As divisiveness replaces diplomacy, is there a way forward?

The FBI investigation found “no hint” of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, criticized the probe as incomplete, claiming that “the most notable part of this report is what’s not in it.”

And so, the divisiveness that passes for diplomacy in Washington continues.

A terrible cartoon and combative tweet

Every generation probably thinks its challenges are unprecedented.

Americans are not facing the threat of global Nazism or nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Soviet Union. ISIS is on the retreat and jihadism seems less a threat, at least for now. The Great Recession was ten years ago and the foreseeable economic future is encouraging, according to the Federal Reserve chairman.

But there is something about this moment that is deeply unsettling, at least to me.

When political cartoonists use a Supreme Court nominee’s ten-year-old daughter to malign him (I won’t link to the disgusting cartoon in question), that seems a new low.

Ian Millhiser, justice editor at ThinkProgress, recently tweeted: “Tell me again why we shouldn’t confront Republicans where they eat, where they sleep, and where they work until they stop being complicit in the destruction of our democracy.” His tweet generated 15,861 likes.

Avatars in a divided culture

Perhaps it’s the deeply conflicted dilemma of the moment: Do we side with someone who claims to have survived terrible sexual abuse or with someone whose character has been attacked without apparent corroboration? A Washington Post columnist notes that Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford “have become avatars, vectors through which Americans across the country see themselves and each other.”

But I think something more fundamental is at work here. As I observed yesterday, the two “sides” of our political divide are both convinced theirs is the only right vision…