The Cancer of Division

The Cancer of Division

Join or Die

Take heed of the symbol of a dismembered serpent. For those familiar with American history, it is recognized as an emblem associated with the early days of the American Revolution. It represents eleven of the thirteen colonies, omitting Georgia and Delaware, (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Connecticut amalgamated into “N.E.” as in New England). The message was as clear, then, as it is today… “Join or Die” or, in other words, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”, and just as prescient today, perhaps even more so…

 

Today, we live in a divided America- perhaps more divided than at any time since the 1860s, when this country was ripped apart by the bloodiest war ever to take place in the Western Hemisphere- the American Civil War. Much of the blame, perhaps all of the blame, for this division rests at the feet of those who we elect to serve in Washington DC- particularly with a president who spent both of his campaigns, and all of his presidency, dividing Americans and pitting them against one another in an ignoble attempt to divide, and thus conquer, a country whose exceptionalism he derides and whose greatness he denies…. Black against white, poor against rich, union against management, gay against straight, women against men, Muslim against Christian, agnostic against religious, pro-abortion against pro-life, immigrant against native-born…and the list goes on, and on, ad nauseam….Barack Obama did not invent these divisions, but instead of ameliorating these divisions, he has instead accelerated them, just as an arsonist would accelerate a small fire into a conflagration with the addition of gasoline. He did so with a purpose of camouflaging his real intent…to “fundamentally transform the United States of America”, just as he promised on the night of his election in 2008. In actuality, this is code for bringing the greatest country in the history of the word, down into the depths of mediocrity, and ultimately, destruction.

 

And yet…

 

There is another, less corrosive but equally destructive cancer of division taking place within the Republican Party. For many election cycles, going back to 1964, Republicans have gone at one another in the quest to nominate the “perfect candidate”, and each time have ended up with the nominee’s supporters being elated, and the rest of the GOP disgruntled…so disgruntled, at times, to the extent that these disgruntled Republicans have sat out elections, easily giving the presidency to a united Democrat Party, as best evidenced by the elections of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

 

Today, it is happening again in the G.O.P. True conservatives, (Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker), moderates (Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Lindsay Graham), moderate conservatives (Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio), outsiders (Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Donald Trump), and (forgive the term) wannabes (Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, George Pataki) are all having what amounts to a sophomoric food fight with one another, in an effort to gain a point or two in polls which are wildly premature. Even the candidates who are/were senators (Cruz, Graham, Paul, Perry, Rubio, Santorum), are having a go with candidates who are/were governors (Bush, Christie, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, Pataki, Walker) and those who have never been elected to any office (Carson, Fiorina, Trump), trying to say that their current/former occupation is more suited to being president than the others’….and all to the delight and pleasure of Democrats and their oh-so-partisan allies in the media.

 

Some of these candidates, most notably Ted Cruz, have been magnanimous in reaching out to other candidates, welcoming them into the fray, or joining together with them in discussions, as evidenced by the meetings between Cruz and Trump, and the Independence Day get together with Rubio and Christie at the home of 2012 Nominee Mitt Romney. While these get-togethers are a positive sign, this much remains certain….a divided Republican Party, not to mention a third party run by ANY of them, will ensure that the next president will have a “D” after their name and, as things stand now, that president will be a former first lady and Secretary of State. Worse, these intra-party spats are pitting Republican voters against one another- a trend that is virtually orgasmic to Democrats who will unite behind their nominee, regardless.

 

Since Republicans cannot do anything to heal the divisions that are the perverse progeny of Barack Obama, for so long as he remains president, they would be wise, instead, to resolve to unite as a Republican Party. They should call on ALL of their candidates to stop trashing one another (including Donald Trump, along with his own trashing of the others), and remember “the Gipper’s” eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt not insult another Republican”. Each of the candidates must resolve to support whoever the nominee is, regardless, because ANY one of them would be a far better president than ANY of the Democrats running today. Instead, they need heap their vitreous on Obama and Hillary and keep pounding away, day after day.

 

To do otherwise is to metastasize the cancer of division- one of their own making- and will ultimately lead them, and their country, to peril.

 

-Drew Nickell, 23 July 2015

© 2015 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved