[♪ music ] >> maybe you've already been feeling that way, but now you've got data, a pew research report finds liberals and conservatives are moving further apart leaving less room in the middle for popular opinion or compromise. it's the "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez. demographers may have one set of

answers. people who look at the way congressional districts are mapped may have a slightly different set. antes. deeply partisan americans may suggest yet another set of answers. but when we at "inside story" took a look at a new report from the pew center bipolarization it was chalk full of the chewy details that gets people thinking and talking about how we do politics today. the share of republicans who call themselves consistently or mostly conservative has risen over the last decade, and so has the percentage of democrats who would call themselves consistently or mostly liberal. in most cases it's now more than half. is that what you see when you look around your own life? when you look at the way the politics works and doesn't does this pew explanation reflect what you see? >> i believe we can seize this future together. because we are not as divided an

as our politics suggests. we're not as cynical as the pundits believe. we're greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and were you states. we are and forever will be the united states of america. >> reporter: president obama first used that line at the democratic national convention in 2004, and it became part of his standard stump speech in both campaigns. the rhetoric aimed to pull the country together, but in the actual governing the rhetoric is quite different. >> i want americans to pay attention to see where their lawmakers' priorities lie. lowethis should an no-brainer. there are big oil companies that will go to bat for you. if you're a student, good luck. >> the president continues to ignore laws that he signed into law violating his oath of as f

office. did he it again with the release of these taliban fighters. i remind the president again yesterday that every time he does this it makes it harder to gain the trust of our members to do the big things that need to be done around here. >> partisan confrontation led to a government shutdown on major issues, the parties are unable to bridge their differences. pushing the center of the parties right and left has thinned the ranks of what used to be called moderates. even erik can't for with a rating over 80% from the american conservative union was derided as too liberal by the primary challenger who beat him. a new poll shows on the left and right we're more divided than any time in the last 20 years. in 1994 10% of americans were consistently conservative or

consistently liberal. that number has doubled to 21%. what does the middle look like? it's shrinking. in 994 1994 49% had mixed views. now it's down to 29%. 20 years ago there were unfavo unfavorable views of democrats. and democrats had unfavorable views of republicans. do redder reds and bluer blues threaten the well-being of the country? the poll used that word "threatened." more than one out of three republicans think so, and one out of every four democrats do,

too. can the partisans and those they support come together? they believe their side should get the enter end of a deal. it's the opposite end of compromise. it's called gridlock. >> polarization and purity today on "inside story." joining us, michael democrat mick, the lead author of the pew study, the polarization of the american public. morris, professor of political science at stanford university and author of "culture war" the myth of a polarized america. let me start with you. we heard the president say, and the quote is our country is not as divided as our politics

suggest." is he right? >> there is a truth to be that to be sure. the majority of americans are not caught up in this ideological, straight-line thinking. that's the view or the perspective of the 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 kind of partisan atittupy, it creates these log jams that becomes problematic. it compared to where the other party is, and now sizable overwhelming majorities of the party are to one side of the average member of the other party. >> exactly. it's 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 to the left at least of the republicans to the right. that's nowhere near what we see in congress. where it's 100% and 100%. but there is a growing trend with less overlap of values between the two parties. >> has there been a sizable increase, one that statistically significant of the number of people who not only think they disagree with people on the other side, but actually assign bad faith, bad motives, really treat them with an tittupy, not that they're mistaken, but that they're bad 37. >> that's hard to say. getting good measures that go back over time on that kind of concept is trickier.

>> it's not that the other party is so misguided that it serves as a threat to the nation, and it becomes more powerful in their minds. >> professor, you've sustain a look at the american people and have come up with a very different conclusion. how do you get to your place? >> i think there is actually less difference than you might think. i think the pew report is a very fine report. it's a very good study stating the public opinion over the last few decades. but there is some confusion. the title is wrong. it's not polarization but party sorting. if you look at polarization of parties in terms that it has not changed in 30 years.

