We are arguably one of the most significant countries to exist on the face of the earth, but we are also prone to go to grotesque excesses.
From our beginning, religion has been at the core of our extremes, the Salem Witch trials, the Trail of Tears, Slavery, Prohibition, segregation, the 50s red scare, failure to insure full rights for POC and females. Religion got us to where we are. One political party decided that it could profit on religious divisions and it's key offshoot, denial of rights to select people. Then along came a soulless demogogue who saw the success that one political party had with using religion as a wedge and he decided to put that on steroids. So we are where we are.
My nation is in a pit of darkness right now and people are still fighting each other, even those that claim to have shared values (mostly on the center and the left). But within the darkness lays hope, people are abandoning organized religion -choosing to rely on their inate spirituality instead - which is a wiser course to take, people on the left and center -most of them at least are awakening to the fact that they need eachother to pull the country out of the darkness.
We will wallow in the misery for a little longer, but we will come out of it stronger as a result of that, we always have. The great asset that we have this time is the socalled "moral" religious people have fully shown their hand in support of an immoral demogogue, so any attempt by them to take the moral high ground in debates isn't going to work any longer. We will be ok, we just need resolve by people in the center and left to set our small differences aside and fight a common enemy.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Makes sense. 
