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This is the May 19, 2021, edition of the Essential Politics newsletter. Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get it in your inbox three times a week.
Among the biggest lessons of the past year is that America is a country deeply divided.
In the presidential election, a record numbers of voters cast ballots, and most Republicans still refuse to accept that Joe Biden won, polls show. You may recall David Lauter’s work in this newsletter early this month, reporting on the latest polling showing how deep the divide among Americans has become.
What accounts for the nation’s polarization and where it’s headed is difficult to explain.
Some of the world’s most vulnerable people arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border every day.
Men and women fleeing violence in Central America, political strife in Haiti and Venezuela. Boys and girls sent alone by their families, in the hope that America will offer them better lives.
They are beckoned by the image of the United States as a welcoming and merciful nation. But a disturbing increase in racist and xenophobic attacks targeting Americans with Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds makes it brutally obvious that my country doesn’t always live up to its promise of acceptance.
Can a society that treats some of its own citizens of color as not fully American take responsibility for those who have left everything behind to become one of us?
Some of the world’s most vulnerable people arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border every day.
Men and women fleeing violence in Central America, political strife in Haiti and Venezuela. Boys and girls sent alone by their families, in the hope that America will offer them better lives.
They are beckoned by the image of the United States as a welcoming and merciful nation. But a disturbing increase in racist and xenophobic attacks targeting Americans with Asian and Pacific Island backgrounds makes it brutally obvious that my country doesn’t always live up to its promise of acceptance.
Can a society that treats some of its own citizens of color as not fully American take responsibility for those who have left everything behind to become one of us?