May I have a word? Divisive

This week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry criticized several immigration proposals, calling ideas such as a border wall "divisive". That drove The Dallas Morning News' Rod Dreher into a mini-rant.

"I despise the word 'divisive' used as a term of opprobrium in political discussion. Anything controversial is divisive. If we don't want divisiveness, let's stop having elections, then. What the governor is doing with this language is smothering the political debate in touchy-feely language, in an attempt to silence his opponents by calling them meanies. It's not for nothing that this kind of talk is almost always used by the left to describe the negative reaction from the right to whatever progressive proposal the left insists upon."

Part of Mr Dreher's irritation appears to be nothing more than pedantic fussiness. The dictionary definition of "divisive" meaning "causing dissension" can, in fact, be applied to any political controversy. So, technically, divisiveness is politics is no vice. It's the nature of the beast.

But Mr Dreher is not usually schoolmarmish when it comes to language. It's his claim that this kind of talk is almost always used by the left that shows what he's really sensitive about. As a conservative, he just doesn't like being called divisive when he is... well, being divisive. So, he argues that both sides are divisive, at least according to the literal definition.

But it's not the literal definition that the left has in mind. The Presidency of George W Bush owes itself to a strategy devised by Karl Rove that depends on divisiveness. Mr Rove believes that the undecided moderate middle is no longer large enough to decide elections. Instead, in his view, victory goes to the side that can rally its base to turn out in larger percentages. Emphasizing wedge issues like guns, God, and gays was what won George W Bush the White House. The Democrats tried to downplay these issues in appealing to moderates and undecideds. Thus, accusations of being divisive were leveled more at Republicans, because, frankly, Republicans were more guilty of using the tactic.

Mr Dreher tries to rehabilitate the word divisive by pointing to the civil rights movement as an example of divisiveness being used for good. "Those who fought segregation in the 1960s were being divisive, and thank God for them." That strikes this ear as being a very odd application of the word divisive. Jim Crow segregation laws were a brutally divisive way of organizing society. Claiming that those who fought to end this divisiveness were, themselves, the ones being divisive is simply Orwellian, no matter the dictionary definition. It reminds me of today's political moves to cut taxes for the rich or to impose English only laws. If someone objects to these measures on fairness grounds, they are the ones accused of class warfare or playing the race card, respectively. Now, one can't even point out when the other side is being divisive without being accused of being divisive oneself. Orwellian, indeed.