When reminiscing, a popular mnemonic device is to recount where you were at the time a major personal, national or global event took place, such as the election and inauguration of a new president.
The United States has had only 45 such figures. In contemporary times, the increasing likelihood of reelection means an actual new president taking power is a rare occasion. For reference, my grandpa is 78: He’s been alive for nearly one-third of our country’s existence, yet President Trump is just the 14th different president he’s lived under.
In an even tinier boat, I’m now on my fifth president, from President George H.W. Bush to the present. My first true electoral memory is from 1996, when a scandal-plagued President Clinton beat back a challenge from Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan. And at that time, even in its earliest years, I was on the internet.
There’s a need to be delicate when critiquing the digital medium. It really is, as lofty 1990s-era claims suggested, an “information superhighway,” where almost anything imaginable can be accessed. Many of us use it for pleasure, as a resource and to make a living.
Its massive size and scope also has numerous negatives. For the three presidents it has primarily affected, and for the country they were working to lead, it’s done more harm than good. Whether it was Drudge Report’s spotlight on Clinton’s dalliances, MoveOn.org’s ability to make every day of the War on Terror a waking nightmare for President Bush, or the sharply divided corners simultaneously declaring President Obama to be a messiah and man of perdition, the Internet has hyperpolarized our populace.
In the days after his election and on the first day of Trump’s presidency, polarization went even further, in the form of widespread rioting, vandalism and arrests far outside the normal bounds of peaceful protesting.
Both Bush and Obama were met head-on by unhelpful, ossified blocks of resistance upon taking office. It’s debatable whose obstacles were harder to surmount, but it’s impossible to ignore the ways it’s impacted how American citizens engage with each other.
While it may not be a realistic expectation, one hope most Americans surely share is that our Internet-induced divisions reach a breaking point sooner rather than later. As the Gospel of Mark and Abraham Lincoln have said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
America is still standing, but with every tweet, comment and post that leads to broken windows and cars set aflame, the foundation cracks just a little bit more.
Tamer Abouras (@iamtamerabouras) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a writer and editor from Williamstown, N.J. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
