At the risk of being called Captain Obvious, I must say that there doesn't seem to be much moderation in politics anymore.  Sure, there are still a lot of people who don't pay attention.  You know - the ones who devoured the Michael Jackson coverage and tuned in to see what Jon & Kate's big announcement was.  But for those of us who are interested in politics, there is a major divide. 

It became very pronounced during the Bush years, when many in the media and Hollywood developed what has become known as Bush Derangement Syndrome.  The anti-Bush paraphernalia kept some capitalists rolling in profits.  Even some of my formerly favorite TV shows would slip in the anti-Bush rhetoric.  The guy couldn't mispronounce a word without the writers and cast of Saturday Night Live scrambling together for an emergency meeting to fit it into this week's show.  It was pure hysteria. 

I didn’t share in that hysteria. I didn’t agree with everything that happened during the Bush Administration, but I certainly didn’t buy into the media-inspired frenzy to demonize the man, and I was not alone. Which is why, I think, so many of us that considered ourselves centrist, or even right/centrist, felt nudged more to the right over time. Because the element that used to reside on the far-left fringes started spilling more into the mainstream – pushing toward the center. So what happened was that everyone who was slightly left of center became rabid Bush-haters, pushing away those of us who did not succumb to the Derangement Syndrome or the propaganda of the mainstream media. 

By the time the 2008 election season was upon us, it was very clearly right vs. left, with the left having every advantage. We had eight years of a wildly unpopular president, a huge degree of apathy from the American Idol crowd, and a young and charismatic newcomer on the scene. It was the perfect storm (created entirely by the mainstream media) for the left – for the far left. 

Finally! Someone discovered a cure for Bush Derangement Syndrome – the Obama Kool-Aid! And for those of us who didn’t drink it, well some may say we developed Obama Derangement Syndrome. But I disagree. You see, this perfect storm left us with a president with a radically far-left agenda that is becoming increasingly more obvious over time. 

Do some of those who voted for him have buyer’s remorse? I certainly hope so, although few will admit it. But what scares me are the people who clearly do not. I have yet to determine if they have their collective heads in the sand, or if they are sympathetic to the left-wing ideology. Time will tell. In the meantime, maybe I will sell some coffee mugs depicting Barack Obama with devil horns – while we still have some semblance of capitalism left.