There is no debate that the USA is terrifyingly polarized, more than any other country I can think of and seemingly worse every time I look at the News. From the relative safety of a liberal prosperous and largely-harmonious country, like Australia, the place looks both depressing and terrifying. The one thing that comes through loud and clear is that the split seems to have it's deepest foundations in Religious alignment, with all other considerations entirely driven from there.

Religions belief (especially Christian) appears correlate near-universally with Conservative, Hard Capitalism, Pro-Gun, Pro-'Life', Conspiracy susceptibility, Lower Education & an Anti-science stance. Where as Non-Belief aligns well with the Liberal, Social Democratic, Anti-Gun, Pro-Choice, Pro-Science, Educated demographics. How did such a stark delineation ever evolve? Why is the hatred between the Red and Blue 'sides' so intense and something people define themselves on? Has it always been the case historically or is it a more recent split? What is also interesting is the US seems almost equally 50/50 spilt on politics but 70/30 on belief. So what's the deal with the overlapping 20%?

Do any of you living there have hope of things ever resolving? Could less religious younger generations replace the older ones to allow a swing away from conservative views? Personally I doubt this, as the Boomers were once some of the most liberal and non-religious people, in their Flower-Power heyday, but somehow became some of the most conservative and entitled hypocrites ever. Why wouldn't the same happen to the Millennials and Zoomers eventually to?

As a GenX, I grew up with the US as the shinning light on the hill (maybe largely due to Hollywood propaganda, but still) and it's so depressing how our great hero's have fallen in the past two decades. With the US Centaury (1914-2016) finally concluded what comes next? Is there any hope to reverse the decline or is Handmaidens Tale and Civil War really as inevitable as it seems from the outside?