Ethics Newsline®

From the Pew Research Center:

“Over the past four years, the American electorate has been dealt a series of body blows, each capable of altering the political landscape. The voting system broke down in a presidential election. A booming economy faltered, punctuated by revelations of one of the worst business scandals in U.S. history. And the country endured a devastating attack on its own soil, followed by two major wars.

“National unity was the initial response to the calamitous events of Sept. 11, 2001, but that spirit has dissolved amid rising political polarization and anger. In fact, a year before the presidential election, American voters are once again seeing things largely through a partisan prism. The GOP has made significant gains in party affiliation over the past four years, but this remains a country that is almost evenly divided politically - yet further apart than ever in its political values.

“The Pew Research Center’s longitudinal measures of basic political, economic, and social values, which date back to 1987, show that political polarization is now as great as it was prior to the 1994 midterm elections that ended four decades of Democratic control in Congress.

“But now, unlike then, Republicans and Democrats have become more intense in their political beliefs….

“The Pew Research Center’s political values survey … examines the core beliefs that form the basis of public opinion on a broad range of topics - foreign policy and civil liberties, religion and social values, government and voting, and other issues….”