We Must Again Foster National Unity Or Fall Apart For Good

During my lifetime, the great downturn I’ve seen in America has been the collapsing national unity. During the 1960s and early 1970s, America suffered divisions but wasn’t divided like it is now. The year I was born, 1968, saw race riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and turmoil over the “Tet offensive” in Vietnam (leading to President Lyndon Johnson deciding not to seek reelection).

After we left Vietnam, and much racial division subsided, the country reeled again. Gas prices skyrocketed while “stagflation” strangled the economy. Iran took 50 Americans hostage for over a year, while simultaneously the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President in 1981 and, despite being vilified by the left, he sought to bring down the Soviet Union and it appeared to many nuclear war was coming. Despite all these tough challenges, the nation remained unified compared with now. Families weren’t breaking apart over politics as now. The Democratic Party didn’t vilify political opponents (and even supporters of opponents) as dangerous threats to Democracy. Though America faced an existential threat in communism, it wasn’t in danger of falling apart in disunity. Now it is. This must change or we are done.

First, history teaches the catastrophic results of national disunity. What happened in the former Yugoslavia gives a recent case. Yugoslavia had been held together by Socialist strongmanJosip Broz Tito from World War II until his death in 1980. Though the country lasted a few more years, by the early 1990s it came apart bringing untold suffering and death. The problem was that Yugoslavia was multi-lingual and multi-religious, with Orthodox Serbians, Catholic Croatians, and Bosnian Muslims.

Each group had its own history, historical narrative, and separate heroes.

The internal violence was so bad that NATO was forced to deploy troops for peacekeeping during the 1990s. In 1992 the country of Czechoslovakia also split along language and ethnic lines into Czech Republic and Slovakia. Similar to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was put together after World War I. It lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. Though the 1992 split was peaceful, the norm in splitting has been violence. The dynamic of nations coming apart on lines including ethnicity, religion, and language abound. Many historians believe the Roman Empire fell primarily due to the changing demographics, including language and ethnicity outside the core around Rome resulting in existential disunity.

In the case of America, the glue of national unity has been unique to the world. We do not have common ancient familial ties present in most other nations. We do not have the same kind of ancient national history. America has held together primarily due to a common national political philosophy described in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. That fundamental rights come from our “Creator” and are protected by government. Government holds authority based on the consent of the people. In addition to the unifying American political philosophy, Americans have held together by a national historical narrative, Judeo-Christian values, and common national heroes.

Particularly over the past two decades, and speeding up in the past few years, the left has launched sustained attacks on that American “glue”. With few exceptions, Americans before the 1990s were in agreement with the national political philosophy and Judeo-Christian values. For example, our basic right of free speech was not to be infringed and this was beyond argument. That the Constitution was designed to protect and defend the liberty of all Americans (not a racist document) was foundational to national unity. When Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, he quoted from the Declaration of Independence. He quoted from the Bible to make authoritative points for the Civil Rights movement. National heroes, like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and now MLK, were beyond serious criticism by the agreement of almost all Americans. They were “our” heroes.

That consensus is no more. The progressive left, which includes so many in the Democratic Party, now continually attack our founding documents as being corrupted with racism and intended to protect slavery. They attack alleged “Christian Nationalism” which includes believing rights come from our Creator. They hold our founding fathers to be “oppressors” who should be marginalized. 

The prior consensus, that American sacred liberties like freedom of speech and religion are rights not to be infringed, is no longer

The prior consensus, that American sacred liberties like freedom of speech and religion are rights not to be infringed, is no longer. They attack the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values. They even attack those remaining faithful to the Constitution and Judeo-Christian values as being a dangerous threat. Along with direct attacks, the left has focused on education and the overturning what our young had been taught about our history. Media and entertainment have joined project ideas corrosive to unity ubiquitously.

We are heading to a violent fracturing if we don’t turn back soon. Despite what the left proclaims, “Diversity” does not hold a nation together. Unity holds a nation together regardless of immutable characteristics like race. Thankfully, our motto remains “In God We Trust”. We must seek God’s blessing and give Him our trust as we again become one unified nation under God