You have pointed to the difficulty in rectifying the issues that confront us as a nation. This is not a North versus South issue, where we can draw a line and say everyone on one side is fighting everyone on the other. It is a neighbor versus neighbor issue.
That guy standing behind you in the grocery store is in a Union, works for the state government, and thinks Obama hung the moon.
As has been pointed out by others, it is not that Obama is the President that is the central issue ... it is that so many living in the US have decided that having a gigantic government is the way we should go, and they see Pelosi, Reid, and Obama as agents of the sort of change they actually WANT.
When you add up all the unionized employees of state and federal government, all of the people dependent on that government, and all of the college professors, “journalists”, and supposedly “progressive” types for whom socialist/communist history is not a negative, some huge percentage of this country see no reins at all on government growth and intrusion. The government is their mommy, daddy, God, provider, and anything that makes it more powerful and more all encompassing makes them happy.
Maybe when it actually touches their internal organs and it then acts like the stumble bum it is, they'll recant (but too late).
I feel the same way. When Bush was first elected, during the campaign, I ended a 12 yr friendship ( it started as a normal discussion of the issues, then at one point I was called a “Nazi”, rationally I fired back “You f...g commie!). We have not talked since then, for me there is no feeling of “loss”.
There are former friends who have invited me to their Tennessee mountain home for the last few years ( we occasionally email). I don’t go because they are flaming Libs and I wouldn’t last 2 hrs, no matter how beautiful the scenery.
I visited my cousin and left after one day when she trashed our country, haven’t spoken to her in several years. No problem.
It is for me now not that we disagree on “politics” or a specific issue. It is that we disagree on such basic values ( indvidual freedom, gun rights to defend myself, their belief in the entitlement society, their believing that socialism is “good for people”, and their belief that America is NOT an exceptional-—THE best—country. ).
There is one more reason I can not be with them...their emotional refusal to have a logical, point by point discussion to discuss the realities of different views. Too many times, they a) get hysterical or name call or b) walk away as I try to make a rebuttal in the most calm and open way.
I work with a LOT of Libs. I don’t talk politics with them because it would be ME that would get really stressed. I have a couple acquaintences and our different views I am able to dismiss their perspective because they have been so brainwashed.,,, for at least 40 years.
But my circle is narrowing. Sometimes I can influence people, but overall I am too emotional when I try to go there.