Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>   Has this always been so in the US, or is it a modern phenomenon? Just
> curious (as I don't know too much about US's history).
>

I think it has been with us for quite awhile--at least as long as I've been on
the planet. The strange thing about U.S. politics is that we always seem to have
a rather polarized two-party system--'right' and 'left' only--whereas many other
countries have 'multiple voices' in their governments. (U.S. political parties
with other agendas usually have no chance of being elected here, so out of
necessity they align themselves with the right or left--which further reinforces
the two-party system.) And here at least, politics seems to go in repeating
cycles. (Perhaps it does everywhere, though I don't know.) That is, we have a
right-leaning president for one or two terms, everybody ends up hating him, then
we shift to a left-leaning president for awhile, the same thing happens--and so
on.

But the recent Bush/Obama polarization seems to be more extreme than I
remember--at least since the Nixon years.  I think part of that is due to the
explosion of information sources now available--talk radio, cable TV, internet
blogging--where practically *everyone* has a voice (you might say an 'equal
voice') to rant about this or that.  Which tends to inflame passions, and
further polarize people. When I was growing up, we had three TV channels(!)--and
that was basically it, aside from newspapers. And the news commentators were
careful not to choose sides, so to speak. The effect of which was to be a
calming influence, with a rational tone. How different it all is now!

Ken

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