America the Coupless. By Rosa Brooks.

America the Coupless. By Rosa Brooks. Foreign Policy, July 4, 2013.

Good Riddance to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Fake Democrats. By Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good Riddance to Brotherhood’s Fake Democrats. By Jeffrey Goldberg. Bloomberg, July 4, 2013.

Don’t Blame Islam for the Failure of Egypt’s Democracy. By Noah Feldman. Bloomberg, July 5, 2013.

A Coup By Any Other Name. By Fouad Ajami. Bloomberg, July 4, 2013.

Confrontation, Coups, and Bloodshed. By David Pryce-Jones. National Review Online, July 4, 2013.

It’s Time to Work With Egypt’s Generals. By Martin Indyk. Foreign Policy, July 4, 2013.

From 1776 to 2013: How America Has Changed. By Paul Krugman.

E Pluribus Unum. By Paul Krugman. New York Times, July 4, 2013.

Hatetriot’s Day: July 4th Is America’s Crappiest Holiday. By Ken Layne.

Hatetriot’s Day: July 4th Is America’s Crappiest Holiday. By Ken Layne. Gawker, July 3, 2013.

Hamas May Be a Big Loser of Morsi’s Fall.

Morsi has fallen, but Hamas may be as big a loser. By Mitch Ginsburg. The Times of Israel, July 4, 2013.

Gaza: Hamas “biggest loser” of Morsi’s overthrow. By Elior Levy. Ynet News, July 4, 2013.

John Kerry’s Bid for Mideast Peace Is Doomed.

John Kerry’s Bid for Mideast Peace Is Doomed. By Jeffrey Goldberg. Bloomberg, July 1, 2013.

Dead on Arrival. By Oren Kessler. Foreign Policy, July 2, 2013.

Why is John Kerry shuttling around trying to kick-start a Middle East peace process that no one wants?

Kerry Keeps Leaving the Mideast Empty-Handed. By Raphael Ahren. NJBR, July 1, 2013.


Goldberg:

It’s a testament to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s grit, determination and self-assurance that he refuses to give up in his quest to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. But I wish that he would, during the long slog toward renewed talks, ask himself one question: Why didn’t his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, apply herself to the problem in the same manner?

 

Certainly, Clinton possesses the same qualities of fortitude and indefatigability. No one is more tenacious than Clinton when she identifies a goal worth pursuing. So why did she resolutely avoid this issue? The answer is simple: She saw no reasonable chance for success, even success modestly defined.

 

The goal Kerry has in mind – getting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas together for direct talks about the most divisive issues – won’t be achieved. Both the Palestinians and Israelis know that Kerry’s proposed negotiations won’t work, but neither party wants to upset Kerry by saying so, and neither wants to be perceived as uninterested in compromise. So they may meet, and then maybe they will meet again and maybe they will even meet after that. But peace, and a Palestinian state that would be the byproduct of peace, won’t happen, not now and not in the foreseeable future.

 

Kerry’s Delusions

 

I wish this all weren’t true. Peace for Israel and a state for the Palestinians are goals worth achieving. Reaching these goals won’t change the Middle East as much as Kerry thinks it will, but I’ll address this particular delusion of the American foreign-policy elite another time. (I already have, come to think of it, in this column.)

 

The delusion at hand is that Kerry will succeed where numerous secretaries of state have failed, and succeed in what might be the most inauspicious moment in years to start new negotiations: The Middle East is erupting all around Israel, which makes even centrist and some left-leaning Israelis fear the idea of tangible territorial concessions; the Palestinian Authority is weaker than ever; the two territories that would make up the future state of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza) are divided between the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas and the more moderate Fatah; and the Israeli Cabinet is under the de facto control of the settlement movement, which continues to expand its holdings on the West Bank.

 

But maybe I’m just a cynic. I called Ari Shavit, Israel’s leading columnist and a man who very much wants to see a Palestinian state created on the West Bank, to ask him if my bleakness was unjustified. “I’m just this moment putting the Champagne bottles in the fridge,” he said. “I expect to open them shortly. We’re all going to have special permission from the Muslim Brotherhood to drink Champagne.”

