In a more polarized era more and more citizens are structuringtheir beliefs along ideological lines, just as politicians do

While politics in the US has long been split along the left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum, most academics have assumed that these divisions had historically not percolated through to how most Americans see themselves. In new research which draws on election data, Caitlin E. Jewitt and Paul N. Goren find that people are now more able to structure their beliefs along the left-right dimension than they were in 1980. As debates between political elites have become more polarized, many more Americans who are ideologically engaged are now thinking about issues and organizing their policy positions just as politicians do.