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

Is polarization worse than ever? I'll pull the latest historical data to compare today to the past.

Is political polarization worse than in the past? The answer depends on what time period you compare to:

Compared to the last 50-70 years: Yes - it is at a modern high

Most researchers agree polarization has increased sharply since the 1970s-1990s and is now at its highest level in the modern era.

•Pew Research Center analysis found that Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than at any time in the past 50 years.

•Pew also found that the partisan divide on key issues has grown significantly over the past two decades, and that since the 1990s, American political polarization has sharply increased, with Democrats and Republicans moving further apart.

•The share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%.

•Ideological overlap between the parties has largely disappeared: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican. Twenty years earlier those figures were 64% and 70%.

•Affective polarization - viewing the other party as "very unfavorable" - has soared from about 20 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.

•Partisan animosity has similarly more than doubled since 1994.

By measures of elite / congressional polarization, the trend is the same:

•Although there have been eras of deep polarization in the country’s history, the increase in polarization that has developed since 1970 has resulted in the most polarized Congress seen in modern times.

•Voteview data showed the 111th House was the most polarized in post-Civil War history — with the 110th House the second most polarized and the 109th House the third most polarized.

Scholars generally agree on three key points about polarization, first that the U.S. Congress is more polarized ideologically than it was a generation ago, and Michigan State professor Zachary Neal found polarization has been steadily getting worse since the early 1970s, hitting a ceiling today.

Compared to all of American history: No - the Civil War era was worse

Historians argue current divisions pale in comparison to earlier periods, especially the 1850s-1860s.

•"The most divisive time in our history was in the years leading up to the Civil War," according to American political history expert Randall Miller, when "representatives carried weapons into Congress".

•University of Virginia Civil War historian Gary W. Gallagher says current divisions pale in comparison to those of the mid-19th century. It has become common to say the United States in 2020 is more divided politically and culturally than at any other point in our national past, but that claim ignores the Civil War period.

•Between Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 and the surrender of Robert E. Lee's Confederate army, the nation literally broke apart, with more than 3 million men taking up arms and at least 620,000 military deaths — the equivalent of approximately 6.5 million dead in the United States of 2020.

•Other examples illustrate the difference: On May 22, 1856, U.S. Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina caned Sen. Charles Sumner into bloody insensibility on the floor of the Senate, and after a Republican president was elected in 1860, seven slaveholding states seceded between Dec. 20 and Feb. 1, 1861. No political issue in 2020 approaches slavery in the mid-19th century in terms of potential divisiveness.

As one historical overview notes, "for all the hype about the ruptures and partisan rancor in contemporary American society, the strife pales in comparison with much of the nation's past. There have been long stretches of American history in which conflicts were far worse".

Bottom line

•In the modern polling era (since ~1950s-1970s) and by measures of ideological consistency, partisan antipathy, and congressional voting, the U.S. is more polarized than at any point in the last 50-70 years.

•In the full sweep of U.S. history, the late 1850s-1860s, and other periods like the Founding era and the 1960s-1970s, saw more fundamental and violent divisions.

Researchers also note that while elites and the most politically engaged have become much more polarized, the mass public is less uniformly divided than it appears - "Political groups have moved further apart in recent years, but these divisions are still fuzzy, and Americans are not split into entirely opposing tribes when it comes to the issues".

Citations (3)

1britishreporter.comNot yet classified
Political Polarization in the American Public
Backs: “Pew also found that the partisan divide on key issues has grown significantly over the past two decades, and that since the 1990s, American political polarization has sharply increased, with Democrats and Republicans moving further apart. The share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently…”
2sju.eduAcademic
Are We Really Living in the Most Divisive Time in American History?
Backs: “Historians argue current divisions pale in comparison to earlier periods, especially the 1850s-1860s. "The most divisive time in our history was in the years leading up to the Civil War," according to American political history expert Randall Miller, when "representatives carried weapons into Congress".”
3govexec.comNews and mediaquality 0.87
Think the U.S. is More Polarized Than Ever? You Don’t Know History
Backs: “"The most divisive time in our history was in the years leading up to the Civil War," according to American political history expert Randall Miller, when "representatives carried weapons into Congress". University of Virginia Civil War historian Gary W.”