 

Shavit’s withering sarcasm wasn’t matched by contempt for Kerry, though. Like many Israelis, Shavit has a strange kind of respect for Kerry’s quixotic efforts. “Kerry is a decent, noble American trying to bring peace to a tormented land and a troubled region, and I salute him for his benign intentions and commitment and energy,” Shavit said. “But that said, I think this good will and energy and political capital is being invested in a course of action that resembles too much the previous attempts that have failed. I think the right approach is to learn from the failures of the past and to do something practical that relates to the realities on the ground rather than reach for something that is totally unrealistic. There is no serious Israeli or Palestinian who thinks that the Kerry approach would work.”

 

Modest Ideas

 

So if the idea of bringing Netanyahu and Abbas together to talk about the largest issues is a bad idea, what constitutes a good idea? “Modest ideas,” Shavit said, modest ideas that may lead to less modest ideas.

 

That means a different approach, undertaking one set of negotiations between the U.S. and Israel, and another between the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority. Each side could take a few steps separately that would lay the groundwork for eventually having direct talks about the actual issues separating them: the future of Jerusalem, the future of the Jewish settlements, a solution for Palestinian refugees and borders for the future state of Palestine. Shavit argues that this strategy would shift the discussion away from the dangerous binary of all or nothing at all.

 

To the Israelis, Kerry should be asking for a freeze in the expansion of settlements beyond Israel’s security barrier. These far-flung communities are home to a small minority of settlers, but their growth signals to Palestinians like nothing else that Israel means to continue occupying the whole of the West Bank. A majority of Israelis would agree to a freeze, and Palestinians would interpret it as a sign that Israel might be considering territorial compromise. And Kerry would have a powerful argument behind him, one most Israelis understand: Continued expansion outside the main settlement blocs, and on the far side of the security barrier, threatens Israel’s democracy and its Jewish character. The settlements entangle Israel to a dangerous degree in the lives of Palestinians.

 

To the Palestinians, Kerry should be arguing for a return to “Fayyadism,” the technocratic approach to state-building championed by former Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Israelis would interpret a return to Fayyadism as a sign the Palestinians were serious about building a state with legitimate and organized institutions, rather than the sort of Palestinian state Israelis fear: corrupt, dysfunctional and a launching pad for attacks.

 

If Israel were to make a limited gesture on settlements to the Palestinians, and if the Palestinian Authority would make a sincere effort to return to technocracy, then it might be worth trying to bring Netanyahu and Abbas together.

 

Right now, though, there’s no point. One day soon, Kerry will understand why.

Egypt’s Lost Opportunity. By Fareed Zakaria.

Egypt’s Lost Opportunity. By Fareed Zakaria. Washington Post, July 3, 2013.

Mobs make fickle friends. Egypt is not Les Misérables. By Simon Jenkins. The Guardian, July 4, 2013.

Israel Cautiously Optimistic on Egypt. By Ben Caspit.

Israel Cautiously Optimistic on Egypt. By Ben Caspit. Al-Monitor, July 2, 2013.

Israel Warily Watches Egypt Turmoil. By Joshua Mitnick. Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2013.

Price of Freedom. By Ralph Peters.

Price of Freedom: July Fourth and Our Veterans. By Ralph Peters. New York Post, July 4, 2008. Also here.

Intellectuals Lie, the Powerless Die. By Ralph Peters. New York Post, July 9, 2008. Also here.

The Dissent Deceit: Not Patriotism’s Highest Form. By Ralph Peters. New York Post, July 12, 2008. Also here.

The War Over Patriotism. By Peter Beinart. NJBR, January 28, 2013. Originally in Time, June 26, 2008.

Political Islam Fails Egypt’s Test. By Roger Cohen.

Political Islam Fails Egypt’s Test. By Roger Cohen. New York Times, July 4, 2013.

Egypt Risks the Fire of Radicalism. By Ed Husain. New York Times, July 3, 2013.

Morsi’s Fall a Blow to Islamists. By Hamza Hendawi and Lee Keath. AP. Real Clear World, July 4, 2013.

How Morsi came undone. By Eric Trager. New York Daily News, July 5, 2013.

What Is July 4 to African-Americans? By Carl M. Cannon.

What Is July 4 to African Americans? By Carl M. Cannon. Real Clear Politics, July 4, 2013.

Hama Rules. By Thomas L. Friedman.

Hama Rules. By Thomas L. Friedman. From Beirut to Jerusalem, Chapter 4. New York: Anchor Books, 1989, 1995.

Hama Rules. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, September 21, 2001.

