WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

Of all the upheavals in American civic life — the disruptive presidency of Donald J. Trump, the paralysis of the institutions of government, the undermining of established political customs, the coarsening of public dialogue, the diminution of the role of Congress — one has gone virtually unnoticed, and it may be the fundamental problem besetting politics in the United States: For the first time in American history, both major political parties — the organizing institutions of American public life — are riven with division, dissent and disillusion. …

Never before have both parties suffered at the same time the sort of major fissures that hobble the parties today, with a war raging between the GOP establishment and the Trump insurgency among the Republicans and with a death struggle between moderates and progressives in the Democratic Party, particularly among the nearly two dozen presidential candidates and over the issue of impeaching Mr. Trump. …

The result is a political crisis in the United States that endangers all institutions in American life.

The only possible comparison is when northern and southern Democrats split in the 1950s, principally over racial integration, a fissure that overlapped briefly with the Republican split of 1964 and beyond between the conservative wing of the party identified with Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona and the moderate-to-liberal wing identified with Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York.

David Shribman,

The Globe and Mail, Toronto