Is Trump's Ploy to Divide Americans Beginning to Fail?

Volunteers distributing food to those in need.

Donald Trump won election by sowing division and hatred and pandering to racists and Christian extremists.  That game plan has continued from inauguration day through today.  Trump has never made an effort to represent all Americans instead focusing on his 35-40% base where hatred of others is a constant, be it whites losing privilege hating minorities to Christofascists hating gays and others who reject their hate based beliefs (having followed "family Values" groups for over 25 years, their fundraising is ALWAYS based on hate). Now, the pandemic may be eroding Trump's formula as Americans appear to be moving to a more unified mindset as they face a common menace.  Yes, there are the far right protests against lock-down orders, but few have been truly spontaneous and behind the scenes most have been funded and orchestrated by far right billionaires who, like Trump, have hate as their stock in trade, and even white nationalist groups. Sadly, it often takes a common calamity - a hurricane, attacks like 9-11, or now, a pandemic - to drive home the message that we are more alike than different. One recent poll even found that only 29% of Americans believe what Trump says.  A column in the New York Times looks at the phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Even in a pandemic there are weavers and rippers. The weavers try to spiritually hold each other so we can get through this together. The rippers, from Donald Trump on down, see everything through the prism of politics and still emphasize division. For the rippers on left and right, politics is a war that gives life meaning.

Fortunately, the rippers are not winning. America is pretty united right now. In an ABC News/Ipsos poll last week, 98 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans supported social-distancing rules. According to a Yahoo News/YouGov survey, nearly 90 percent of Americans think a second wave of the virus would be at least somewhat likely if we ended the lockdowns today.

A Pew survey found 89 percent of Republicans and of Democrats support the bipartisan federal aid packages. Seventy-seven percent of American adults think more aid will be necessary.

According to a USA Today/Ipsos poll, most of the policies on offer enjoyed tremendous bipartisan support: increasing testing (nearly 90 percent), temporarily halting immigration (79 percent) and continuing the lockdown until the end of April (69 percent). A KFF poll shows that people who have lost their jobs are just as supportive of the lockdowns as people who haven’t.

The polarization industry is loath to admit this, but, once you set aside the Trump circus, we are now more united than at any time since 9/11. The pandemic has reminded us of our interdependence and the need for a strong and effective government.

It’s also taken us to a deeper level. The polarization over the past decades has not been about us disagreeing more; it’s been about us hating each other more. This has required constant volleys of dehumanization.

The pandemic has been a massive humanizing force — allowing us to see each other on a level much deeper than politics — see the fragility, the fear and the courage.

In normal times, the rippers hog the media spotlight. But now you see regular Americans, hurt in their deepest places and being their best selves.

Everywhere I hear the same refrain: We’re standing at a portal to the future; we’re not going back to how it used to be.

If you want to be there at one harbinger of the new world, I suggest you tune in to “The Call to Unite,” a 24-hour global streamathon, which starts Friday at 8 p.m. on Unite.us and various digital platforms. It was created by Tim Shriver and the organization Unite. There will be appearances by world leaders, musicians, religious leaders, actors and philosophers — everybody from Oprah and George W. Bush to Yo-Yo Ma and the emotion scholar Marc Brackett.

When the streamathon was first being organized (I played an extremely minor role) the idea was to let the world give itself a group hug. But as the thing evolved it became clear that people are not only reflecting on the current pain, they are also eager to build a different future.

If you tune in, you’ll see a surprising layers of depth and vulnerability. You’ll see people hungering for The Great Reset — the idea that we have to identify 10 unifying ideas (like national service) and focus energy around them.

Americans have responded to this with more generosity and solidarity than we had any right to expect. I’ve been on the phone all week with people launching projects to feed the hungry, comfort the grieving, perform little acts of fun with the young. You talk with these people and you think: Wow, you’re a hidden treasure.  The job ahead is to make this unity last.