Free Republic

First, the white backlash is occurring in the context of long-term erosion in the federal government’s legitimacy. Since 1958, the Gallup polling organization has periodically asked Americans how much they trust the federal government to do what is right. In 1958, 73 percent said ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’. Trust hit its high point in 1964, when that figure stood at 77 percent. Then it began to fall. By 1980, only 27 percent trusted the government to do what is right. That percentage rebounded to the low forties during the Reagan years, then fell to a new low, 19...

Simon Schama divides us into two nations. One America is a perimeter, lying on the oceans or the fuzzy boundary with the Canadian lakes, and is porous and outward-looking. The other America is continental and landlocked, its roots of obstinate self-belief buried deep beneath the bluegrass and high corn. It is time we called these two Americas something other than Republican and Democrat. How about "Godly America" and "Worldly America?" Godly America is "mythic, messianic, conversionary, given to acts of public witness. Worldly America is a lot more like Europe. It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans...