Is political polarization worse than it's been in the past?

To answer whether political polarization is worse today than in the past, political scientists and historians make a key distinction between two different types of division:

•Ideological Polarization: The distance between the policy positions of the two major parties.

•Affective Polarization: The degree of mutual dislike, distrust, and hostility that partisans feel toward members of the opposing party.

Whether today's polarization is "worse" depends entirely on which era of the past you are comparing it to.

1. Compared to the Recent Past (The Last 50 Years): Yes, It Is Significantly Worse

If we compare today’s political climate to the mid-to-late 20th century, polarization is drastically worse across almost every metric.

•The Death of the Political Moderate: In the 1970s, the two parties had significant ideological overlap. There were conservative southern Democrats and liberal northern Republicans. Today, that overlap has virtually vanished. According to DW-NOMINATE data—a political science system that tracks congressional roll-call votes—the ideological gap between the average Democrat and average Republican is wider than it has been at any point in the last 50 years.

•"Sorting" of the Electorate: Voters have increasingly "sorted" themselves. In the past, a person’s political party didn’t automatically predict their religion, race, geography, or cultural values. Today, these identities have aligned almost perfectly. This means political disagreements are no longer just about policy (like tax rates); they are tied to a person's fundamental sense of identity and worldview.

•The Rise of Partisan Hostility: Affective polarization has skyrocketed. Pew Research Center polling shows that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who view the opposing party not just as wrong, but as "immoral" and a threat to the nation’s well-being, has doubled over the last few decades.

•An Exceptional U.S. Trend: A study by researchers at Brown University found that while polarization has risen globally, the rise of affective polarization in the United States over the last 40 years has been significantly faster and more severe than in other major democracies, such as the UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia.

2. Compared to the Deep Past: No, but It Is Creeping Toward Historical Highs

When looking back at the entirety of American history, today's division is not the absolute worst it has ever been, though it is approaching the highest levels of congressional division ever recorded.

•The Civil War Era (1850s–1860s): This remains the absolute peak of American polarization. The country split geographically over the moral and economic institution of slavery, leading to formal secession and a war that claimed more than 600,000 lives. While today’s divisions are deep, they have not resulted in a comparable territorial split or large-scale military conflict.

•The Gilded Age and Reconstruction (Late 19th Century): Following the Civil War, the late 1870s and 1880s featured a Congress that was as ideologically polarized and gridlocked as the Congress of the 21st century. Partisan newspapers from this era were openly biased, political corruption was rampant, and physical fights occasionally broke out on the floor of Congress.

•The Late 1960s: The era of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement was characterized by immense social unrest, riots, and high-profile political assassinations (including Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy). However, political scientists note that while societal tension was incredibly high, party polarization was different; major legislation (like the Civil Rights Act) was passed with bipartisan coalitions, which is nearly impossible in today's sorted landscape.

Why Does It Feel Worse Today?

If we aren't at Civil War-level division, why does the current political climate feel uniquely suffocating?

1.The "Golden Age of Bipartisanship" Anomaly: The mid-20th century (roughly the 1940s through the 1970s) was actually a historical anomaly of low polarization. Due to the shared national experiences of the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War, the parties operated with a high degree of cooperation. Because this cooperative era is within living memory and is often depicted as the historical "norm," today's gridlock feels like an unprecedented breakdown rather than a return to the historic mean.

2.The Nationalization of News and Culture: In the past, "all politics was local." Today, the decline of local newspapers and the rise of partisan cable news, nationalized social media algorithms, and echo chambers have turned local issues into national cultural battles. As a result, even everyday, non-political topics can quickly become polarized.

3.No "Safety Valve": In the 19th and early 20th centuries, even when the parties were polarized, they were not perfectly sorted. There were always cross-cutting cleavages (e.g., a conservative and a liberal might still belong to the same church or union). Today, because partisan identity is tied to geographic, cultural, and religious identities, there are very few shared spaces where people can interact across the political divide without their politics getting in the way.

Summary

If you compare today to the 1950s or 1970s, yes—political polarization is vastly worse and has reached levels unseen in living memory. However, if you compare today to the 1860s, the country is not as deeply divided as it was when it literally tore itself apart. Political scientists generally view our current era as a return to the high-conflict, highly polarized norms of the late 19th century, but with a modern, highly nationalized media ecosystem that amplifies the division to a degree never seen before.

Citations (12)

1wikipedia.orgEncyclopedias and referencequality 0.83
wikipedia.org
Backs: “To answer whether political polarization is worse today than in the past, political scientists and historians make a key distinction between two different types of division:”
2facinghistory.orgNonprofits and think tanks
facinghistory.org
Backs: “Ideological Polarization: The distance between the policy positions of the two major parties.”
3brown.eduAcademic
brown.edu
Backs: “Affective Polarization: The degree of mutual dislike, distrust, and hostility that partisans feel toward members of the opposing party.”
4usc.eduAcademic
usc.edu
Backs: “Whether today's polarization is "worse" depends entirely on which era of the past you are comparing it to.”
5brookings.eduNonprofits and think tanks
brookings.edu
Backs: “Whether today's polarization is "worse" depends entirely on which era of the past you are comparing it to.”
6pewresearch.orgNonprofits and think tanks
pewresearch.org
Backs: “The Death of the Political Moderate: In the 1970s, the two parties had significant ideological overlap. There were conservative southern Democrats and liberal northern Republicans.”
7cam.ac.ukAcademic
cam.ac.uk
Backs: “"Sorting" of the Electorate: Voters have increasingly "sorted" themselves. In the past, a person’s political party didn’t automatically predict their religion, race, geography, or cultural values.”
8stanford.eduAcademic
stanford.edu
Backs: “In the past, a person’s political party didn’t automatically predict their religion, race, geography, or cultural values. Today, these identities have aligned almost perfectly.”
9syr.eduAcademic
syr.edu
Backs: “Pew Research Center polling shows that the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who view the opposing party not just as wrong, but as "immoral" and a threat to the nation’s well-being, has doubled over the last few decades. An Exceptional U.S.”
10usc.eduAcademic
usc.edu
Backs: “When looking back at the entirety of American history, today's division is not the absolute worst it has ever been, though it is approaching the highest levels of congressional division ever recorded. The Civil War Era (1850s–1860s): This remains the absolute peak of American polarization.”
11amacad.orgNonprofits and think tanks
amacad.org
Backs: “The "Golden Age of Bipartisanship" Anomaly: The mid-20th century (roughly the 1940s through the 1970s) was actually a historical anomaly of low polarization. Due to the shared national experiences of the Great Depression, World War II, and the early Cold War, the parties operated with a high degree of cooperation.”
12youtube.comSocial media and video
youtube.com
Backs: “As a result, even everyday, non-political topics can quickly become polarized. No "Safety Valve": In the 19th and early 20th centuries, even when the parties were polarized, they were not perfectly sorted.”