History teaches us that political ideologies and religious dogmas have always been spread at the tip of a sword, the blade of a guillotine, the point of a gun, or the whims of a mob (amongst other instruments du jour); and violence, coercion, propaganda, tribalism, extremism, and sectarianism are but a few reliable ingredients for instigating social change from time forgotten.

For instance, America was birthed by violent revolution played out on a purloined land cleared of its original inhabitants via genocide and forced migration. Less than a century passed before our deadliest war was fought against ourselves, in part to defend an institution of human bondage.

Should it come as a surprise then that the modern evaporation of any coherent national narrative or identity has left a boiling cauldron of insurrectional fantasies, righteous victimhood, and anomie? The printing press gave rise to the Protestant Reformation in all its bloody glory. Might the Internet be our Tower of Babel from which we’ve been flung asunder?

There have always been charlatans and strong men, silver tongues and soothe sayers grasping for wisps of power. There have always been hordes to manipulate and sycophants to tag along. But to witness America’s modern political dysfunction, from a perch not captured by the derangement of our two party system, is to appreciate how the excesses and atrocities of history were perpetrated by otherwise sane homo sapiens. Our grandparents fought history’s most savage war a short while ago in Western Europe, the seat of civilization. When not made to invade countries in another hemisphere, our parents went to segregated schools, drank from “white” or “black” water fountains, and burned crosses and churches to protest equal rights. Others bombed public buildings as a means of social dissent.

But they also gathered in peaceful protest and mustered the political will to ameliorate those historical injustices. Great men and women of integrity and character rose to the occasion.

Today, the keyboard warriors’ lazy revolution is well underway: by a left that would cancel your career for a verbal transgression of the woke code of speech and a right that would cancel a democratic election on grounds too shaky to stand. And creeping from the shadows a few energetic bands of ironic and embarrassing savages, with monikers like Antifa and the Proud Boys, have materialized like the ghosts of Christmas past to reclaim a heritage of violence and destruction.

That we gaze upon the events of the day with astonishment only reinforces the notion that history might once again repeat itself, for we certainly have failed to learn from it. And like pandemics, nations come and go.

But history also teaches that we are able to overcome our divides, if only for awhile.

Maybe now is just a dress rehearsal for what is to come much later down the road.

Maybe not.