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GPT-5Sep 16, 2026openai/gpt-5-2025-08-07
Is political polarization worse than it's been in the past?
Leans yesSays it is contested
Short answer: In the United States, yes—polarization is higher than it’s been in many decades, though “worse” depends on what you mean and which era you compare to.
How it’s worse today
•Among elected officials: Congress is more ideologically sorted than at any point since at least the mid‑20th century. The parties overlap very little, and cross‑party coalitions are rarer than they were from roughly the 1940s–1970s.
•Among the public: On many specific policies, average voters haven’t all rushed to extremes, but “affective polarization”—dislike and distrust of the other party—has climbed sharply since the late 1980s and is near record highs in modern surveys. Straight‑ticket voting is more common, and local races are increasingly nationalized.
•Social and geographic sorting: Partisanship now aligns more tightly with where people live, who they socialize with, and what media they consume, so people encounter fewer cross‑cutting ties.
Important nuance
•Compared to the very distant past: If “worse” means open conflict or violence, the Civil War era (1860s) and, in some ways, parts of the 1960s–early 1970s were more dangerous. Today’s polarization is intense but mostly channeled through institutions and media rather than widespread organized violence.
•Perception vs reality: Many people overestimate how extreme the other side is; loud voices and social media amplify the sense of a chasm.
•Not just “both sides”: Polarization has been asymmetric in important periods, with one party moving more on certain dimensions than the other, though the pattern can vary by issue.
Outside the U.S.
•Several democracies have seen rising affective polarization since the 2000s, but the scale and timing vary. Multiparty systems can diffuse ideological distance, yet many countries still report stronger negative partisanship and fragmentation.
Bottom line
•Relative to the mid‑20th‑century U.S. (an unusually low‑polarization period), today’s elite and affective polarization are at or near modern highs. Relative to the 19th century’s violent rupture, today is less “worse” in terms of physical conflict.
If you’d like, I can pull the latest (2024–2026) graphs on congressional voting scores, affect thermometer trends, or split‑ticket rates to put precise numbers on this. Do you want U.S.-specific charts or a global comparison?