WHERE DOES A DIVIDED NATION GO FROM HERE?

One hope for repairing the American political fabric could be that our shrill status quo seems equally unsettling to those on either side of today’s jagged fault lines. And that may hold promise for eventual rapprochement.

Such national self-awareness can show just how very far we are now from the kind of healthy debate and collaboration that once got big things done.

It’s easy to see that there must be a better way. Not surprisingly, some are now asking where do we go from here?

Some thinkers, such as the university president who penned a guest column for Saturday’s The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, yearn for a new corps of political leaders skilled at the once-common task of working across aisles to achieve results.

One example cited is former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, R-Missouri, who governed modestly and moderately on behalf of a now-red state that once hewed strongly to the center. Others, such as the writers on today’s page, suggest more far-reaching scenarios that now seem more likely than in the recent past.

One is the successful rise of a third U.S. political party. The idea is fueled by the move away from the center by both Democrats and Republicans.

Another writer today posits that secession movements bandied about across the country may not, in this age, be as farfetched as they might seem. Arguments for pulling away from our Union can be found on both sides of the political aisle, she writes.

All of these concepts are fodder for thought in a harshly divided United States of America. If the ideas floating about can somehow force us back to a productive new period of bipartisan collaboration, then the conversation is well worth having.