WASHINGTON — On this Thanksgiving, with millions of Americans still waiting for the rising economic tide to lift their boats and every family gathering shadowed by concern for the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, the test for national character has never been clearer.
It is simply whether the values we share in common are strong enough to withstand the differences that have divided the country with mathematical precision in so many ways.
The compact on which the United States was founded — embodied in the Constitution — rests on the principle that the majority will respect and protect the rights of the minority and the minority will accept decisions that go against its will.
That principle has held through every test but one over more than two centuries of history. When it did not, we had the Civil War.
Be thankful this Thanksgiving that no civil war looms, for the divisions are everywhere to be seen. When we last chose a president, it took 36 extra days to resolve the counting and determine that the man who narrowly lost the popular vote had gained an Electoral College majority — of one.
When the House of Representatives — the people’s body — had to decide in the predawn hours last Saturday what to do about Medicare, one of the twin pillars, along with Social Security, of Americans’ retirement security, the vote was held open for an unprecedented time — almost three hours — so close was the outcome. In the end, a switch by two of the 435 members allowed the huge and largely untested experiment to go forward.
These narrow outcomes reflect and in turn intensify a deeper divide in American society. What we saw in the last presidential election was that men voted one way (for George Bush); women, the other (for Al Gore). Whites voted one way; minorities, the other. The countryside voted one way; cities, the other. The frequent church-goers, one way; the less religious, the other.
The differences extend to the very perceptions of reality. A Time/CNN poll reported last week that 51 percent of Americans say the economy is good, while 48 percent rate it poor. The gap between Republicans and Democrats on this question is 34 points.
Respected pollster Andrew Kohut found just two weeks ago that the overall gap between partisans, on a wide range of issues, was the highest he had ever recorded.
Narrowly based actions by all branches of government add fuel to the fires of division. The vote in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts last week to allow gay marriages was 4-3. Add that issue to abortion, affirmative action and the other closely contested judicial decisions which feed political debate.
It is easy — temptingly easy — to say that those in power should exercise restraint rather than force through large actions on the basis of narrow — or nonexistent — majorities.
Bush is criticized by some for taking such radical steps as a pre-emptive war or a recasting of federal health, education and fiscal policy without any kind of electoral mandate. The courts are regularly faulted for lack of restraint on social issues where public opinion is far from agreement. Democrats say Republicans are abusing power in the House by bending the rules, while Republicans level the same charge at Democrats’ use of the filibuster to block action in the Senate.
But all of the accused officials can argue that they are exercising powers clearly authorized by the Constitution. They have a legitimate claim that if they were to wait for consensus to develop, they — and the nation — would be waiting a long time. Inaction on unresolved issues carries a cost of its own.
I do not know what it will take to resolve the underlying social divisions that continue to produce such narrowly based governmental actions. It is clear in retrospect that even the worst terrorist attacks ever on American soil were not enough to unite the nation.
But as long as these divisions continue, every official in every branch of government has an obligation to go the extra mile in assuring procedural fairness to those with opposing views. The claim that "we have a right to do this," whether made by an aggressive president or congressional majority or bloc of judges — or, for that matter, by filibustering senators — is not enough to make the action right.
The bonds that unite Americans — the belief that our common aspirations outweigh our momentary differences — have been forged over the decades. Be thankful this Thanksgiving they are still there. But never take them for granted.
David Broder is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him by writing to
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