The New Hama Rules. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, August 2, 2011.

Assad’s Hama Rules, Again. By Wendell Steavenson. The New Yorker, February 4, 2012.

Tribes With Flags. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, March 22, 2011.

Tom Friedman lifts someone else’s aphorism (“Tribes with flags”). By Dan Sisken. Mondoweiss, March 27, 2011.

Tribes With Flags. By Aaron David Miller. NJBR, February 27, 2013.

Tribes With Flags – Is the Arab State Really Dead? Karl reMarks, February 28, 2013.

Why Aaron David Miller is lame, cliché, and offensive. By Issandr El Amrani. The Arabist, March 1, 2013.

The End of Obama’s Brotherhood Crush. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

The End of Obama’s Brotherhood Crush. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, July 3, 2013.

Obama Doubles Down on Egypt Folly. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, July 3, 2013.

Traits of Resemblance in the People of the United States of America to Ancient Israel.

Traits of Resemblance in the People of the United States of America to Ancient Israel. By Abiel Abbot. Haverhill, Mass.: Moore and Stebbins, 1799.

Religion and the State in Israel: A Modest Proposal. By Moshe Koppel.

Religion and the State in Israel: A Modest Proposal. By Moshe Koppel. Mosaic, July 2013.

Much Obliged: Religion is not just one choice among many. By Yuval Levin. Mosaic, July 2013.

The Virtues of Empire. By R.R. Reno.

The Virtues of Empire. By R.R. Reno. First Things, July 1, 2013.

Persecution of Christians: American Foreign Policy Will Have to Respond. By Walter Russell Mead.

Persecution of Christians: American Foreign Policy Will Have to Respond. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, July 4, 2013.

Mead:

Americans like to think that modernization and economic progress make religious and ethnic tensions fade away. That may be true in the long run, but often the stressful social and political changes associated with rapid economic development make intercommunal tensions worse. It was only after the Industrial Revolution was well under way, for example, that waves of nationalism and ethnic hate flamed across Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

India is an even more complicated and diverse country than the United States, and Indian society is passing through some revolutionary changes. Both Indian and US governments will have to think carefully about how religious tensions inside India can be kept from complicating a bilateral relationship of the greatest importance to both.

 

To some, it will seem odd and anachronistic that 21st century American diplomats will be dealing with issues of religious persecution. But history grinds on, and humanity’s religious and tribal affiliations don’t seem to be fading away.

The Age of Indiscretion. By Daniel Henninger.

The Age of Indiscretion. By Daniel Henninger. Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2012.

Egypt Continued, or Interrupted (Depending on Your Point of View). By Adam Garfinkle.

Egypt Continued, or Interrupted (Depending on Your Point of View). By Adam Garfinkle. The American Interest, July 4, 2013.

Mohammed Morsi’s Failed Presidency.

Witnessing a Coup in Egypt. By Eric Trager. Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2013.

Still Wrong About Egypt—and Wrong About the World. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, July 4, 2013.

Everybody Loses in Egypt. By Marc Lynch. Foreign Policy, July 3, 2013.

Egypt’s Islamists Turn Violent After Morsy’s Fall. By David Kenner. Foreign Policy, July 4, 2013.

Where Does the Muslim Brotherhood Go From Here? By Nathan Brown. The New Republic, July 3, 2013.

An Independence Day for Egypt's Secularists? By Michael Hirsh. The Atlantic, July 3, 2013.


Mead:

It is not at all clear that Egypt is in the midst of a transition to democracy. It is in the midst of a crisis of authority and has been wallowing for some time in a damaging crisis of governance, but is Egypt really in a transition to democracy? And is democracy really what “ordinary” Egyptians want?

 

Right now one suspects that most Egyptians fear that the country could be in a transition to anarchy, and that what ordinary Egyptians (who are extremely poor by US standards and earn their bread by the sweat of their brow with very little cushion against illness or a bad day at the market) want most of all right now is security. They aren’t fretting so much about when they will have a government more like Norway’s as they are terrified that their country is sliding in the direction of Libya, Syria or Iraq.

 

As is often the case, Washington policymakers seem to be paying too much attention to the glibbest of political scientists and the vaporings of the Davoisie. Egypt has none of the signs that would lead historians to think democracy is just around the corner. Mubarak was not Franco, and Egypt is not Spain. What’s happening in Egypt isn’t the robust flowering of a civil society so dynamic and so democratic that it can no longer be held back by dictatorial power.

