I’m luke warm regarding this post. I agree that money, from both foreign and domestic sources, is spent to promote the various sides with the intent to divide us. Yet we should not overlook the actual division we Americans actually have over these topics of debate. Take for example abortion. A reasonable person can surely understand both sides of this issue regardless of their own feelings about it. But, when a one-size-fits-all nationwide rule regarding the various legalities on the practice is facing you, you have every right to expect very strong disagreement. It’s the law or potential law that crystallizes those disparate notions about abortion into heated division. The same is true regarding most of our divisions.

Humans have a natural tendency towards tribalism and "othering". You can see it on the micro and the macro. As Americans we lack coherency and tribal identifiers. Things to signify our "tribe". This makes us uniquely vulnerable to subversion perhaps. It is important to remember your neighbors are also part of the tribe; it is good to get out and do stuff in your community.

The manipulation of perception fails when you see that the folks in your neighborhood are mostly allot like you. Sometimes despite outward appearances. ...I guess what I am saying is that part of the antidote is talking to your neighbors. So simple but for allot of people in modern society, it is a foreign concept.

On the other hand, what happens when you have "tribes" in your neighborhood with their own tribal identity and a straightforward intent to "other" the rest of us? This is a question I was thinking about earlier this morning... Tribes like gangs. Religious groups who do not preach Love and live and let live...

If someone chooses to "other" the rest of the world, merely pointing out the error of their ways is not going to correct their behavior and will just be seen as weakness in many cases. Thus the case of the unrepentant criminals John Brennen and Jesse Smollett. Each acting like they were completely justified in breaking the rules...

I agree with the OP that there seems to be a concerted effort to "balkanize" our country. I agree that individually we can combat this "othering". I fear that without some sort of cultural identity of our own, we are ripe for conquest by groups that 1) have such a cultural and / or religious identity and 2) have the stated intent of conquest as one of their very social mores.

Securing our borders and limiting immigration in a huge way, specifically limiting Muslim immigration, are the only things we can do as a society to prevent this balkanization.

Make that the entire world

Some groups wish to force others to their way of thinking I just wish to be left sooner to make up my own mind b.

I am pleased to learn that others don't find pigeon holes comfortable either.

Such truth could have not been expressed any better. There are college professors who are being paid upwards of $400,000.00 per year to Indoctrinate students. Now that we know how the money flows and the scandals concerning bribes, I am under the suspicion that many of the problems on some of these campuses will go away with those fraudulent students. Our Universities - some I call Institutes of Lowest Learning - are the bedrock of the pigeonholes...the Victimhood Peddlers. It is very difficult not to be affected by this and your strongest defense on top of what you believe, are facts, truth, and reality. I often call people with this myopic view - the inability to see, much less consider, any other view that does not support their agenda - the Disconnected. They live in a made-up world especially celebrities. Indoctrinated, Disconnected from facts, truth, and reality.

Intelligent man, always have to be thinking for ourselves in this day and age...

Man, if the media is involved, I immediately become wary. They're no longer as an institution concerned with the truth. What you get in the media is a huge number of pseudo-intellectuals passing off their feelings as truth or objectivity. Man, this isn't close. It's not like they're just missing the mark. Children should be able to see the flaws in the media. It reminds me of people who become so 'brilliant', they think nobody sees what they're doing. There have been cop stories where they report coming up against somone who thought they were brilliant, only to find the cases are among the easiest to solve. Arrogance is a dangerous enemy. The media has become an arrogant institution of self-appointed (self-deluded) elites who got so smart they can no longer see their exposed fallacies. Oops, I went off topic.