This mentality fuels the polarization between mainstream Republicans and Democrats, much like a religious schism. Both sides have a different interpretation of the doctrine and view each other as heretic traitors intent on destroying the nation.
Nah, this is the only thing I can disagree upon
More or less, to me, regardless of what they do, nowadays, the mere partisan fight is a performance for voters...
Dem can't live without Rep, because the latter is the conservative boogeymen cow that they will milk marginalized urban demographics for...
Rep can't live without Dem, because the latter is the "progressive" version of that...
Either way, they get their coin in the drum, by both the voters, lobbyists, and the actual capitalist hands behind it
The last time they were serious about national heresy, it was in the Civil War, where Republicans were "progressive" and Democrats "conservative"
But, afterwards the more Lincolnite-Republicans acquiesced to Jim-Crow Democrats, in regards to the latter re-establish slavery by another name upon African Americans and populist settler agricultural hegemony, in exchange that Republicans continue their own industrialist and finance business...
it continues more or less the same, with switched modern faces in the 1960s we all know today
(A two-faced maneuver, you say that)
This is all before the concept of "external threats" that come from Global South was created as a concept.... which they accuse each other of...