Divided / Split / Cut America:

Zechariah 12:3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

Matthew 12:25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

Mark 3:24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

Mark 3:25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

Luke 11:17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

Luke 12:53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

The Democratic debate exposed an ideological rift (division).

Susan Page, USA TODAY Published 12:12 a.m. ET July 31, 2019 | Updated 12:49 a.m. ET July 31, 2019

Spineless moderates? Or fairy-tale progressives? 

The Democratic presidential debate in Detroit Tuesday — night one of round two — became an arm-waving, raised-voices battle over the direction of the Democratic Party and its strategy to win back the White House next year. 

“A disaster at the ballot box,” former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper warned of Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal, proposals supported by the field’s leading liberals, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump.”

Warren, standing at center stage next to Sanders, had a withering response to the criticism from the more centrist candidates who stood to either side. “I don’t know why somebody bothers to run for president of the United States just to talk about what we shouldn’t do and can’t fight for,” she said to cheers from the audience. “We can’t choose a candidate we don’t believe in because we’re afraid to do something else.”

That seemed to be a shot at the field’s frontrunner, former vice president Joe Biden, who is slated to be on stage Wednesday night when a second group of 10 candidates will debate.

In some ways, it was Warren’s night on Tuesday. She commanded more speaking time than anyone else, more than twice as much as Hickenlooper and author Marianne Williamson, who had the least. Warren demonstrated her command of policy details and the thrust-and-parry skills she honed as a high-school debater.

Sanders also was more energized than he had been in the opening debate last month, prompting some bemused brush-back from others.

“You don’t have to yell,” Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan said at one point. When Hicklenlooper called Sanders’ policies extreme, Sanders threw up his arms. “Throw your arms up,” Hicklenlooper teased, then threw up his own.

But the forum, hosted by CNN, also exposed a fundamental conflict within the Democratic Party. Much of the back-and-forth focused not on President Trump but on the Democrats’ competing visions of the policy principles to adopt — on health care, immigration, trade, reparations and the costs of college — and the pragmatic considerations of how to win.

Sanders called for a “political revolution” and Warren decried “small ideas and spinelessness.” Ryan and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, both from states Trump carried in 2016, warned that revolutionary message of big ideas was destined to scare away the voters Democrats would need to deny the president a second term.

The topic of impeachment didn’t come up, but the debate reflected the same dynamic now roiling congressional Democrats over that issue. More than 100 House Democrats have endorsed beginning an impeachment inquiry against Trump while Speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued taking that step could put members in swing districts in peril. Some impeachment supporters portray the debate in moral terms; some opponents warn of the political consequences. 

On the stage of the ornate Fox Theater, the rhetoric was stinging on both sides. 

Maryland Rep. John Delaney said the two New England senators were backing “free everything and impossible promises,” a course he likened to big Democratic presidential losers in the past — George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis. Sanders said he was “a little tired of Democrats who are afraid of big ideas.” Bullock said the teachers and farmers desperate for help in his state “can’t wait for a revolution.”