 

Virtually every policeman and government official in the country takes bribes. Most journalists have lied for pay or worked comfortably within the confines of a heavily censored press all their careers. The Interior Ministry has files, often stuffed with incriminating or humiliating information about most of the political class. The legal system bowed like a reed before the wind of the Mubarak government’s will, and nothing about the character of its members has changed. The business class serves the political powers; the Copts by and large will bow to the will of any authority willing to protect them.

 

And Americans should not deceive themselves. While some of Morsi’s failure was the result of overreaching and dumb choices on his part, he faced a capital strike and an intense campaign of passive resistance by a government and business establishment backed by an army in bed with both groups. Their strategy was to bring Morsi down by sabotaging the economy, frustrating his policies and isolating his appointees. Although Egypt’s liberals supported the effort out of fear of the Islamists, the strategy had nothing to do with a transition to democracy, and it worked.

 

This is not to say that Morsi or his movement had a viable alternative policy or governance model for Egypt. They didn’t. The Muslim Brotherhood had no clue how Egypt could be governed, and a combination of incompetence, corruption, factionalism and religious dogmatism began to wreck Morsi’s government from Day One.

 

If American policy toward Egypt is based on the assumption that Egypt is having a “messy transition” to democracy and that we must shepherd the poor dears to the broad sunny uplands, encouraging when they do well, chiding when they misstep, Washington will keep looking foolish and our influence will continue to fade. If that is the approach our foolishness compels us to take, look for more cases in which American good intentions just make us more hated—not because we are wicked, but because we are clueless.

 

The White House needs to purge all short or even medium term thoughts of promoting Egypt’s transition to democracy. There aren’t enough “good guys” in Egypt to Americanize or even to Malaysianize the place. Democracy in Egypt right now is an “if we had some eggs we could have some ham and eggs—if we had some ham” kind of dream. Our first goal must be to help prevent Egypt’s descent into starvation, misery, anarchy and despair.

 

We can’t take for granted that we or they will succeed in this; Egypt’s economic problems are pressing. It’s likely that the non-coup will lure some Egyptian money back into the country, but if violence continues and Islamist terrorists foment disorder and attack, for example, tourists, bad things can happen fast. Egypt is much closer to being a basket case than it is to becoming a democracy.

 

Less study of the fine print of the Egyptian constitution, more concern about a strategically important country headed over Niagara Falls in a bucket, please.

 

Beyond that, we need a fundamental rethink of our approach to the promotion of democracy abroad. It is neither racist nor orientalist nor any other ugly thing to say that different societies around the world are at different degrees of readiness for the rise of genuine democratic institutions. Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not going to be building modern states anytime soon, much less democratic ones. China seems closer to building a stable and working democracy than Egypt is, and the obstacles facing democracy in China are immense and intimidating.

 

Many people who came of age politically in the late 1980s and 1990s have a warped sense of history. They lived at a time of rapid democratic advance: East Asia, Latin America, South Africa and above all Central and Eastern Europe hosted a galaxy of new democratic stars. One belief uniting the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama is that this democratic revolution would irresistibly sweep the rest of the world.

 

But it didn’t and it won’t, at least not anytime soon. The low hanging fruit has been picked; the fruit higher up in the tree isn’t ripe, or has been pecked by the birds. In many places, the “irresistible tide” has rolled back. In others, the clear streams of liberal revolution have been polluted and fouled by ethnic and religious hate.

 

This doesn’t mean our work is done or that we must despair of democracy’s future. But it does mean we need to shift strategy. Less money for sock-puppet NGOs whose leaders obligingly tell us everything we want to hear, and more, for example, to help Egypt reform and develop an educational system that could give future generations a chance. I will be writing about democracy promotion in a difficult time; America is not and never will be a purely realist power and our foreign engagement can and must respond to great moral and political truths.

 

But if George W. Bush’s failures at democracy promotion in the Arab world weren’t enough of a lesson, surely Barack Obama’s failures should bring home the reality that our whole approach to this region needs some deeper, wiser, and more practical ideas.

The Father of Waters Flows Unvexed to the Sea. By Walter Russell Mead.

The Father of Waters Flows Unvexed to the Sea. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, July 4, 2013.

