We know that liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions–all men are created equal as slavery defines the economic order of the Revolutionary moment, as one example.  And while we have had a noble, but abstract, commitment to freedom, justice, and equality, tragically, that has seldom been realized in practice.  The fraught politics of this moment, perhaps, reflects the fact that we just may be too tired, depleted and divided culturally–meaning how we define this ongoing experiment and who should be able to participate in it–to reclaim the work to bend the arc of history toward the goal of progress in addressing those wrongs.  It is a frightening notion that what you see on the surface–political polarization, disinformation and general rancor–may be something we no longer have the resources to deal with.  Professor James Davison Hunter, of the University of Virginia, coined the term ‘culture wars’ back in the 1990’s.  In his book “Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis” he frames the argument powerfully that with compromise now a forbidden word in our political lexicon, we may be at a tipping point and have no other way to address it than by force.  It is a disturbing thought from one of America’s per-eminent scholars.