Come Together

by Kevin Fahy

Unless you are living under a rock, you are probably aware that America is celebrating some anniversaries this summer, recognizing moments in our history when Americans came together to achieve truly great things. You’ve probably also been aware of the numerous surveys showing that most people don’t believe we’re still capable of achieving such things.

It’s not that we aren’t smart enough, strong enough or ambitious enough. We still lead the world in science and technology. We produce the most world-class athletes, the most successful business leaders, the most popular artists and entertainers. Nobody doubts our military capability.

What we don’t have, according to a large majority, is unity. We call our lack of togetherness by a variety of names, but the one we seem to be leaning on the most heavily is “polarization,” by which we mean that every issue divides the public into opposing extremes.

If that is the case, it means that we can never solve a problem. We are a nation founded on the principle of majority rule, but if the two poles attract everything equally, leaving nothing in the middle, then there is never a working majority. All we can do is fight, and since we are evenly matched, there is never a winner.

So what about these great events which we now commemorate? You would logically assume that they took place during times of greater consensus. You would be wrong.

The biggest celebration, for example, marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, by which Americans created the United States. I hold that document to be as profound as anyone does, but I am often amused when I hear someone say that the founders believed in one such thing or another. The founders disagreed with each other about nearly everything, including even the necessity of independence.

Their most serious split, of course, was over slavery, which pitted the northern, pre-industrial states against the agrarian society of the south. Interestingly, those states divide up pretty much the same way now as they did then, though the issues have changed.

About the only thing the founders agreed upon was that they didn’t like being governed by Great Britain. They disliked it so much that they were willing to fight and to put aside their differences until the fight was over. They knew that slavery was going to come back to haunt them, but they reasoned that if they didn’t establish a country, it was sort of a moot point.

Sure enough, as soon as the active war ended in 1781, the north and south resumed their argument over slavery. Each time they would reach an impasse that threatened their union, they would come up with some sort of temporary compromise and kick the can down the road. In that regard it’s hard not to see their instincts as similar to our own.

In their case, however, their polarization reached the extreme. When people start wearing opposing uniforms, building forts and stockpiling weapons, I think you will agree that’s pretty divisive by anybody’s standard.

Historians estimate that the Civil War killed around 700,000 soldiers from the two sides, which would equal about 2 percent of the population. That doesn’t even count the civilian deaths that were caused directly or indirectly by the war. Americans of that era could correctly claim that the United States had never been so polarized.

While the end of the war did end slavery, it certainly didn’t end the divisiveness, and it was not all about race. Over the next 80 years, this country became engaged in serious arguments over gender equality, immigration policy, alcohol, religion in schools, class distinction and political ideology.

That brings me to our other big anniversary being celebrated this year. June 6 marked 82 years since the D-Day invasion, which is likely to be the last hurrah for most of the final living participants in the most climactic battle in history.

On that stormy day in 1944, the United States, along with its allies Great Britain and Canada, launched 7,000 naval vessels, 12,000 aircraft and hundreds of thousands of troops across the English Channel to assault Nazi-occupied France. The fate of the whole world seemed to hang in the balance as nervous families gathered around their radios for news.

We tend to think of D-Day as a moment of total unity during which all Americans pulled together in a common cause. As far as I can tell that was pretty much true, but our commitment to the war, and even our opposition to the Nazis, were not always the prevailing sentiments.

During the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, there arose a very powerful populist movement across the United States. It blamed “bankers” and other capitalists for dragging us into the devastation of World War I as well as the Depression itself in order to somehow make even more money.

The movement was made up of many different organizations, but their common motivation was to keep America out of foreign wars. As it became increasingly obvious that Europe was sliding towards another catastrophe, participation in the organizations swelled.

Between 1935 and 1937, Congress passed the Neutrality Acts which made it illegal to get involved in foreign wars or to arm those who do. In 1939, a Gallup poll found that 90 percent of Americans opposed the U.S. entry into World War II. In 1940, the America First Committee, led by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, reached 80,000 members.

All of that would change overnight. On December 7, 1941, a fleet of aircraft carriers from the Japanese navy attacked the U.S. naval and air station at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. It destroyed 19 American ships, 300 aircraft and killed 2,403 people.

I don’t know what the Japanese were thinking, but if they expected the anti-war movement in America to somehow work to their advantage, they were sorely disappointed. On December 8, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war. It was approved in the Senate by a vote of 88 to zero and in the House of Representatives by 388 to one.

What I am trying to say is that there have always been periods of polarization in this country, some of them even more extreme than our current situation. People may seem very hardened in their opinions, but opinions can become fluid very quickly, resulting in moments of extraordinary unity.

In the meantime, I don’t talk about politics with friends or family, and certainly not with customers or suppliers. Someday we will all come together, but until then let’s just agree to disagree.