Is America Now in a Deadly Pre-Civil War Mode?

Pat Buchanan writes that the type of language being used by partisans like Sen. Elizabeth Warren to describe the acts of the Trump administration is “pre-civil war language.” For example, Senator Warren described Jeff Sessions, during his confirmation hearings for Attorney General as representing “radical hatred.” This was a man who was still a Senator in the same chamber at the time. It’s been a long time since the collegial Senate heard such disparagement about one of its own, from one of its own. Pat writes:

These episodes reveal much about America 2017.

They reflect, first, the poisoned character of our politics. The language of Warren — that Sessions is stepped in “racism, sexism & bigotry” echoes the ugliest slander of the Hillary Clinton campaign, where she used similar words to describe Trump’s “deplorables.”

Such language, reflecting as it does the beliefs of one-half of America about the other, rules out any rapprochement in America’s social or political life. This is pre-civil war language.

For how do you sit down and work alongside people you believe to be crypto-Nazis, Klansmen and fascists? Apparently, you don’t. Rather, you vilify them, riot against them, deny them the right to speak or to be heard.

And such conduct is becoming common on campuses today.