Something that seems absent these days in American political discourse is the assumption that the other party, in general, has a similar north start to your own, i.e. both conservative and liberal ideals (in the recent past) seemed well-intentioned enough to claim that they each just want what’s best for the country. Now it seems like we have four factions and the centrist left and centrist right just seem to be merging while the far left and far right are moving further away from everyone.