Charllotesville tells a tale of two Americas
The episodes of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia were sad and unfortunate. It’s always upsetting to see a country that fought nazis having them gaining influence, but to look to Charlottesville and only see the rise of the radical right is to only focus on a part of a much wider and historical problem — a cultural conflict.
Right when the United States of America were founded, culture the North, especially the Northeast, developed quickly due to commerce and a rising industry, something that developed the big cities we all know today the south was the opposite; essentially rural with little immigration. These distinct demographics led to the development of two opposite concepts of life that also influence the interpretation of the constitution and attitudes towards culture and traditions. Southern elites, dominated politics for decades but as the north grew supported by high birth rates and high immigration levels, northern elites became stronger and eventually clashed with their Southern counterparts. They disagreed over tariffs, slavery, immigration, labour among many others issues. One of them was the Missouri compromise which tried to solve the slavery issue by outlawing it above the parallel 36º30 north and allowing south of this parallel. Later, in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska act broke this compromisse by allowing new states(whether they were above or south of this parallel) to choose freely whether they would allow slavery or not. This enraged many northerners, who saw this move as a southern unilateral revision of the previous agreement and were alarmed for the possibility of new slave states in the north. Their reaction was to form a party that had the sole objective of representing northern interests and had initially no presence in the South — The Republican Party. The victory of the republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860 without carrying a single Southern state triggered the south who start officially pursuing secession.

The line of the Missouri compromise which allow the expansion of slavery south of the parallel 36º30 north.
We can talk all day long about the problems of racism and race relations in the United States but the bigger picture is the culture conflict. It’s the historical confrontation of the rural vs the industrial and also north vs south but nowadays it’s also young vs old and highly educated vs poorly educated. This conflict is about social identity. Of course, social identity always played a role in every culture and society but it’s assuming a more important role now, in the age of globalization, in our period of history where people move everywhere and do business with every country. Most people respond to this by becoming more defensive and protective of their own communities, culture and way of living. It goes way beyond politics, it’s about the way you define yourself and it influences the friends you have, the person you expect to marry, the media you follow, the neighborhood you choose to live, the type of President you prefer to have, and of course, your side in the demonstrations of Charlottesville. Nowadays, things are polarizing dramatically, with politicians, the media, lobbies using the strategy to divide and conquer. People from both sides have no choice but enter the ideological bubble that only drift them apart from the reality and radicalize individuals. The incidents of Charlottesville, like those in Baton Rouge or Baltimore in 2015 are no more than different kinds of confrontation by these factions. Both factions feel threatened, and both have reasons to feel that; conservatives control the political power, in many occasions, thanks to gerrymandering(a process in which politicians set the boundaries of their own electoral districts for their own benefit), but on the other way Liberals control mainstream media, college campus and pop culture.
But what’s the role of the left in this conflict? Lamentably, the left in America is not showing enough to unite the country. In the past, despite all this never-ending historical conflict the left did manage to unite the country with big ideas that brought people together like the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, by big investment projects in airspace and technology that put everyone working together. Now the left is reduced to a debate of micro identitarian issues like the apparent little representation of black people in ‘’Dunkirk’’ or in the oscar’s, transgender bathrooms of if christian businesses should be forced to sell their products to gay people. When there are movements to take down confederate statues with decades of existence or confederate flags, that will only trigger a reaction from a part of the country that already feel their culture and way of living is under threat and further it will only contribute to make those statues a real symbol, bringing ghost’s from the past instead of fading in people’s memories. Those are not the issues that will bring people together anyway, the fixation in these sort of issues only encourage people to become closer and more defensive towards their self defined identities, instead of looking yo what really bring us together. Politicians can talk all they want about building bridges but untill they see their countries as a big homogenous community instead of the sum of groups and micro-identities; until they start encouraging the feeling of belonging for their country instead of celebrating differences people have, they will only build walls.

Franklin Roosevelt — The most successful Democratic President.
Questions of identity have its importance but when pushed too much they only divide instead of uniting, they individualize when the left should be more about the group as a whole and they are in many times, distractions that keep us from changing the big picture. What the United States are going through mirrors 1860: Weakened political institutions, increasing political radicalization and sense of despise for the elite. Of course that doesn’t mean that there will be a civil war, but it seems likely that the violence between the two sides will continue to escalate. If the American left really wants to present themselves as the alternative of the so much criticized presidency of Donald Trump they should focus on a big unifying and patriotic message that makes sense to every citizen, lift the country as a whole enlightening a common identity.
André Branco Pereira
