American politics

John Scalzi is tired of all the screeching. He writes:

And I'm wondering whether it's always been this way, and I'm just noticing it now, or if this is a new election model and I'm just going to have to get used to it.

I'm not an American, but from an outsider's view, I'd say that the American political parties have spent the last twenty years or so riding the pendulum's swing away from the center. You currently have two parties striving to be as polar opposite to each other as they can manage. It looks to me like the pendulums have reached the extent of their swing and are already starting back towards the center, though most haven't realized it yet. The vitriol (to borrow a great word) is the result of the extremists subconciously resisting the inevitible moderating trend. Don't worry. By 2012, you'll all be lamenting the fact that the two parties are so nearly identical, it won't matter who you vote for.