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 generally divide the answer into two parts: Yes, it is worse than at any point in living memory (the post-World War II era), but no, it has not yet reached the absolute peak of American history (the Civil War era).

To understand where today’s political climate sits in historical context, it helps to look at how polarization is measured, how it compares to different eras, and why today’s division feels uniquely intense.

1. How Polarization is Measured

Researchers generally divide polarization into two categories:

While ideological polarization has steadily grown since the 1970s, affective polarization has skyrocketed. According to long-term polling (such as the American National Election Studies), the "feeling thermometer" toward the opposing party has dropped to record lows. Voters do not just disagree with the other side; they increasingly view them as morally compromised or a threat to the nation.

2. Historical Comparisons

The Mid-20th Century (1950s–1970s): The Low-Polarization Anomaly

For many people, the benchmark of "normal" politics is the mid-20th century, a period characterized by relative bipartisan cooperation. However, historians view this era as a historical anomaly.

During this time, the two major parties were not ideologically cohesive. The Democratic Party contained both liberal northern reformers and highly conservative southern segregationists. The Republican Party had both conservative midwesterners and liberal northeasterners. Because of this massive ideological overlap, cross-party coalitions were common, and polarization was low. Because this era is within living memory, today’s sharp division feels unprecedented to many who lived through it.

The Gilded Age and Reconstruction (Late 19th Century)

If we look back to the late 19th century, we find a period where elite polarization (measured by how members of Congress voted) was nearly as high as it is today.

During the Gilded Age, voting in Congress was strictly along party lines. However, political scientists note a key difference: much of that polarization was driven by battles over "spoils"—patronage, government jobs, and regional power—rather than deeply divided worldviews on social or national policy. Today's division, by contrast, is deeply ideological and covers almost every facet of cultural, economic, and social life.

The Civil War Era (1850s–1860s): The Absolute Peak

The undisputed peak of political polarization in U.S. history was the decade leading up to and including the American Civil War. Polarization during this era was defined by a fundamental, existential disagreement over slavery.

This polarization was:

While today’s political rhetoric is highly charged, the U.S. has not reached the level of formal secession, state-on-state military mobilization, or institutional collapse seen in the 1860s.

3. Why Today's Polarization Feels Uniquely Worse: "Mega-Identities"

Even though the U.S. is not in a civil war, today's polarization feels uniquely suffocating because of a phenomenon called political sorting.

In the past, a person’s political party was just one of many identities. A voter might have been a conservative Democrat, a union-member Republican, a religious liberal, or a secular conservative. Over the last 40 years, these identities have aligned into "mega-identities."

Today, if you know someone's stance on a single issue (like gun control or church attendance), you can predict with high accuracy their political party, where they live (urban vs. rural), what media they consume, and even their lifestyle choices. When political party aligns perfectly with race, religion, geography, and culture, every political disagreement begins to feel like an existential fight over personal identity.

4. Is the U.S. Unique?

Research suggests that while polarization is rising in many parts of the world, the United States is an outlier among wealthy democracies. A prominent study by researchers at Brown, Stanford, and other universities found that affective polarization has grown much faster and more intensely in the U.S. over the last four decades than in peer countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, or Australia. Scholars attribute this to the U.S.'s strict two-party system (which forces a binary "us vs. them" choice), the rise of highly partisan media, and deep-seated demographic shifts.

Summary

If you compare today to the last 50 to 70 years, polarization is objectively worse than it has been in any of our lifetimes. If you compare today to the entirety of American history, we are living through an era of polarization that rivals the Gilded Age in legislative gridlock and emotional hostility, though it still falls short of the physical and geographic rupture of the Civil War.