The Armageddon strain in American politics is a new one. ~Mark Schmitt, The Washington Monthly

We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord. ~Theodore Roosevelt, National Progressive Party Convention Speech (1912)

Perhaps by new Mr. Schmitt meant something within the last 95 years.  Of course, we should also not forget the highly charged atmosphere of the 1790s filled with Jefferson’s slightly wild-eyed fears of resurgent monarchism in the “monocracy” of Federalism and Federalist anxieties about the supposed crypto-Jacobinism of the Republicans.  Some might also suggest that The Battle Hymn of the Republic has a wee dose of apocalyptic imagery in it.  None of this is necessarily to say that this style of politics is desirable, but it is both quite old and also quite unavoidable in a system where men openly contest with one another for power and are allowed to claim that this contest has something to do with high principles.  As Francis Urquhart said (as best I can recall), “We really started something when we let this sort start climbing the greasy pole.”