The Call for Unity is a Utopian Fantasy
There is no common ground with extremists
Last summer, my neighbors planted a red Trump/Pence sign in their front yard. It has been obscured by the snow for many weeks, but is starting to appear again with the creeping thaw. Four months after the election, the sign is slumped and askew, battered by its winter burial, but it has not faded. Four months and dozens of lost court cases later, these people are still waving their red flag, cocktails in hand and Fox on the television.
I should put up a Carter/Mondale sign.
We’ve been told to seek unity. Talk to your neighbors, they say. Find common ground. After more than twenty years in this lovely rural place, with these particular neighbors — let’s call them Dick and Dot — the common ground is clear: We all like flowers, and pickles. We share opinions about the weather and the birds. We’re white. We are, all of us, human.
That’s where the common ground ends.
The uncommon ground is much more vast and treacherous. A chasm that cannot be crossed. Never the twain shall meet. Dick and Dot have performed some neighborliness, like bringing us flowers from their garden and offering to “watch the place” if we leave. But they are staunch racists and not shy about it. They grumble indignantly about everyone in our…
