Two Americas are on display as political conversations turn to vaccines and election results.
Listen in on a late 20th century conversation about politics, and the banter might be about whether trickle-down economics works, or whether the federal government ought to be paying people welfare without imposing a work requirement. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the debate might be a bit more personal, with cultural issues like abortion, gay marriage and gun control dominating the conversation and defining the two sides.
Today, the political divide has become more drastic, and more dire, with implications for life-vs.-death and democracy-vs.-autocracy. America, recovering from a deadly pandemic and a painful political campaign season, is increasingly divided into two starkly different camps: those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID and those who got their shots; and those who think the 2020 election was rigged and those who are convinced the nation barely averted a turn toward an autocratic government.
Pollsters, accustomed to asking such quaint queries as “Do you support such-and-such?” and “Do you think the country is headed in the right direction or wrong direction?” are now posing questions they never imagined they’d ask – or have to ask. Continue reading.