going to bring you his address live when that happens, for now, thank you for watching aljazeera america. i'm del walters in new york, and "inside story" is next. i can check us out 24 hours a day by going to aljazeera.com. [♪ music ] >> maybe you've already been feeling that way, but now you've got data. a report that liberals and conservatives are moving further apart it's the inside story.

>> hello, i'm ray suarez. some want answers. the way people look at how congressional districts are map may have different answers. and others may have another set of earns. the share of republicans who call themselves consistently or mostly conservative has risen, and so has the percentage of democrats who have called themselves consistently mostly liberal. in both cases more than half. is that what you see when you look around, when you look at how politics works and doesn't. that's our focus this time.

>> we believe we can seize the future together. because we're not as divided as our politics suggest. we're not as cynical as pundits believe. we are greater than the individual sum of our ambitious, and we are more than a collection of red states and blue states. we will always be and forever be the united states of america. >> president obama used that line in 2004, and it campaign part of both campaigns. the actual governing, and the rhetoric is quite different. >> i want americans to pay attention where their lawmakers loyalty lie. more tax protection for millionaires or lower student loan bills for americans. this should be a no-brainer. >> the president continues to ignore laws

. he did it again with the release of these taliban leaders. >> partisan confrontation led to a government shut down. parties right and left have thinned the ranks of what they used to call moderates. erik caeric cantor was labeled too liberal. a new pole by the pew research center shows on the left and right were more divided than in 20 years. in

1995. >> what does the middle look like? it's shrinking. in 1994 49% had mixed views. today it's 39%. it's important to point out it's still the largest group of americans there in the mixed middle, but remember it's the partisan who is are the most politically active. these numbers show our politics are getting more polarized and as a result nastier. 20 years ago 17% of republicans had unfavorable views of democrats. and 16% of democrats had u unfavorable views of republicans. those numbers are jumped to 43% and 39%. do redder reds and bluer blues threaten the well-being of the country?

the poll used that word threaten. more than one out of three republicans think so. more than one out of four democrats do, too. can the partisans and the applications they support come together to solve problems? the numbers point to why this is so tough. the majority of partisans believe their side should get the better end of the deal. it's the opposite of compromise. it's called gridlock. >> a country that's making it tough for make a deal. joining us for that conversation michael dimmick, the lead author of the new pew study. alan bromow iwiz. author. and political science at stanford university and author of "culture war, the myth of a

polarized america." we heard the president say, and the quote is our country is not as divided as our politics suggest. >> was i right? >> the majority of americans are not caught up in this kind of ideological, straight-line thinking. that's the view or the perspective of a minority of americans, but it is a growing minority, and a very vocal minority of the american public. when you layer on top of that the partisan antipathy, the us creates these logjams that become problematic. >> one of the graphs in your study that was most striking set out the average republican and the average democrat and compared them to where most of the other party is, and now sizable, huge overwhelming majorities of the other part are

to one side of the average member of the other party. >> exactly. 94% of democrats are to the left of the typical republican and median. 92% of republicans to the right of the other party. to be sure democrats ought to be a little bit to the left of republicans to the right. that's nowhere near the separation we see in congress where it's 100%. but there is growing trend with less overlap of values between the two parties. >> has there been sizable increase, one that is statistically significant of the number of people who not only think they disagree with people on the other side, but actually assign thei bad faith, bad motives, treat them with antipathy, not that they're mistaken. >> that's hard to say because getting good measures that go back over time on that kind of concept is a little bit trickier, but what we're see

something this growing sense of distance between the parties, that people see the parties, or better said the people on one side see the other party as farther away from them. and so at that point they--their sense of trust and competence that the other party is going to act in good faith, that the other party isn't really so misguided that it pose as threat to the nation as we said in this survey question, and it becomes more powerful in your mind. >> professor, you've taken a look at the american people and come up with a very different conclusion. how do you get to your place? >> i think there is less difference than you might think. i think the pew report is a very fine report. it's a very good study of public opinion over the past two decades, but i think there is confusion about it. i think the title is wrong. it's not political polarization, it's political sorting in the united states, which is very important.

