It's gotten to the point where even the most obviously nonpartisan issues that Americans ought to be able to address cooperatively and rationally have fallen victim to the country's culture of extreme political polarization.
Hostility has grown so intense, especially on the Republican side, that subjects that should be entirely nonpolitical are now cause for bitter disagreement.
This past week, for instance, an article in The Times explained that the McKinney fire in Northern California — an equal opportunity catastrophe, for goodness' sake, that burned tens of thousands of acres and killed four people — was being blamed by local residents on liberals.
