re: Does anyone think unity is even possible?

Here's the deal.

At different points in history, there were probably a lot of:

People who hoped to have "unity" as the Nazis rose up
As the Marxists rose up
As the Khmer Rouge Rose up
As the Maoists rose up
As Castro rose
As Chavez rose

The reality is, you can't have unity with people who seek not only to win, but to eradicate your ideas from the landscape of consideration.

And, in each case, you can bet many Maoist, Marxists, etc etc in the rank and file didn't even know they were on the road to murder. The problem is, their ideology inevitably leads to it.

In the simplest terms, a Marxist can't allow the individual man to sell his own apples and if he insists on doing so, then he'll just have to die.