Two Worlds, One Nation

Those of us who live in the United States live in one nation but it is comprised of two worlds.

I don't think that the United States has ever been more widely divided.

That includes the Civil War period.

During the Civil War there was an enormous fracture in the country.

However, it was centered mostly around the issues of slavery and states' rights.

Today the ideological divide encompasses almost everything.

Abortion.

Climate Change.

Crime.

DEI.

Immigration.

The Economy.

Race Relations.

Transgender Policy.

Energy Policy.

Foreign Policy.

Iran.

The differences are not shades of gray either.

In many cases there are policy differences that are polar opposites.

It even extends to whether we want to fix the leaks and change the color of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.

Contrast what was happening on the White House lawn during the Biden years to what is going to occur in the same space when a Ultimate Fighting Championship event is to be held there on June 14.

 

Source: https://x.com/WhiteHouse46/status/1667701935284137985

Could there be a larger divide?

Consider this recent Elon University poll that asked the question of of whether there was any other country on earth that respondents would rather live than in the United States.

55% of Democrats stated they would rather live in another country.

Only 10% of Republicans would.

Source: https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/819/2026/05/Elon-University-Poll-America250-topline-6-2-26.pdf

On the question "Are you proud to be an American?".

83% of Republicans stated that statement was very true.

Only 26% of Democrats did.

Source: https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/819/2026/05/Elon-University-Poll-America250-topline-6-2-26.pdf

Those poll results tell you everything you need to know.

Two separate worlds exist in one nation.

Can the division be resolved?

We have actually been living through a fairly unique period in American history with the amount of political division that has existed over the last 30 years.

Neither the Republicans or Democrats have been able to gain significant majorities in Congress.

This is the exception rather than the rule in American history.

Consider this chart showing the control of Congress between 1855 and 2027.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses#/media/File:Combined--Control_of_the_U.S._House_of_Representatives_-_Control_of_the_U.S._Senate.png

It has been generally true that one party has held a dominant position in Congress in which majority support for its agenda is backed by voters.

This was the case for the Republicans for most of the period between the Civil War and the Depression.

The Democrats then took majority power beginning with FDR and the New Deal until the mid-1990's when we entered the current division in both the country and in Congress.

As you can see from the chart above. neither party has been able to capture a solid majority of support during the lst 30 years further underscoring that we are two worlds living in one nation right now.

Can we expect this to change?

History tells us that it will.

How will it come about?

Conflicts and wars do not end until one side accepts their fate.

Peace is not achieved until one side realizes the balance of power is such that it is futile to continue the conflict.

The costs of continuing the conflict are finally determined to be greater than the hope that any benefit is going to be gained.

There are times that both sides come to that conclusion, each accepts their fate, and an uneasy truce is the result.

However, true peace is generally only achieved when one side effectively admits that their cause is lost and ceases putting up a fight.

Will we get to that point with Iran?

This was the case with Germany and Japan in World War II and it was the case with the Confederacy in the Civil War. 

In politics, it manifests itself in a little different way. 

One side becomes effectively marginalized and has limited power when they are on the losing side of a big issue. 

This was the case with Democrats who opposed the abolition of slavery in the name of states' rights in the 1860's. As a result, Republicans took control of the levers of power in the U.S. Congress and the Democrats lost their central issue based on the will of the American people.

The same was true for Republicans in the 1930's as they argued against the expanded use of federal powers beginning with The New Deal. They lost the argument to the American people and were in a period of irrelevancy in Congress for over 60 years.

It should not go unnoticed that both of these crisis periods in American history acted as a catalyst for one party to become dominant with the American voters. One party was judged to be with the mainstream of American voters. The other essentially became marginalized.

It remains to be seen how the two worlds we live in right now in the United States will come together with one worldview.

The American people will make that determination.

That determination will probably be made by those who identify as Independents who now make up a record 45% of the electorate after surging during the last 15 years.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx

Independents are the group that have literally found themselves caught in the middle as Republicans got more conservative and Democrats got much more liberal in the last 30 years.

Republicans who identify as conservatives has risen by 18 points since 1995.

