Chris Ware’s drawing for the cover of the July 4 edition of the New Yorker promotes a illusory view of our politics. However, the drawing’s title shows the truth–perhaps unwittingly.
The drawing would have it that we are two tribes or subcultures, with our different slogans and clashing preferences in front-yard landscaping. This is illusion.
Consider that Black people, nationally, oppose Republican policies and Republican leaders by about 10 to 1. The divide is not among Americans generally, but among white Americans. The divide is not about slogans or landscaping; it is about whether Black people should have political power.
The drawing’s title, “House Divided” reveals the truth. The reference is to Lincoln:
“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.”
Indeed. In the coming months or years, we become a multiracial democracy–or regress into an authoritarian state based on white supremacy. That is the divide represented, and hidden, in the drawing.