Reds vs Blues: America's two political tribes are at it again

Washington

IN his 2009 sci-fi novel The City & The City, British author China Miéville imagines two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, who occupy the same geographic space but whose residents speak different languages, use distinct alphabets, embrace divergent cultures, and even look and behave differently.

In fact, residents of Beszel or Ul Qoma walk alongside each other on the sidewalks and drive inches apart on the roads, but they are also able to "unsee" each other.

Hence, while there is only one physical airport, residents believe there is a separate airport for each city, a phenomenon that also occurs with international dialling codes and Internet links.

In short, while they share the same territory, it seems as though the residents of Beszel and Ul Qoma live in totally different universes, unable to find any common denominator that would bring them together - which is probably the way you could describe the relationship between the two peoples who occupy the same geographical s…