We: Our Declaration of Interdependence

Chapter Five: Divide and Conquer

If you have not read the previous chapters, you can find them in the We: Our Declaration of Interdependence Publication.

Are politics always divisive? Is democracy or majority rule an unrealistic notion? Can human effort coalesce without hierarchies of power? Why should we care?

Today, the United States of America is deeply divided along ideological lines. Many of us (nearly a majority) fear there will be political violence or even a civil war during the upcoming election cycle (2024). Three out of four believe that the United States democracy is under threat. Nearly one in four voters believe that political violence may be justified to “save” the country. That is because approximately half of voters expect that the losing side will not accept their losses peacefully, and half expect there will be violence over the election results.

As divided and fearful as we are now, we were even more divided in the period leading up to the United States Civil War. The end of the Civil War did not end our political divisions. History can teach us that hierarchical power generally involves intentionally divisive strategies. The Ancient Babylonians were early pioneers of the divide-and-conquer approach. The strategy was used by the Greek and Roman Empires and every empire since then.

“Divide-and-conquer” was needed for colonization. The colonizers only needed to convince about twenty percent of their subjects to assume power over the rest of their people. By recruiting a class of loyal subjects to rule over other tribespeople, the colonizers could rule from a distance and extract resources and wealth to benefit the ruling class and the Empires engaging in colonization. The twenty percent were given special privileges as a reward for oppressing the other eighty percent. This is also how the United States was colonized, forcing native people off the land, importing enslaved people from colonized areas in Africa, and granting a minority of white men title to land and the opportunity to gain wealth and power.

After the violent revolt that seized the United States Capital on January 6, 2021, to block the peaceful transfer of Presidential power, the United States is now viewed by the rest of the world as the most politically divided nation. The United States, the country that participates and even leads wars (that have never been declared or authorized by the US Congress) in other regions of the world in the name of promoting democracy, has not been able to maintain peaceful democratic order within its borders.

We will never experience the true nature of our existence, that we are connected, not separate, while we are engaged in military conflict. We will not fully experience our connection until we learn how to live without the extremely polarized political divisions that create the conditions for war or violent revolutions.

The birth of the United States and many other nations involved violence (wars or revolutions). Yet, there were positive motivations at play as well.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. — Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed an ambitious and inspiring vision. However, the United States has never really been united, and all people are still not treated equally. We have always been divided. The United States has never lived up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Yet, the Declaration of Independence is still one of the best examples of powerful political prose. Its purpose was to inspire the masses to take up arms and declare independence from the King of England (from Monarchy). The objective was twofold: to “declare” the causes or factors that justified the revolt and to inspire the people to break free from the British Empire.

Like many other nations, the United States was formed in the aftermath of a war. We started out colonizing territory occupied by indigenous tribes. The United States was born through violence and division. Should we ever expect anything else?

The Preamble of the Declaration of Independence consists of a lengthy single sentence.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The word “necessary” implied that breaking ties to the British Empire was impelled by fate or determined by natural laws beyond the control of human agents. The notion of necessity was so crucial to the drafters’ intentions that it was used two other times, and the word continued to be used in other official documents after July 4, 1776.* If a violent conflict is necessary, we respond as though not only our form of government but our very lives are at stake.

It also stated, in the form of a declaration, that the Americans were “one people” and the British an “other.” A clear and powerful statement of “us” versus “them.” It conveyed the idea that breaking the relationship with England was a necessary step in human progress. It also conveyed the idea that Americans and Englishmen were two distinct peoples attempting to hide the fact that this was a civil war. We were killing our neighbors. One out of three colonists remained loyal to England. Our enemy was the status quo. Our enemy was Monarchy. Our anger was towards Colonization, being one outpost in a vast British Empire. We were not fighting against a foreign threat.

Declaring the British people as the “other” was scapegoating. It dehumanized one-third of the colonists. The revolution leaders thought this scapegoating language was needed to persuade foreign nations to provide support. The foreign nations were unlikely to provide support for civil war or insurrection.

The Declaration of Independence was successful in energizing George Washington’s troops. Most units in the Continental Army and the state’s militias were integrated, with white Europeans, African Americans, and Native Americans serving side by side. Many southern enslavers promised their slaves freedom if they would join the fight. After the war was won, when the founders were ready to form a government, the promises of equality and freedom for people of color were not honored.

The United States Constitution is dramatically different than the Declaration of Independence.

The declaration of equality and unalienable rights for all, combined with the radical notion that governments should derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, inspired a grand experiment in democracy. However, the United States Constitution (enacted in 1787 — more than eleven years later) codified a constitutional federal republic.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the United States. Citizens in a democracy can either directly or indirectly influence the government, while citizens in a republic can only indirectly influence the government through elected officials. The drafters of the Constitution were power-holders, and they did not honor the promise of the Declaration of Independence to create a nation where the leaders only governed by the consent (majority vote) of the governed.

