So the Americans amongst have had their little election, and I was wondering, given the portrayal of your nation as being deeply divided and the painting by his opponents of a president that's leading the nation to an apocalyptic wasteland, could his re-election cause a catastrophe?

I guess, what I'm really asking is whether Obama is going to be target for right wing nutters the same way that Gabby Gifford was. Is all the vitriol spewed by the opposition just rhetoric or will conservatives who've lost this 'crucial' election feel a need to take matters into their own hands to rescue their country?

That's the image of the US I have at the moment, which is admittedly informed mostly from the Daily Show and snippets of the news here and there - am I just buying into the hype?  I guess I'm a little concerned that the US is heading towards another presidential assassination attempt.

The fact that Obama has been elected twice shows that racism is dying in the US. However, nuts will be nuts. Plenty of presidents have been targeted by crazies who had no racial ax to grind.

Some guy tried to kill Clinton by crashing his light airplane into the White House, and another guy shot up the White House from the street with an assault rifle. And of course Reagan and Ford both narrowly avoided assassination.

EDIT: on a side note, wunderkind poll watcher Nate Silver of the New York Times' 538 blog was 100% right, right down to the very narrow Florida win for Obama. His stuff is what convinced me that last night was going to be something of a walkaway for Obama instead of the squeaker that most of the media was selling. This will change future election coverage.

You're being a bit hysterical.  Look at the map not as a state red and blur breakdown, but county wide, and you'll see a giant nation of purple.  Here in California, Orange County is massively red, San Diego is largely red with a giant blue crown,San Fran is ultimate blue, and all the farmland in central and nor cal is red.  The political middle is still much larger than the extremes of both parties so no old civil war anytime soon.

^truth^

I know many people who've said they will move from Illinois to Indiana, and several who actually have, to escape the blue-style politics, taxation, etc. If this becomes a generational trend the red states will get redder, further polarizing the regional issues.