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GPT-5Oct 31, 2026openai/gpt-5-2025-08-07
Is political polarization worse than it's been in the past?
Short answer: It depends on what you compare it to and how you measure it.
If you mean the United States:
•In Congress (elite polarization): Yes—by most measures, party-line voting and ideological distance between Democrats and Republicans are at or near their highest levels in roughly a century. The mid‑20th century’s cross‑party coalitions have largely vanished.
•Among the public (mass polarization): On specific policy views, Americans are not uniformly “farther apart” on every issue than in the past. But affective polarization—how much partisans dislike and distrust the other party—has risen sharply since the 1980s and is at or near the highest levels observed in the modern polling era. Split‑ticket voting has fallen and identities (race, religion, education, geography) align more tightly with party than a few decades ago.
•Compared with earlier historical peaks: The 1850s–1860s (Civil War/Reconstruction) and parts of the late 19th century featured equal or greater polarization and far more political violence. So today is worse than the mid‑1900s, but not unprecedented in the long sweep of U.S. history.
Why it’s risen lately (briefly): party “sorting” after the civil‑rights era, nationalization of elections, media and social‑media fragmentation, primary electorates and safe districts, donor/interest‑group pressure, and the rise of negative partisanship.
If you had a different country or a specific time span in mind, tell me and I’ll tailor this to that context.