AMBRIDGE, Pa. — A middle-aged man stood across from the entrance of Ambridge High School with several dozen protestors, heckling thousands of people waiting to see Donald Trump speak on Monday.

Dressed in dark colors, from his ball cap to his boots, he was as animated as the other protestors waving signs or shouting through bullhorns, except for one detail: His intolerance of Trump's supporters provoked him to frantically wave his arm in a Nazi salute and hurl slurs.

An hour later, after the raucous rally ended, a petite elderly woman in a practical beige overcoat, with a light blue babushka tied at her chin, walked past reporters scanning for their affiliations.

Her objective was simple, she said: spit on the reporter who worked for CNN.

It's tempting to blame the behavior of both on the presidential campaigns. But really, this election has channeled a narcissism and an intolerance that our country has been incubating for years.

In fact, many Americans believe they're entitled to their intolerance, that it's their patriotic duty to react fanatically or with bigotry to anyone who doesn't share their views.

"That separation has caused us to be not only intolerant of each other's point of view but also entitled to blast the other person for not sharing ours," says Dane Strother, a Democratic media consultant based in Washington, D.C.

Strother points to a perfect example: Of his thousand or so friends on Facebook, he counts five who are conservatives.

Who among us doesn't have Facebook friends who believe they're entitled to "go nuclear" when expressing their political views on other people's pages, especially when opposing someone else's post?

We're growing more racially, culturally and economically separated from one another every day. Strother says: "We are all in our little lanes. We watch only the news that we agree with ... (and) live in congressional districts that share our values." We engage in very little healthy discourse because we don't have to, which robs us of the grace to manage diversity.

Tom Nichols, a former U.S. Senate legislative aide, says, "Part of the problem is that government and, in turn, politics no longer asks anything of voters."

Americans feel entitled to demand whatever they want because our government and politicians are always asking us to tell them, promising that if they win, they will deliver. And when politicians get our votes and rise to power but then don't deliver exactly everything they promised, we feel frustrated.

Nichols says that entitlement mostly comes from affluence and the remarkably high standard of living in today's America, something likely unavoidable when there is so much progress and material bounty. "But narcissism," he notes, "is a collapse of democratic values, where every American now thinks he or she is the most important person who has ever lived, instead of being one of many voters in a system based on compromise and moderation."

The days of the social contract, when citizens have obligations as well as rights, seem to be over.

"Imagine John F. Kennedy today saying 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,'" says Nichols. He'd be hooted off the stage as another northeastern Ivy League elitist talking down to the people.

That's how far we've come — or, more precisely, how far we've fallen.

It is impossible to predict where this populist undercurrent will turn after Nov. 8, but every segment of society has much to answer for — the media, for catering only to one side or the other and not balancing its coverage; and government, for failing on a multitude of levels.

Society as a whole has to answer for what it has allowed or done — creating "safe spaces," passing out meaningless trophies, elevating celebrity life, demanding free college educations and iPhones, and considering it passe or foolish to embrace common religious beliefs.

Our zeal for diversity has had the opposite impact: We now are more intolerant and divided than ever. And until we find a way out of this maze, the compulsion to demand that government and society give us whatever we want will continue.

Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.