> the partisan divide in Congress now is far greater than it was
> 30 or 40 years ago
People often say this, but I can't quite figure out what they mean by it. Is there any way to quantify it? Maybe more votes go along party lines. Do they? But what if the important votes don't? Symbolic votes go party-line, war funding and police state stuff go all bipartisan on yo ass. How do you weight the votes for importance?
Sometimes I think this loose talk about the 'partisan divide' is even shallower than that, and merely refers to a higher noise level, more extravagant rhetoric, and a diminution of Congressional 'courtesy' -- the latter being a phrase that would make a cat laugh, as my grandmother used to say.
But even if that's true -- and I wonder whether it is; anybody remember Charles Sumner? -- even if it's true, isn't that exactly what you'd expect in a situation where the actual important differences had diminished?
There's a proverb about the bitterness of the conflict being inversely proportional to the value of the stakes. The furious hatreds that develop in college English departments being one of the loci classici.