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

Short answer: Yes, by most measures — especially in the US, and especially in terms of how people feel about the other side, rather than how far apart their actual policy views are.

The evidence for "worse than ever"

Current data points to record levels. As of 2025, polarization was higher than any point in current history, causing less collaboration and mutual understanding between Democrats and Republicans, and members of both political parties increasingly view each other in an extremely negative way. Gallup found that in 2025 the percentage of Americans self-identifying as politically moderate reached a record low of 34%.

Long-term academic research confirms the trend. A major cross-country study of affective polarization (dislike of the opposing party) found that the US experienced the largest increase in polarization of twelve OECD countries studied over the past four decades, while five countries experienced a smaller increase. The numbers are striking: in 1978, the average partisan rated in-party members 27.4 points higher than out-party members on a 0–100 "feeling thermometer," but by 2020 the difference was 56.3 — more than double.

This is a specifically American (and recent) phenomenon. A Cambridge study tracking US opinion since the Reagan era found divisions within the US population on social and political issues have increased by 64% since 1988, with almost all this coming after 2008. Globally, the researchers found no clear evidence that opinion polarization is increasing on a global scale — this appears to be a US-specific surge.

Trust and satisfaction gaps are at record highs too. Brookings data shows a record 40-point gap between Republicans' and Democrats' satisfaction with the system of government, and a 46 percentage-point gap between Republicans' and Democrats' evaluations of their quality of life — exceeding any prior partisan gap.

Important caveats

History had its own brutal periods. The Gilded Age of the late 19th century (c. 1870–1900) is considered one of the most politically polarized periods in American history, with open political violence and highly polarized political discourse. And after the bitterly contested 2004 election, historian Simon Schama noted the US had not been so polarized since the Civil War — so comparisons to "ever" often implicitly exclude the Civil War era itself, which was obviously far more extreme.

The gap is more emotional than ideological. Research increasingly distinguishes two types: Americans are very emotionally polarized (affective polarization) — in other words, "they do not like members of the other party." But on actual policy, other research suggests Americans are less polarized than they think, and that there is "significant ideological overlap and agreement on policies."

A lot of it may be perception, not reality. Recent reporting highlights this "messy middle" phenomenon: political researchers say America is deeply polarized politically, but that the problem is not as extreme as people think — surveys show there is a messy majority in the middle who share views that cross partisan lines. One researcher noted "our perceived polarization far outstrips the actual polarization." Much of this comes from elite cues: much of the polarization that escalated in recent decades was largely driven by misperceptions about ordinary partisans, since the political leaders who receive the most media attention are usually the more extreme members of their party, leading people to wrongly assume ordinary partisans hold the same views — rarely the case except among the most extreme voters.

Where the divergence is sharpest. Ideological polarization is felt most strongly among those who are the most politically engaged, such as progressive activists and extreme conservatives — the loudest, most online voices are not representative of most people.

Bottom line

In the modern polling era (since roughly the 1970s-90s), yes — partisan animosity in the US is measurably at or near all-time highs, and this is a global outlier rather than a universal trend. But if you zoom out to all of American history, earlier eras (the 1850s-60s leading to the Civil War, the Gilded Age) likely still take the prize for sheer polarization and violence. And a good chunk of today's "polarization" is driven by people overestimating how extreme the other side actually is, rather than true, irreconcilable differences in values.