Do you know what scares me actually?
It's that we really have lost the middle ground. Many of us (not all, certainly ... there is still, thank God, a strong centrist element to actual American thinking) have gotten to the point where we truly, really believe things that are mutually incompatible, and in which we can find no room for compromise. The last time we did that (1860) we broke out the guns and started shooting each other.
It's not that, from an objective (if one can find that) point of view that all McCain supporters or Sarah supporters are wrong. It's that they can not find legitimacy in their opponents' viewpoint at all. Same goes for some die-hard Democrats: it's not that they view Republicans as wrong so much as they view the Republican ideology as having no legitimate basis. The next step past this logical fallacy is demonisation or dehumanisation (as one does to opponents in a war). That is, "Those people who think that aren't really Americans; they're not true Patriots or true Christians". Ergo, their opinions lack enough merit to be even considered. Or, "Those people aren't nice, they are only greedy, unlike us". Ergo, all of their opinions are suspect on any topic, and to be considered only with extreme prejudice.
This sort of naked polarisation leads to exactly the kind of hysterical rhetoric and ugly commentary you hear on the streets and see in the media and online. "If their side wins, well, he won't be *my* president". That sort of concept in all its forms is the antithesis of accepted democracy, and perilously close to dissolution. That's what really scares me. --ckr
