Introduction to Part 2 (2 of 2)

In the first part of this two-part post I discussed one reason for my move from perhaps a naïve optimism to moderate pessimism about today’s polity and society. In this post, I discuss several additional reasons for my change in attitude.

One is the deep, intense political polarization now present in our polity and society. I think it important to differentiate between strong cultural divides or polarizations and our deep political polarization. During the past several decades the country witnessed several significant cultural divisions that were not aimed at or involved specific political parties.

In the 1950s, the Supreme Court’s Brown v.… Read the rest