Michigan fans aren’t screaming for the Wolverines to grab guns, march into the stands, and start offering Ohio State fans a binary choice between maize-and-blue jackets and violent death. Thus are the chants at a Michigan-Ohio State football game far superior to political discourse. (I won’t use the “current” modifier, because while the level of rudeness has varied over history, this is ultimately what political discourse has always been about at its core. “Political” discourse which doesn’t ultimately reduce to this is actually philosophy, not politics.)

PS- As a good libertarian, I continue to be briefly-amused-but-quickly-bored by analysis of the whole “I prefer being beaten to death with a shovel, so I’m a Republican” vs “I prefer being beaten to death with a hammer, so I’m a Democrat” dichotomy.

The correct conjunction to use there would be “so,” not “but.”