I take some comfort in knowing this is cyclical.

What our xxAngryYoungManxx poster doesn't get is that society reacts against what it perceives as extremism Up Top. If the leadership and general political environment are seen as too soft (caring, generous, forgiving, etc) then we tend to vote in hard-liners to correct that. If on the other hand they are viewed as too hard-lined, then we will send up bleeding hearts to restore the missing compassion.

A crying shame the voices of the centrists are lost in this back-and-forth tsunami process... and that it occasionally requires revolution (a la 1960s-1970s in the US) to force one extreme to move aside when their time is up.