President Obama's reelection on Tuesday, depending on one's point of view, is either a promising development for the middle class or a sign of America's pending demise.

Martial arts and action movie star Chuck Norris and his wife warned that Obama's reelection would lead to "one thousand years of darkness" weeks before Obama won. Millions of voters disagreed, and although the popular vote was close, gave Obama another four years in the White House.

The Norrises were not the only Obama opponents to assume the role of doomsayer. The pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC Winning Our Future produced a video forecasting war and economic depression in the event of a second term for Obama.

Foreign Policy ranked the video as one worst political ads of the just-ended presidential campaign. This Romney-bashing ad from the Obama Campaign also made the list for robbing Romney's words from the proper context.

General rudeness is part of any political campaign, but reactions to Obama's reelection are just the latest evidence for the increasing polarization of American politics.

The wide divergence in opinions over the president's performance and potential may be, in at least part, a reflection of a media landscape wherein conservatives and liberals get their news from outlets like Fox or MSNBC that respectively tailor their broadcasts to the right or to the left.

Those and other outlets' slants, however, are just mirrors for real political - and even cultural - differences between their American audiences. The idea of conservative, rural "Red States" and liberal, urban "Blue States" has been an oversimplification since it gained currency after Republican George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000, but reactions to the Democrat Obama's reelection show just how polarized American politics have become since Bush v. Gore came to its conclusion.

Although one would probably not have to look too far to find an atheist Republican or a Democrat who attends church every Sunday, there seems to be a shrinking of whatever common ground has previously existed between conservatives who demand adherence to Judeo-Christian traditions and rugged individualism and the more secular liberals who hold latitudinarian views on social issues and believe the government should uplift the nation's poor.

In Redlands, a Democrats celebrated Obama's victory as an affirmation of not only their party's policies, but its values.

"I think this sends a deeper message I hope Republican party absorbs," Democratic delegate told the Redlands Daily Facts. "The country is changing. Long term, the demographics will be friendlier and friendlier to Democratic policies. The new generation of young voters is socially accepting of gay marriage and other social changes that the Republican party currently resists. Latinos are increasing as a portion of the population, and they won't accept the anti-immigrant policies the Republican party currently favors."

Conservatives belonging the Redlands Tea Party Patriots, by contrast, were not so happy.

"Even though it's a tragic night for the country with Obama winning, we are pleased with our local efforts. Because we can't save the country yet, but we can help save Redlands and the local area, the Inland Empire," group spokesman John Berry told The Facts.

Redlands is but one city. Elsewhere in Southern California and the United States, pundits and everyday people applauded or lamented Obama's victory.