From the Gallup Poll: (via The Monkey Cage)
So party identifiers see government as an "immediate threat to citizens," what ever that means, when the other party is in power. Is this rational? Again, since I've posted on this several times, this might underscore Washington's warnings about political parties being an unnecessary source of contention in society.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
