Entering second Cold War as a ‘House divided’

The first Cold War began in 1947, two years after the end of WW II. It ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved. The term was first used in a speech by Bernard Baruch on the 16th of April in 1947, implying the geopolitical tension, no large-scale fighting, between the Soviet Union and the United States.

We are now entering the second Cold War, far more devastating than the one that lasted 44 years when we were all united against the threat of expanding communism around the world. Our Constitution and its foundation, democracy, remained intact for 29 years after the fall of the USSR, until the aftermath of the election of 2020.

This time, Lincoln’s “House divided” speech rings true once again. Half the country is now at war, deciding if the Constitution is really worth the trouble, apparently preferring either an autocratic or theocratic form of government, with a possible new constitution in the works, one that fits either or both, to replicate European Middle Age monarchies that prohibited or severely restricted the freedom that our Bill of Rights guaranteed us since the days of Patrick Henry.

James Cook

Schaumburg