Once upon a time, Bill Moyers asked Joseph Campbell what the fundamental problem with the Middle East was (or is as it hasn’t been resolved). Campbell replied that both sides had mistaken the metaphor used to explain the underlying truth for the truth itself. I think that the same argument can be made regarding the American political system: we’re all tangled up in metaphors to the point where we can’t even see the truth that the metaphors are supposed to illustrate.

Loyal opposition is probably the philosophical cornerstone of American politics. The first half of that phrase is the important half, but it is the half disregarded. With it has gone honesty: honesty about the other and honesty about the self.

We are not in the straits we’re in because the Republicans have been in power for eight years. Nor will our straits become significantly less dire by electing the Democrats. Our situation stems from things deeper than the perversions of “liberal” and “conservative” that we vote for.

The “other” is a tried and true technique of totalitarianism: from untermenschen to wreckers to communists to terrorists (and many more in between). In most cases the Other is projected outward or on an easily persecuted minority. In America the Other is your neighbor with the Other candidate’s yard sign. He probably wants good schools for his children too and he probably prefers to drink clean water as well; he also probably disagrees on how to achieve those goals. But somewhere along the line disagreeing over how became more important than agreeing on the goals. Now he is only worthy of spittle choked vicarious tirades on internet comment threads. (And, more ominously, disturbing outbursts at presidential campaign rallies.)

Lincoln was right. The only thing capable of destroying America is America. And so our future lies in the hands of Americans…not Republicans, not Democrats, not even Naderites but Americans. It is time to remember that the Other is us.