polarization in ideological terms it has not changed since the 70's. moderate is a major category. what has happened, and it's been written about as well, sorting. increasingly liberals are in the democratic party, and conservatives are in the republican party. and there have been a lot of conversation with journalists this past week and the confusion arises because the report does not extremity but consistency. it's been lost on many readers that the people on the lest are not extreme liberals but consistent liberals. and the people in the center are not really centrists, they're people with mixed attitudes. it's based on ten questions. do you favor military strength or diplomacy do you favor programs for the poor or not. most people don't feel 100% one

side or the other on those dichotomies. 65% military strength, 35% diplomacy. if i answered every question like that i'll be in the not extreme liberal but consistent liberal even though i'm fairly moderate on those issues. by the same token if you take the news lately, this person might have extreme views. they may want to cut off all welfare programs, deport all immigrants and cut off all racial programs and heavily regular busines regulate business, there is a tendency for people to look at these graphs and determine them to be extreme left to start and then extreme right when they're consistent conservatives and consistent liberals and people who are mixed. >> there are a large number of

people who have identified independents. was it ineffortible that the republican and democratic party membership would be more refined, more consistently committed to a turn set of party ideas? well, what we've seen are the parties are pulling apart, and the independents are actually split. the same way that 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 runs think similarly to other republicans. when you include those so-called independent leaners in with the partisans you're left with only about 10% or less of the actual electorate, who are truly independent, who have no preference for a party. so in fact, we have 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 the growing consistency and extremism. i think that this increase in consistency oh over time is very significant politically. in fact, it's the same thing we see in congress. the reason that democrats and republicans in congress are pulling apart, the increase of the consistency evident electorate is significant, and it's precisely those consistent democrats and consistent republicans, or consistent conservative it's and consistent liberal who is intensely dig like thdislike the odometer

party. this is closely related to the growing antipathy to the party, the candidates, and other americans who support the opposing party. >> the largest single fraction of americans might call themselves independents we don't have 150 independent members of congress. you end up with one party or the other for the most part. we'll take a short break and when we come back we'll talk more about polarization and it will effect who we vote and who we choose as friends and where we choose live. stay with us. bazooka... >> with s.w.a.t. raids on the rise... >> when it goes wrong, it goes extremely wrong... >> what's the price for militarizing our police >> they killed evan dead >> faul lines, al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> there blocking the door... >> ground breaking...

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>> welcome back to "inside story" on al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. among the issues that saw big changes in public opinion, driving the numbers in the pew study of political polarization is the acceptance of homosex axil anhomosexuality, and the openness to immigration. which side of the debate has the momentum? morris, given not only where things are today as a snapshot, but the movement in the trend, are there some demographic forces pushing those numbers that bode well for one side or the other in these big

questions? >> absolutely. we point it out in culture wars ten years ago the attitudes for sexuality, and it's not even an issue with the younger generation. republicans are obviously in a tough place and they have to figure out a way to deal with this issue. >> isn't some of that predicated on the idea that once political ideas are hardened, you'll get older but you'll stay the same? i always thought that was not true. when people took on mortgages and houses and car payments and husbands and wives, some of their political sentiments changed.

>> to some extent that's true. the argument that everything is determined when you're 18 years old goes too far, but by the same token we experience events. if i'm a mexican-american immigrant and i hear republicans bad mouth me all the time, that will effect me. and it will not make inroads to the latino community. >> who has got the wind at their back? >> well, i think and clearly on the social issues and especially on gay rights issues that the public is trending in a liberal direction. we've seen dramatic change in the last ten years. there is still, however, a big divide between democrats and republicans on this issue. republicans generally have not trended very much on this issue. not nearly as much as testimonies and independents. that's creating a problem for

the republican party because the their base, which consists heavily of evangelicals, is on the minority side of this issue. it's increasingly on the minority side of this issue. on immigration certainly the growing hispanic population and the growing hispanic share of the electorate is a benefit to democrats. and unless and until republicans figure out a way to reach out to this growing hispanic group of voters, i think their party is going to find it very difficult to win presidential elections. the problem again is that a large part of their base is very resistant to the idea of any sort of legalization or path to citizenship for immigrants. >> michael, do you see these as consistently dynamic questions? one where there is constantly

moving and shifting, or are we going to reach a 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? >> well, to a certain extent. i think some of these issues have so much momentum behind them generationally as mentioned that the balance is clearly tipping and they're going to move. i think homosexuality is moving that way. i think some form and level of reform is moving that way. our country is moving through a generational shift and it's much less threatened by diversity, the idea of people coming to our country and what risk that would pose to our society and economy. other issues like the role of government in the economy, the breadth of the social safety net, the level of regulation that the government puts in place, those are the kind of issues that we've been debating in this nation for 200 years. they are really fundamental.

