In America today is there less tolerance or more tolerance?

This is a difficult question to answer as you have not set parameters on just what point in the past you would want us to compare to the present. But, if I look at my adult lifetime (approx. 25 years) and make the comparison I would say we are consistently changing. We would have never debated same-sex marriages 25 years ago. We would have never tolerated a president in the White House that was unfaithful to his wife (that we knew about) but today we celebrate him and might even consider putting him back in there as a spouse to the president elect. Talk about tolerance, electing woman as president? Not even in your dreams when I was child. Go to an organized sporting event and when the national anthem is played watch to see how many are disrespectful to the U.S. flag and it is tolerated. On the other hand, we used to be able to pray in school and today we can't even mention Christ without "offending" someone. Other religions are afforded tolerance while Christianity is shown very little if any. Try to advocate abstinence as the preferred method of "safe-sex" and watch the reaction. So, it would seem to me, as I look back on history that the "tolerance factor" is very much the ever moving pendulum and once having gone to far will ever so steadily go back the other direction. Take note of the trends today and it would not surprise me a bit to see them totally the opposite in another 25 years or so.

I think that Americans as a whole have become more tolerant, or should I say, "brainwashed" or "pacified" to a certain degree in that they are much more tolerant of a government that is becoming increasingly intrusive into their lives. Americans have been conditioned, over the past six years or so, to beleive that the government is their friend no matter what, that the government always has their best interest at heart, and that we should place all our trust in the government because it is the "American" thing to do. ...And if you don't , well, then you're just being un-American. How dare you not trust blindly! So in that regard, I think Americans have collectively evolved into being more tolerant in a political/governmental sense. I think individual Americans have also become more tolerant in a social sense, as well. In speaking with a variety of individual people, it seems as though we are headed towards the social belief that most people should be allowed to do what they want in their own lives, so long as it doesn't impinge on the individual freedoms of others. But the problem therein is that the government seems to be intruding further and further into our personal lives, making it more and more difficult to "do one's own thing" without stepping on someone else's toes. Examples of this would be legislation regarding smoking in one's vehicle, gun laws and efforts to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights, the government placing restrictions on how/when /where/why a parent can make the decision to homeschool their own child, and other similar issues. So while individual Americans are becoming more socially tolerant, the government continues to step in, molding and shaping the direction of the country that suits their needs best. I think individual Americans are becoming more socially tolerant because of the sheer lapse of time. As time progresses, things that were once considered avant-garde or abnormal in some way are becoming a part of our way of life. Such things increase in frequency, the become more "normal", and we assimilate them into our way of being. Take, for instance, the concept of a couple living together before marriage. Yes, some people still frown upon it, but it has greatly increased in frequency over the past 50 years or less, and now the majority of people hardly give it a passing thought; it has become tolerated, and we can pretty much safely call it "normal." I think that Americans have become more politically/governmentally tolerant because of a certain degree of fear mongering propaganda and apathy. Over the past six years or so, Americans have been conditioned via the media (the puppet of the government) to believe that if you're not with them, you're against them (=you should believe everything we tell you), the terrorists everywhere are out to get us (you're only hope is the government/trust us), and they are slowly beginning to erode our freedoms for the sake of their own agenda, whatever that may be (there are so many theories). There is simply too much being thrown at Americans as a whole that they are simply inclined to just roll over and accept the vast majority of what is going on, which unfortunately equates to "tolerance".

most people are close minded thas why no one respects a persons idea or religon

Tolerance is dynamic in all circumstances. I wouldn't agree that politics are to blame for the lowering of the conservative bar, I'd put that on the shoulders of corporate America. As a society our exposure to all of the varying sorts of explicit material have increased over the decades (let's say from 1950 until now). As this slowly occurred there were people to seek out [violence, or pornography] what has contributed to the society we are now. As the crowd grows so do the businesses that feed on it. With each generation since 1950 we have become more and more exposed to each new level of what was previously taboo. As we accept the new taboo another is discovered, yet the generation before may not be as willing to accept. These are the images we see on television every day and many think nothing of it. Ever have a nude scene pop up while watching a movie with your grandparents? They likely are not as tolerant for the scene as you may be. Many parents don't realize the 5 o'clock news is too graphic for children, unintentionally desensitized and adding to the foundation of the child's tolerance. Politicians are no different from you and I and their individual experiences are what make them who they are. A conservative Christian certainly behaves differently than an agnostic from a single parent family. Much of it points to family values. There is no end in sight, only shifts in the degrees of tolerance for the entire society that are brought on by the collective experiences of us all.