It’s humorous how such a polarizing publication such as Salon, and all of the writers contained within, claim they have a desire to “heal” democracy.

Take “journalist” and Senior Politics writer at Salon, Chauncey DeVega, for starters. Mr. DeVega throws out the flames and adds his musings in as kindling. War-monger Trump. Morally corrupt Trump. If we journey way back in the Time Machine, we’ll find more of Chauncey’s missives. Trump, the leader of the “White Supremacy Party“. Trump, King of The “Right Wing Sewer Dwellers“. And his take on Black Conservatives? “Professional Buck Dancing Blackface Artists” or “minstrels“.

No racism or judgement here, though. Chauncey, the (snort) educated democrat (with TDS) that he is, thinks there is room to have healing conversations between Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives.

America is a broken political family. On the ground, this means that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, do not live in the same neighborhoods or belong to the same organizations. They do not pray or worship together. They do not date or marry each other. They are not friends.

In America’s political imagination, Democrats live in big cities, are racially and ethnically diverse, and college-educated. Republicans live in rural America and are working class. Red State America has been fully MAGA-fied; big cities and blue states are dominated by ‘out of touch liberals,’ ‘the radical left’ and ‘wokeness.'”-Chauncey DeVega, Salon

DeVega goes on to discuss how Steve Radcliffe, a volunteer for Braver Angels, a nonprofit advocating political civility, and co-chair of the organization’s Oregon Rural-Urban Project, is attempting to establish a kind of exchange program where rural and urban residents visit each other’s communities, hoping they would formulate a set of bipartisan recommendations to the state legislature.

All in an effort to promote civility in a ‘hostile” environment of Conservative, small-town America.

Democrats live in big cities.

To rephrase DeVega’s assessment of Democrats and Republicans: Yes, Democrats live in big cities. The biggest and BLUEST have fallen victim to rioting, looting, trash, homelessness, drug addiction and heavy taxation-all results of policies brought on by “educated” Democrats and individuals who have fallen up into their positions because of DEI and not merit, hard work or, sadly, ability. But, moving on to DeVega’s assessment of Republicans:

Rural-America and “working class” (AKA, in their book, not educated). It doesn’t once dawn upon DeVega and his lot of ivory tower elitists that Republicans/Conservatives can possess post-graduate degrees? Nope. All have been (shudder) MAGA-fied.

This “healing” conversation is starting off quite well, don’t-cha-think? And while DeVega muses and imagines in some strange hippy-dippy sort of essay on civility, he is so out-of-touch with his own rhetoric that he can’t help himself. His utter disdain for middle America is palpable.

The road to the Age of Trump and American fascism goes straight through the divide between rural and urban America.

For decades, the Republican Party and the right-wing have weaponized ‘culture war’ issues such as ‘guns, god and abortion’ in combination with racism and white racial resentment — and hostility to non-white immigrants — and economic anxiety. The result has been an ‘us versus them’ narrative of ‘takers’, ‘welfare queens,’ ‘invaders’ and ‘out of control criminals’ in racially diverse urban centers and Democratic-led states, while rural parts of the country, which are majority white, are portrayed as being filled with patriots and ‘hard-working real Americans.'”-Chauncey DeVega, Salon

Sidebar: There’s a capital “G” in GOD, Chauncey.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Wait, what? Who weaponized the culture war? This loon lumps fascism in with Americans’ desires for crime-free streets, no racial tensions and rewards for hard-working Americans. And, honestly, if you want a perfect picture of “us verses them”, let’s look back to 6 years ago, in the heat of pandemic. Straight through the divide, they went. Full force, using COVID-19 to fracture the economy, to destroy the American educational system, to ramp up racial tensions and rip apart friendships and even families. Small-town Republicans did NOT do this. The big-city, self-proclaimed “geniuses” did. And shame on some of us for letting them.

Let’s discuss. It’s true that we don’t pray or worship with them. That we don’t date or marry them. That we don’t break bread and hang out with them. Why? They told us they didn’t want us. They told us that if we voted a certain way, they would “unfriend” us and not come over for Thanksgiving dinner. They cussed us out on Facebook and other social media platforms. They screamed at the air, the sky, in our faces. They told us that our opinions were “uneducated” and that they did not matter and to shove ours where the sun didn’t shine. They told us that if we didn’t wear a mask that we were going to kill everybody. They told young women to be as promiscuous as they want to be and stay away from young men who are happy with being men and hold doors because “toxic masculinity”. They told our young men that they may like their lives better if they were “girls”. They produced a culture of delusional people who are all for assassinating a sitting President while advocating for illegal criminals, rapists, murderers even, to freely roam the streets and be a drain on society.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary of independence, the country feels more divided –– and more exhausted and broken — than at any point in recent memory. Worse, there are several generations of Americans who do not even know what a healthy civic and political life looks like in this country. Donald Trump’s two non-consecutive presidencies, and the years of dysfunction that preceded them, is the whole of their formative political experience.”-Chauncey DeVega

You think, Mr. DeVega? Really? He does have a point, though. There ARE generations who don’t know what a healthy civic and political life looks like in our REPUBLIC. Here’s the deal. Our future generations need to learn how to FIRST, read. SECOND, math. And, equally important, write their first and last names on a piece of paper at least once before graduating high school. Have the educators across the land take down the posters of the trite platitudes of virtue-signaling and political posturing in the classrooms and begin on neutral ground and watch what happens.

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