Look How Far We’ve Come Apart

In the witches’ brew of fearmongering, unkeepable promises and poll-tested metaphors that both parties serve up to the electorate every four years, you can always find this predictable dash of inspiration: the image of Americans uniting and working together for the sake of the country. President Obama said in Charlotte, N.C. that America is “about what can be done by us, together.” In Tampa, Paul Ryan said, “Whatever your political party, let’s come together for the sake of our country.” And Mitt Romney closed his convention speech with three invocations of “That America, that united America.”

But America is not united and it is getting less and less unitable with each passing decade. You can see us coming apart in three simple graphs.

The first graph shows the intensity of the divisions in Congress. The political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal have quantified the degree to which the parties have become ideologically homogeneous and separated from each other along a single left-right dimension. High numbers mean that the parties are polarized — House and Senate votes are very predictable, even on issues that have little to do with traditional dividing points like the size and scope of government. Low numbers mean that votes are more mixed and less predictable — there’s more room for bipartisan coalitions and compromise on specific issues.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/look-how-far-weve-come-apart/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120918