So I take your argument to be:

- the division between the two sides today is not essentially about competing economic systems (at least not existentially so) so the factors that tore the country apart 160 years ago aren't there;

- each team hates the other side, but not enough to kill the game;

- until and unless people are no longer able to buy their groceries and get care etc when they need it, these points will hold, and the improving economic outlook suggests this to be so.

Which yeah, makes sense. And obviously you're living and seeing all of this up close while I just get to watch from (mostly) a safe distance.

Just, from over here, it feels as though there's a lot of ... something. Call it intergenerational wealth, call it rural resentment, call it frustrated white male entitlement, call it a Russian cabal - or whatever you like. But it feels like there is something that is trying very hard to wreck the country rather than give its power up. And when it came to the fore six years ago it started off headless and a bit of a joke, but since then it's woken up to its power and to the huge reserves of resentment that it can leverage to support its power, and to the frailty of the structures that were thought to keep it in check, and it's become organised, insidious and it is actively pursuing an agenda that is malign to the democratic United States.