Main Political Divide Is Between Who’s In In-Crowd and Who’s Not

This week’s State of the Union address highlighted divisions in American politics — just not the divisions typically highlighted. “These people are crazy,” Donald Trump matter-of-factly told America of the Democrats who stoically sat as he told the story of a family reunion after a judge ordered the removal of a 14-year-old girl from her parents when they refused to call her a boy. When not inappropriately silent, Democrats attempted to shout down the president. Two — Representative Al Green and a guest of Representative Ilhan Omar — were ejected from the House chamber. Senator Mark Warner and some others walked out. The smarter ones boycotted the address entirely.

Commentators on both the left and right saw “two Americas” in the Capitol. Seventy-three years ago, Austrian journalist Willi Schlamm — who’d been a communist at age 16 when he met Vladimir Lenin but later became a virulent anti-communist and anti-Nazi — described the dichotomy on display Tuesday with even greater precision.

About the Author

Daniel J. Flynn

Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, is an American Spectator senior editor, visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and YouTuber @RightWingWilderness.

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This week’s State of the Union address highlighted divisions in American politics — just not the divisions typically highlighted. “These people are crazy,” Donald Trump matter-of-factly told America of the Democrats who stoically sat as he told the story of a family reunion after a judge ordered the removal of a 14-year-old girl from her parents when they refused to call her a boy. When not inappropriately silent, Democrats attempted to shout down the president. Two — Representative Al Green and a guest of Representative Ilhan Omar — were ejected from the House chamber. Senator Mark Warner and some others walked out. The smarter ones boycotted the address entirely.

Commentators on both the left and right saw “two Americas” in the Capitol. Seventy-three years ago, Austrian journalist Willi Schlamm — who’d been a communist at age 16 when he met Vladimir Lenin but later became a virulent anti-communist and anti-Nazi — described the dichotomy on display Tuesday with even greater precision.