Could the current political divide spell the end of the U.S

May 13, 2025

Douglas Murray is a British author, political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist, and his columns have appeared in a long list of publications, including the New York Post and National Review. 

Back in 2018 he created a video in which he said that “Europe is committing suicide.” He went on to explain that there were two major causes of Europe’s impending downfall.

The first, he said, “is the mass movement of peoples into Europe.” This process had been going on for a long time, “but sped up massively in the migration crisis of 2015, when more than a million migrants poured into Europe from the Middle East, North Africa and East Asia.”

The second major cause, which he said was equally significant, was “that Europe lost faith in itself — its beliefs, its traditions and even its very legitimacy.”

Given the current state of affairs here in the United States, Murray’s comments might also describe the suicidal tendencies we have here.

Our challenges have been going on since before the date that Murray first mentioned about Europe, 2015. And, like the European experience, they have increased markedly in recent years.

Like the European countries, the U.S. has seen a tremendous influx of people from other countries. Millions came across our open borders unvetted during the Biden administration. There were some good people, looking for a better life and escaping oppression. But there were thousands, or perhaps millions, who were drug and child traffickers, murderers, rapists, robbers and terrorists.

Over the last few decades the U.S., like Europe, has seen a gradual abandonment of its once strong history and culture.

We have seen persons in many areas forsake their solemn duties, favoring ideals that are not American ideals, and are dangerous to our future. 

Attorneys general and district attorneys refuse to prosecute many types of crimes. Mayors and municipal council members open their doors to illegal aliens, and protect them from being properly deported.

Many of the people we call educators put their professional integrity on the shelf and fail to present their students with a proper background of their country. They have done an equally bad job of teaching crucial basic concepts, like fundamental math, reading and writing. 

And many parents have likewise failed to teach their children about becoming a good American, respecting the law, the rights of others, and basic human behavior.

News organizations and journalists often see no problem with presenting “news” according to their political ideals, rather than abiding by journalistic principles.

Some medical professionals support and assist people in becoming the opposite gender, even children. And some in public education assist children in doing that, and hide that from their parents.

Members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, have recently been heard using what we used to call “cuss words” in their comments on the floor of the chambers. This sort of language, which is profane, is nearly always considered inappropriate, especially for formal settings like public appearances, media appearances, and public activities. 

And the frequency of violence in protests from groups with an ax to grind is shocking. What they are unable to achieve through persuasion with their ideas they try to achieve through force and violence.

Many of these activities are illegal, and all are certainly subversive to the established principles, values and culture of our country.

Politically, we have lost much ground. Many of us remember when Republicans and Democrats got along with each other, despite having different ideas about how to keep the country great, and even to improve it.

The current political discourse reflects the wide gulf in philosophy. One side wants to restore things while the other wants to change everything. The two sides talk to each other in sharp, cutting terms, rarely finding agreement on anything.

Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, sees efforts to restore the previous state of things. He said that following the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally last year there has been talk of restoration of the values and environment of the past. And that has picked up speed since Trump’s election and inauguration.

In a speech at Hillsdale College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom shortly after Trump took office in January, Kimball said, “We always hear about the ‘peaceful transfer of power’ when a new president takes office.

“The usual procedure is for the old crowd to vacate their positions while the new crowd slides in to take their places. The institutions remain inviolate. Nothing essential changes.”

But, he noted, Trump was not elected to preserve the upside-down status quo, but to make badly needed changes. Given the existing political divide as this process gets under way, there is fairly broad satisfaction on Trump’s side, but great fear and resistance on the other.

Whether the suicide that Murray talked about occurring in Europe will be the ultimate conclusion for America remains to be seen. Those who understand and appreciate the original unique design, individual freedom and other benefits of the American system are working hard to see that the shining city on the hill survives this attempted revolution.

What happens when professional ethics are replaced by politics

December 19, 2023

Over the last few years, we have heard from federal government agency employees, former and current, telling about their experiences doing and/or witnessing improper things in dealing with serious and sensitive matters.

These whistleblower’s allegations, if true, paint a troubling picture of how federal government agencies often work to the benefit of one group at the expense of another group.

These alleged activities are the epitome of what our government is not supposed to be. The government must be a fair, balanced and just organization that serves the interests all of the people.

Like the government, the news media is expected to perform its duties in a fair and balanced manner, and make certain that opinion and news reporting are clearly separate.

The Founders of this nation thought that a free press was so critical that they granted protection to do its job properly in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, along with the guarantee of free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

But as with so many of our noble and cherished traditions, the honesty and integrity of the nation’s news media has been abandoned by far too many of its practitioners.

Recently, a news story broke regarding the New York Times. The Times once was regarded as the greatest newspaper in the world. It had become known as the Gray Lady. It has since become regarded as politically biased, and a weapon of the left.

