The xenophobia expressed by this approach has both a pedigree and a parallel in American history. In the very same neighborhood of New York where there is currently a controversy about a plan for an Islamic Cultural Center, Jews were prohibited from creating a cemetery in the 17th century by Peter Stuyvesant. In the nineteenth century Catholics were prevented from building a Cathedral (St. Patrick’s) in the same area. The political powers of that day responded to popular sentiment that the “Papists” were in fact not a religion, but were rather a political entity trying to implant their foreign ideas and loyalties on American soil. From Pat Robertson and his ilk we hear the same ignorance: “Islam is not a “real” religion. It is an international conspiracy of conquest.”

How distant these values are from the words President George Washington addressed to the first permanent American synagogue, in Rhode Island:

“To bigotry, no sanction. To persecution, no assistance. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. …”

The stock of Abraham surely refers as clearly in our day to Islam as it did in Washington’s day to Judaism.

Taken as a whole, [Jeffrey] Feldman argues persuasively that the right wing’s use of violent language and imagery over the past 30 years has gravely, deeply—perhaps even mortally—wounded the American body politic. As social theorists from John Dewey to Miss Manners have pointed out—and as my Canadian neighbors seem to understand as the central fact of their civic existence—civility is the necessary ingredient that allows democracies to function. Without it, there is no common good, no mutual respect, no reason to have faith in our ability to govern together wisely and well. When these basic agreements fail, so does our ability to self-govern. Reading this book from my peaceable perch on a mountainside in western Canada, the destruction of America’s civic order, as Feldman describes it, looks utter and complete.

Somehow, we need to find our way back to each other. And, as simple as it sounds, it may start with a determined resolution that we are going to be civil to each other. Always. Even to your obnoxious Dittohead neighbor. Even to your annoying fundamentalist sister-in-law. Even to that jerk with the faded W’04 bumper sticker who stole your parking space. Even to the whinging concern troll in the comments thread. Catharsis feels like a birthright in our I-want-it-now society; but it’s a luxury that progressives can no longer afford. Every time we give into it, the culture splits a little wider, and our odds of ever healing again it grow a bit more remote. It’s time for progressives to step up and show the rest of the country how grownups behave. We’ve got an example to set, and a hundred million people to educate.