Currents
January 2019
3
Great Divide
A
s the Unites States strug-
gle to remain reunited, the
dividing issues are existential and
date from birth.
National versus States control.
The first decades of the
Republic reflect the conflict and
some of the bipartisan solutions
and compromises e.g., state mili-
tias and national monetary policy.
The same struggles occur
today within and between the
states. Within the states the
issues are reflected with local
school boards and the continuing
efforts of legislatures to preempt
local issue control. In Florida the
legislature has preempted gun
and energy controls, i.e., fracking
ban.
The ideology divide between
progressives and conservative
and
neo-conservatives
has
become so pronounced that
almost no bipartisan legislation is
possible, meaning the country is
stagnating or retrograded. Pro-
gressives striving to be inclusive
and global, while neo-cons are
striving to stop globalization
efforts and reject immigration,
while promoting religion and
declaring progressives as “god-
less evil doers.”
The recent examples of the
ideological divide can be seen in
North Carolina’s past efforts and
in the mid-term elections in Wis-
consin and Michigan where
Republican state legislators cre-
ated legislation to limit the pow-
ers of the incoming newly elected
Democratic officials. In Wiscon-
sin, voters elected a Democratic
governor, re-elected a Demo-
cratic U.S. senator, re-elected a
Democratic secretary of state,
and elected a Democratic state
attorney general. Even in the
state legislature, Democratic can-
didates easily won the most
votes. So the lame duck GOP
controllng powers decided to be
transparent about the divide and
openly discussed and passed
legislation limiting the powers of
the incoming governor and attor-
ney general.
The reasons for the limits
have been expressed as mere
power
balancing
between
branches of government to open
hostility toward progressive agen-
das and the electorate who sup-
ported them. The most recent
and most egregious reason being
stated in Wisconsin’s legislature:
Robin Vos, the Speaker of the
state legislature, defended his
party’s tactics arguing, “We are
going to have a very liberal gov-
ernor who is going to enact poli-
cies that are in direct contrast to
what many of us believe in.”
Open distain for the will of the
continued on page 5 >
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