God is no more a Republican or a Democrat than God is a Denver Broncos fan or (God forbid) a New England Patriots fan. God is clearly a fan of all the NFL teams and wants them to play nicely with each other. Also, sharing must be in there somewhere. Oh Sorry! That's more like what liberals want sports teams to do. Boring! Conservatives want sports teams to win at any cost or by any means of unprovable cheating or through any need to look the other way on physical or sexual assault charges. But to their credit, murder is seen as stepping over the line.
It's easy to stereotype. It's a lot harder to deal with the realities and complexities. Earlier elections have shown there is not a God Gap between the two main political parties as much as there is a cultural belief gap based on regular church attendance, family values, contemporary moral issues and etc. How is that not a God Gap then? Well, given that God has been freed from organized religion and that God is invoked in many other substantial ways, placing more of God on one side than the other or equally on both sides is purely subjective.
Cultural beliefs about capital punishment, abortion, guns, military service, sex, drugs and alcohol, entertainment, war, poverty and riches, immigration, marriage and environment are some of the main areas of contention that are informed by political ideology, theology, ethnicity, tradition, history, education, philosophy and experience. These and more, to a variety of degrees and focus, sometimes neatly fit into a complimentary package ...and at other times there is the assumption that they do. Which is part of the hesitancy to make any changes, even when confronted with contrary information or what is known as actual, alternative or fake facts.
The divide comes with a "people like you and people like us mentality" that exudes rightness, superiority, exclusiveness and in particular a special knowledge and understanding that others can't get or see. It's very much an "our differences make us who we are" emphasis rather than an acknowledgment of "what we have in common." Each believes theirs is the better way. And yes, some believe their way is from God or reflects what God would want without recognizing that they are not the only one holding a God card. If any of them would ever really look, they would see that the photo on the card looks a lot like themselves.
As just about everyone knows, one can generalize two main divisions that appear in so many areas of life like churches, schools, economics and the judiciary but especially in politics. Conservative cultural beliefs versus liberal cultural beliefs used to be part of the give and take until they became hardened and entrenched causing the demise of tolerance and respect. Regardless of what you might think about all of this, the fact is that not much is getting done about the 20+ problems and situations that this country faces that are more important than what is currently playing on the main stage.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there are divisions within the two main divisions that are creating even more distance. Which begs the question of what it means to be an American and the question of what a future America should be. We can not go back in time to what never was nor can we afford to believe that government spending will solve all our problems in the future. Overall, the dogmatic divide comes in the differences in how America works and how it should work. The haziness of the past has become a rather strident clearing of ever hardening beliefs to the extent that hating your neighbor as your neighbor hates you is becoming an ideal.
Previous animosities however understood had some merit with each trying to prove the other wrong. Now it seems that if you're not drawing blood, you're really not in the fight. Talking to each other is seen as collusion and co-sponsoring a bill as treasonous. This is perhaps a little extreme but try voting against the party line and see what happens. Trickle down economics, or voodoo economics, may not work that well but legislative fights trickle down to the local level in alarm letters about situations that only more donations can fix.
But pop culture is rife conservative and liberal labels like - They are the only two conservative actors in Hollywood. Or, all the professors at that school are liberal. Nothing is all that simple nor does being more one thing than another give automatic agreement with everything that label represents or is attributed to it by the culture. Yet, a dogmatic division has developed. Some of which is due to the differences between a more liberal popular culture and a conservative religion that is fighting against its own liberal trends and having debates about who is the truest and best Christian. Which is always a good question to get a dinner party conversation started.
One might say, in general, that liberals live more in the urban areas and conservatives live more in the rural areas but that might be it. Other factors, situations, issues and presuppositions soon come to bear. Some of which, like abortion, immigration and domestic spending, are constant battles that engender strong emotion and make party conventions the spectacles that they are. Another over stated stereotype is that liberals are communal minded and conservatives are self-minded. Experience with both can produce some interesting antidotes as well as notable kindness and glaring hypocrisy. For safety reasons, neither should be pointed out. Groupthink is quite popular and various litmus tests apply. But it's not until extreme militancy from either side of the divide takes over that things like freedom, equality and justice are made into meaningless platitudes. In actuality, this is something that few would really want to see. ....But it is something that is alarmingly possible.
BONUS MEMES
