'Us vs. Them' is a strategy for failure | GARY COSBY JR.

We are all Americans. I think we sometimes forget that. I often get email from people far more conservative or more liberal than I am. I see in those emails so much hate for people of the opposite party, particularly from the conservative side toward the liberal side.

It is frightening to think that we have so totally lost our center that if someone does not think as we do they are instantly the enemy. I even had one email recently that termed long-serving U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby a RINO, a Republican In Name Only. That was shocking. I mean, when even a Republican who did as much for Alabama as any senator in history is castigated because he dared work with Democrats to find solutions, I’m not sure there is a great deal of hope for our country.

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America is not now, nor has it ever been, a one-way nation. There have always been at least two ways of looking at things and at times past there were multiple ways of looking at American politics. I am currently reading “American Prometheus, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.” It is the story of the man who led the Manhattan Project and produced the bombs that changed the world.

Oppenheimer was devoutly American, but he was quite liberal in his political views. Though no one has ever proven unequivocally that he was a member of the American Communist Party, before his work on the Manhattan Project he often supported communist causes around the world. He eschewed politics when he took on the Manhattan Project and never returned to those communist sympathies he once viewed with at least understanding.

Nevertheless, his life was ruined by ultra-conservatives during the McCarthy era witch hunts, which destroyed the lives of countless Americans whose sin was having supported left-wing causes. While they did find real communists in America, they most certainly harmed a great many Americans who were true Americans but simply held a different viewpoint than theirs.

I have written it many times before, but I will do so again. America is probably the most diverse nation on Earth. We have American citizens living here from practically every group of peoples and nations. We are, in fact, all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. My family has been here as long as about anyone. My brother’s genealogical research turned up two relatives who were in the first two Jamestown settlements. One was killed by natives in the uprising that destroyed the original settlement. The other came over to the new Jamestown as a stakeholder in the Virginia Company.

In all the years since, we have fought among ourselves many times and to many degrees. The worst, of course, was the Civil War, which claimed more than half a million lives. They were all Americans. It hasn’t been that bad since, but we live in an era where we teeter upon the edge of violence.

Because someone is a Democrat does not make them un-American. Nor does being a Republican make one more American. We are all, as our founding documents say, created equally and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. All of us, conservative, liberal and those who don’t care either way, are all Americans.

The danger we now face is one that has doomed other cultures before ours. The danger is hate taken to the extreme. I get email all the time from Republicans who claim America is heading in the wrong direction. When Donald Trump was president, I got emails from Democrats who said the same thing.

There is not one vision of what America is or should be, but there is one of what it could be. If we lay aside the animosity for a while and actually work together as Americans, we could assure the greatness of our nation for generations to come. This is and has been for many long decades the land of opportunity, a place where a person could come to pursue his or her dreams. We can ensure that vision of America continues.

It won’t be perfect. No nation ever has been or will be. We will have disagreements about the nation’s direction. That is unavoidable since we are of such divergent points of view. However, we can make a stable democracy that actually works for the vast majority of Americans.

Think of it like a good marriage. There is seldom perfect harmony. Husbands and wives have disagreements over money, property, how to raise the children, even where to go out to eat. A bad marriage unravels due to irreconcilable differences. A good marriage endures because both spouses are committed to the relationship and to each other.

For America to work into the future, Republicans and Democrats must come to the place of commitment wherein each views the other as a partner rather than an enemy. Any marriage where a spouse views his or her other half as the enemy is doomed to fail. That’s where we are right now in America. We are seeing the other side as the enemy rather than as a partner.

Gary Cosby Jr. is the photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Political animosity is a strategy for failure | GARY COSBY JR.