Never So Divided?

In a famous poll a few years ago, half the Americans surveyed said George W. Bush was a "uniter" while the other half called him a "divider." A recent Pew survey finds that the stark divide among partisans has continued and increased, with an amazing 60-point gap between Democrats' and Republicans' approvals of Barack Obama (as compared with differences in the 20s when Nixon and Carter assumed their presidencies, gradually increasing to a 50-point gap in approval of George W. Bush at the beginning of his term.

These divergent views represent sorting as much as they indicate partisanship. As an economist colleague of mine writes:

It is not that the nation is more partisan today but that the voting population has now realigned themselves in a way that they associate with the party that represents their views. The obvious examples are southern Democrats and New England Republicans. It would not be surprising that Richard Nixon had strong Democratic support given the nature of the Southern Democratic party. Those Democrats are now Republicans and as would be expected do not support Obama.

Similarly, views of partisans on specific issues have diverged. Here are average positions of self-declared Democrats, Republicans, and independents on abortion (on a scale in which 1 implies complete illegality and 4 implies complete restriction):

Views on economic and foreign policy questions have moved apart as well. Republican and Democratic voters differed more over the Iraq war in 2006 than in 2003, and even at the start of the war they differed much more than supporters of the two parties did on the Korean and Vietnam wars. It will be interesting to see how the positions of partisans on economic and foreign policy dilemmas change as Obama and the Democrats necessarily will have to shift from critics to defenders of the system.