RIPE GRAPES:

The two-nation trap: A divide-and-conquer strategy may be tempting. But a Democratic presidential candidate must speak to all of the people. (Alan Wolfe, 12/28/2003, Boston Globe)

FACING A BITTERLY DIVIDED country, the Republican candidate decided that the only way to win was to secure his base. The math, he knew, worked in his favor. The opposition was divided, and the presence of more than two candidates in the race meant he could still be elected even if he won a minority of the popular vote. By capturing all of the states in the region where he had the most support, moreover, he would win in the electoral college - no matter how much he ignored the region where he was most disliked. Victory achieved in this fashion would no doubt make governing difficult, since the losers would view him as illegitimate and would resist his policies. But victory was the first priority; without it, none of his ambitious plans for the country could take effect.

The scenario, as any historian of 19th-century America will immediately recognize, is the one that resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. America was so bitterly divided in 1860 that none of the four candidates who ran for president that year could speak for the country as a whole. The only alternative was to unify one particular region and hope for the best. Lincoln did precisely that, winning every Northern state except New Jersey (which was divided between him and Stephen A. Douglas) and losing every Southern and border state. He obtained less than 40 percent of the popular vote. And even though Lincoln won a significant electoral college majority, his victory failed to stop the onset of the Civil War.

Given the political realities of the 19th century, Lincoln had no choice but to follow a ''two nation'' political strategy. This is no longer the case. Throughout much of the 20th century, protecting Americans against economic depression and securing our way of life against totalitarianism encouraged politicians to follow a ''one nation'' ideal and insist on what we all had in common. FDR might have railed against businessmen for their undue influence, but the New Deal was broadly supported by Northeastern liberals, Midwestern union members, and others, and it dispensed its largesse to the South and the West. Military mobilization in both World War II and the Cold War drafted young people from all over the country, spurred industrial production across the heartland, and brought new generations of Southern military officers to prominence.

Because policies became national in scope during the 20th century, so did politics. Whatever differences existed over race or economic regulation, both parties tried to build inclusive coalitions. Democrats combined in one party urban African Americans and Southern segregationists. Republicans appealed to the upwardly mobile in the Northeastern suburbs as well as the newly rich in the Southwest. There were exceptions to this search for inclusion, but even they proved the rule. When Senator Joseph McCarthy accused others of being ''un-American,'' his divide-and-rule tactics were - eventually - brought to an end by a bipartisan establishment that valued moderation over extremism.

The New Deal and the Cold War are, as they say, history, and because they are, there is much talk of how we are once again becoming two nations divided by race, region, ideology, culture, and religion. Such claims are often exaggerated. While Americans may have real differences on subjects like gay marriage, stem cells, and the war in Iraq, none of our divisions come close to those that faced Lincoln - or, for that matter, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. There is no compelling reason for politicians to repudiate the one-nation politics of the 20th century in favor of the two-nation strategies of the 19th. Yet that is exactly what is happening. We are having Civil War politics without having a civil war.

It's always strange when someone sets up an analogy themself and then argues against it. You'd think the obvious point is that when no great moral issues divide the country it is possible to unify across regions, cohorts, etc., but that when moral issues are at stake there are definite geographic, socio-economic, etc., divides that can't be papered over. On a variety of issues like abortion, homosexuality, evolution and prayer in schools, and the like, a majority of Americans, especially those in the Red states are diametrically opposed to the progressive ideology of the coastal elites (Blue Staters in NY, LA, Boston, Washington, etc.). This doesn't necessarily mean civil war is coming, but you do have to wonder if the majority won't eventually tire of having the nation's morality debased by the minority and force a retrenchment by any means necessary.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 28, 2003 10:50 AM