Wedge Issues

Joe Biden gets a lot of criticism for saying that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us, but he is right.?For all the noise and conflict on cable TV and the internet, both conservatives and liberals in this country share a common core set of values and beliefs. We differ from one another primarily in how we express those beliefs and how we balance and prioritize competing values.

Both conservatives and liberals are patriotic.?Conservatives are more likely to express their patriotism by displaying an American flag.?Liberals are more likely to express their patriotism by joining the ACLU or working on a voter registration drive.

Both conservatives and liberals value service to their country.?Conservatives are more likely to serve their country in the armed services or police force.?Liberals are more likely to serve in the Peace Corp, Diplomatic Corp, Teach For America, the CDC etc.?

Both conservatives and liberals are proud of our nation.?Conservatives are primarily proud of the words and ideals expressed in our founding documents (The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution). Liberals are primarily proud of the millions of Americans across the generations who have struggled to make the ideals of equality and justice for all real.

Both conservatives and liberals support free and fair elections.?Conservatives worry primarily about individuals who are not legally allowed to vote voting and diluting the votes of those entitled to cast a ballot or the possibility that someone somewhere has found a way to cheat the system and alter the true vote count.?Liberals worry primarily about gerrymandering effectively nullifying the will of the voters to keep people and parties in power even when they have lost the support of the voters or laws and policies that make it too hard for people with few resources to exercise the only power that they have to effect changes that might improve their circumstances.

Both conservatives and liberals believe in personal freedom and social responsibility.?Conservatives see mask mandates and gun regulations as infringing on their personal freedom and abortion as a matter of social or personal responsibility.?Liberals see marriage equality, abortion access and matters of personal freedom and mask mandates and gun regulations as matters of social responsibility.

Both conservatives and liberals believe in curtesy and dislike impoliteness.?Conservatives think that it is impolite to call someone a racist or religious bigot.?Liberals think that it is impolite to use derogatory terms for other ethnic groups, assert that there one’s own race or culture is superior to others, or refuse to call a transgender person by the name and gender which they ask you to use.

People who seek power often try to encourage one group of Americans hate other Americans by driving a wedge between them on issues where there is actually a lot of common agreement. If people are fighting about whether Black Lives Matter activists are expressing racist views about white people or are pointing the deadly effects of racist thinking about black people, they are not working together on the many areas where they do agree.?Big polluters will not be made to clean up their messes and big tax evaders will not be made to pay their fair share. Racial problems with fester. Wage theft will continue to take money out of the pockets of low wage workers. Meat processing plants will continue to have unsafe working conditions.?Large farming operations will hire undocumented workers and pay them starvation wages. Health insurers will deny payment for life saving treatments, and airlines will shrink the sizes of seats and hit passengers with surprise fees after they have booked their ticket.?If you can be convinced that members of the other party are evil, then you can be made to overlook evidence that political candidate from your party is corrupt. ?In short, if the public is kept distracted and has their anger directed against their neighbors, people who are doing bad things will get to continue to keep doing them and no real problems will ever get solved.??