Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury by Evan Osnos

In Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury, Evan Osnos chronicles the United States from the September 11 attacks to the January 6 US Capitol Riots: an era defined by an escalation towards deep partisan division and self-immolating rage. While national trends are discussed in great depth, the focus is on three communities: Greenwich (Connecticut), Chicago (Illinois), and Clarksburg (West Virginia). In each community, local experiences mirror national experiences. In Greenwich, the ever-widening gap between wealthy Americans and everyone else is on full-display with the upper-class cashing in on deregulated financial markets, and unbridled greed, using this prosperity to further entrench their interests. For Chicago, the city’s poor continue to struggle as gun violence, mass incarceration, a mortgage crisis, and urban poverty plunge neighbourhoods into further disintegration. The residents of the once-prosperous city of Clarksburg are subjected to industrial pollution, the decline of trade union power,and the domination of the mining industry over public life. But while these communities may face diverse challenges, what unifies them, paradoxically, is their alienation from and their enragement with each other. 

The culprits of this deep political polarisation are numerous, but Evan Osnos discusses one key reason for the fraying of American unity amidst the decades of crisis: the nationalising of politics. The rapid decline in local news and the widespread proliferation of internet technologies resulted in people paying less attention to their local communities and their gaze was instead on a nation in both a real and imagined crisis. Americans embraced a “combat mindset” as that attention turned towards a worsening national culture war and tribalistic political identities. Like the Tea Party movement, Donald Trump recognized this opportunity better than any senator in Washington D.C. and he took advantage of it by “torquing the most explosive issues into existential showdowns that could unite his supporters across vast distances.” Whether it was wind turbines, Central American migrants, or the AR-15, the stakes continued to get ramped up. The nuances of public discourse evaporated and political opponents were dehumanised. This public rage was weaponized time and time again, but was perhaps best expressed when President Trump called upon his supporters to “fight like hell” during the January 6 US Capitol Riots. We now live in the shadow of that insurrection. After years of legal fights, an assassination attempt against Donald Trump, and the open speculation of armed conflict, we are heading towards the 2024 Presidential Election with less clarity and more rage than ever before.

There is a precedent for this moment that Evan Osnos calls upon the reader to observe. During the 1850s, the United States was on the verge of civil war, with both sides locked into partisan passions over the issue of slavery (to learn more, I strongly suggest David M. Potter’s The Impending Crisis: America before the Civil War 1848 - 1861). From the vicious caning of abolitionist Charles Sumner in the US Senate Chamber, to the fiery Lincoln-Douglas debates, rage ruled. Similar to now, the 1850’s were defined by their anger. Back then, this fury resulted in a civil war that claimed over a million American lives, but achieved the righteous passage of the 13th Amendment. Living now, the gains of the American Civil War are clearer, and can be held up against the bloody loss of life. The consequences of a second civil war remains opaque. Should we gamble the fragments of our national unity on the benefits of another fratricidal slaughter? For Osnos and many Americans, it is a trajectory best avoided, but difficult to adjust. Reconciliation and de-escalation might best start with genuine empathy. To look at our long-imagined opponents and feel their pain. To see them as comrades, rather than combatants. This is something that we could all stand to grow from. This is something I could stand to grow from.