Why is America so Polarized?

If you watched the movie Oppenheimer you would know that the man was close to the communist movement. There were those in America, even in the hallowed halls of the elite institutions, who saw value in the system back in the 1930s.

Today, one would probably more readily agree to be branded a paedophile than a communist in the USA.

The brainwashing is total and complete.

When you start thinking alike, the small differences get mightily amplified.

Look at the greatest religious animosities?—?Shia against Sunni; Catholics against Protestants. If you start a debate they would go to the ends of the world. They will tell you how wrong the other side is but are really that different?

In psychoanalysis , the narcissism of small differences (German : der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen) is the idea that the more a relationship or community shares commonalities, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences perceived in each other.

Source: Wikipedia

Tomorrow the greatest reality show on television that releases a season every 4 years will wrap up.

My greatest realization this year has been that the US has two ideologies?—?The Right and The slightly more Right.

There is a tendency to treat these discussions from the standpoint of what is currently happening. It will become a discussion about Biden Vs Trump or Trump Vs Harris. But look at it from the long arc of time say from 1990.

The climate issue was first raked up at Kyoto when Vice President ‘Inconvenient Truth’ was in office and he conveniently stood aside while the US refused to sign on to it. It has been pretty much the same whether a Republican or a Democrat is in office. Biden, the so-called climate-friendly president opened up Alaska to oil drilling. US oil production reached historic highs during the Biden Presidency. The policy has been consistent. The only difference is, the Republicans have not bothered to dress it up as opposed to the Democrats.

War-mongering is something that the country has been engaged in no matter who the President is. Clinton?—?Kosovo; Bush?—?Iraq, Afghanistan; Obama?—?Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria; Biden?—?Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen. Looks like Trump was the only one who did not engage in anything new or perhaps I was unable to find it.

Catering to the needs of the rich is the raison d’être of the US government. They are there to make sure that the rich are not taxed while the not-so-rich pay all the taxes and the illegal immigrants pay as much tax as possible while having no rights at all! None of the presidents/parties have done anything to change this. The Minimum Wage has not moved in 14 years. In the name of capitalism, the US delivers some of the worst treatment to its workers.

On immigration, let us get some facts straight. The US has a total fertility rate of 1.78. The replacement rate is 2.1. Without immigration, the US population would be rapidly declining. The US desperately needs immigration, but pretends it does not. Everyone talks, nobody does anything. It is not like this immigration cannot be made legal. They might have done something about it if illegal immigration was not so profitable. Illegal immigrants have no right but must adhere to all the laws and pay all the taxes, are they not the best?

The US arguably has the worst healthcare not only amongst the OECD but even among most developing countries. The greatest reform that the country received was when Obama launched what we in India call PolicyBazaar.

In the current election cycle, Kamala Harris has the endorsement of a sitting war criminal (Biden) and a past war criminal (Dick Cheney). So we know who is going to dance to the tunes of the Defence Industrial Complex.

Ultimately, this is proof of the fact that the two sides are not all that far apart. Their ideologies are not that dissimilar and their actions even less so.

Going back to what I said in the beginning?—?If you made a Catholic and Protestant debate over who was better; it would get a lot more heated up than if you asked a Hindu and a Christian to debate it.

America is so polarized because they are so similar. It is a narcissism of small differences that causes hatred and differences to spike so much. This results in intense polarization.

So whatever the outcome of the elections don’t be bothered. It’s a reality show held every 4 years, much like organising a debate between a Protestant and a Catholic to show how great the differences are.

If it really was such a grand choice which could take things down radically different directions would the billionaires in America really allow it to happen?