People on the right side of the political divide in America think that the people on the left side are simply wrong on the issues.  This is false.  The source of the political divide is that the left side has completely abandoned all vestiges of traditional political activity and governance, not to mention its underlying principle of free speech, seriousness and virtue.

Our democratic institutions evolved out of those invented by the Greeks.  The Greeks were intoxicated by the idea of rational speech – logos.  Their principle was that logos was at the heart of the Greek-invention and revered culture of political discourse.  And “discourse” only occurred when those involved shared in the same virtues and  all sought after the same common good, setting aside their personal interests.  To the Greeks, their edification came from striving together to achieve a common good for their citizens.  To them, politics was the process of seeking the highest possible good for the people.

Today’s leftist would have no idea what I just described.  They haven’t thought about the “common good” for decades now.  What they have thought about was lying to their constituents in such a way that their constituents would assume some level of guilt that they were not in the identity group that the politician was seeking to cynically promote, and so exploit.

They don’t share the same virtues as the majority of their colleagues on the other side.  They may not even be aware of what virtue actually is.  What are the intellectual virtues?  Those characteristics that seek truth, and the good, arrived at in the Greek model through discourse.  The Left in this country has had a labotomy as to how to motivate themselves for the “common good”.  It’s just not on their radar screen.  They don’t understand it and so won’t be bothered by trying to act on its behalf.  It’s so much easier to simply pander to irrational constituents and colleagues.

People on the left side could care less about such things.  Their motivation is exclusively self-serving.  And this is the huge divide.  They have no sense of, no compulsion to seek, the common good.  They seek their good: their re-election.  Their wealth.  Their power.

America’s democratic processes and players today share virtually nothing in common with the Greek’s from whence they emanated.  We’re just a shell of what Jefferson, Madison and Adams envisioned us to be as a nation of virtuous citizens seeking our common good.