Nate Cohn, in a puzzling New York Times article, April 22, pronounced that America's politics was now divided into two hostile camps, each regarding the other as "enemy," not merely opponents.  The article is puzzling for its suggestion that there is symmetry to the divisiveness.  Indications are otherwise.

The evidence, going back to the pages of The New York Times itself, in August 2016, suggests that the paper instigated the notion that the other side should be regarded as enemy.   Consider the opening paragraphs of a Times editorial, August 21, 2016, with this title: "How Can America Recover From Donald Trump?"

The editorial began:

Donald Trump is heading to November like a certain zeppelin heading to New Jersey, in a darkening sky that crackles with electricity. He is fighting crosswinds and trying new tacks — hiring the head of Breitbart News to run his campaign, trying on a new emotion (regret) in a speech on Thursday night, promising to talk more this week about immigration, his prime subject. There’s still no telling what will happen when the gasbag reaches the mooring.

It could be that the polls are right, and Mr. Trump will go down in flames. But while that will solve an immediate problem, a larger one will remain. The message of hatred and paranoia that is inciting millions of voters will outlast the messenger. The toxic effects of Trumpism will have to be addressed.

For The New York Times, the Republican Party under Donald Trump was a political movement of "hatred and paranoia," and after Trump goes down in flames to defeat, the "toxic effects" of the Trump base will have to be extinguished.  Is there any other way to interpret this editorial that clearly saw Trump voters as "enemy" along with the candidate himself?

Here is another bit of evidence from the Times from that August of 2016, when the left was so convinced that Hillary Clinton would emerge the victor that it did not think it necessary to cook the ballots.  Amy Chozick, in an August 4, 2016 Times story called "Democrats, Looking Past Mere Victory, Hope to End the Trump Movement," quoted a June 2016 tweet from former Obama aide David Plouffe as saying: "It is not enough to simply beat Trump."  Plouffe added, oh, so quickly, "He must be destroyed thoroughly.  His kind must not rise again."

Sounds, here, as though Plouffe was demanding unconditional surrender from Trump and his voters.  Of whom is unconditional surrender demanded, if not from the hated enemy who must be ground under?

No, Nate Cohn, this mindset of denouncing political opposition as the enemy to be vanquished "thoroughly," did not spring up from the two political camps.  Traditionally, even when victorious, Republicans have always been willing to go more than halfway to accommodate their political opponents.

The total war concept of politics in America perhaps has its origins in the days of the McGovernites, the last quarter of the 20th century.  It reached full maturity with the "Resistance" against President Trump, a resistance on the left that continued to view this president as "enemy," not the legitimate chief executive.

It is not apparent that the rank and file of GOP officeholders yet realize the utter hostility the left holds for them — the implacable intent of the left to transform  American politics into Ein Ruling Elite, Ein Political Party, Ein Ideological Mindset.  And if any leftist thinks this is taken from a Nazi slogan of the 1930s and 1940s — you betcha, for the transformation the left has in store for us is the transformation into totalitarianism, a transformation that requires the artful use of manipulative, mendacious propaganda.  That is where Nate Cohn and The New York Times enters the political stage.

Image: Adam Jones via Flickr , CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).

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