The liberal mind misses the salient point: with big government, into every aspect of our lives, we will have politics dominate our lives by definition. Thus, the divide will grow necessarily as government grows.
There is no friggin way around it.
Well said. Unfortunately, there is a growing contingent of so-called conservatives who're also quite comfortable with large intrusive government. The only difference between them and your tax and spend liberal is the focus of the intrusion. Conservative culture war types were content advocating that government promote their values, however their successors are more comfortable with government dictating those same values. I've seen more calls for unnecessary constitutional amendments in the last 4 years than I have seen in my entire life.