Murphy’s Logic: Americans no longer the neighbours we knew

Murphy’s Logic: American political division Steve Murphy discusses the growing political divide in America ahead of the presidential election.

Like a great many Canadians, I was born within an easy drive of the U.S. border. Close enough - and back when security was lax enough - that teenagers could drive down to the States just to get a late-night burger.

Sure, America always felt and looked a bit different, and people in down east Maine do sound different, but with the obvious exception of their outsized love of guns, they seemed a lot like us.

Even their politics were similar. Republicans and Democrats often found common sense solutions on common ground and there was passionate civility in their disagreement.

That’s no longer the case on either side of the border but it’s particularly so in the U.S. Their two major parties have grown so far apart, there’s scarcely any common ground. And beyond their profound differences of opinion and all the hyperbole, the quality of much of the political discourse has become rude, crude and, in the case of the Republican nominee for president, even legally lewd. His words and behaviour are better suited to a bar room or locker room than the blue room of the White House, although his speech is also increasingly blue.

What most surprises me is that so many Americans - close to half - are willing to accept or even embrace such vulgar language and conduct, not to mention authoritarian ramblings, from a man who aspires to again lead their long noble nation. Do his personal qualities really reflect the majority of modern Americans?

If that’s the conclusion on Tuesday, perhaps we really don’t know our neighbours at all. Maybe we never did.