It has definitely gotten much worse since some time during the mid-Clinton years, Genie. You're quite right that "The anger in the '60s and '70s was more generational and about the Viet Nam war than it was Republican v. Democratic Party."

I always did notice that there was this huge divide in American society over the bipartisan thing, though. We have something similar in Canada over the 2 largest parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives), but it's far more muted in expressing itself than what occurs in the USA. That's probably partly just because Canada is a more muted society in a general sense...Canadians tend to be moderate in expressing their political passions. I think it may also be because we have a lengthy tradition of a viable 3rd party here, so it isn't just a simple "us against them" proposition here.

The lines are not so clearly drawn in Canada, nor are the differences of opinion so acute.

Other notable differences: The so-called Religious Right barely even exists in Canada. Abortion is not a major issue here. Neither is gay marriage. We are not a superpower. We do not play a major role in the destinies of other nations. We don't have tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

Given the fact that our role in the world is fairly modest, the issues at stake in our political campaigns do not stir such strong emotions in the electorate. What most often drives strong emotions in people, after all? Fear does. Nobody in the world is afraid of Canada. ;-) Virtually everyone in the world either fears the USA...or regards the USA as a bulwark against someone else in the world whom they fear. Or both at the same time. The USA is in the postion that Rome once was. That means there's a "life or death" sort of quality to major American political issues, just as there was with Roman political issues, and that drives the rhetoric to more and more extreme levels.

You see....not too many people back in 100 A.D. worried what the Illyrians were up to....but everyone worried about what Rome was up to...and the craziest place you could possiby be in, politically speaking, was the City of Rome itself where all that massive political power played itself out daily.