“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”
-Abraham Lincoln, 1858
No matter who wins today, it is clear that by all accounts America is heading towards the 21st Century version of 1860. True there is no longer chattel slavery, yet the feeling of deep divisions within the country can no longer be ignored or dismissed.
Millions of Americans feel the federal government is too involved with personal decisions. These same people see an economy that only works for the 1%. Factories have closed, skills are outdated, and new jobs pay far less than before. Blue collar workers, inner cities, and millennials feel disenfranchised.
As a dual American/Israeli citizen who grew up in the USA, worked in politics,traversed the country and now lives in Israel’s biblical heartland, I look at the country where I was born and grew up in from a different vantage point. For me looking in from the outside, America is a radically different place. It has strayed far from the compass that the Founders built for it.
It is true the United States has been on the edge before, but there were always external forces that unified the nation or a cause that empowered one side to over take the other. With nothing of the sort, America heads for a long era of division and social disintegration.
Yet, despite all of this, the ideals of the Founding Fathers and a moral electorate live on. Perhaps not within the confines of a single country, but rather in those individuals seeking to strive for a better world through personal freedom based on biblical roots.
The way forward as America and the West transitions into unchartered and dangerous waters is to cling to the Creator and his light.
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