Democrats who identify as liberal rose by an astounding 36 points over the same time period,

However, the political views of Independents continued to be fairly stable.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/700499/new-high-identify-political-independents.aspx

The current two worlds, one nation divide we are in will continue until such time as Independents make.a decisive ideological or political shift one way or the other.

I am uncertain of the catalyst that will lead to this shift but I would be surprised if we are still as divided as we are now by the time the 2032 elections have been decided.

Will it be the Republicans or the Democrats who become marginalized by that time?

Challenging Times Ahead For Colleges

There is a lot going on lately in the world of colleges and universities.

Harvard received a lot of attention lately with news that its faculty had approved a cap on the number of A grades that could be provided in each class.

Source: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/university-news/harvard-faculty-approve-a-cap-on-a-grades

In 2025, a Harvard analysis found that solid A’s comprised 60 percent of all undergraduate letter grades  up from just 24 percent in 2005.

Here is a sampling of the percentage of A's in some Harvard programs last year.

Seeing all those A's in Chemical and Physical Biology makes me believe that those Harvard professors are propping up the academic record of the Pre-Med majors.

However, it is in the Arts and Humanities that the greatest grade inflation has occurred.

80% of all grades given out in those divisions at Harvard were A's.

Harvard's average GPA was in the 2.5-2.7 range in the 1950's.

It had risen to 3.8 in 2022.

Credit: https://grimoiremanor.substack.com/p/will-grade-caps-improve-student-learning

At the same time, more and more universities have realized that their elimination of standardized tests (such as the SAT and ACT) in the admission process was a big mistake.

Source: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/77443/colleges-are-requiring-sat-and-act-scores-again-heres-the-full-list-for-2027/?srsltid=AfmBOop_gB9aVWvx3IyYKYwQKTK22Xtj6IT5M-ID4Xv-kI5hnadLF582

The University of California system has not yet followed suit but hundreds of UC faculty in the STEM fields in particular have urged a return of the SAT and ACT in admission decisions.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-professors-demand-return-of-sat-for-stem-admissions

Without standardized testing in admissions, professors said they don’t know whether incoming students can handle college-level math. The open letter, addressed to top UC leaders, asks for SAT or ACT exams to be required beginning in fall 2027 and for STEM faculty to be given formal oversight of readiness standards in their majors.

“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” they warned.

At the beginning of the trend to do away with the SAT and ACT tests I predicted it would not end well.

The argument was that the tests were racist and not representative of how a student would perform in college.

This was despite reams of data over the years that proved the exact opposite.

As I pointed out in my blog post "The SAT Meets PC" in 2018, it also ignored the fact that the SAT was originally developed in order to level the playing field and provide a means for elite colleges to identify ability and aptitude in students that reached beyond the family connections and East Coast boarding schools that dominated Ivy League admissions before its introduction.

Using a standardized test that measured one's aptitude for college work leveled the playing field. It allowed schools to find overlooked talent who may not have had all the advantages of the prepsters on the East Coast.

It did not matter if you hailed from Michigan, Montana or Mississippi and did not have the same access to a quality high school education that the affluent had. The SAT showed whether you had the ability to do the work. The SAT also allowed admissions officers to objectively compare a student from the Choate School with students from Chillicothe, Ohio and South Central LA.

You can therefore argue that standardized testing has been one of the biggest factors allowing deserving, overlooked people to be recognized and receive opportunities to get ahead in the military, business and education  sectors over the years. This led to millions being elevated in their class status in the United States.

In fact, it would be difficult to point to anything else that has had a bigger impact on improving class mobility and opportunity for deserving people over the last 75 years.

What was the real reason that the SAT, ACT and other standardized tests came under attack?

They were an obstacle for colleges and universities to admit who they wanted to admit.

The problem was that too many of those students were ill-prepared to do the work.

Connected to all of this we are now looking at increasing enrollment pressures for colleges in the coming years.

The number of 17 year olds, which is the primary pool for future college enrollees, will plummet over the next 15 years.

There will be 700,000 fewer 17 year olds in 2035 than there were in 2025.

