The nation remains divided, in other words, not merely over which candidate counts as more qualified for the nation’s highest office, but over which contender is worthy and which one is, in the deepest sense, worthless.
This represents a level of vitriolic polarization unthinkable even four years ago. Then, virtually all liberals (very much including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) expressed their admiration for John McCain and his heroic years of military service and often bi-partisan leadership in the Senate. At the same time, even the most conservative Republicans acknowledged Barack Obama’s oratorical gifts, beautiful family and historic achievements as the first non-white politician to conduct a serious campaign for the White House.
In a sense, however, the shattering economic crisis of the last four years combined with Romney’s unique background as a presidential aspirant, jointly shaping the poisonously personal nature of our present divisions.
Not since the Great Depression has the key issue dividing the two parties turned on the viability of the free market itself and the utility of governmental activism and intervention. The post-FDR consensus on a mixed economic system (vigorous emphasis on the profit motive, but with extensive governmental supervision and generous support for the unfortunate) has collapsed along with confidence in a normal process of recovery. Liberals surveyed the wreckage of 2008 and decided that the economy could never heal without governmental intervention while conservatives view the broken promises of the last four years and conclude that we can’t recover with it.
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