Today I took a long Uber ride, and my driver happened to be listening to some progressive radio station. Every few minutes he’d hear something and nod “Uh huh” or “Damn right”. Meanwhile, I sat and listened in stunned silence.

I couldn’t comment, for fear of it lowering my Uber rating (it matters), but this show was one of the most delusional and dissapointing things I’ve heard in my political life.

Even as a Conservative, I’ve always recognized that Conservative radio has its share of crazy conspiracy theories. This experience confirmed to me for the first time though that there’s full parity in crazyness. Both sides really do have crazy, delusional images of the other side.

On this show, I learned of “the defintive evidence that Donald Trump is being blackmailed by Vladimir Putin” and that’s it a certainty that we’ll be at war with Iran or North Korea within the year. Oh, and Donald Trump promised his boss Putin (through Rex Tillerson, “Putin’s righthand man”) the right to invade all the baltic states. I’m not kidding! This is what the radio host claimed, and my Uber driver believed every word.

This is the sort of discourse that I find dangerous. It sets up the other side as more than a political opponent. It sets them up as a devlish ideological enemy, never to be trusted. From a partisan standpoint, it makes sense. Scare your audience away from every leaving you. This sort of thing is damaging to Democracy though.