It was a "wry" smile:
"This was a year of ideological purity, bitter divisions and gross insults, with little hope we can ever live in peace again"
Not a word about U.S. politics, but exclusively referring to British politics. Or it could have been about French. German, or Italian politics too. And it could have applied to America in the 1960s, which I witnessed first hand. But we eventually got beyond that. (Or did we?)
