Dear Editor,

Joe Biden has won the election for the presidency of the United States of America. Congratulations to him. That was the easy part.

All his cross-aisle skills, diplomatic abilities, and decency will now be required. Not just to govern, but to avert civil war 2.0 in a hopelessly divided country.

The divisions are not just between Democrats and Republicans that indubitably exists. Neither are they between religious fundamentalists and secularists. Much more than that, they are between urbanites and ruralites. All the other categories coalesce into these two latter groups. A look at the electoral map in the 2020 election results is instructive.

The Republicans (GOP) won the southern states for the most part, and most of the western states. Even in states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania that Biden won, a look at the electoral results map will show that the GOP won everywhere else in these states, except the cities. Thus, in Pennsylvania, Biden lost all of the state except the cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Erie, and Allentown. There is a similar picture in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And yet, he got a sizeable overall majority of the total vote (over four million).

Rural Americans, for the most part, are Baptist or Pentecostal Christians, they are anti-abortion, they do not support gay marriage, they are pro-gun, and pro-school prayer. They are farmers or blue collar workers and, for the most part, are not college educated.

At the time of writing 70,636,322 Americans or 47.7 per cent of those who voted, voted for the GOP.

The divide between urban and rural dwellers is now visceral. There is a head-on collision in the making.

The Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, Carthage, the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain have gone the way of all flesh.

Whither goes America?

The Laird