Partisanship is divided along party lines

These data from the Pew Research Center show a very troubling picture; the partisan divide is not symmetric. Republicans view themselves a mostly patriotic (bottom line, 71%) and the Democrats as mostly unpatriotic (top line 63%). Not only are Democrats are less extreme overall on both sides (upper and lower middle lines), but they see much less difference in patriotism across party lines. In other words, Republicans see the country as divided (with themselves as the 'good guys' and Dems and the 'bad guys') while the Democrats see the country as broadly thought less fervently united, at least with respect to love of country.

That the self-love and other-loathing is a predominantly Republican phenomenon is disturbing; one party, the GOP, believes that its political opponents really are "the other" while the other party (the Dems) see people as Americans. The GOP, adroitly aided and abetted by Fox and AM talk radio, through their interminable vitriol-filled pejorative rhetoric, are largely responsible for creating this division. Years of using fear and loathing of "the other" by the GOP for its own political ends has brought us to this point: that strikes me as supremely unpatriotic.