The U.S. Has Never Felt This Divided. History Suggests Otherwise.

As Americans draw political battle lines over everything from mask-wearing to immigration policy to post-election ballot-counting, it can feel as if the nation’s never been so ideologically divided. But historians say that Americans have always been deeply split on major policy issues — it’s just that those splits haven’t fallen along partisan lines as sharply as they do today. We’ll look at past instances of U.S. electoral and political strife to help understand and address today’s disunity.