At the same time, we are also seeing a massive shift in views regarding the importance of a college education.

Those views have largely been shaped by increases in college costs that have vastly outstripped household income and home purchase costs along with almost everything else.

This has resulted in more and more people to question the return on investment of a college education and that trend is likely to accelerate in concert with concerns about what effects AI will have on many college majors.

All of these facts will undoubtedly exert considerable financial pressures on mamy colleges over the next decade. 

Colleges in the Northeast and Midwest will face the toughest environment due to a combination of a greater number of educational institutions and poorer demographics than in the South and West---excess supply and decreased demand---twin financial stressors.

Forbes magazine recently did a financial report card on small private colleges that were in the worst shape.

Schools like Hiram College, Baldwin Wallace University and Wittenberg University in my home state of Ohio were listed as those that were at high risk financially as were Rider University and Drew University in New Jersey.

Can schools like these survive the next 10 years?

Finally, take into account the fact that most colleges could not survive at all if it were not for the federal student loan program.

Federal student loans provide about $100 billion to colleges and universities annually.

The simple truth is that college costs could have never gone up at the rate they have without a supply of money to pay for it. 

It is not a coincidence that college costs have gone up in lock step with the availability of student loan debt.

Student loan debt outstanding is $1.7 trillion compared to $400 billion 20 years ago.

Just as is the case with health care providers, colleges have become heavily dependent on the flow of federal money into the system.

As more student loan funds became available, the easier it became for colleges to raise tuition costs.  Ironically, a program that was designed to assist students to afford college seems to be making it more unaffordable with each passing year.

The obvious conclusion is that increases in college costs and the debt supporting it are unsustainable longer term.

Over the next decade more and more colleges will have to deal with this reality.

The Big Beautiful Bill that passed last year in Congress had several provisions in it to encourage the highest cost colleges to reduce their prices.

This was done through the use of limits on student loans.

These limits were targeted most specifically at graduate/professional programs which have disproportionate levels of debt compared to their size.

Graduate school borrowers make up over 50% of all outstanding federal student loan debt but only represent 20% of the borrowers.

These are the limits of the amounts of federal student loans that can be borrowed compared to previous law.

Source: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/an-analysis-of-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-effect-on-student-loans/

There is no limit on students that secure private loans.

The new law also institutes a “do no harm” test for higher education. The law revokes a degree program’s eligibility for federal student loans if the earnings of its graduates are too low relative to the cost required to obtain a degree.

The provisions of the law take effect for new loans taken after July 1, 2026.

It appears the new rules are already having some effect on high college costs.

The University of California Irvine just announced it is reducing costs for its MBA programs to make them more accessible and affordable in reaction to the new loan limits.

Source: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/80372/uc-irvine-cuts-mba-tuition-to-99000-to-slip-under-new-federal-loan-cap/

The program cost reductions were $30,000 to $48,000.

Source: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/80372/uc-irvine-cuts-mba-tuition-to-99000-to-slip-under-new-federal-loan-cap/

All of this raises question as to how it is that UC Irvine decided they could charge so much with federal student loans picking up the tab but not so much when that money was no longer an option?

We can only hope that this is the beginning of a trend.

However, the overriding trend is that colleges are going to be in for a challenging decade ahead.

It is likely that in ten years the higher education landscape will look a lot different than it does today.

Pride Before A Fall?

June is Pride Month.

The Pride we are supposed to celebrate is not American Pride or Pride In Work or Pride In Accomplishment.

You know the Pride I am talking about it.

It has become so ingrained in our society that every major league baseball team except for one (the Texas Rangers) is going to have a Pride Night this season.

My hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds, gave away an exclusive Reds Pride cross body bag (I kid you not) on Pride Night a few nights ago.

You will see numerous other professional franchises and other businesses also lining up with other "Pride" promotions this month.

It has become impossible to get away from the political posturing on the LGBTQ+ issue whether it is sports or anything else in our popular culture today.

I am not so sure that this attempt by KLM Airlines to show inclusivity worked out so well in making the point they wanted to.

Pride Month is only a small part of this as I pointed out in a blog post from two years ago.

