If I could pinpoint one, precise time in which this fractious, divisive sense of "us vs. them" metastasized into its current form, it would be when Gingrich passed his infamous Contract With America.
I think this was because of an intersection of more than one social construct... there was a new sense of public vulgarity coming from hate radio, at first merely tolerated by, but soon thereafter adopted by a large segment of the population.
The offensives and attacks against trade unions, the educated, and the arts (curiously enough, the same things that Stalin and Hitler both used as whipping boys to better manage their own support base) had progressed from mere grumblings, though few actions (yes, I know there were some-- but they were still isolated AND newsworthy when they happened) to an outright legislative and social assault on them, which in turn enabled a landslide of judicial cases that would not have been heard had this environment not existed (e.g., United States v. Lopez, Colorado v. Connelly,, etc).
Some setbacks and defeats for the right, to be certain. But the *environment* of our culture began to get so much more divisive, a fractiousness based solely on identity politics than it had been prior to this moment in time. To be certain, there had been social conflicts in the past-- Viet Nam for one dramatic case, but Hawks were both republican and democrats, and were Doves.
The early nineties were the first time I became aware of people defining others based on nothing more than political party. That the knee-jerk reaction to a position was not based on the policy, or even the person, but merely on which side of the political divide it came from (this is why I have a wee bit of sympathy for liberals who own firearms-- as that's a most obvious example of a cause being further fractured by party politics rather than the merits of the position in and of itself).
Anything remotely connected to the Democratic platform was then targeted, and labeled as "a liberal idea". Civil rights, education, social justice, the good of the community, environmental sustainability, etc. became targets of Newt, Tom Delay, Rush Limabugh, et. al. not because they were right or wrong, not because they were an ethical contention, but only (*only*) because they were ideas associated with the left (a very recent and obvious example of this knee-jerk reaction would be Limbaugh's endorsement of the Lord's Resistance Army for no other reason than he believed Pres Obama would be sending peacekeeping troops to prevent them from further bloodshed and rapine).
And as social justice and civil rights became more and more demonized by the far right extremists, acts against social justice were, if not openly celebrated, tacitly tolerated by the far right, and then slowly being acculturated by the moderate right. To the point where we seem to be now-- a lot of people are defending (dancing though, may be a better word-- for they are far too cowardly to speak with the courage of their own convictions) Zimmerman from killing an unarmed black youth for no other reason than Trayvon was a black male.
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