It ' s not an exaggeration . Sadly , things are super polarized now and have been for what seems like the last two decades . It ' s not only causing divisions in the country , it ' s the main reason why our government has been so schizophrenic in its policies e . g . we ' re totally against environmental reform , now we ' re all for it ! or let ' s establish a logical path to award the children of illegal immigrants citizenship , no we ' re deporting them ! . I know I ' ve read studies on this , though no particular article comes to mind . What is indisputable is that this trend has its origins in the 1970 s , when income inequality began its steady creep upward . We ' ve lost a lot of manufacturing jobs , our working class has been obliterated , debt is higher than ever , and one study shows that the richest 10 % has a far greater chance of getting favorable legislation passed than the rest of the country . There ' s more to this than economics , but as ever money is a major part of it . There ' s also generational creep to consider , with prodrug , prochoice , proLGBTQ , prodiversity factions scaring the bejeezus out of prolife , prowhite conservatives . So now what ' s happening is that , since our politicians are never getting voted out of office and seem to have no desire to help us fix our crumbling infrastructure or play nice with the progressive policies of our international neighbors , we ' re turning on each other . When things are good and the money ' s rolling in , people are fine letting other people have opinions . But when it ' s impossible to pay rent on stagnant wages and everyone else looks like they ' re doing increasingly better than you , people break into tribes . Howard Zinn wrote an interesting essay where he describes the original whiteblack relations in colonial America , and how originally both were poor and working class and socialized freely . When landholders saw what was going on , they fomented racial conflict to keep the poor , free whites and the poor , free blacks divided . I don ' t see much difference in the politics of today . Note Am peaceloving , sexobsessed , proabortion , sometimes vegan , progressive hippy chick .