The internal workings of the Times was the topic of a cover story published in The Economist by senior editor James Bennet titled, "When The New York Times Lost Its Way."

Bennet worked at the Times for many years, most recently as its editorial page editor. He was forced to resign in 2020 after he published an article written by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. The article stirred a great deal of emotion among the Times’ staff, due to its non-left content, prompting the paper’s publisher asking him to resign. 

Cotton, who had served in the U.S. Army, had suggested using military troops to protect businesses under assault by Black Lives Matter rioters following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.

In the story in The Economist, Bennet described how as the Times moved leftward, he was encouraged to attach “trigger warnings” to conservative opinion pieces to alert the paper’s leftist readers about material that may offend them.

"It was a frenzied time in America," Bennet wrote. "It was the kind of crisis in which journalism could fulfill its highest ambitions of helping readers understand the world, in order to fix it, and in the Times’s Opinion section, which I oversaw, we were pursuing our role of presenting debate from all sides."

Comparing the current attitude of Times’ reporters to that of his time as a reporter, Bennet commented that today’s reporters "may know a lot about television, or real estate, or how to edit audio files ... many Times staff have little idea how closed their world has become, or how far they are from fulfilling their compact with readers to show the world ‘without fear or favor.’”

And in citing his former paper’s increasing bias he called attention to the Wall Street Journal, saying that the Times could “learn something” from its rival.

The Journal, he wrote, “has maintained a stricter separation between its news and opinion journalism, including its cultural criticism, and that has protected the integrity of its work," concluding his cover story.

Although the Times’ leftist orientation has been well recognized and discussed for many years, the actual experience of a long-time and ranking former employee adds much credibility to that belief.

It is a further sad commentary on the condition of many of our news media that an editor of a major newspaper lost his job for actually doing his job: presenting all sides of an issue so that readers would be equipped to make sensible, informed judgements about that issue.

Deliberately burying opinions that differ from the chosen narrative, fearing that those opinions will be accepted by your readers, is cowardly. And, it is un-American.

Back in 1997 the Carnegie-Knight Task Force began a national conversation to identify and clarify the principles of proper journalism. After four years of research, a Statement of Shared Purpose that identified nine principles was released. The sixth principle is: It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.

It reads: “The news media are the common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. This discussion serves society best when it is informed by facts rather than prejudice and supposition. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. Accuracy and truthfulness require that as framers of the public discussion we not neglect the points of common ground where problem solving occurs.”

How wonderful it would be if the instructors, students, and practitioners of journalism would adopt this concept.

The country’s election system needs dramatic overhaul and reform

We’ve all seen the political ads for the upcoming election, right? We’ve all likely found many of them to be smear pieces, using exaggeration, taking words out of context, and using unflattering photos or pieces of videos of opposing candidates to make them look bad, or stupid, or both.

It is not important to the producers of these ads that their content accurately represents the opposing candidate’s character, record, actual spoken words, or positions on issues. What is important is that they create a negative impression and a negative vote.

Nearly always, these ads are not directly the work of an opposing candidate’s campaign staff, but the work of an independent group — maybe a political action committee (PAC) — that supports another candidate and works to get him or her elected by trashing the opponent. The candidate favored by the ad has little, if anything, to do with the ad, and therefore cannot be held responsible for whatever untruths or other dirty tricks may be employed.

Many of these ads contain a statement to the effect that no candidate supports the ad. It is junk such as this that helps give politics its well-deserved reputation of being a sewer. These ads should be outlawed.

Another thing that stretches the bounds of decency is that much, or sometimes most of a candidate’s financial support comes from people or entities he or she does not represent. A candidate in South Carolina may get financial support from people and organizations in California, New York, Missouri, or any or all of the other states in the union.

Why should any candidate in a state or local race receive financial support from people and organizations in other states? Why is this allowed?

There are other problems with our political system, and many of them involve the system of elections. For example, some “Americans” think it is okay for people to vote who are not eligible to vote. And they openly advocate for that.

One such person is a candidate for governor of Georgia. Of the Democrats’ blue wave that they hope will sweep the nation she said, after listing some of the kinds of people who comprise the wave,  “It is made up of those who’ve been told that they are not worthy of being here. It is comprised of those who are documented and undocumented.”

This person is the Democrat candidate, Stacey Abrams. She is a lawyer and has served in the Georgia General Assembly, and ought to know better.

While many deny the reality, non-citizens do vote in our elections, as do some who have been dead for years or months, and some who vote under more than one name, and some who are registered in more than one state.

Here is just one example, as reported by the McClatchy Washington Bureau: Habersham County's Mud Creek precinct in northeastern Georgia had 276 registered voters ahead of the state's primary elections in May. But 670 ballots were cast, according to the Georgia secretary of state's office, indicating a 243 percent voter turnout.

