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

Short answer: Yes—by most measures, especially in the U.S., but with important nuances

Political polarization today is generally considered worse than at almost any point in modern history, though scholars distinguish between different types of polarization, and some caution against overly simplistic "worse than ever" narratives.

The case that it's worse than ever

Elite/Congressional polarization: A Pew Research Center analysis finds that, on average, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years. Both parties have grown more ideologically cohesive—there are now only about two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans left on Capitol Hill, versus more than 160 in 1971-72. Some researchers even go further back: ideological distance between the parties began to grow during the 1970s to the extent that Congress is now more polarized than at any time since the late 1870s Reconstruction Era.

Public/mass polarization: Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in recent history. The ideological middle has been shrinking for decades—over the past twenty years, the number of Americans in the "tails" of this ideological distribution has doubled from 10% to 21%, while the center has shrunk: 39% currently take a roughly equal number of liberal and conservative positions.

Partisan hostility (the "affective" dimension): This may be the starkest trend. Pew Research Center polling reveals a sharp rise in partisan hostility: in 2022, 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats viewed the opposing party as more immoral than other Americans—up dramatically from 47% and 35% in 2016. Public perception matches this: a September 2024 Gallup poll found that a record 80 percent of U.S. adults believe Americans are greatly divided on the most important values, while just 18 percent believe the country is united.

Recent ideological shifts: In 2024, the shares of Republicans identifying as conservative and Democrats identifying as liberal both reached record highs.

International context: This isn't purely a U.S. phenomenon. In the past decade, political scientists have uncovered a similar trend across the globe—not just in countries with two dominating political parties but in nations with diverse societal compositions, from well-established multiparty democracies like Switzerland, Denmark and New Zealand, to emerging economies like Bulgaria, Turkey, the Czech Republic and Poland. The U.S. stands out even here: the US has experienced the most rapid growth in affective polarization among the general electorate since 1980 among the 12 OECD countries considered in a 2024 study, with five other countries experiencing smaller increases in polarization, and six experiencing declines.

Important caveats

Not everyone agrees polarization is unprecedented or that it means what people assume:

Bottom line

If you're asking about elite polarization in Congress and emotional/tribal hostility between ordinary partisans, the data strongly supports "yes, this is genuinely unusual by modern historical standards"—arguably the worst since the late 19th century or, by some measures, since the Civil War era. But if you're asking whether Americans disagree more on actual policy substance than in the past, the evidence is much less clear, and some scholars argue the "worse than ever" framing overstates how novel today's divisions really are.