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

Is polarization worse now? I'll dig into the data comparing today to past decades.

Yes, by almost every measurable standard of the last 50-100 years - but with important historical nuance.

1. Compared to the last 50 years, yes - significantly worse

Researchers distinguish between two types of polarization:

Both have risen sharply since the 1970s-1990s.

A Pew Research Center analysis from 2022 found the perception that polarization has increased is correct: Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years

Other Pew long-term data:

Using a "feeling thermometer" from 0 to 100, researchers found that in 1978, the average American rated the members of their own political party 27 points higher than members of the other major party. By 2016, Americans were rating their own party 45.9 points higher than the other party, on average

> "Political polarization is higher in the United States than in any other advanced country for which we have comparable data"

A multi-country study by Brown and Stanford economists found that in the U.S., affective polarization has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in the eight other countries they examined—the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. Polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years—more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany

In Congress:

Political scientists measure this with DW-NOMINATE, which places every member of the House on a scale roughly from minus one (most liberal) to plus one (most conservative) based on their entire voting record

Behavioral consequences have also been documented: one team found that Thanksgiving dinners with Democrats and Republicans present were up to 50 minutes shorter in 2016 than in 2015

2. Compared to all of American history, no - not the worst ever

Historians consistently point to the 1850s-1860s as more polarized.

> "The most divisive time in our history was in the years leading up to the Civil War... In the mid-19th Century, differences were so profound representatives carried weapons into Congress."

As one analysis put it:

> "Polarization in the United States is worse than ever... I can think of at least one time polarization was way worse than it is now — between 1861 and 1865, when the Civil War was going on."

3. Why the mid-20th century looked less polarized

The relatively low polarization of the 1940s-1970s now appears to be a historic anomaly, not the norm

> That period was a historic anomaly -- polarization is actually returning to the historical norm last seen in the late 19th/early 20th century

> The less polarized politics of the mid-20th century were driven almost entirely by the issue of race, which created a bloc of conservative Southern Democrats who acted as a virtual third party for much of this time

During the 1960s, roughly half of each party overlapped with each other on specific issues. Today, that number has dropped to nearly zero

In other words, parties in the mid-20th century were "big tents" containing liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. What has happened is sorting - the parties have become more ideologically homogeneous, so that when you identify with a certain party and you're looking across the aisle, the people you're looking at are more different from you than they were a few decades ago

The consensus of the Walter Cronkite era was also structurally manufactured by a three-network oligopoly operating under FCC public-interest licensing requirements and the Fairness Doctrine, and spectrum scarcity that forced outlets to serve a broad, mixed audience - a very different media environment than today's.

Bottom line

Many scholars argue current polarization feels worse because it is affective - rooted in social identity and dislike rather than just policy disagreement - so partisans "may also think of them as bad people, and they appear to avoid spending time with them", even when their actual policy preferences are not as far apart as their animosity would suggest.