Here is another: ABC News reports that the California Department of Motor Vehicles admitted last week that a mistake caused as many as 1,500 noncitizens being registered to vote in the state.

That there are ineligible voters in every election in the United States is not in question. What is in question is how many are there and how often do they affect one or more races.

Russians being blamed for a poor candidate’s loss in 2016 does an effective job of distracting the people from the actual problem of illegal voting that occurs in every election.

Our elections have lots of problems. The Trust the Vote Project cites voting machines as one of them, noting the potential for manipulation by cyber criminals. 

Other elements also can be problematic. Early voting, for example, is convenient, and it may be the easiest way for some people to vote in some circumstances. But voting is a critical duty of citizens, and convenience is not the primary concern when important duties are the topic of discussion. Things can happen after an early vote has been cast, but before Election Day, that could have influenced someone’s vote. But after the vote has been cast, it cannot be changed.

Another is that any person can claim to be an eligible, registered voter, but without a photo ID requirement, their identity is less easily verified, allowing voter fraud to occur.

The two most important aspects of voting are, first, that everyone who is eligible to vote be registered to vote, and study the candidates and the issues, make informed and thoughtful decisions about them, and then express their preferences at the polls.

The second is that election officials make an honest and determined effort to be sure that no ineligible person votes in any election, and further that anyone who breaks voting laws is prosecuted and justly punished.

The US has a long way to go to strengthen and secure the election process. We do our nation and ourselves a great disservice by not focusing on improving and securing the election procSess.

America now being challenged by a crisis of integrity

 Integrity is defined as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. As a society we have moral values, professional ethics and other rules that we are expected to uphold at all times and under all circumstances. When we adhere to professional ethics, the rules of life, and the body of laws, we have a desirable society that is principled, and functions smoothly and efficiently.

In today’s America, evidence of lost integrity is all around us: millions of out-of-wedlock children, people who are not needy collecting welfare benefits, frivolous or questionable lawsuits, and a long list of crimes.

And in the political realm we witness inflammatory language, protests shutting down protected free speech, media taking sides, mob violence and other outrages that have grown to epidemic proportions. These activities are strong evidence of the abandonment of basic human integrity as well as professional integrity.

An immediate danger to the nation and its people is the insanity that has evolved since the election of Donald Trump as president. Lots of people – Republicans, Democrats and the politically unaffiliated – show signs of hysteria. Many are dedicated to bringing Trump down, and seem to be devoted to a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” philosophy, giving little thought to the repercussions this ill-advised path may likely produce.

Trump’s enemies say that he lit the fuse, and he undoubtedly contributed to the current atmosphere. But just because you dislike or hate Trump and his policies, does not entitle you to lie, cheat, commit acts of violence, and behave in a manner that subverts America. If you didn’t support Trump in the election there is only one sensible and honorable path for you to take: Get over it. And remember that you are an American and he legitimately is America’s president.

Three areas are very dangerous for integrity failure: News journalism, the federal judiciary and government bureaucracies.

Last week The New York Times published an editorial stating as fact that when a gunman shot Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011, he was reacting to a political map created by Sarah Palin showing areas that were “targeted” in the coming election. That was untrue, discredited years ago, and The Times corrected its humiliating blunder. But doesn’t journalistic integrity demand that such known details be found before publication? Clearly, integrity sometimes takes a holiday at The Times.

It is very common these days for a news organization to attribute information to an “anonymous” or “unnamed” source. Sometimes, of course, a legitimate source needs the protection of anonymity. But the downside is that this tool can be overused, can be used to cover a non-credible source, or even used when there is no source at all. Add to this the tendency to exaggerate, and even create false stories, and the information upon which we all rely becomes unreliable.

If you’ve ever worked with an attorney you probably noticed how detailed legal language is, so that the exact intent of a document is clear. Yet, we find judges today who abandon the plain language of an Executive Order in favor of what they imagine was in the mind of its author in ruling in favor of a challenge to the Order. It looks as if political desire replaced judicial integrity.

And what about administrative agency employees who abandon their duty to their country, the American people they are paid to serve, and their ultimate boss, to play politics, leaking sensitive information, and even classified information in a cheap and disgusting ploy to damage a duly elected president?

Those who foolishly undermine national security because of their emotional inability to adapt to reality may someday wonder what exactly their behavior has done to their once free and wonderful country.

A lot of political hay can be made in such an atmosphere, and the beneficiaries of this are some elected public servants as well as appointed bureaucrats. Such behavior is the stuff of third-world hellholes, and the abandonment of professional and personal integrity moves America ever closer to becoming one of those.

On the one hand anti-Trumpers denigrate and belittle Trump, and on the other hand they raise him to a high level, one so great that they use it to justify abandoning near-sacred elements of their professions and common decency. It is Trump’s fault, they assert, that they indulged in behavior that is dangerous and often illegal.

