Nasty polarizing rhetoric dressed up as entertainment is par for the course these days.  Mixing in the entertainment makes them particularly virulent.  James Wolcott is particularly skilled as parsing out the various patterns used in this toxic political theater.    Here for example he sketches the outlines of a nasty attack on Hillary Clinton.  In this example the libertarian attack poodle uses a bad word and then runs around in circles snapping angrily at it’s own tail (nominally punishing it’s self for such naughty behavior).  Meanwhile the other poodles stand around an yap.