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Is America Divided?

November 4, 2025 6:46 am

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(Email did not list the commentary’s Author, J. Perdue)

I was going through my emails awhile back, mostly just reading headlines. It’s my way of quickly getting an idea of what’s happening in the world of news. One headline said, America Divided. I didn’t read the article but the headline came back to me days later when I was reading an article about polls, and one poll showed that people seem less concerned about immigration now that the border appears to be secure. This was an article by Gallup that came out in July, and it also stated that 79% of people polled think immigration is good for the country. It was the numbers that caused me to think about the issue of division in America. Leading up to the 2024 election, the economy and the border were major concerns, based on poll numbers, and if I remember correctly, the numbers were in the 70’s. I couldn’t help but think, if that many people are in agreement, maybe we’re not that divided.

There’s a news show I watch regularly that comes on Saturday mornings on CNN, Smerconish, hosted by Michael Smerconish, a former republican turned independent, who makes the effort to cover news stories in an unbiased way, which is rare among the major networks. Recently he quoted from an opinion piece that ran in the New York Times, while explaining why he thinks democrats are failing to reach a wider audience.

Here’s the Times’ piece he quoted; “America still has a political center. Polls show that most voters prefer capitalism to socialism and worry that the government is too big – and also think that corporations and the wealthy have too much power. Most voters oppose both the cruel immigration enforcement of the Trump administration and the lax Biden policies that led to a record immigration surge. Most favor robust policing to combat crime and recoil at police brutality.”

“Most favor widespread abortion access and some restrictions late in pregnancy. Most oppose race-based affirmative action and support class-based affirmative action. Most support job protections for trans people and believe that girls should not play girls’ sports. Most want strong public schools and the flexibility to choose which school their children attend.”

The Times’ article didn’t break the issues down into percentages, but by saying ‘most voters’ , I take that to mean well over 50%. I think this supports my belief that Americans aren’t as divided as some in the media make us out to be.

I feel confident that most of us want to live in peace, have a decent income and if we have children, we want to provide for our kids, we want a roof over our head and food on the table, access to medical care when needed, especially if one of our family members has a serious illness, and we want to find some joy and happiness in our life along the way. This is probably true for most people on the planet. And for us in the U.S., I don’t think we want to lose the freedoms we have grown accustomed to, freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.

I had a conversation with my sister not long ago where we disagreed over a political issue, and she told me what she believed and why, and I did the same. Then we moved on to talk about other things. I guess we agreed to disagree. I was able to understand why she felt the way she does, and even though she didn’t change my opinion, I felt she had a legitimate reason for her stance on this issue. This is probably the best way to handle these kind of disagreements, especially when it comes to people we are around a lot, such as family members, co-workers or neighbors. I wasn’t going to damage my relationship with my sister because we disagreed over some political issue. The reason I mention the polls is because it seems that many Americans are on the same page concerning a number of issues, so why let one or two issues that we disagree on destroy what we have in common?

The same news show I watch Saturday mornings showed voter registration statistics, and around 43% of voters identify themselves as independents, which surprised me that the number was that high. Registered democrats and republicans made up about the same numbers, 28% each. Again, I was surprised that the numbers were that low. If the independents are either center left or center right, and half of democrats are center left, and half of the republicans are center right, when you add these numbers up, 43%, 14% and 14%, you get 71%. If I’m anywhere close to being right, that means almost ¾ of American voters are somewhere in the middle. On the same show, a week later, the host referred to a study based on 8,000 respondents put out by the American Council on Science and Health, that concluded 86% of voters are in the middle. My gut feeling tells me that as a group, Americans are not that divided, even among the chaos of protests against ICE and rising political violence. If you take the issues one at a time, I have a feeling that we have similar opinions. It appears that most of us want a secure border and immigration done legally, we want a good economy with low inflation, affordable healthcare, an end to the forever, unnecessary wars, and I’ll say it one more time, we don’t want to lose the freedoms we have become accustomed to that are guaranteed to us by our constitution. There also appears to be a growing support for some immigrants to have a pathway to citizenship or legal status. Tom Homan, known as the ‘border czar’, said that ICE targets criminal illegal immigrants, and if 3 or 4 non-criminal immigrants are also detained in the process, if they are here illegally, they also will be deported, and if you don’t like that, talk to congress. If it is true that there is growing support for a pathway to citizenship for non-criminal immigrants, then I would think that if enough people contact their Representative in the House and their two Senators, this should get their attention. High on the priority list for these politicians is getting re-elected, so if there is a grassroots movement that supports legislation that will make it easier for immigrants to become legal, I think the chances are good this could be a bi-partisan effort in Congress to bring that about. I think voters still have some power if we act collectively.

On the other hand, according to a fairly new poll, is the issue of sending the national guard into our cities. Somewhere around 43-44% said no, that’s not a good idea, the yeses were in the 30 something percentile, and the undecided were around 18%. So clearly, we’re divided on this issue. I won’t ignore the elephant in the room, President Trump. Millions of people voted for Trump in the 2024 election, and millions didn’t. Right off the bat we’re divided over who should be in the White House. During the campaign he promised to secure the border and there would be mass deportation. During Obama’s time in the White House, he reportedly deported 3 million illegal immigrants, and I don’t recall any protests against his policies. It appears to me that it’s Trump’s methods regarding illegal immigrants that people disagree with, not so much the policy itself, although mass deportation means many undocumented immigrants will be deported, even if they are not engaged in criminal activity. I imagine that was also true during Obama’s time in the White House, the difference being the method used.

