Busting the Myth of Left and Right

Everyone agrees that American politics is becoming more polarized and that there’s something dangerous about this. But the phrase “political polarization” names at least two distinct and, in some ways, competing ideas. The first idea is extremism. The Left is moving further left, and the Right is moving further right; the reasonable center cannot hold. The second idea is sorting. You talk to and read and live with the people on your “side.” Partisan sorting happens geographically, at the level of red states and blue states but even more at the level of enclaves of urban Democrats (Austin) and stretches of rural Republicans (Texas).