The Middle's finally gone.
And when the supporting struts have been surgically blown away, the two polar ends inevitably, violently collide.
The sane, sentient middle-ground has been swamped by a tide of right-wing extremist toxicity, bent on the buffering middle-ground's complete extinction. By twisting the truth and delivering the mauled messages through Machiavellian emissaries, the bulwark that is the Middle Class has been decimated, leaving the Right to tread over the confused, abused, unknowing masses.
The Republicans -- despite their disingenuous protestations to the contrary -- have done more to foment that result than any political philosophy left or right of Democracy could have on its own, save a proposition reintroducing slavery into the present day polity.
If the recent election results had occurred without the unnaturally rancorous tactics launched by berserker Republican operatives bent on control rather than governance then I might be disappointed with the outcome, but with my belief in the electoral process still intact, rather than utterly disgusted with the specious outcomes, the elevation of trolls and drones into positions of power and the disseminating of moronic memes and false equivalencies shoved down The People's throats. In a civil democratic society, the pendulum swings and all involved accept the outcome, if the object is the promotion of the nation's welfare, that is.
But the frothing desperation of the Right to consistently play down-low, dirty and mean has become their -- and since they wield the media like a electric prod, this country's -- identifying characteristic. Their scorched-earth approach to all things is like a nightmare out of William Gibson. Or should I say "white-mare"?
In fact, in many ways the opposition to the Right's onslaught has become little more than a scattered resistance, rather than a full-fledged, unified force. For, a major defining characteristic of the Moderate Middle and its Liberal allies seems to be a time and energy wasting introspection along with a cumbersome adherence to the rules of play in the face of an opposition which has dispensed with boundaries and absolutely, fundamentally loathes rules. It's like a bookish, bespectacled adherent of the Marquess of Queensbury stepping into the octagon with Brock Lesner.
This is the Right's holy, hellish war, and they've been spoiling for it for years. They have waged a premeditated assault on whatever is deemed an obstacle to their cynical, profiteering ends.
The Left either accepts the terms and becomes what it hates in order to survive, let alone triumph, or endures its own slow descent into irrelevancy, unseen by anyone who might give a toss about the perpetuation of a dream of true, civil Democracy.
Without a Middle, all that's left are bitter ends.