'Can We Get Along?" The Answer is Still... No

I sometimes think about Rodney King and the LA riots and how he pleaded with the public during a June 17, 2012, press conference asking the question "Can we all get along?"

Here we are 10 years later, and the answer is still... no.

If anything, Americans are fighting more among themselves in a societal war to divide this country in half. 

No one should be surprised, however. As a longtime and ongoing student of American history I've yet to find a period in the nation where Americans all got along. Even wars against foreign nations only partly unify the country. We're never "all in" on anything.

It's apparent that individualism far outweighs the common cause. We are proud, maybe too proud of the fact we're the only country in the world with very little gun control and laws which result in mass shootings almost daily.

Millions of Americans simply don't believe in the laws of the land and flout them constantly with anarchist alternatives. The Republicans still paying homage to the former president are trying to turn reality on its head with the Big Lie.

From the beginning of this democracy we enjoy, there were divides that still exist today. One is that city slickers just don't get along with rural folk. They're values are just too different.

I've always been amused with writers who talk about the great melting pot this nation is. From the day that white Anglo-Saxon Christians arrived in America and set up colonies there's always been a societal pecking order with them on top. The melting process is still trying to take hold.

Immigrants are reviled and white nationalists have united with Republicans to seek an authoritarian government free from outsiders. 

We've fought a Civil War but the traitors who lost are still revered in Southern states.

America has survived the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma Federal Building Bombing, Waco, and hundreds of other assaults upon our society without unifying and moving forward as a United States of America.

What would it actually take to bring all Americans together in a common cause?

The only thing that comes to my mind is if we're invaded by extra-terrestrial beings Americans might unite to survive to save their collective asses.

Still, I wouldn't bet on it.