what i've pointed out if you think of polarization in political terms it has not change. moderates, independents are still out there. polarization in ideological terms have not changed since the 70's, moderate is still the major category. what has happened, and al has written about this as well, sorting. increasingly liberals are in the democratic party, and liberals in the republica li, and conservatives in the republican party. the people on the consistent left are not extreme liberals. they're consistent liberals. the same thing on the right. the people in the center are not really the middle. they're people who are mixed of inconsistent attitudes. if you allow me to give an example, the index that under

lies these graphs is based on ten questions, like do you favor military strength or diplomacy? do you favor programs for the poor or not? most people don't feel 100% on one side or the other of those dichotomies. 65% military strength, 35% diplomacy. if every question were like that, i'm not going to be in the extreme liberal but consistent liberal even though i'm fairly moderate on those issues. in the news lately the right wing populist. this person may have extreme views, cut off all social programs, deport all immigrants, heavily tax. there is a tendency for people to look at these graphs and determine them to be extreme, center and extreme right when

they're consistent liberals, consistent conservatives, and people in the middle are mixed. >> with the larger number of people identified as independents in 21st century america was it inevitable that the republican and democratic party membership self identified would be more refined, more consistently committed to a certain set of party ideals? >> well, what we've actually seen is that the parties have been falling apart, and independents are actually split the same way democrats and republicans are split. one of the things that the pew report shows very clearly is that independent democrats think very similarly to other democrats, and independent republicans think very similarly to other republicans. when you include those independent leaners in with the partisan you're left with only

10% or less of the actual electorate who are truly independent, who have no preference for a party. so in fact, we've had analect rate today that is very strongly partisan, and the results of elections show that same thing. i would also like to somewhat take exception to a point that was made about growing consistency and extremism. i think that this increase in consistency over time is very significant politically, and, in fact, it's the same thing that we see in congress. the reason democrats and republicans in congress are pulling apart is because they're voting more consistently. now they get a lot of cues of how to vote, and voters will be asked survey questions don't. the consistency within the electorate is actually very significant, and it's precisely those consistent democrats and

consistent republicans or consistent conservatives and consistent liberal who is intensely dislike the other party. so this growing consistency is very closely related to this growing antipathy towards the opposing party, towards the opposing party's candidates, and even to some extent other americans who oppose th their party. >> we don't have 150 independent members of congress. you have one party or the other for the most part. we'll take a short break.

real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america.

>> welcome back to "inside story" on al jazeera. among the issues that saw changes in public opinion, driving the numbers in the pew study on political polarization is the acceptance ofhomo sexuality and the openness. as the battle conditions in the courts on gay marriage and civil right, and a battle royale shapes up, which side of the debate has the momentum. given not only where things are today as a snapshot, but the movement in the trend, are there demographic forces pushing the numbers that bode well for one questions? >> absolutely. we pointed out in culture, 10 years ago that the attitudes to homosexuality were

liberalizing because of the introduction of cohorts no the electorate drove this. gay marriage is not an issue with the younger generation, and in another 10 years we probably will not be talking about it. imgrags is tough -- immigration is tougher. with the influx of immigrants into the political system, i think the momentum is on that side. the republicans are in a tough place and need to figure out a way to deal with the issue. >> isn't some of that predicated on the idea that once political ideas are hardened, you'll get older. i thought that wasn't true. when people took on mortgages, car payment, husbands and wives, some of their political sentiments changed. >> to some extent that is true. the argument that everything is determines when you are 18 goes too far. we do experience various forms of event.

if i'm a mexican immigrant and republicans are badmouthing me, that sticks with me for a long time. it will take a while to make community. alan, when you look at demographics and the changes in political sentiment - who has the wind at their back? >> i think clearly on the social issues and especially on gay rights issues, that the public is trending in a liberal drcked. we have seen dramatic -- direction. we have seen dramatic change. there's still, however, a big divide between democrats and republicans on the issue. republicans have not trended very much on the issue, not as much as democrats and independence, creating a problem for the republican party because their base, which consists heavily of evangelicals, is on the minority side of this issue,

increasingly on the minority side of this issue. on immigration the growing hispanic population and share of the electorate is of benefit to democrats. unless and until republicans figure out a way to reach out to the growing hispanic group of voters, i think the party will find it difficult to win presidential elections. the problem again is a large part of the base is resistant to the idea of any sort of legalize ace or -- legalisation or path to citizenship for immigrants. >> michael, do you see these as dynamic questions, ones that are moving and shifting or do we reach a dwell point. much the way the country is reaching one with a patchwork of states and different marriage laws. is there a dwell point where

everyone will be where they are. to a certain extent. some of the issues have so much momentum behind them generationally, that the balance is cleerp tipping -- clearly tipping and they'll move. homosexuality is moving that way. some level of reform on immigration is moving that way. our country is more accepting of diversity, less threatened by the idea of people coming to our country and what risk that may pose to our society or economy. i think other issues like the role of government in the economy, the breadth of the social safety net, those are the issues that we have been debating in this nation for 200 years. they are really fundamental. they'll shift a little with the times. different sides will have the advantage at different moments. i don't see the debates away.

