Excerpt from a really good article by Michael Vlahos at The American Conservative.
“Moving apart. American kinship today is fissuring into two visions of the nation’s future way of life. “Red” virtue imagines a continuity of family and community within a publicly affirmed national community. “Blue” virtue imagines personally chosen communities mediated through the individual’s relationship with the state. This framing extends across the range of creedal litigation. Hence, for example, Blue sees guns as a dangerous and uncivil individual choice, while Red sees them as the source of political equality, a constitutional freedom. Red sees abortion as a threat to family, community, and faith, while Blue sees it as an individual’s right to choose. Blue champions “necessary” controls on political speech to protect the vulnerable freedom of individual choice, while Red opposes state control of thought as a threat to individual rights. Yet both agree that their vision of virtue must be eventually enforced.”
Vlahos makes another excellent point that we’ve touched on here in several articles.
“Today’s lightning rods—a feminist reordering of jurisprudence, a state-promoted LGBT agenda, closed or open borders, full gun rights guarantees—should not be seen as mere hot-button issues that can be manipulated at will by political party elites. These are way-of-life banners for two warring coalitions. Iconic issues that now represent the future of two tribal alliances are taking the place of a former, single nation. The time for compromise is over.”
How do we compromise? Where do we go from here with both sides so completely entrenched in their policies?
If one side wants open borders and more immigrants, and the other side wants to close the border and send many home, the status quo is no longer an option. It will not be seen as compromise by either side.