Trump Derangement Syndrome & the Suicide of Liberalism

It is frequently noted across the political spectrum that the United States is becoming dangerously polarized. Differences in political opinion are now capable of provoking bitter splits between family members and dissolving friendships and even marriages. For a troublingly large number of people, the political viewpoints that a person holds now serve as the strongest measure of his worth, taking precedence over whether he is moral, conscientious, trustworthy, generous, intelligent, or open-minded. Polls show a general tendency, one that has intensified in recent years, whereby conservative Americans have shifted more to the right, while liberal Americans have moved even further to the left. Given the acrimonious mood of the country, borne out by the bitter feud over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the unremitting indignation over the figure of President Trump himself, it would be hard to deny that the public has come to pay more close attention to politics than in past decades, when it was common to hear that the great threat to democracy was apathy and a lack of interest in politics. Yet, what if it is misleading and erroneous to regard the hyper-politicization of American society as ultimately a political phenomenon? What if the stakes are deeper and more encompassing than what we currently understand and designate as political?