Great minds think alike.
I didn't read your link to Atwater until after I concluded my post above. But it is comforting to see how we wound up in the same place. I was going to edit my post and remove the redundancy but chose to leave it in. People need to see this in historical context.
What is going on in Washington politics now is not just an aberration of a few twisted politicians. It is the direct result of long-established policy that has been slowly and deliberately developed for decades. Like Fascism in early 20th century Europe, it has roots that spread deep and wide.
I've been doing a lot of comparative political archaeology lately.