There are plenty of other opportunities to recognize the LGBTQ+ community throughout the year.

The calendar has gotten awfully crowded with LGBTQ+ visibility, awareness and pride days, weeks and months.

One person did a calculation on X that determined that there are 145 calendar days in the year devoted to celebrating LGBTQ+ in some way.

Has all of this gotten a little out of hand?

A few examples.

February 19-25---Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week

Month of March---Bisexual Health Awareness Month

March 1---Zero Discrimination Day

April 12---Day of Silence

April 13---International Day of Pink (Opposing Homophobia)

April 26---Lesbian Visibility Day

May 16---Honor Our LGBT Elders Day

May 19--International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia

May 19---Agender Pride Day

May 22---Harvey Milk Day

Maty 24---Pansexual and Panromantic Awareness and Visibility Day

Month of June---Pride Month

June 28---Stonewall Riots Day

June 28---Gay Pride Day

July 6---Omnisexual Visibility Day

July 11-17---Bisexual Awareness Week

July 14---International Non-Binary Day

July 16---International Drag Day

August 14---Gay Uncles Day

September 15-21---Bisexual Awareness Week

September 23---Bisexual Visibility Day

Month of October---LBGT History Month

October 11---National Coming Out Day

October 17-24---Genderfluid Visibility Week

October 19---Spirit Day ((Support for LGBTQ+ Youth)

October 20---International Pronoun Day

October 20-26---Asexual Awareness Week

October 26---Asexual Awareness Day

Month of November---Trans Awareness Month

November 6---Trans Parent Day

November 8---Intersex Solidarity Day

November 13-19---Trans Awareness Week

November 20---Trans Day of Awareness 

December 1---International AIDS Day

December 8---Pansexual Pride Day

A Gay Uncles Day? I am an uncle. Is there no day for heterosexual uncles like me?

A Trans Parent Day? Why isn't Mother's Day or Father's Day sufficient?

Honor Our LGBT Elders Day? What happened to just honoring all elders?

How have we gotten to this point?

A recent Gallup survey indicated that 9% of the U.S. adult population identifies as LGBTQ+.

However, almost 60% of that total is bisexual.

Lesbian and gays make up only 3% of the population. Transgender another 1%.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx

It is also important to understand that these numbers are overwhelmingly skewed by responses from those between the ages of 18-29.

23% of those in the 18-29 age cohort identified as LGBTQ+ in the survey.

Of that number, females outnumber men by almost a 3:1 margin (31.4% of 18-29 age females identify as LGBTQ vs. 11.4% of men.).

It should be noted that the overwhelming majority of women in that number also identify as Bisexual rather than lesbian, queer or trans.

By contrast, only 2.3% of those age 65+ identify as LGBTQ+ in any form.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx

Did something in basic biology change over the years or is this an indication that media, entertainment. cultural and peer influences have been primarily responsible for this change?

However, there are hints that the trends that have driven LGBTQ identification among young people are fading.

CDC data from its Behavioral Risk Surveillance System shows a sharp decline in those identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual over the last couple of years after surging in the previous decade.

Note that there has been almost no change at all for those in the age 45+ age group over the entire period.

It has consistently hovered in the 2%-3% range.

Credit: https://www.generationtechblog.com/p/non-heterosexual-identity-is-in-free

Support for LGBTQ+ issues from the voting public has also started to fade in the last couple of years according to another Gallup survey that was just released this week.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/gallup-poll-finds-americans-support-lgbtq-issues-sliding-backward-amid-cultural-shift

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx

This has been driven principally by a shift in views about the morality of gay and lesbian relationships and transgenderism among Republicans in particular but is also seen with Independents as well.

56% of Republicans said that homosexuality was morally acceptable in 2022.

That numbers has fallen to 35% today.

Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/710810/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx

22% of Republicans said it was morally acceptable to change one's gender in 2021.

It is now just 5%.

However, even among Democrats, support for changing one's gender as being morally acceptable has dropped from 67% in 2021 to 60% today.

What do I see as behind these changing attitudes, particularly with Republicans and Independents?

