A nation at war with itself

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/07/018077.php

'B]y a two-to-one margin Americans say their children will be worse off than we are...

It's partly a partisan response: Almost all Democrats are negative about the nation's future.

I think that many Americans are attuned to the idea of using the opportunity presented by a phone call from a pollster to make a political point. I seriously doubt that nearly all Democrats really believe the nation is more or less doomed to decline; if a Democratic President is elected next November, the country's prospects will brighten considerably in their eyes.'

Linked to this off Instapundit. It tweaked a curious thought in my mind: when did political parties become emotional cheerleading squads in a bizarre drama, and stop being the vehicle for the (mostly) rational collective interests of some of the populace?

I cannot recall a time when a political party anywhere in the world did what the Democrats in the United States have done: talked themselves into such a demonic and hyper-tense fury over the pretty much mundane transaction of United States business at home and around the world. The war in Iraq mundane? I hear you ask. Name a decade in the 20th century without an American war and/or military intervention somewhere on the globe? Thought so.

Spanish American war, Honduras, Phillipines, Barbary states, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, France and on and on. Big country, business and diplomatic interests all over the world. Its what happens. But the Democrats rhetoric has reached heights of shrillness and bombast never previously broached. They now openly discuss killing the President, entertain theories about their own government organising the high profile mass murder of 3000 US citizens, accuse US soldiers of every kind of brutality and sadism, describe a US internment camp as a torture facility and would like to see dedicated murderers in Iraq win and the US lose.

They not only subscribe to the above, they also see the Republicans not as their political adversaries, to be bested if possible in the political arena so that their interests may be advanced ahead of their competitors- no. They see the Republicans as evil, as representing a kind of cancer of the nation, which must be systematically destroyed if possible, starting at the head, the President.

For those of us on the outside looking in, this presents a terrible impression of a nation at war with itself, whose psychology has become dangerously unstable, and whose common sense has become deranged. Can we send assistance? Is there anything to be done?