Mead:

150 years ago on the Fourth of July, the Siege of Vicksburg ended in a glorious American victory, and the secessionists lost their last bastion on the Mississippi River. With the Army of Northern Virginia also being beaten back from the ridges and hilltops of Gettysburg, July 4, 1863, was the day when Dixie started its fall.

 

I am a son of the South and grew up steeped in its legends, its loyalties and its lore. I am proud of the courage my slaveholding ancestors displayed, though sad that such courage was devoted to so sorry a cause. I am deeply grateful to Abraham Lincoln for doing what my ancestors could not do on their own: freeing their slaves from the curse of bondage and freeing my family from the curse of slave owning.

 

The Civil War was a war of liberation, not a war of conquest or aggression. That terrible war began the liberation of the white south as well as the black south, and more and more southern whites have come to understand that as the generations have passed.

 

Some of my first political memories date from the centennial of the Civil War, when the Civil Rights movement was reaching its climax and the post-Reconstruction settlement of southern politics was going down to the same ruin that the slaveholding south faced in 1865. My family like many other families was bitterly divided by that movement, a fading echo of the bitterness of the Civil War itself.

 

It was fitting that Vicksburg fell on July 4; it was fitting that the great Civil Rights bills were passed during the Civil War’s centennial — and it is fitting that America observes the 150th anniversary of the war under the leadership of an African American president. I don’t like all the decisions our President makes, but I would not want to live in a country where a person of color was barred, formally or informally, from holding the highest office in the land.

 

For many generations, the feelings of many white southerners about July 4, 1776 were shadowed by their feelings about April 1865 when they ‘drove old Dixie down’. Lots of people knew the words to “Good Old Rebel”:

I hates the yankee nation, and everything they do

I hates the declaration of independence, too;

I hates the glorious union, tis drippin’ with our blood;

I hates striped banner, I fit it all I could.

Southern whites weren’t and aren’t the only people with a complicated relationship to our national history, of course. The feelings of many black southerners about 1776 were and are also clouded: by 90 years of slavery and another 90 years of cruel discrimination and race rule. Healing is slow; that is the nature of deep wounds.

 

The fall of Vicksburg was a step towards the fulfillment of the promises made in Philadelphia. 150 years later, we should remember, gratefully, this glorious day in the annals of our nation, and spare a moment from our celebrations to remember the brave men who gave their lives so that the promise of the Revolution would not be lost.

 

Michael Beschloss has posted a photograph of a Union fortification outside Vicksburg, taken soon after the city’s fall. Take a look, and remember that July 4 was only the beginning of a very long and complicated story that is still unfolding in our time.

George III and the American Revolution. By Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy.

“If Others Will Not Be Active, I Must Drive”: George III and the American Revolution. By Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy. Early American Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 2004).

Despite John Kerry’s Efforts, Poll Shows Both Israelis and Palestinians are Pessimistic about Prospects for Peace.

Despite the launching of the efforts of US Secretary of State John Kerry to renew the peace process and the modification introduced to the Arab Peace Initiative (API) accepting minor territorial swaps, both sides display pessimism regarding the peace process and Israeli support for the API drops. Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research, July 2, 2013.

Summary:

Israelis and Palestinians continue to display pessimism regarding the peace process despite efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to renew the peace process and despite modification introduced to the Arab Peace Initiative: Only 27% of the Palestinians and 10% of the Israelis think that the two sides will return to negotiations and violence will stop while 34% of the Israelis and 31% of the Palestinians believe that negotiations will resume but some armed attacks will continue as well. On the other hand,  44% of the Israelis and 15% of the Palestinians think that the two sides will not return to negotiations and armed attacks will not stop and 21% of the Palestinians believe that the two sides will not return to negotiations but that violence will not resume.

 

Furthermore, findings indicate that each side perceives the other side as constituting a threat to its very existence: 57% of Palestinians think that Israel’s goals in the long run are to extend its borders to cover all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and expel its Arab citizens, and 25% think the goals are to annex the West Bank while denying political rights to the Palestinians. 37% of the Israelis think that the Palestinian aspirations in the long run are to conquer the State of Israel and destroy much of the Jewish population in Israel; 17% think the goals of the Palestinians are to conquer the State of Israel.

The Fall of the American Worker. By George Packer.

The Fall of the American Worker. By George Packer. The New Yorker, July 2, 2013.

Red, Divided and Blue Fly This Independence Day. By Ron Brownstein.

