While scrolling through some reader comments on some internet news site, you encounter the following reader supplied comment to some article about the public health crisis of 2020-2021:
“Of course Americans cannot even agree on the methods to turn aside Covid-19. Americans are now sorted into tribes, at least that is what the orthodox wisdom now tells us. We are incapable of finding common ground (or even participating in meaningful dialogue to search for common ground) over a limitless list of habits, policies, and even ideas about who gets to matter. Whatever their near limitless similarities, many Americans are incapable of turning to those similarities as a place to begin—or for that matter to calm down. In short, whatever their agreements, nuance and calm are simply not valued. Americans simply cannot stop shouting at one another. If only we could be like the America that existed from 1900-1960. Things worked then.”
You think this commentator needs to learn about American history. Indeed, you think, instead, that any idea that the United States across the first six decades of the 20th century was some sort of peaceful, everyone got their say and got along paradise is absolute bullshit.
Provide historical context and assistance in response to the reader comment . Gather up insights and illustrative details from relevant readings and lecture material to illustrate how and why Americans often did not get along and things did not often work out so well across the first six decades of the 20th century. Write an essay that details and explains, through examples, that there has been, in fact, a lot of division across that time period. Finally, explain what made that division so persistent or at least recurring.