I agree with you though, things aren't that wild here, now. Other primaries and even some other issues (Schiavo, Miers) created more animosity than this primary.
I disagree.
Being on the receiving end of some REALLY nasty rhetoric, and seeing other FReepers get taken out to the woodshed over and over and over, this is the nastiest time ever here on FR.
This is particularly true of attacks being thrown from one particular candidate’s side. Really nasty stuff. Questioning people’s belief in God, attacking on very personal levels. I myself have been attack personally inside FR, in private posts, one crazy person even tracked down my email and emailed me a letter asking if I was really being honest about my faith in God.
Yes, there has been a spinoff site created from this primary season, and it’s mainly because of the childlike behavior coming from one particular candidate’s side. When every post/thread which is positive about the other candidate gets completely infiltrated and becomes nothing more than attack after attack after attack, people get fed up with it.
I’ll tell you this: some of these folks need to be VERY careful with what they are doing. This community will not be able to stand without some reigning in of the rhetoric and vitriol. What they are doing is tantamount to being at party, and running up to each group of people, and lambasting them/questioning their belief structure/attacking them with constant ad homonym attacks.
Frankly, if it was my party, folks that engaged in tactics like that would be shown the door. All that does is intimidates people into being afraid to post anything in opposition. Eventually the place is going to be nothing but an echo chamber.