From NY I return to America to hold elections in a divided country

I come to listen, deconstruct clichés, try to understand the complexity of a society, again, in a real battle for its soul. An uneasy question hangs over a force about its decay or reinvention.

In November, a fractured nation goes to the polls under the shadow of the disinformation industrial complex. An election marked, among other things, by a campaign promising “mass deportation” of people who had never been from another country.

This is not the first time the country has looked in the mirror and asked tough questions. History—and its echoes—reveals us the depth of oppression and inequality women, immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans experienced before they were considered citizens.

It wouldn’t be the first time a group has fought to defend what it believes “The American Way of Life.”

For example, in 1948, South Carolina’s segregationist governor, Strom Thurmond, ran for president with a party that fought against civil rights. In a speech, he warned that Harry Truman’s anti-discrimination and anti-hiring bill would “undermine the American way of life.” He got a standing ovation.

American history reveals how deep divisions, hatreds, and antagonisms have shaped this country. An express rule that justified the slaughter of entire populations. A country that for centuries built its “greatness” under overt apartheid, has today become a covert one.