[alasdair_]

>Which means that a majority may silently be in support of C, but are so set in an us-vs-them mindset, that they allow !C to become part of their ideology.

This seems a natural byproduct of the type of voting system used. If every individual could vote secretly on every proposed bill, rather than having to vote for someone to publicly do our voting for us, we'd no longer need to have an us versus them system in politics.