What is America's greatest threat?
Is it gay marriage, abortion, illegal immigration, or terrorism? Is it liberalism or conservatism?
While there are some who may realize their response among the aforementioned possibilities, I find them overly simplistic. I suspect the culprit is less obvious to the naked eye.
In order to uncover this ominous threat we might be well served to utilize the apparatus known as the mirror. We've shunned many of our self-reflected impulses for the opiate of certainty, whereby difference is conveniently transmuted into a deficiency.
Too many Americans are engulfed in silos of orthodoxy that serve to stunt the growth of our democratic republic form of government. It is the silo that prohibits one from seeing out, viewing difference not as part of the variety of ways America is unique from other nations, but rather something to dread.
There is a mythical line of demarcation that separates the mythical political left and right. This separation naively believes that only by ridding the nation of the other side, or at least to a point where it can have no meaningful voice in our discourse, will we cure what troubles America.
This thought requires that one root exclusively for his or her side to win, rather than for America to be victorious. Or worse, one is convinced he or she is in sole possession of what is true.
The real threat that the silo presents is that it places too much emphasis on other Americans, removing the focus on the structural challenges that face the country.
According to Reuters, more than 63,000 bridges across the United States are in urgent need of repair, with most of the aging structures being part of the interstate highway system. Granted, repairing bridges, or other infrastructure projects for that matter, are not nearly as titillating as choosing sides on the Kim Davis debate, presidential candidate Donald Trump's vitriolic diatribe against illegal immigration, or the 11-hour mini-series known as the Benghazi hearings, but it is far more important to the future of the nation.
Moreover, if our focus is elsewhere, there is no time to spend on the growing trend of income equality.
Everyone running for president in 2016 should have cogent responses for the following four questions:
Do we want to be a nation where in 81 percent of American counties the median income, about $52,000, is less than it was 15 years ago?
Is it just that the amount of money that was given out in bonuses on Wall Street last year is twice the amount all minimum-wage workers earned in the country combined?
Is it simply a matter of hard work that the slice of the national income pie going to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans has doubled since 1979?
Is it now part of the American ethos that between 1979 and 2007, the wages of the top 1 percent rose 10 times more than the bottom 90 percent?Such questions impact both sides of the political spectrum.
Within the silo, it can be difficult to know that the 28 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have expanded Medicare under the Affordable Care Act have seen a reduction in insurance premiums. Or that those who decry federal sentencing disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine do not know that these laws were originally passed with the overwhelming support of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Stuck in the antiquated talking points of the right/left axis, we methodically relinquish the economic and social fabric that makes America unique as we cling desperately to something that is too often inconsequential to improving our common life. Within the silo, we find solace in the assumptions that embody our worst assumptions.
But the challenge is to leave the silo. That, however, is much easier said than done. We like the familiarity of the silo, we like how it reinforces our preconceived notions. There, the world is neat and orderly.
Should we leave our silos, we might discover that we have more in common with those we distrust than previously believed. We may not agree on certain hot-button social issues, but there are other issues, especially economic ones, where there is a potentially shared interest.
Courageously leaving the silo also proves we are not alone in pursuing the amorphous path of a more perfect union.