Time was they saw their function as more than out-thinking (or out-attacking; there's very little thought involved these days, it seems) the opposition. That started, IMHO, when it reached the stage that ANY compromise with the opposition became unthinkable, because the other side wasn't just an alternate view of what was best for America, but a soulless attack on America itself. Even fifty years ago Senator Margaret Chase-Smith (R-ME) rose to condemn fellow Republican Senator Joe McCarthys shameful witch hunting, but there's precious little of that today. Because now any advance of the oppositions policies isn't just a difference over the best way to achieve shared goals for the country, or even competing goals for the country--it's an assault on America itself, a malevolent strike at the heart of Mom, the flag and apple pie.

Sure, there are folks out there who are just cynically playing the demagoguery game for their own advancement, and the media blitz encourages that because exposure mean ratings for the media and tearing down the other guys poll numbers means padding your own. But I don't think that kind of gamesmanship at the countrys expense is as widespread as it would have to be to explain what we see now. The majority of those leading the charge are, I think, sincere yet sincerely wrong in their approach if not necessarily their motives. Some of it's group think and some of it's living in echo chambers online and elsewhere, but, ultimately, I think, as someone often guilty of it myself, that when you see everything through a strongly moral lens, when that's the underlying basis of all your policy desires... well, if our side has a monopoly on all that's sacred, OBVIOUSLY "opposition" to all that's sacred is support for all that's unholy. That means no negotiation, no compromise, no shared victory is possible. No peace with the Shadow and all that.