Why is there polarized politics in our Republic?

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part response Norbert Chowaniec has penned to a column written by David Shribman, executive editor of the Post-Gazette, titled “The culprits behind today’s polarizing politics.” The column was posted sometime ago to Frontiersman.com and may be read online at bit.ly/1jA2ykR.

For the last 25 years, I’ve been observing, studying and assessing this growing polarized politics in our country. Keying in on what was politically odd, the Democratic Party was almost always an aggressor and the Republican Party was always defensive in matters of politics. Another oddity, the Democratic Party had solidarity and unity whereas the Republican Party did not.

I initially traced overt signs of one-sided polarized politics to the late 1960s and the Democratic Party. Still, I couldn’t solidly put my finger on this “shift” in Democratic Party politics — something changed in the hearts and minds of the Democratic Party.

What was this change within the Democratic Party? Nothing seemed to add up regarding this shift in party politics, but whatever it was, it had to happen before the late 1960s. So, I waited for more clues.

I was stumped for the longest time in finding the true origins of polarized politics until the Frontiersman published a column from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It was authored by David Shribman, executive editor of the Post-Gazette. The article was headlined, “The culprits behind today’s polarizing politics.” Here’s where I found the final clue that leads to the origins of change within the Democratic Party. More importantly, the timing of this party change is the main clue that points to what was in the hearts and minds of those Democratic Party powerbrokers.

Shribman traced this shift toward polarized politics within the Democratic Party back to FDR-era politics but doesn’t really indicate what their intentions were. Here’s where the 1940s Democratic Party powerbrokers made deliberate plans to change their party core values at who they would allow to represent the Democratic Party into their future, our past 66 years.

To change party core values, one must first understand the mindset of individuals during the 1940s. Politicians and the country had weathered a couple world wars and a depression. The Great Depression caused a visceral hatred to develop toward capitalism (aka the captains of industry) because of the hardships experienced by the masses. But the most incriminating consequence on our future politics was the after effects of eugenics (the time period before and during FDR-era politics).

What was eugenics? In a nutshell, it was a plan to create a purity of the human species. In layman terms, it also meant to contain and isolate defective humans. Eugenics was embraced by large segments of the U.S. from the late 1800s to around the early 1920s, with lingering impacts. Once the public became aware of the large-scale abuses of humanity, eugenics lost support, or so it would seem. So, what does this have to do with Democratic Party powerbrokers?

The original form of eugenics (purity of the human species) disappeared into history, but the concept did not. The concept of eugenics lingered as in purity of “blank.’ Here’s what the FDR-era Democratic Party powerbrokers did; they filled in the blank. They invented a new concept of political eugenics. This political eugenics can best be defined as “purity of political party.”

What is purity of political party? It’s a political concept of identically like-minded people, presumably to unify political power within the party by eliminating party members with differing opinions. Who are identically like-minded people? As a group, they process information much the same way, such as liberals process information one way, conservatives process information another way, socialists process information altogether another way, so on and so forth. Then, these identically like-minded people form a group or political party (or hijack one) to push their ideologies into the political process.

So, these FDR-era Democratic Party powerbrokers implemented an internal process of pushing people of differing opinions (diversity) out of the Democratic Party. They accomplished pushing out most persons of differing opinions by the late 1960s, at which one-sided polarizing politics started becoming overtly noticeable.

Mainstream media and Democratic Party propaganda would have everybody believe the Democratic Party is about liberalism. It is not. I believe liberals vote Democratic Party because they believe they are a party that respects (is tolerant of) differing opinions. At one time, the Democratic Party did mainly represent liberals and they did have persons of differing opinions within the party, but that has not been true for quite some time. True liberals across the country have no real political representation.

Beneath the propaganda spread by mainstream media and the Democratic Party is a group-think and group-speak (listen to how they parrot one another to show that unified support) that virtually has no diversity. They sell the concept that if you have a political party of race, ethnic and/or gender differences, that qualifies as diversity. It does not. Race, ethnic and/or gender differences do not constitute diversity within a political setting. How you, as an individual, internally process information about the world around you is what defines diversity, manifesting itself as a differing opinion.

There is no such representation of a woman conservative or Hispanic libertarian or black moderate, so on and so forth within the Democratic Party. This is a political party that neither respects nor tolerates differing opinions. The Democratic Party power brokers have created a party of identically liked-minded individuals — regardless of race, gender or ethnicity — where they all process information the same one way. The closest political theme that describes the intentions of the Democratic Party powerbrokers is latent socialism.

Norbert Chowaniec lives in Palmer.