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After Partition, India turned its back on Britain and the capitalist West, seeing them as colonial oppressors. It embraced a mild form of Socialism, and became friendly with the USSR, although it remained non-aligned.Islam is not at all compatible with Communism, however, and Pakistan—as India’s sometime enemy, was friendly to the West.The USA at the time had a very foolish policy that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So it treated Pakistan as a friend because Pakistan was the enemy of India and India was friendly with the USSR, which was America’s enemy.That was sixty years ago. None of this makes a lot of sense today, however. Pakistan now has a lot of extremely conservative Islamists who are hostile to the West, and it is known that they have infiltrated the Pakistani intelligence community. They may have supported terrorism coming from Afghanistan.In the meanwhile, India’s opening up and reforms have changed it from an impoverished Socialist state to a global powerhouse — not on the level of China yet, but still very important, and reasonably friendly to the United States. The old disdain for the “colonialists” is over. India has pretty good relations with Britain, too, in spite of old wounds.Today neither one of them is a strategic ally in the geopolitical sense. The USA cannot count on Pakistan’s support in major matters, and it can’t entirely count on India’s either. But India is a functional democracy and there is no risk of it exporting terrorism. From a trade and a cultural perspective, it is more friendly to the US.

I argue with both conservative and liberal friends about this exact subject often. Both sides are racing away from each other as fast as they can, but the reasons for it aren’t the same.The trigger was not social media. It was actually this man.No, that is not a stock photo of a generic white man. It’s former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.Before Trump or McConnell or Ted Cruz, Pelosi or AOC or Bernie, there was Newt MFing Gingrich.Since the US functionally has a two party system, both parties once knew the only way to govern was through a method that now is viewed as abhorrent: compromise. While the parties often disagreed, there was a loyalty to the institution of the US Government over party affiliation.Believe it or not, there was a time when the US political parties were not the tribal messes they are now. Nixon, a Republican, wasn’t ousted by Democrats. It was his own party that forced him out of office. Granted, they paid the price for it. Democrats controlled House and Senate, and maintained that control for many years. It looked like Republicans would never win again.But, during that time, the parties worked together. A party couldn’t always count on their representatives voting on party lines 100% of the time, and so the understanding was that if you needed something done, you reached across the aisle, because both sides were working towards the same goal, albeit in different ways.Then along came ole Mr. Gingrich. He had a theory, that politics was not about governing for the people. It was a war for power that needed to be won, and the Republican Party wasn’t nasty enough to win it.“One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics.-Newt Gingrich^Newt speaking to West Georgia College. He later stole all their Christmas presents, to teach them a lesson on trickle down economicsNewt identified a hole in US politics. Previously, it was believed you needed to have good ideas to win elections. He disproved that by showing legislators don’t need to legislate to win seats…they needed to make people afraid of an enemy. And that’s what he did. He flung insults, he picked fights, he pushed conspiracy theories against his Democratic and Republican colleagues alike. If he could stop the whole government machine from functioning, he knew the American people would throw it out the window.“His idea was to build toward a national election where people were so disgusted by Washington and the way it was operating that they would throw the ins out and bring the outs in.”-Norm OrnsteinDemocrats were tyrannical socialists bent on destroying the American way of life. Republicans who worked with Democrats were traitors in the war for seats in Congress. He picked fights with both sides. Those fights were reported on by the media, rare dramas in the dull political landscape. This raised Gingrich’s profile further. The more outlandish his accusations, the more colorful his insults, the more coverage he received and the more his plan worked.In the 90s and 2000s, this…became this…Compromise was no longer an effective form of government. It was now being considered lost ground in the political war. As Gingrich gained power, Republicans began to realize that his strategy was working. The more Americans were willing to believe that Democrats were out to destroy what they held dear, the more Republicans won elections. Conservatives willing to reach cross the aisle to work with their colleagues were getting forced out and replaced by ideologues who viewed their opponents not as colleagues, but as Gingrich did; as the enemy.Republicans regained the House, which they hadn’t held in 40 years, and the Senate, which they only had for 6 of the previous 40. Since Newt Gingrich was elected, Republicans have held the House for 20 of 26 years, and the Senate for 16 years during the same frame.Democrats started to realize what was happening too late. And let’s be real, they still don’t totally understand though. Ideas don’t matter in elections. As Jeff Daniel’s character Will McAvoy asked in The Newsroom, “if liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddam always?”^If you follow politics, watch it. Just trust me.It’s because emotions matter, and Newt Gingrich made people afraid of monsters called Democrats. But the Democrats are starting to figure that out. That’s why Bernie, an unknown in 2012 to all but the most politically-focused, has become such a left-wing force. It’s why Warren has made such a name for herself with her “win the fight” attitude. It’s why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez handily unseated Joe Crowley. Democrats were still trying to govern the old way, and they just kept losing. So now they’re electing people who will fight back against the Republicans in more or less the same way. Conservatives may hate AOC, but she’s a devil of their own design, the next step for Democrats in this new, sick political arms race.^It’s why liberals celebrated this picture like it was a sarcastic Mona Lisa.Now, 66% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats don’t just disagree with each other, they believe the opposite parties’ policies are an actual threat to the nation.That’s how we got here. Not because people argued more on social media, or we opened ourselves up to fake news. It’s because this sumbitch had the idea to make his fellow Americans the enemy.Update: Wow what incredible support everyone has shown for this answer! Thank you!A lot of the comments have added different elements that have also impacted discourse in the US, and I don’t disagree. Newt Gingrich wasn’t the first to try this strategy, and he also didn’t exist in a vacuum. I’m not dismissing the numerous people and trends that all pushed things in the direction where we currently are. I wanted to point out who I felt had the greatest individual impact.

It evolved in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and for that matter in Australia, India, Jamaica, and the United States, along with many other places. But it began as the language of the Angles, the Germanic tribe that migrated into Great Britain after the Romans left. English (and England) is named for them: Angle-ish, Angle-land.They migrated into eastern and southern England. The English language spread from there to the west, and north, and over the sea to Ireland. But it began in England.