Red, Divided and Blue Fly This Independence Day. By Ronald Brownstein. National Journal, July 3, 2013.

Brownstein:

It seems entirely revealing, if dispiriting, that the days before the July Fourth holiday showed Red America and Blue America pulling apart at an accelerating rate.

 

Of all of our national holidays, Independence Day is the one most intimately rooted in our common history and shared experience. Yet this year it arrives against a background of polarization, separation, and confrontation in the states and Washington alike. With municipal politics as the occasional exception, the pattern of solidifying agreement within the parties—and widening disagreement between them—is dominating our decisions at every level.

 

On almost all of our major policy choices, the common thread is that the election of 2012 did not “break the fever” of polarization, as President Obama once hoped it might. Last November, Obama became only the third Democrat in the party’s history to win a majority of the popular vote twice. But congressional Republicans, preponderantly representing the minority that voted against Obama, have conceded almost nothing to his majority—leaving the two sides at a stalemate. Meanwhile, beyond the Beltway, states that lean Democratic and those that lean Republican are separating at a frenetic pace.

 

Consider a few recent headlines. The Supreme Court decision upholding the lower-court invalidation of California's Proposition 8 restored gay marriage in the nation’s largest state. It also capped a remarkable 2013 march for gay marriage through blue states, including Delaware, Minnesota, and Rhode Island (with Illinois and New Jersey possibly joining before long). The consensus is solidifying fast enough that 2014 could see several blue-state Republican gubernatorial candidates running on accepting gay-marriage statutes as settled law. Former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a likely 2014 GOP gubernatorial contender who this week reversed his earlier opposition to support gay marriage, may be an early straw in that breeze.

 

The story in red states, though, remains very different. Almost all of them have banned gay marriage. Some activists believe Justice Anthony Kennedy’s embrace of equal-protection arguments in the decision striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act might enable litigation challenging those bans; but if not, it may take a very long time for the support for gay marriage among younger voters to dissolve the resistance to the idea in culturally conservative states. Absent further Supreme Court action, the nation could remain a “house divided” on gay marriage for longer than many may expect: The high court’s ruling striking down the remaining 16 state laws banning interracial marriage came in 1967—nearly two centuries after the first state had revoked its ban (Pennsylvania in 1780).

 

Meanwhile, as gay marriage advances in blue states, red states are competing to impose the tightest restrictions on abortion since the Supreme Court established the national right to it in Roe v. Wade. In Ohio this week, Republican Gov. John Kasich signed legislation requiring ultrasound exams before abortions, effectively cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood and making it more difficult for abortion providers to transfer patients to public hospitals. In Texas, after the dramatic filibuster by Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis temporarily disrupted his plans, Republican Gov. Rick Perry this week opened another legislative special session that is likely to ban abortion at 20 weeks and impose stringent new safety requirements that would shutter most of the state’s abortion providers. All of this follows a cascade of legislation restricting abortion in Republican-run states from Arkansas and Louisiana to Kansas and North Dakota—most of which are already facing legal challenges.

 

In Washington, there’s little sign of convergence. Hopes for a budget “grand bargain” are flickering. In the Senate, the two parties have worked together to pass a farm bill, and more dramatically a sweeping immigration overhaul that won support from all 54 Democrats and 14 Republicans. But House Republicans, who recently collapsed into chaos when they couldn’t pass a farm bill, are pledging to block any reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants—an indispensable component of legislation as far as Democrats are concerned. On big issues, the Supreme Court looks just as chronically divided, and the split often comes down to Republican- and Democratic-appointed justices.

 

All of this reveals a political system losing its capacity to create common ground between party coalitions divided along economic, racial, generational, and even religious lines. Some variation in state policy is healthy, but states are now diverging to an extent that threatens to undermine equal protection under the law. The stalemate in Congress reflects genuine differences, but the reluctance to compromise—most intractable among House Republicans—prevents us from confronting common challenges.

 

In all these ways, our contemporary politics is ignoring the simple truth that none of us are going away—not the cosmopolitan coasts, nor the evangelical South. Our choices ultimately come down to bridging our differences or surrendering to endemic separation in the states and stalemate in Washington. This week we celebrate the moment when the authors of the Declaration of Independence concluded they had no choice but “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” It’s an excellent opportunity to consider how ominously our own “political bands” are fraying.