Surely that is part of the story. but there is much more to say. First. the political polarization beyond Washington is so often overstated. We could talk about the election of 1800. the runup to the Civil War. the response to Catholic immigration waves at the beginning of the last century. the bloodiest summers of the Civil Rights movement. the experience of troops returning from Vietnam. if you want to mark some really highwater marks of political polarization in American life. Second. civic disengagement is arguably a much larger problem than political polarization. It isnt so much that most regular folks we run into back home are really locked into predictably Republican and predictably Democratic positions on every issue. it is that they tuned us out altogether.
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