I'm not 100% sure this may be the right place for this or even if it will make much sense but this has been something I have been thinking about for awhile.
I would argue that today we have so much information with three channels dedicated to American news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) we have at least two channels dedicated to world wide news (CNN International and BBC World) and there's too many channels dedicated to certain sections of the world (i.e. NHK World, Russia Today, and Al-Jazeera to name a few)
In addition to this we have on a broad scale, Facebook and Twitter to socially network with people with the same and different views on everything in our life. You can Tweet with people ranging from President Barack Obama to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Also we have websites covering the political spectrum, favorite sports teams, and the main reason Al Gore invented the Internet....porn. (And yes I know what Al Gore meant by inventing the Internet, he helped appropriate the funds to allow for such a thing to be created.)
The question then becomes can Barack Obama and everyone who proceeds him in the Oval Office overcome the ever growing hyper-partisan lifestyle?
So with all these things being accessible to us, we are now in a time of hyper sensitivity. I look at the Tea Party and see something directly created as a result of Fox News. Most people on this site would agree with that. I could also see a similar group being created had Sen. McCain won the election. This group would be the polar opposite of the Tea Party in values but not necessarily in tactics.
We have created a point where EVERYTHING done is the end of the America as we know it because we have talking heads talk about it for 24 hours straight. Barack Obama wants to secure the borders and create an easier path of legal immigration as a way to fix the current issues with illegal immigrants coming to America via the Mexican border. Fox News flipped out and therefore the Tea Party flipped out.
I went to a conversation panel on Iran and one of the speaker's credentials listed him as a writer for National Review Online and I immediately sighed thinking that his politics would dictate everything he says. And to a point they did but I actually listened and he made some good points and some bad points.
The point is in my jumbled way of getting to it. We need to get back to listening and get back to actually working together. Not everything is liberal or conservative. And sometimes there is a common sense way to get things done that have combination of progressive ideas and conservative ideas. Of course getting to that point is harder than one thinks. Like I've mentioned previously we have allowed Fox News and to an extent MSNBC influence how we look at things in our daily lives.
It's not just people on this site or even those at Free Republic but we have elected officials and candidates who have let Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Back, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow. There seems to be a lack of civility in public office as well because that allows for better TV ratings.
Sarah Palin is exactly the end results of this hyper-partisan climate created by the media. She has no real value of substance but she brings in the TV ratings. People love her or they hate her and there's no real in between. Unlike George W. Bush, she's accomplished absolutely nothing. She can't keep a job full time but she's a "Very Important Person" in the media because she gives ratings.
I hate picking on Fox News for all of this because while they didn't start it, they perfected it and that's kind of sad. They changed the game that forced dying newspapers and MSNBC to get into the game of being hyper partisan. MSNBC though has yet to go all in to being the opposite of Fox News, mostly because, in my opinion, there's not a market for a 24/7 Progressive News Outlet. Mostly because traditional media has taken a turn to the right forcing progressives to get news from bloggers and new media outlets.
The question asked at the beginning was could Barack Obama and anyone who proceeds him into the Oval Office overcome the hyper-partisan lifestyle that we have allowed to enter into our lives. I personally hope so. But I feel it did a lot of damage to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and even to Barack Obama. I think the only way this would change would require a drastic action. I would hope we as Americans would see that yes there is a time for change in how we look at the world in basic Left vs. Right terms and see that it's all a shade of purple.