The Forces Tearing Us Apart Are Not Quite What They Seem

A toxic combination of racial resentment and the sharp regional disparity in economic growth between urban and rural America is driving the class upheaval in American partisanship, with the Republican Party dominant in working-class House districts and the Democratic Party winning a decisive majority of upscale House seats.

Studies from across the left-right spectrum reveal these and other patterns: a nation politically divided by levels of diversity; the emergence of an ideologically consistent liberal Democratic Party matching the consistent conservatism of the Republican Party, for the first time in recent history; and a striking discrepancy in the median household income of white-majority House districts held by Democrats and Republicans. CONTINUED

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times


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