For a while, I thought we might have turned the corner, chipping away at the walls that divide us. But now I’m not so sure.

The first indicator was the 2024 election itself, which revealed a fundamental shift in mainstream public thinking — one significantly at odds with that marketed by mainstream media and left-leaning political leadership throughout the campaign.

Donald Trump’s decisive win in both electoral and popular votes, along with gains over previous years in nearly every electorate segment, suggests an epiphany of sorts among a significant number of Americans. Evidently, some in the groups traditionally viewed as assured Democrat voters decided not to agree with everything their party told them about the opposing team — and maybe even began to recognize that they should be telling the party what to think instead of the other way around.

The next obvious and visible indicator is the nature of the presidential transition now in progress — serious, businesslike, and very energetic. President-elect Trump has been actively engaging with world leaders and U.S. business leaders, as well as rolling out cabinet and other high-level appointments (some controversial — no surprise there). All in all, he’s showing a full-throttle preparation for the job ahead.

And, of course, there have been no signs of the feared cancellation of democracy, no movement to abandon the U.S. Constitution, and no detention centers being built to house Trump’s political opponents. So, I’m guessing that many who were seriously worried about the return of Trump are now feeling much, much better.

But then, out of the blue, two events have taken us by storm — the Manhattan jury acquittal of Daniel Penny and a shocking assassination of the CEO of one of the largest health insurance corporations in America. Overnight, they seem to have sent many partisans right back to their battle stations.

These two events have saturated the news cycle for several weeks, so there is no need for repetition here. Far more compelling, in my view, is the consideration of the public reaction to them. On the surface, both were dirt simple, and one might have expected widespread agreement to follow. Just the opposite has happened, with wildly different political views emerging immediately and our two political sides gearing up once again for the brawl. Let’s consider each.

Penny was the Good Samaritan, stepping up and putting his own life in danger to protect others on a crowded NYC subway. His was exemplary behavior rarely seen these days — although if you were trying to find it, the best place to look would be the U.S. Marine Corps (Penny is a USMC veteran). The death of Jordan Neely was clearly unintentional, and Penny’s actions on that subway were absolutely legal and unambiguously good. By comparison, Luigi Mangione is alleged to be the exact opposite — a cold-blooded, pre-meditating murderer. He denies it, but action caught on security and forensic evidence points directly to him. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but Mangione’s (alleged) actions were unambiguously criminal.

End of story? Hardly. It turns out that the simple judgments about right versus wrong, the ones we all learned in childhood, go out the window on matters that pose political opportunity.

Yes, I know that we are all supposed to be open-minded, to recognize and respect that there are two sides to every story, and that we must be willing to walk a mile in the other guy’s shoes. But it is also true that in some cases, open-mindedness doesn’t change the answer.

Alvin Bragg, the hyper-partisan Manhattan DA, along with Black Lives Matter, career race-baiter Al Sharpton, and a growing crowd of media and political pundits have decided that Daniel Penny’s action to intercede on that subway was driven by racism. After all, what more do we need to know except that Penny is white and the man he subdued (and who died, possibly as a result of the struggle) was black? That racist explanation conveniently ignores the established fact that the passengers whom Penny was trying to protect and who praised his action included blacks and whites, and the passenger who assisted Penny in subduing the antagonist was black.

Nevertheless, DA Bragg’s indictment of Penny and the subsequent wave of outrage over his acquittal have now made it clear to future NYC subway riders that they’re on their own. Potential heroes will have the good sense to look the other way and hope for the best.

In the Mangione case, within hours of the release of a shocking security video showing a masked man shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO in the back, the leftist spin machine began treating the incident as an unfortunate but understandable (and arguably heroic) act of desperation by one person to call the nation’s attention to the millions who have been mistreated by our country’s flawed healthcare system. By the time Mangione was identified as the assassin and apprehended, he was already seen by some as an American folk hero.

Two U.S. senators, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, made the argument that, while violence isn’t the answer, sadly, when pushed hard enough, people will “take matters in their own hands.” Two days later, CNN helpfully published a lengthy piece asking rhetorically why nothing has been done to fix our badly flawed healthcare system. (On that score, it is worthy of note that in the year of debating the issues of most importance to the American voters, healthcare was at most a low-level concern. The Harris team quietly walked back the VP’s previous calls for “Medicare for All,” but the overall subject rarely came up.)

Meanwhile, with attention shifting from lethal shooting to the need to fix healthcare, there is deafening silence from the anti-gun lobby — evidently, one gun in the hands of a courageous white knight on a mission to alert America to our healthcare flaws is not “too many.”

Our apparent reflexive dive back into partisanship-above-all is discouraging. My own hope (more wishful thinking, perhaps) is that it’s a flash in the pan, not real. These two polar-opposite cases seem so clear that perhaps — just like the pre-election political spin — most Americans see right through the contorted spin. Hopefully, it’s the spin-masters who are tone-deaf, not the American public.

Murdering someone because we don’t like that person’s politics or profession is wrong. Always. It’s a heinous crime, so expect to spend the rest of your life in jail, or worse.

Risking your own life to protect others is the right thing to do. Always. Skin color, religion, pronouns, or politics make no difference whatsoever. Thank you, Mr. Penny. Would that there were more people with your courage and commitment.

It’s that simple. We know right from wrong.