The message of our government shutdown – the one mostly for show – is a perfect profile of our country.
We’re an unruly family of jealous and biting siblings, constantly picking fights for someone’s – anyone’s – dramatic attention.
David Brooks, a right-leaning New York Times columnist, on Monday wrote: “It’s fitting that we had a government shutdown over the issue of immigration. Racially tinged conflict has been the defining feature of the Trump era. Most of the outrage has been caused by the president picking at the nation’s wounds. But by now both parties have racial identity wings, which believe that political life is inevitably a power competition between identity groups. Both parties build their coalitions by magnifying racial identity and exploiting racial difference.”
It is easy to pin this on race. Just look at us. Just listen to us. Our president, the so-called leader of the free world, just this month decried immigration from “s***hole” countries like Haiti and those in Africa. He asked why we couldn’t get more immigrants from countries like Norway.
After all, race gives us something instantly identifiable: black, white, brown, red, yellow. Those outward skin colors are easier to see than values, heart, understanding, goals – those things we all have, no matter what we look like on the outside.