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

Short answer: Yes, in important ways — but with real nuance

By most empirical measures, affective polarization (how much Americans dislike the other side, as opposed to how much they disagree on issues) is at or near its highest level in the modern polling era, and it's gotten dramatically worse over the last 30-50 years.

The evidence for "worse than ever"

Feelings toward the opposing party have become much more hostile. Levels of affective polarization have risen more than two-fold since the 1970s, with the gap between Americans' ratings of their own party and the opposing party widening from 27 points in 1978 to 56 points by 2020 on feeling-thermometer surveys.

Ideological overlap between the parties has essentially vanished. The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades, and as a result, 92% of Republicans are now to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.

In Congress specifically, following a period of a much more balanced Congress during the middle of the 20th century, 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. Looking at voting records, since the post–Civil War era, polarization levels have shown considerable volatility, and the contemporary level is a record—though Congress has "recovered" from earlier periods of high polarization before.

Recent 2026 data shows this intensifying further. A Gallup analysis found in 2026, only 12% of Democrats are satisfied with the system of government, compared with 24% of independents and 52% of Republicans — the first time in the past 25 years that any party dipped below 20% satisfaction. One analysis of partisan approval gaps found an 80-point partisan gap in Trump approval, the highest recorded in the modern polling era, compared to 70 points for Obama and 60 points for Clinton.

The important caveats

Bottom line

If you're asking about emotional/tribal hostility and elite-level (Congress, media, activists) division, the data strongly supports "yes, worse than in living memory" — arguably the worst since Reconstruction. If you're asking whether ordinary Americans disagree more on actual policy substance, the picture is more mixed: people are sorted into teams and dislike the other team more than ever, but don't necessarily disagree on policy as much as the tribal hostility would suggest. This is sometimes called the "polarization paradox" — division on affect/identity running well ahead of division on issues.