Such rhetoric reflects a black-and-white, us-versus-them approach that views each debate over taxation, social policy and the role of government not as a problem in need of a solution but a battle within an ongoing war. During warfare, our aim is of course to vanquish the enemy and emerge victorious; to reach out to your enemy makes you a villainous collaborator, a traitor to your cause. On the right, anyone with the temerity to suggest that Obama and the Democrats have some redeeming qualities is likely to be attacked from within the party. Just ask Chris Christie.

REL Waldman/Flickr REL Waldman/Flickr

Propaganda during wartime typically dehumanizes the enemy. Our current political rhetoric likewise relies on two-dimensional caricatures to de-legitimize the opposition, encouraging us to hate "them." The process is more blatantly vocal on the political right, with the radio voices of conservatism inciting hatred for cartoon versions of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, members of the liberal press, etc. Rush Limbaugh has gone so far as to compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, the epitome of unalloyed evil. While less obvious, the left has its own set of two-dimensional villains to hate: greedy and heartless bankers, evil corporations, gun-toting religious freaks.

For both sides, the Other often lacks true dimension. In propaganda, the enemy never has a legitimate point of view that needs to be taken seriously and balanced against our own views. Hating an enemy leaves no room for complex, ambiguous problems without an obvious solution. It eliminates the uncomfortable tension that arises from doubt and uncertainty amidst difficult choices.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that the "test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Whether it's a question of intelligence, psychological maturity, or emotional capacity, there's little sign of such activity on the current political front. Instead, our parties encourage us to take refuge in one of those two opposing ideas and reject the other. Complex, ambiguous perspectives are shunned in favor of absolute, simplistic and immutable beliefs about right and wrong, good versus evil.

For the extreme right, each effort to legislate limits on gun ownership represents an ominous assault on that unquestionable good, the constitutional right to bear arms. Even universal background checks are an intolerable infringement: according to Ann Coulter, they would eventually lead to the confiscation of all weapons and the "extermination" of gun rights. Instead of responding with a reasoned argument, she stirs up fear of totalitarian overreach and incites hatred against Big Government.

Voices on the left sometimes employ similar tactics. Maureen Dowd of The New York Times compared Tea Partiers to suicide bombers. Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Washington Post argued that the Republican Party had "strapped a bomb" to the economy. Peter Goodman of The Huffington Post likened the debt debate to the Cuban missile crisis, "with the crucial difference being that we are the ones stacking up the nuclear warheads and threatening to detonate them on ourselves." Suicide bombers and nuclear terrorists are evil, of course, and you can't negotiate with an enemy bent on your destruction.