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But I am affraid it might be even worse:
Probably not. While it is easy to view the US as two fractured "sides" with different beliefs, it's actually a lot more fluid than this. It only appears this way because when we get to vote, we only get two (or three) choices. Perhaps on the issue of gay marriage and abortion the country is slightly conservative, but give peopl a voice about the other things you've mentioned and you'll probably find a different answer.

In the US the public, for good or ill, still drives the process. We may not all get our voices heard the way we like (my frustration), and sometimes we're on the unpopular side (my frustration as well on many issues), but in the end we can say "no" with a semi-equal (due to the electoral college) voice to our fellow citizens. Bush could not run on a ticket of "we're going to institute state sponsered Christianity" and win unless the whole country was made up of not only Christians, but Christians who believe that government should sponser their beliefs explicitly. People might vote their moral values, but we are far, far from a public who meets the above criteria.

This election reveled some things about what the people in the US want; it didn't create those beliefs.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.