Democratic politics, always combative, has coarsened into a viciousness marked by extremism in rhetoric and tactics. Voting participation continues to decline as much of the electorate turns its back on the process. Those who are politically attentive are too often driven by rage, their anger stoked by party machines, bad faith political actors, and by hysteria and falsehood fed by the algorithms of social media platforms. Increasingly, what the public knows about the partisan theatre comes from partisan sources.