Is there a way beyond hyperpartisanship?

Princeton University professor Kevin M. Kruse has focused his research on modern American political and social history. His most recent book (written with Julian Zelizer) is Fault Lines: A History of the United States since 1974, which describes the emergence of stark political polarization and sharp conflicts over race, class, gender, and sexuality. Kruse has written for the Washington Post and other newspapers and regularly offers historical context to current events in his Twitter feed. His other books include White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (2005) and One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (2015).

In Fault Lines you trace some key developments in politics and media that have led to the increased polarization of American society since the 1970s. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were also a time of intense polarization—including the rise of a much celebrated counterculture. Are we more polarized than that era?

There was stark polarization in the late 1960s and early 1970s as Americans found themselves divided over such issues as civil rights, the Vietnam War, and feminism. But in that era the two major political parties were still ideologically diverse—there were large numbers of conservative Democrats and there were liberal and moderate Republicans. Today, our polarized public has sorted itself into discrete political camps, a development that amplifies the differences in society.