I was listening to a podcast where the topic was political violence, and one person asked the other, ‘Are we headed towards civil war?’, and when I mix that thought in my mind with images of protests that turn violent and politicians being shot at or their house being caught on fire, and ICE facilities being fired on, I’m left with a feeling that yeah, we are divided, that we’re living in a chaotic time. But when I stop and think about these poll numbers, I have a change of heart. Maybe it just means that those on the far left and right are the squeaky wheels that get oiled, they make a lot of noise, and, unfortunately, some of them think violence is OK. That being said, the majority of Americans are still in the middle when it comes to many of the issues we are dealing with. How divided are we?

Years ago, I heard a story about a king and queen, and when they looked down over their castle wall, they saw the peasants arguing and fighting among themselves, and they looked at each other and smiled. Why did they smile? They believed that if their subjects were fighting with each other, the king and queen were safe. What are they up to in the privacy of their castle?

If you’re a democrat I don’t think the guy who had a Trump sign in his yard is your enemy. If you’re a republican, I don’t think the person who voted for Biden or Harris is your enemy. We’re Americans who want pretty much the same thing. We may disagree on a couple of issues but how does that compare to the issues we agree on? If we do have an enemy, I’d say it’s anyone within or without our government who is attempting to undermine the constitution, the glue that’s held this democracy together for almost 250 years.

There has been an effort to censor the social media platforms by the federal government, according to the Twitter Files, and interestingly enough, the major newspapers and networks, other than Fox News, left this story pretty much alone. Why? My answer: the media is biased. Fox News is biased in favor of Trump, and the other networks are biased in favor of Democrats, and the Twitter Files revealed a level of censorship that looked bad for the Biden administration.

Our right to privacy has almost been destroyed, thanks in great part to the Patriot Act, signed into law just weeks after 9/11. It was supposed to be temporary but was reauthorized by President Bush in 2006. If you have watched the movie Snowden, or the documentary film Citizenfour, about the computer files Edward Snowden released to the public in 2013, then you are aware how the government has been spying on us. Our cell phones are like personal tracking devices that the government can use to follow our every move. They can monitor all our cell phone activities; texts, calls, internet activity, and according to the movie, our smart TVs that are connected to the internet can be used to spy on us. It’s like we voluntarily put on electronic ankle bracelets every morning, normally used to keep track of someone accused of criminal activity who is out on bail. The intelligence agencies tell the committees in the House and Senate that they need the provisions in the Patriot Act in order to protect the U.S. and its citizens from terrorist, and ironically, it was our government’s military operations in the Middle East that created the environment that gave rise to the terrorist groups, like Al Qaeda and Isis. When I did an online search to find out where Isis came from, the answer I found was: A year after we invaded Iraq, a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq formed a group to drive out U.S. occupying forces, and they became known as Isis. So maybe the best way our government can protect us is stop getting involved militarily other countries, unless there is clear evidence that another country is a threat to the U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t threats to America, so why did we get entangled in those two wars? That’s another story.

I believe that if the United States fails, as a democracy, it won’t be from China or Russia, but from within. I do believe our constitution is under attack, is being undermined, and that’s why I don’t see my fellow Americans as the enemy, but those who are in favor of censoring social media, and those who are in favor of allowing the government to spy on us. I watched a video clip of the founder of Oracle software saying it’s inevitable that we are moving towards total surveillance of society, with cameras everywhere and most of our electronic activity being recorded, and “citizens will be on their best behavior”, his words. The large data centers being built will not only store data for AI, but most likely store all the data the government is collecting on us. We are moving rapidly towards a type of government described in George Orwell’s novel 1984, where Big Brother is watching us and the news is controlled by government. Maybe our only hope and defense is the checks and balances the founding fathers built into our constitution, giving the House and Senate oversight authority, but it will be up to us to pressure our elected politicians to fight against censorship and government spying on American cirizens.

I suggest that you google ‘Twitter Files’ and decide for yourself if there is anything to this story. If true, we know who our enemy is and how they are attacking the first amendment. We know what the king and queen are up to. Fighting and bickering among ourselves just may be a distraction.

It helps to know that over 90% of media in the U.S. is owned by 5-6 corporations, which is the result of The Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton. Having so few corporations owning most U.S. media, makes it easier for the government to control or influence the news, going forward. Here’s an excerpt from an article published Feb.11, 2016, by Michael Corcoran, Truthout:

“The negative impact of the law cannot be overstated. The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world.”

“Twenty years later the devastating impact of the legislation is undeniable: About 90 percent of the country’s major media companies are owned by six corporations. Bill Clinton’s legacy in empowering the consolidation of corporate media is right up there with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and welfare reform, as being among the most tragic and destructive policies of his administration.“

Link to TRUTHOUT article:https://truthout.org/articles/democracy-in-peril-twenty-years-of-media-consolidation-under-the-telecommunications-act/

Here’s a link to a New York Post article originally published in March 2023, that will give you an idea what the Twitter Files are. I mentioned the Twitter Files at the end of this article because I believe censorship is a huge threat to our democracy, and the fact that most of the major TV networks ignored this story hints at the bias within main-stream media. That’s another story altogether.

https://nypost.com/2023/03/17/private-federal-censorship-machine-targeted-true-misinformation