Unanimous Unease

This fall’s elections matter. A lot. But they’ll solve nothing. About the best we can hope is they don’t make matters worse.

The questions that gnaw at us most are not going to be answered this fall. Regardless of the outcomes of our upcoming elections, our society will still feel like it is polarized going on paralyzed because we’ll still be constantly told there is a Red America and a Blue America, two nations, divisible, disconnected, one full of contempt for the other.

Most of us will believe what we’re told because of how little we know each other. We can’t—or at least don’t—see how much we are alike, how much we have in common, how we are of one mind on far bigger things than the comparatively trivial matters that partition us.

Americans have many differences, but there’s every indication we are unanimous in our unease. Regardless of our political leanings and party preferences, we all see signs of national decline, we fear our country’s best days are in the rearview mirror, worry …