Commentator Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News recently, “When you say ‘unless we stop Donald Trump, the republic will not survive,’ then that justifies anything. That’s the language, the ideology, the rationale of terrorists...” And, it produces behavior that will destroy the republic.

We cannot and must not excuse criminal behavior, like the shooting at a Republican Congressional baseball game practice earlier this month, or even the mob violence of late, as the result of foolish and inflammatory language. But it does not help diffuse the raw craving of those who consider resorting to violence when politicians speak rashly, the news media takes a partisan position, the judiciary abandons plain language in favor of political expediency, and other examples of acting outside the narrow path dictated by integrity and moral character.

The Journalists Creed: Another tradition fallen by the wayside

Several years ago on a trip to Washington, DC, my wife and I visited the National Press Club for lunch and a tour of the Club. Among the many things that impressed me there was a bronze plaque on a wall, The Journalists Creed, which the Press Club has had on display since 1958.

The Creed is the product of Walter Williams, not the excellent columnist of today, but an older gentleman who is credited with starting the world’s first school of journalism in 1908 at the University of Missouri. In 1914 Williams created the Creed, as “a declaration and personal affirmation of the principles, values and standards of journalists throughout the world,” according to the Fourth Estate organization. It regards journalism as an ethical public trust that requires accuracy and fairness.

Since Williams created the Creed, and even since the Press Club’s acknowledgement of it in ’58, huge changes in the way news is distributed have taken place. Now in addition to newspapers, periodicals, radio and television we have the Internet and social media.

These days absolutely anyone can appear to be a legitimate news source on the Internet. Many or most of these sources may have good intentions, but lack the background or discipline to do it correctly. They are unaware of, or ignore the Creed.

These days even some who know the importance of the ethics with which news journalism should be practiced don’t always stick to the straight and narrow. Being first is often more important than being correct. “Click bait,” sensational headlines designed to increase the number of visitors to Web sites, are common.

In addition to new media technologies are also new media genres, such as the speculative media: Trying to be first, a hint of something often spurs frantic action to get out there before anyone else through online or on-air media. For example, when President Donald Trump reached back for Malania’s hand while exiting a plane on their recent trip abroad, and she sort of flipped her hand away, the media reported that there might be trouble in their marriage.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who is catholic, was not among those who met the Pope on the trip, so the media reported that his being excluded might signal that Spicer was on his way out as spokesman.

Neither of these were true.

The assumption media: When Trump mentioned being “wiretapped,” it was “assumed” that he meant wiretapping and only wiretapping, not the newer, more modern methods of surveillance, apparently widely used in the Obama administration.

The agenda media: We saw very little reporting on the positive aspects of Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican and NATO, but there was plenty on the “troubles” in Trump’s administration.

And then there’s Kathy Griffin, the self-described “D-list comedian,” who worked very hard to create a disgusting, low-class image of her holding a bloody likeness of the decapitated head of the President of the United States ISIS-like, by its hair.

Criticized for this repulsive display of what today passes for humor by nearly everyone, she finally issued an apology, except not apologizing to her target, Trump and his family. Shortly thereafter, the firestorm of anger and disgust she stirred up created for her a moment of brilliant insight: The negative reaction to her gross attempt at humor, and her resulting misery is actually Trump’s fault.

And guess which one gets too much coverage? Poor deranged Kathy’s campaign about her hurt feelings at the hands of her imaginarily beheaded enemy.

Wesley Pruden, Editor Emeritus of The Washington Times, is a man trained in and who worked in journalism when standards were more broadly expected of practitioners. He characterized a Bloomberg News reporter’s G7 coverage like this: “Just what a ‘bromance’ is [between France’s Emmanuel Macron and Canada’s Justin Trudeau], beyond the not-so-clever wordplay, sounds like too much information, something you ought not to want to know about. It’s no doubt overheated reporting by a reporter who never had an editor to teach him the rewards of restraint.

“But romance was clearly in the air, not between the leaders of France and Canada, but by reporters nurtured not on the rough edges of politics and discipline of newspapers, but by too much time spent watching soap operas.”

Another old pro, Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal, said this about today’s practice of the profession: “When journalists drop objectivity to become part of the shout-fest, and when grass-roots activists move beyond making voices heard to voicing threats against those with whom they disagree, they are adding to the problem.”

These examples of journalistic malpractice and comments about news coverage from two old timers show how far news reporting has strayed early in the 21^st century.

Combined with a general public largely unconcerned with studying current events America has a true problem. So many consumers of news get their “news” from their friends on social media, and accept as true those communications that fit their preconceptions. They just don’t look beneath the surface for fact.

With all these factors, the public is largely under-informed, or misinformed, a circumstance both dangerous and foolish.