also separated at the geographic level. In 1980, just 4 percent of Americans lived in “landslide counties” (counties so ideologically homogenous that presidential vote margins deviated by 20 percentage points or more from the overall national tally). In 2020, that number was 35 percent. In places like Seattle, Democrats outnumber Republicans a full eight to one. More and more communities are politically homogenous, and we don’t have to interact with–or even acknowledge the existence of–our political opponents if we don’t want to.
Even our holidays have become partisan. With support for gay marriage at a historically high 71 percent, you might think that Pride month would be a time for people across the aisle to come together. But as pictures of men in leather collars being whipped or spanked at Pride parades proliferated, many people began to feel that Pride month had become just another partisan celebration. Even gay conservatives like Brad Polumbo bemoaned the excesses of Pride parades.
The Wall Street Journal sums it up: “If it feels like Republicans and Democrats are living in different worlds, it’s because they are.”
This fragmentation–in politics, in geography, in lifestyle–might be why Americans are increasingly in favor of a national divorce. According to Axios, “One in five Americans say they’d support a ‘national divorce’ in which Republican- and Democratic-leaning states split into separate countries.” Like any married couple on the brink of divorce, we’ve lost sight of the similarities that bind us together. All we see instead are our (admittedly very real) differences.
In order to save marriages that are heading towards divorce, many marriage counselors will recommend regular date nights. These are a good opportunity for the partners to rediscover what united them in the first place, and to forge new bonds of friendship and connection. Perhaps we need something similar as a country. A series of dates where we come together; not as Social Justice Warriors or Trump supporters or Reds or Blues or libertarians, but simply as Americans. Where we don’t ignore our differences, but we do focus our attention on our similarities: our love for our kids, our desire for safe communities and good jobs, and our admiration for the ideals this country was founded on.
Today, as we watch fireworks blossom in the air and remember the disparate men and women who came together to forge this great nation, might be the perfect time to start.
Julian Adorney is a writer and marketing consultant with the Foundation for Economic Education.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.