they're going to shift a little bit with the times. different sides will have the advantage at different moments, but i don't see those debates ever going away. >> we'll take a short break. when we come back we'll talk about how people choose to live and among whom they choose to live. this is "inside story."vé

>> welcome back to the "inside story" on al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. we're talking about political polarizatio polarization, but the pew poll also examines hose shoshows us where we can choose to live. could you go to california. you coo go to texas. those are two very different choices. >> we're finding that people's preferences about their environments and neighborhoods really are closely linked to

their political thinking. it doesn't mean they're choosing places explicitly because of the people they want to live with ideologically, but there are broader preferences correlated with the politics. if you could choose would you like to live in a bigger house farther away from others even if it meant that you would need to drive to get to stores and schools, or would you tradeoff for a smaller house i in a neighborhood where you could walk to that. liberals want that walkable community. 65% of republican conservatives said that they would prefer to live in the bigger house that is a further drive. so there are a lot of ways those preferences again, that's not caused necessarily by their ideology you but it's closely associated with their ideology.

>> when you talk to consistent partisans they prefer to live with people like themselves. in a neighborhood that's mostly made up of people like themselves. what does that tell you? >> i think that's a reflection of a growing polarization that we see in american politics, and people prefer to talk to other people who agree with themselves. they prefer to watch media where they're going oh have their views reinforced. they go on social media, and primarily and if they're political active they're going to interact mainly there with people who agree with themselves. that's not true of everyone. that's true mainly of people who are the most interested and politically active, but the result is that these die verging views are getting reinforced, and it makes it harder to bring people together.

>> morris, when i was looking at those numbers, it also occurred to me that that was such a luxury, that neighborhoods 50, 60, and 70 years ago were not shaped by being able to choose who your neighbors were. when i was a kid, we lived where we could afford to live, in a burrow and county of ethnic ghettos. there wassing in that showed that people checked the party registration before including the apartment building that they move in. >> increasingly we're realizing what people say on surveys does not predict actual behavior. a couple of my colleagues have done a very nice study at stanford where people were asked where they would like to live in. they said they would like to live with like-minded people. when they studied people's moves, they were completely dominated by other

considerations like low crime rates, good schools, property values and so forth. while in the an truck we think we would like to live with other people there, are real factors that dominate the decision to actually move. >> from where people have moved has shifted the political access in the country. millions of people have moved to texas, florida, north carolina, have those places changed the people who moved in? or have the people moving in changed the politics of those places? >> both. i think there are studies showing that the influx of a particular change, the political collection of a south. but let's remember that there are other actors out there, too. there are strategic politician who is are changing their parties positions to take advantage of political possibilities. there are two sides of the changes going on. it's what the parties and candidates are doing and what the voters are out there doing.

>> allen, if it was all other considerations, places that are affordable and creating jobs, i guess it would attract a lot of people and maybe that would change their politics. but we're not seeing people rushing in to certain states in the union, are we? >> well, we're seeing very different rates of growth across different parts of the country. that has more to do with factors such as immigration. where immigrants are coming to live. where the job opportunities are. those factors are very important. nevertheless, there is no question that we're seeing growing geographic polarization in this country that we're seeing a growing divide between certain states, counties, and congressional districts that are dominated by one party and those that are dominated by another party. the percentage of states and congressional districts that are dominated by one party is much greater today than it was 20 or

30 years ago, and that has very important consequences because it means that the senators and representatives and state legislators who represent those districts have really no incentive to worry about the voters who support the other party. they need to be concerned primarily or exclusively with the voters in their own party and the primary election than becomes the most significant election. it's not the general election in most cases. it's the primary election as eric cantor just discovered. >> what are the take aways for republicans and/or democrats as they sit and read over your survey and look at the graphs. what can they think, conclude about the teens, the 20s. >> there is greater ideological thinking. that's not a surprise. we're an educated nation. we have more information that is

accessed than in the past. greater range of sources of information that may or may not reinforce our views. that combines in a society where left and right are consistent in the way they look at things and find less opportunity to meet in the middle. but it's important to remember that the bulk of the country isn't there. the bulk of the country does offer this mix of views. >> michael, allen, morris, good to talk to you all. thanks for joining me. that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. thank you for being with us. in washington, i'm ray suarez. in washington, i'm ray suarez. on al jazeera america. confusion and anger in missouri. police release reports of what happened the day a police officer killed michael brown, but it leaves many questions on why the officer open fired on

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