I truly believe we can change the culture if each and every Catholic were to practice their faith. What we can do is be better witnesses not only to our non-Catholic friends and colleagues, but to our Catholic friends as well. To better catechize them through our own example as well as engaging in conversation at appropriate times.

On another note, it is the economy is why Obama won, not social issues.

And don’t forgot hundreds of millions in free advertisement from the MSM.

Two things really struck me about your piece.

First, your discussion of the illusory “new kind of politics” strikes an interesting cord with some of your points about the American ideal later on. I think there’s a deeply held desire in America (more on the progressive side, but held by some social conservatives as well) to see a figure or movement that will totally transform our country and culture and make it into something fundamentally better. I would tend to think that something like an election is fundamentally incapable of changing the country that much, because countries usually don’t change that quickly, but the ideal is definitely out there and causes people to imbue movements like the “politics of hope” or “compassionate conservatism” or “the New Democrats” with heroic powers far beyond their actual scope.

Second, a significant part of the fracturing and extremising of America might have to do with communication technology. Through mediums like the internet, we can come in contact with people with share our views even if we represent very much a minority viewpoint. As such, extremism not only fails to cause you problems with finding community (as one might have as the lone Randian Libertarian among one’s circle of acquintance) but encourages extremism in order to fit in with these self selected groups (as in, if you spend all your time talking with other Randian Libertarians, you’re likely to become mroe extreme in those beliefs rather than being moderated by all your non-Randian friends.)