Contrapositive said:
Most Americans believe in the fallacy, that if someone labels themselves as a member of the same belief system as you, then they must have the same beliefs as you. So naturally, politicians try to exploit this.
This is how Bush was elected, twice.Another thing is that American politics are like a religion. Democrats and republicans are extreme opposites, and they will never admit the other had a good idea, nor will they change positions on something unless doing so will cost them an election. The parties take unchangeable stances on things, much like a religion would. The president acts like the pope in that he's never around to be part of the political process; he just sits in his castle and signs things. The president never goes to TV or radio stations for interviews, he doesn't openly debate anyone, he's never out in the open for security reasons, and he's highly regarded with terms like "commander in chief". The system runs like a religion, so it almost makes sense that religion would be brought into it.
In British style politics, the leader is part of the debating process. If someone like Blair says something stupid, people will openly call him out in parliament and make him look like an idiot. He is not held to a higher standard than anyone else. He can be called out, laughed at, yelled at, and debated with. Prime ministers are often interviewed on things when they walk out of parliament, we see them on TV all the time, and we know exactly what they're thinking because they tell us what they're thinking. When it comes to US presidents, you never really know what they're thinking because they're never asked. Presidents only speak when they have something to announce, and even then, announcements are usually done by the press secretary. You may not speak to pope Bush the second, please direct your questions to Dana Perino.
It's also worth noting that Americans treat the constitution as if it's biblical text. Everyone rigidly sticks to the constitution and will try to avoid any deviation, because the constitution is the word of god. Even the people trying to deviate from the constitution will make up excuses for why their idea does not contradict the constitution. Our proposed gun ban is not against the second amendment because the comma is to catch your breath and that amendment is actually referring to the militia that has gun rights (wtf??). Other countries simply don't do that. If people want to ban guns, they say guns are dangerous and they won't try to make up some excuse for why it's not a rights violation. The people opposing them don't try to talk about some kind of right or some document with god-like power, they just reply "you're an idiot, how am I supposed to shoot wolves on my land?"
Religion will never leave US politics because the entire country is evangelical about everything. Christians hate the atheists, atheists hate the Christians, republican hate democrats, and so on. Other countries don't run like that. Atheists and Christians, or liberals and conservatives in countries like Canada don't really fight against each other; they just have a difference of opinion and leave it at that. The
strong polarization between things like liberal against conservative are somewhat unique to the US; most countries are not that heavily divided on anything.
