The Partisan Divide in Our Country Worsens The first signs of the current partisan divide occurred during the 2008 election.  I hoped that division would go away once candidate Obama became President.  That didn’t happen, and within months the divisive ranting grew from a rumble to a roar.  How did the joy of the victory on election night turn so quickly into dark and vicious rhetoric? From the birther movement to the Tea Parties to the popularity of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, I tried helplessly to understand what was going.  Mostly I was just scared.  The notes of hysteria in the rhetoric, the barely suppressed racism, and the ever-present possibility of violence terrified me.  Having lived through three assassinations in the 1960’s and seen a nation divided by the Vietnam War, those bitter days were and are still vivid for me.  I did not want to see blood in the streets again. A Win-Win Solution Appears in the Transpartisan Alliance I was familiar with the Transpartisan Alliance, a group that has been working for several years to unite Americans across political divides. TA seeks to include all positions and points of view with the underlying premise that all perspectives are needed in order to find win-win solutions. Our current politics is completely saturated with a win-lose, attack/fight approach that is exhausting to participants and to the public. Having focused their work on the national level for some time, TA is now shifting its attention to grassroots political organizing.   When the first Seattle TA meeting was held in October 2009, I was present.

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