Trump supporter unclarity about what it means to drain the swamp is yet another of the dozens of issues that is driving Americans apart and potentially toward social conflict. The viciousness of the polarization effort is hard to understate. For example, republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz recently blamed the mass shooting in California on democrats.
False, evidence-free statements like that tend to rile political opposition up. That tends to further polarize the public into intractable, opposing partisan camps. Poll data is showing the depths of the split that Trump and republicans are fomenting. For example, a recent poll indicates that significant numbers of democrats and republicans see each other as racist, ignorant, spiteful and evil.
In addition to that data, there has been a slow, long-term trend of growing distrust among Americans toward their fellow citizens.
Given the data and political reality, it is reasonable to think that if conservative and populist politicians, partisans and special interests maintain their current high level of divisive, usually false rhetoric, partisan distrust will increase. At present, there is no apparent prospect that partisans on the right will rely less on dark free speech any time soon. Social conflict and violence is not inevitable, but as polarization increases, the odds of it happening continues to increase.
What are the odds of a significant and sustained increase in sectarian violence? There is no way to know with precision. Given the tone of vindictive moral outrage coming from the right, about a 25% chance of significant sectarian violence within the next two years seems plausible. If political rhetoric calms down significantly, the chance of violence drops to maybe about a 5% chance in the next two years.
Words really do have consequences. The political right needs to understand that for the good of the country.
B&B orig:
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