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Chris Fox's avatar

This is an important observation. My father used to speak of "joiners" with undisguised contempt, people whose sense of identity, or authenticity, was based not on achievement but on membership.

We are becoming a nation of joiners.

You can count me as one of the deniers of "cancel culture"; I don't say that to express any membership but rather because I think the idea is a fabrication. If someone is scheduled to speak at a university and he does a racist tweet, there is nothing membership-relating is canceling his invitation. Anyone who thinks that "cancel culture" is some badge of liberal membership should try posting any criticism of Trump on a right wing site.

But I think you're getting just a little starry-eyed when you insist that we are not truly divided into tribes and twain. I lived through "love it or leave it," through Watergate, through the ginning up of Iraq and I have never seen America so completely polarized. That there are a few people of confusing allegiances (blacks voting for Trump, Log Cabin Republicans ...) is just what you get dropping 340 million people on a bell curve. I do not see reconciliation or common ground in our future.

This may ultimately be a little Out There but I think he's onto something

https://survivingtomorrow.org/america-will-be-twelve-countries-very-soon-58d900389257?source=search_post

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