The U.S. Constitution established checks and balances partly because the founders did not trust majority rule by the people governed. The three branches of the Government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) are co-equal. This is supposed to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. The people are not co-equal with the branches of Government under the Constitution. The power of the voters has been limited.

The people only had power over the House of Representatives, one of the three branches. Before 1913, Senators were not elected by popular vote; state legislatures elected them. The people still do not directly elect the President. The ‘electors’ have that power (the Constitution refers to ‘electors’ not “electoral college’). The original selection process for President and Vice President was nonpartisan, with the candidate receiving the most votes becoming President and the second-ranking candidate becoming Vice President.

The United States became a two-party political system with the enactment of the 12th Amendment in 1804. It consolidated the ticket, and candidates for President ran with a Vice President. The Electoral College does not have to elect the candidate who wins the popular vote. Five Presidents were selected by the Electoral College who did not win the popular vote. The Electoral College shaped our government into an entrenched political duopoly that ignores the popular vote for President.

Although there have been many shifts in the two parties, the electoral college makes it nearly impossible for a third party or independent candidate to become President. It also distributes power unequally, giving states with smaller populations more power. It is also the force behind the swing state phenomenon, where most attention goes to the most deeply divided states. The Electoral College has institutionalized the domination of the two-party system and the disenfranchisement of independent voters. A two-party duopoly is inherently divisive.

Although divide-and-conquer strategies have profoundly shaped human history, today, most modern democracies are not dominated by the two-party system. The first one hundred years of the United States enjoyed a multi-party system. The founders were deeply concerned about the role of political parties.

The impetus for the two-party system arose from the first effort to create a central federal bank. Thomas Jefferson worried that a national bank would create a culture that favored financiers/creditors and merchants over plantation owners and family farmers who tended to be debtors. A central bank symbolized how a privileged class of capitalists oppressed the will of the common people. This division foreshadowed the rise of plutocracy or the rule by the wealthy in the United States.

The Nixon/Watergate scandal and resignation in the early 1970s destroyed a generation of Americans’ trust in the political process. It also redefined the government and media relationship, creating a permanent adversarial relationship. It sowed seeds of distrust and discontent. We no longer trust our politicians and our deep distrust of the candidate of the other party has become open hostility.

The United States is the only large democracy with a deeply entrenched two-party system. Income and wealth inequality is substantially higher in the United States than developed nations. The higher the inequality, the more likely we will move from democracy toward plutocracy. Economic inequality fuels political division. Both parties manage political campaigns that are highly negative towards the opposing party.

Since the Citizens United SCOTUS decision in 2010, the balance of power has tipped towards corporations and the wealthiest one percent. However, most partisan voters do not know that their adversary is not the Democrats or the Republicans. Our common adversary is the billionaires and the corruption of their money in our politics. There is no center in a plutocracy. With plutocracy a small percentage is at the top of the economic pyramid and they are calling the shots.

There are progressive billionaires, conservative billionaires, and libertarian billionaires. Recently, more billionaires have openly displayed and supported fascist ideologies. There is no consensus political view among the plutocrats. In smaller rural states like Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and North and South Dakota, aspiring plutocrats can easily move into the state and use their personal money to gain powerful positions as Senators or Governors.

Dark money refers to spending to influence elections, public policy, and political discourse, where the source of money is not disclosed to the public. Although it is impossible to know the full extent of dark money, it is estimated that more than $1 billion was spent in 2020 at the federal level alone. The two parties point fingers at each other, claiming the other party receives more dark money. The reality is that the Republican Party and Democratic Party are both under the influence of plutocrats — through direct and open donations and dark money.

In the midst of extraordinary prosperity, we’re also living through a crisis. Our communities are collapsing, and people are feeling more isolated, adrift, and purposeless than ever before. — Senator Ben Sasse

Loneliness and isolation are lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also live with ever-present mortal threats. Americans sense that their elected representatives are out of touch. To make matters even worse, nearly sixty percent of Americans have no confidence that the two dominant parties can overcome their divisions and craft bipartisan solutions.

Trust in the Federal Government also hovers near a historical low. In October 2023, the approval rating of the United States Congress hit a historic low, dropping to thirteen percent. (source: statista.com) Confidence and trust in the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to its lowest point since 1987. The Court’s favorability rating has declined by 26 percentage points since 2020. These general statistics mask profound partisan differences. Democrats and Republicans don’t agree about much of anything anymore. Both parties look at independents and third-party members as threats.

We do not feel empowered under the two-party system. We may blame the other party or blame the two-party system itself (true for many independents), but we need to work together to take our power back from the plutocrats. We are divided by the corporations that hold monopolistic power over our daily lives. The threats to our well-being and security are not from the left or the right, from the Red States or the Blue States. Our most significant threats come from the top of the wealth and power hierarchy.

We experience anxiety, distrust, and fear as the signs of civil unrest increase. We wonder if our neighbor two doors down the street will someday come to steal the food and water we have stored in our basement in the event of a disaster that disrupts our economy. We may be afraid to go to the polls and vote when there are people with masks and guns guarding entry to the polling booth. We are scared we might die during a complication of pregnancy, or we might have to bear our rapist’s child. We may blame the refugees at the southern border, the liberals for funding our social safety net, or the conservatives for cutting government funding, but the real issue is the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top of the pyramid.

We are not proud of our country. We may not admit it to anyone but our closest family members and friends, but we struggle to find hope amid existential threats.

Social media, television, and news sources feed our divided experiences. There is no consensus surrounding the daily news. A deeply entrenched two-party electoral system is inconsistent with the very notion of the word United. The billionaire-owned news sources easily divide us, so we cannot be united. The Citizens United SCOTUS ruling cleared the way for corporations to make unlimited and even undisclosed political contributions. A corporation may deduct political contributions equal to twenty-five percent of its taxable income but primarily funnel its political contributions through super PACs and nonprofit organizations (Dark Money). Ironically, one of the biggest catalysts for our increasingly divisive politics came from a hypocritical source of dark money named Citizen’s United. The organization’s website still pretends its purpose is to give citizens control, but it consistently acts to divide the citizens of the United States.

We are told to blame the other — the person of color, the guy who carries his gun everywhere he goes, the immigrant or refugee, the LGBTQ community, the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party. We have cooperated with systems designed to disempower us.

The United States of America feels like it is coming apart. Extreme economic inequality creates a chasm between the rich and the poor, disintegrating our once-strong middle class. There are also deep cultural divides between urban and rural communities. Rather than merely disagreeing on the issues and policies, the two parties attempt to persuade us to view the opposition as evil. Candidates rarely emphasize their positions on issues, and most political spending focuses on demonizing the opposition candidate and inciting fear if an “evil” candidate is elected.

Although we feel the tension of division, we are not divided; we are united in a web of interdependency. We are stronger united than we are divided. It is time to close the divide, gather, and seek common values. Rather than base our votes on fear of the other party or candidate, we need to seek unbiased information about the candidate most likely to develop a unifying vision that can bring both parties together.

We voters need to know candidates’ positions on issues that impact our lives.

Issues of concern for the majority of voters include:

• Our declining standard of living. This is not the same as what the news media covers as the “economy.” The costs of the basics of life: housing, food, childcare, healthcare, and energy have been increasing faster than wages and compensation.
• Affordable access to health care for everyone. Only three in ten adults have employer coverage. Another three in ten adults are struggling to pay off debt from medical, eye, or dental care despite having insurance. A majority of insured adults have experienced problems in accessing medical treatments because their insurance controls access to the care recommended by their medical provider. Most Americans think it is wrong that we pay more for medications than other developed nations.
• Equal rights. Patriarchy is the linchpin of all forms of oppression. If men are not superior to women, the entire power pyramid collapses. The pro-life movement should be called the anti-equality movement. The anti-abortion movement has never exhibited concern about protecting life. It is about controlling women’s lives and bodies. Six out of ten voters say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The vast majority of voters support access to birth control and first-trimester abortions. Most Americans disagree with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
• Most voters support common sense gun control and view current US gun policy as dangerous.

These issues receive support from a significant majority of U.S. voters, yet very little progress has been made to address them. Why? Mainly because the pharmaceutical industry, health insurance industry, billionaire CEOS, the NRA, and gun manufacturers unduly influence our elected leaders.

The lack of regulations to prevent corporations and billionaires from manipulating and controlling our elected representatives is at the root of our dissatisfaction with our leaders and our inability to progress on the issues the majority cares about.

The Citizens United Decision legalized political corruption. This is not democracy. It is plutocracy.

Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American. All privileges based on wealth and all enmity to honest men merely because they are wealthy are un-American, both of them equally so. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life. — Theodore Roosevelt

We need to hold our elected leaders accountable to us. Our votes should emphasize the character of the candidate. We should also demand they publish their official positions on the most critical issues before the election.

After they are elected, we need grassroots advocacy to encourage them to honor their commitments and their responsibility to represent us. In short, we need a new experiment in democracy. We need a system of government that honors our right to vote and regulates campaign finance so that we know exactly where the money is coming from.

Reference: * https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/stylistic-artistry-of-the-declaration

Perhaps the most divisive component of our lives is politics. There are so many opinions and perspectives. This book cannot mention all of them. It does not adequately address the concerns of people of color, LGBTQI, immigrants, or refugees. Please respond to this article and elaborate on your perspective if you feel this chapter has not addressed your concerns. We also invite you to write an essay or story and submit it to the publication (We: Our Declaration of Interdependence).