The LGBTQ+  activists have overplayed the Pride mantra.

We were told that "love is love" and that gays deserved respect and the opportunity to marry like everyone else.

If they had that, everything would be fine.

However, all that did was embolden the LBGTQ activists to do more to indoctrinate children and attempt to normalize more of these behaviors.

In addition, transgenderism was pushed on us to the extent that no one could even define what a woman is, we needed to surgically change the gender of children and biological men had to be allowed to play women's sports.

All of it was then put under the PRIDE umbrella and pushed at everyone and in everything including attending a simple baseball game.

All of it reminds me of this simple Bible verse.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18 KJV

Has the fall begun?

This and That---June 1, 2026

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

BeeLine Record For Most Views 

I recently reported that BeeLine had become one of the top 1% of blogs with an average of more than 100,000 monthly views.

Source: Google AI 

Source: Google Analytics

In May, 2026, BeeLine content had almost 160,000 views in the 30 days ending May 30. 

Bloggers can make decent monthly incomes if they generate consistent content and a high volume of monthly views.

However, it has never been my intent to monetize BeeLine's content. 

I have never done it and will never do it in the future.

For context, this chart shows the earning potential of bloggers based on a Blogging Income Survey from 2024.

Source: https://www.productiveblogging.com/how-much-do-bloggers-earn-2024/

My reward will continue to be the VALUE you receive from BeeLine and nothing more.

Thank you for your support and referrals.

Is It Self Control?

In my last blog post I wrote about the Dunedin Study and its conclusion that self control was the most important factor in determining how an individual would succeed in life.

I could not help but think about that study when I saw this FBI data on murderers sorted by race, gender and age.

A few observations.

• Black males between the ages of 5-14  (4.9/100,000) are more likely to be murderers than White males between the ages of 35-64 (3.6/100,000).
• Black females between the ages of 15-24 (16.9/100,000) are 12 times more likely to murderers than White females of the same age (1.4/100,000) and 3.4 times more than Hispanic females (4.8/100,000) of the same age.
• Overall, Black males commit murder at a rate of 18 times that of White males over their lifetimes.

Credit: https://x.com/IsabellaMDeLuca/status/2056475983067156882

Is this due to poverty, culture, missing fathers in the home or the lack of basic self control?

It is probably a combination of all four but more emphasis on the importance of teaching self control at early ages could have real benefits for society.

Political Divide In Georgia

Interesting data from the recent primary election in the state of Georgia.

89% of those who cast Republican ballots were White.

On the other hand, 59% of those who voted Democrat were Black.

Males voted Republican by a margin of 9.4 points.

Females voted Democrat by 17.7 points.

42% of all Democrat votes were cast by Black women.

White males made up only 9% of all Democrat votes.

Source: https://x.com/TonerousHyus/status/2059292931786207468

Should Have Kept Betting on Elon

Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes Benz, acquired a 9.1% equity interest in Tesla for $50 million in 2009.

It eventually sold the entire stake by 2014 for $740 million---a very handsome profit.

If held, that position today would be worth $140 billion.

The current market cap of Mercedes-Benz Group AG (the new name for the company since 2022) is $58.5 billion.

Mercedes makes great vehicles.

However, it could have done much better just betting on Elon Musk.

It is also worth noting that a $2,600 investment in Tesla at its IPO in 2010 would be worth $1 million today.

Musk is scheduled to take SpaceX public on June 12 with a target valuation for the company at $1,8 trillion.

If the IPO is successful at that target price SpaceX would have a higher market cap than Tesla which is currently around $1.6 trillion.

Can We Expect A Conservative Pope in 40 Years?

The recent leaders of The Vatican might be considered a little on the liberal side.

Some suggest that Pope Leo and Francis before him would be considered progressive socialists if they were politicians.

I thought data below provided interesting context.

Priests ordained in the 1960's and 1970's describe their theology overwhelmingly as progressive.

However, in the last 20 years. the theological trend of newly ordained priests has moved dramatically towards more conservative views.

This might mean that the odds are high that we will get a conservative Pope in about 40 years.