Why the rhetorical ferocity? We are witnessing a battle over what we might term the American civil religion. Each side in this battle seeks to capture the moral high ground.
For the past forty years or so, the moral high ground was reliably held by what we may term the egalitarians. This is true of both Republicans and Democrats; Democrats of course had the rhetorical advantage for the most part, but Republicans often would counter with the claim that they are the true egalitarians. Each side would ally itself with whatever historical figure—Lincoln, MLK—seemed to serve best as a rhetorical saint for the different sects of this egalitarian civil religion.
But what is happening today is really dramatic because the current civil religion, long since accepted at least with mumbled requisite expressions of piety, oftener with more flamboyant expressions of moral signaling—see how virtuous I am, how egalitarian—shows fissures. Its adherents have become louder, more extreme, sometimes even violent. Certainly rhetorical violence is more common.
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