One Nation, Divided…
Political Polarization: the stance of an individual on a given issue, policy or a person
being strictly defined by their identification with a particular political party. According to
Christopher Ingraham’s article, “However divided you think our politics are, this chart shows
that it’s actually way worse”, political polarization has increased immensely over the past 20
years. Chris mentions that the study thoroughly analyzed the congressional record dating back to
the year 1873! From the year 1870 to about the 1990s, people listening would have a fifty-fifty
chance of guessing a speaker’s party based on a one minute speech. Around 1994, however, the
probability of guessing a speaker’s party jumped up to 83 percent. During the analysis,
researchers attempted to find phrases that would make it harder to infer a speaker’s political
stance if removed: “illegal immigrant” and “higher taxes” which were associated with
