We are coming apart

the divide is not geographic in nature... if it was we could be open to a (hopefully) peaceful divorce.

The divide is education (and possibly intelligence)... it is urban v. rural... it is reality v. fake news... it is MSM v talk radio (and Fox)

The graph makes sense. I was crestfallen when Gore lost* but I didn't feel as if we elected a monster.

make that many, many thousands...

in such uncharted territory.

I prefer a North/South divide vs. East/West.

Either would be fine by me. These next 4 years could very well be the trigger.

and it's more fundamental than levels of education. I think the opposing camps can be summed up as: Thoughtful vs. Reactionary

You no longer have three TV networks capable of brainwashing the population into the official position.

That was before we started living on one another's Twitter or Facebook feed. Before we started popping off at each other every two minutes.
Before we stopped listening to our hearts and thinking about our common goals and dreams and began only thinking about the need to express our anger, and wit at others expense, every damn second.

Familiarity breeds contempt and because we are all too familiar with everyone these days we have nothing but contempt for one another. When you think about it in this way it is hard not to think that Trump is the inevitable outcome of so much self righteousness and rancor.

It simply means that we weren't inflicting new wounds on one another and ripping the scabs off of the old ones twenty four seven x millions of twitter users in the USA. It is exponential. hatred.

the terrible ways that people have interacted with others because they're anonymous and they think it's "funny".

Exactly.

She voted democratic befors, always, until now. She has fallen for the whining about political correctness (thanks for nothing, Bill Mahr), and the superficial promises that drumpf will fix everything. As if that isn't bad enough, apparently, everything Obama or Clinton has ever touched is screwed up beyond measure in her head. She even made fun of his farewell speech.

I keep wondering why she went off the rails. I can think of only one deeply emotional reason for her switch: she blames democrats (unreasonably) for her grown son's inability to get ahead in life. Sadly, as a person of upper midfle class status, she and her husband feel they bear no responsibility for his actions. He dropped out of college, and while he has a good job, he can't get by with $800/month rent, health insurance that increased by 50-75%, etc. To them, as US citizens, it seems like she feels he is entitled to having a great job without doing the prep work for it. They think they should get first shot at it over immigrants who've done the prep work to get ahead.

A combination of white privilege and American exceptionalism that is practiced on a tribal scale in which the president is chief of the tribe and is therefore responsible for the well being of each individual tribe member. The entire premise of their grievance is misdirected. The President of the USA is not directly responsible for the success or failure to launch of every American. He is the overseer of the CONDITIONS that promote success and well being for the state... not the tribe. He is not micro-involved in their personal drama even though it has seemed that way because of how they air their grievances on social media. That is their own construct and not the reality of governing.

They have a basic misunderstanding of how their government works. They also have a misunderstanding of the responsibilities of parenthood.
Kids fail... it happens. Obama did not cause it.

That fucking asshole has destroyed the foundation of unity and progress President Obama has worked so hard for.

Millions of voters didn't want this, they were ignored or denied the vote, the latter more often than not. Millions voted for this decline of american stature and eminence in the world....the only respect, outside of dictatorships that is, is the respect that fear engenders in the world is when madmen, with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, take power of a country. Too late for any opinion about the new fuhrer...when can only hope he and his republiKKKan cronies make big enough mistakes that 'decent' people outside the 19% hardcore trumpfuhrer voter have enough and this clown is impeached.....then we'll have to deal with Pence, Ryan et al.