Economic Divisions and Political Polarization in Red and Blue America

polarization is strongest among political activists (duh!), and that much of the observed partisan disagreement reflects a deep divide not so much among voters as between Democratic and Republican politicians .On individual issues or clusters of issues, Americans are not much more polarized now than 30 years ago. But issue attitudes are much more closely tied to party identification and self-declared liberal–conservative ideology. As a nation, we have become much more polarized in our views of the major political parties, without there being much of a move to the extremes on the issues themselves. Voters—especially those with higher levels of education and political involvement—have sorted themselves into parties based on political ideology.