Summary Of Political Polarization In American Politics

Words: 377
Pages: 2

Chapters one through five in Political Polarization in American Politics explain what Americans know about polarization in politics as well as how the state legislature is becoming more polarized. In class, we learned that America is polarized, and this reading supports that idea. Polarization is the distance between the middle of the Democratic and Republican views. As views move farther to the left or right, polarization increases. The polarization is not equal but rather asymmetrical and has occurred throughout American history since the early development political parties. A graph on page three shows that during the late 1930s and early 1940’s, polarization was approximately 0.2. However, in 2006 polarization rose to over 1 in the House