The Exhausted Americans
“And now what? What does citizenship mean now?”
P.16
IF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN WANTS TO HEAL THE divisions in U.S. politics, he needs to stop all this talk about “unity” and instead focus the attention of all Americans on a common foe: toxic polarization.
That’s the advice the Biden administration has gotten from psychologist Peter Coleman. In a series of memos, Coleman, a mediator with experience in conflicts as far-flung as the Middle East, Haiti and Africa, has advised the new administration that the best way to repair and reverse the extremism in U.S. politics is to focus the attention of Americans on the virulence of their divisions and mobilize them to attack the problem.
Coleman has come to this conclusion after traveling the world consulting with peacemakers and policymakers and studying the societal conditions that often precede war, as well as those that often lead to peace. The current tensions in the U.S., Coleman argues, have their roots in the cultural and political shocks of the 1960s, which upset the existing order, and set the stage for a new era of political partisanship that began in the early 1980s and has been growing ever since.
Today, the nation is once again experiencing disruptive cultural and political shocks. “Our Capitol
