Yes, by multiple standard measures—especially elite/congressional polarization, partisan sorting, and affective polarization—it is worse in the US than in the recent past (post-WWII through the 1980s/1990s), though not unprecedented in all of American history.
Elite and Congressional Polarization
Political scientists track this rigorously with tools like DW-NOMINATE scores (based on roll-call votes). These show:
•The ideological distance between the median Democrat and Republican in Congress has widened steadily since the 1970s and is now at levels last seen around the late 19th/early 20th century or Reconstruction era.
•Overlap between the parties has essentially vanished: the most conservative Democrats are now to the left of the most liberal Republicans on the main economic/racial dimension. This is a sharp change from the mid-20th century, when conservative Southern Democrats and liberal/moderate Republicans created substantial cross-party overlap and bipartisan deal-making.
•Party unity scores are high; filibusters, messaging bills, and procedural warfare are routine. This is well-documented in work by Poole, Rosenthal, McCarty, and others, and visible in NOMINATE plots over decades.
This is not just "rhetoric." It reflects real sorting on economics, race, culture, and government size after the Civil Rights realignment, the rise of movement conservatism, and later progressive shifts.
Public Opinion and Partisan Sorting
•Issue polarization and sorting: Pew Research and ANES data show growing gaps between self-identified Democrats and Republicans on government role, race, immigration, guns, abortion, and more. People have sorted more cleanly into parties by ideology, religion, geography, and education (the "big sort"). Independents exist, but leaners behave like partisans. The mass public is less uniformly extreme than activists/elites, but the distribution has bimodalized more than in the 1950s–1970s.
•Average citizens hold mixed views more often than cable news implies, yet the correlation of issues with party has strengthened. Liberals and conservatives are rarer in the "wrong" party.
•Recent decades show Democrats moving left on social/cultural issues and identity more rapidly in some surveys, while Republicans consolidated rightward earlier on economics and size of government; both contribute to the gap.
Affective Polarization (Dislike of the Other Side)
This has risen markedly. Measures from Iyengar, Abramowitz, Webster, and others (feeling thermometers, marriage disapproval, trait ratings) show partisans view the opposing party as a greater threat, more immoral, or less intelligent than in the 1980s. "Negative partisanship" (voting against the other side) often exceeds positive attachment. Social media and partisan media amplify this, but the trend predates Twitter. Trust in institutions has fallen along partisan lines.
Historical Context—Not the Absolute Peak of All Time
•Worse than the mid-20th century consensus era: Yes. The 1940s–1960s had lower measured polarization partly due to the New Deal coalition and shared external threats; that was unusually low.
•Not worse than every prior period: The 1850s–1860s (slavery/Civil War), late 19th century Gilded Age conflicts, and parts of the Progressive Era/early 20th century featured extreme sectional, economic, and sometimes violent polarization. Political violence, assassinations, and institutional breakdown were worse then. Today's polarization is high-stakes and culturally totalizing for many, but operates inside a wealthier, more stable institutional framework with lower rates of political murder than the 1960s–1970s.
•Cross-nationally, many democracies show rising polarization; the US stands out for its two-party structure, primary systems, and cultural flashpoints.
Caveats and Measurement
Polarization is multi-dimensional (economic, social/cultural, affective). Some "polarization" is actually clarification after earlier muddled coalitions. Media incentives, geographic sorting, educational divides, and declining cross-cutting identities (unions, mainline churches, etc.) accelerate it. Surveys can overstate extremity via expressive responding. Still, behavioral data (donations, voting patterns, residential sorting, Congress) confirm the trend is real, not just vibes.
In short, relative to living memory and the post-1945 baseline most Americans use, yes—it is worse and has structural features (nationalized parties, sorted coalitions, low trust) that make de-escalation hard. For primary sources, see Pew's long-term gap studies, DW-NOMINATE visualizations, ANES time series, and books/papers by Fiorina (more skeptical of mass polarization), Abramowitz, or McCarty et al.