The January 6th hearings regarding the protest march on Washington where Trump supporters stormed Congress to contest the presidential election victory shows no sign of compromise or healing the division that has started a new de-facto civil war – at least not yet. The parties remain divided for the most part as some Republicans have agreed with Democrats that the protest was an insurrection on American Democracy while continuing to denounce Trump. However, wild conspiracy theories continue to thrive on the far-right as christian-nationalism holds hands with right-wing extremism in a march toward their goal.
The far-right continues to surprise us as a grassroots movement, similar to how the Tea Party movement resulted in many right-wing extremists taking office. If there is one thing that they have more of than anyone else, it’s blind loyalty and aggressive tenacity. This allows them to have a surprising amount of power, from the local to the federal level. This means every election, no matter how big or small, needs to be carefully monitored to help prevent incompetent extremists from taking elected positions.
However, it’s not just the right we need to worry about, but hardcore left radicals as well. A common sense Centrist approach seems to be the safest bet to help America heal while making any sort of progress for the next election cycle. Unfortunately most people trying to compromise and stay towards the middle are labeled as the enemy since extremists on both sides have a “you are either with us, or against us” mentality.
Hopefully we will see the boiling point begin to calm down as the Jan 6th hearing comes to a close. At that point the dust will get a chance to settle and real compromise in legislation can begin. The question is how long that will take to happen, and how long it will last. With issues like gun control and abortion rights continuing to act as hot-button issues, it’s hard to say if we will ever get a break. Anything that helps throw fuel on the fire of division is going to create a volatile hotbed in every city across the country that we are all going to have to deal with, and only protecting our democracy while voting will allow that to happen.
The American Centrist 