Are Americans bad people?

According to the polls, most Americans think their fellow citizens are bad people.

Click here for Robert Reich's Substack post on March 10, entitled "Why do Americans hate each other while Canadians love each other?" Subtitled "Could it have something to do with our politics? With the sociopath in the Oval?"

Once Trump took office, dislike of our fellow citizens soared.

Before he entered the White House, 47 percent of Republican and 35 percent of Democrats said people in the opposing party were “immoral.”

By 2022, after years of Trump’s venom: 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats called people in the opposing party “immoral.”

Since he’s been back in the Oval, it’s got even worse.

Reich says: "At the opposite end of the spectrum from the United States is Canada, where 92 percent say their fellow Canadians are good, while just 7 percent say they’re bad."

Reich had an interesting conversation 30 years ago with right-wing Republican  Senator Alan Simpson, when Simpson said:

Democrats viewed Republicans as stupid and Republicans viewed Democrats as evil. “I’d rather be in the stupid party,” he chuckled.

I asked him why Republicans saw Democrats as evil.

He took a deep breath. “Religion.”

I said I didn’t understand.

“It’s the Christian right,” he said as if talking to a five-year-old. “Since Reagan, my party has been a magnet for religious conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, where it’s all about good and evil. Too bad, pal. You’re on the evil side.”

That was thirty years ago. Since then, the divide has only sharpened.