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to this new 26 billion dollar sharing economy? >> the stream on al jazeera america so earlier today, some finger pointing by the russian president over this tragedy. vladimir putin said it would never have happened if there was peace in ukraine, so he blamed ukraine for what happened here today. let's bring in glen howard. he is is the president of the james town foundation. and an expert on the region. thank you for your time. what's your reaction to kind of the name -- the blame game, and the >> del, we have largely had a preview this morning from the american ambassador, samantha power that intelligence believe separatists were responsible for bringing down this plane. again, stressing the need to maintain integrity of the crash site. in that is vital, and i think we

can expect to hear president obama say that again. >> this is the president of the united states. >> hello, everybody. yesterday malaysian airlines flight mh-17 took off from amsterdam and was shot down over ukraine near the russian border. nearly 300 innocent lives were taken. men, women, children, infants, who had nothing to do with the crisis in ukraine. their deaths are a outrage of unspeakable proportions. we know at least one american citizen, quinn lucas shansman was killed. our thoughts and prayers are with his family for this terrible loss. yesterday i spoke with the leaders of ukraine, malaysia and netherlands. i told them our thoughts and prayers are with all of the

families, and that the american people standing with them during this time. later i'll be speaking with the prime minister of australia, which offer suffered a terrible loss. by far the country that lost the most people on the plane was the netherlands. from the days of our founding the dutch have been close friends, and today i want the dutch people to know we stand with you shoulder to shoulder in our grief and determination to get to the bottom of what happened. here is what we know so far. evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by a surface to air missile that was launched by an area controlled by russian-backed separatists in eastern ukraine. this is not the first time a plane has been shot down in the

area. moreover we know that these separatists have received a steady flow of support from russia. this includes arms and training, heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weapons. here is what must happen now. this was a global tragedy. an asian airliner was destroyed in european skies filled with citizens from many countries, so there has to be a credible international investigation into what happened. the un security council has endorsed this investigation, and we will hold all of its members including russia to their word in order to facilitate that investigation. russia, pro-russian separatists and ukraine must adhere to an immediate ceasefire.

evidence must not be tampered with, investigators need to access the crash site, and the solemn task of turns those who were lost on the plane to their loved ones needs to go forward immediately. the united states standings ready to provide any assistance necessary. we have offered our support. they are on their way -- personnel from the fy and national transportation safety board. in the coming hours and days i'll continue to be in close contact with leaders ash the world. our immediate focus will be on recovering those lost, investigating exactly what happened, and putting forward the facts. there will likely be misinformation as well. i think it's very important for folks to sift through what is factually based and what is

simply speculation. no one can deny the truth that is revealed in the awful images that we all have seen. and the eyes of the world are on eastern ukraine, and we are going to make sure the truth is out. more broodly, i think it's important for us to recognize this outrageous event underscores that it is time for peace and security to be restored in ukraine. for months we have supported a pathway to piece, and the ukrainian government has reached out to all ukrainians and lived up to a ceasefire despite repeated violations by the separatists. violations that took the lives of ukrainian soldiers and personnel. more overtime and again russia has refused to take the steps necessary to de-escalate the situation. i spoke to president putin yesterday.

he said he wasn't happy with the additional ang shuns, and i told him we have been very clear from the outset that we want russia to take the path that would result in peace in ukraine, but so far, at least, russia has failed to take that path. instead it has continued to violate the ukrainian sovereignty. it has also not used its pressure to force the separatists to abide by the ceasefire. now is a somber and appropriate time for all of us to step back and take a hard look at what has happened. violence and conflict inevitably lead to unforeseen consequences. russia, these separatists, and ukraine all have the capacity to put an end to the fighting. meanwhile the united states is going to continue to lead

efforts within the world community to de-escalate the situation, standing up for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of ukraine and to support the people of ukraine as they make their own decisions about how they should move forward. before i take a couple of questions. let me remark on one other issue. this morningsy spoke to prime minister netenyahu about the situation in gaza. we discussed israel's military operation in gaza, including stopping the infiltration through tunnels. no nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders or terrorists tunnelling into its territories. in fact while i was having the conversation with prime minister netenyahu sirens went off in tel-aviv. i made it clear that the united states and our friends and allies are deeply concerned

about the risks of further escalation and further loss of life. although we support military efforts by the israelis to make sure rockets are not being fired into their territory, we also have said that our understanding is the current military ground operations are designed to deal with the tunnels, and we are hopeful that israel will continue to approach this process in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and that all of us are working hard to return to the ceasefire that was reached in november of 2012. secretary kerry is working to support egypt's initiative to pursue that outcome. i hold prime minister netenyahu that john is prepared to travel to the region following additional consultations. let me close by making