In his piece for The Observer, “Divided We Stand,” Mark Honigsbaum draws attention to the claim that America is more divided than it is united. The problem is, it’s not as simple as blue states against red states, city against country, or north against south. The irony about the election Bush won under the auspices of “family values” is that the division hitting Americans the hardest is the one taking place within their families and within their homes. Honigsbaum pens:

“America has always been polarised along racial and geographic lines. What makes the 2004 presidential election campaign such depressing viewing is that the war of words between Republicans and Democrats is increasingly dividing families along generational and cultural lines. In New York this summer I heard countless stories of children who were no longer on speaking terms with their parents because, while they were holding up placards outside the Republican convention in Madison Square Garden that read ‘Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot,’ their parents were back in Branson, Missouri, running Bush registration drives.”

He illustrates his observation with the variety of perspectives presented by his family members, which contain enough hot air to transform a family vacation into a World War I dogfight. Strangely enough, a substantial number of partisan arguments aren’t about abortion or taxation, he notes:

“[The] arguments are less about the policies than about their perceptions of the candidates. And when it comes to bedrock issues such as taxation, balancing the budget and healthcare, the differences between them rapidly shrink.”

Apparently, enough smoke is in the air that some academics question whether the claims that the United States is divided are false, created with the aim to sell more newspapers.

…‘In the past, it was more clear cut,’ says my father-in-law. ‘The Democrat candidate stood for this and the Republican for that. I think what we’re arguing about here more is what the facts are.’ ”