My friends, family, and readers know what I have been saying for quite a while: the emotional political divide that many of us feel is not visible in the polling data for the United States. The Red state/Blue state division, the simple love Bush/hate Bush divide, is media hyperbole with no survey data to back it up. No single question you can ask in an interview will give you results that clearly divide Americans into any category such as Red/Blue state, high/low income, much/little education or any other demographic.
David Brooks, the leading public intellectual of our era, has identified the problem. The division is within the category of education. Among the educated class there is a clear divide between professionals and managers. You can read Brooks column today in the New York Times and see if you agree with him.
I think we are fortunate. From WWI to WWII the leading public intellectual in America was John Dewey. Dewey lost his public standing at the beginning of WWII because he, like most of his readers, didn’t care what the Germans were doing to the Jews; Dewey et al, were totally opposed to any military action by the U.S.
Dewey was a philosopher of education and a terrible writer. David Brooks is a sociologist and an exquisite writer. We are fortunate to live when Brooks is in the ascent.