John Avlon: Hyper-partisanship is hurting us all

It's not just Congress that can't seem to reach across party lines anymore – a new Pew Research poll has found that Americans are more polarized in their political beliefs now than at any other point in the last twenty-five years.

Consensus between Democrats and Republicans on a whole range of issues is slipping further and further out of reach, a reality reflected in the lack of any meaningful bipartisan legislation emerging from Congress.

But in his latest column for CNN Opinion, John Avlon points out a bright spot – the poll found the number of self-described independents is at its highest point in 75 years.

John Avlon is a CNN contributor, OutFront political strike team member, and senior columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Hyper-partisanship dragging down nation

It's not your imagination: Our politics are more polarized than at any point in recent history.

That's the conclusion of a new survey from the indispensable Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. And if you needed more evidence of the passionate and sometimes poisonous polarization afflicting our nation, you didn't have to look further than the crowds in Wisconsin on Tuesday night after the recall attempt.

Here's the real wake-up call: Americans are more divided about partisan politics right now than they are about race, class, gender and age. That's right: Forget the original sin of slavery and the longstanding fights over civil rights - those old divisions now seem small compared with perceptions of whether a person is a Republican or Democrat.

FULL POST