America’s culture wars will intensify

By Jon Fasman: Washington correspondent, The Economist

BERNIE SANDERS and Elizabeth Warren had more passionate fans. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg were more poised speakers. But Joe Biden had something other Democratic candidates lacked: faith that he could bring Democrats and Republicans together. Many considered this naive and unrealistic. But it appealed to enough voters to propel him past his more strident challengers in the primary, and then to defeat the most divisive president in modern history.

It is not hard to see why. The past four years—and to a lesser extent, the eight before that, under Barack Obama—have been a period of intense cultural and political polarisation in America. Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans do not just hold different views on, say, gay marriage and tax rates. They inhabit different universes and increasingly distrust each other.